The Dale Jr. Download - 397 - Conor Daly: Man of the People

Episode Date: August 30, 2022

As drivers follow their trajectory through motorsports, they are often faced with potentially life-changing decisions. On episode 397 of the Dale Jr. Download, Indycar talent Conor Daly joins Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis to discuss a crossroads he faced and how his choice affected his career path. After winning the Star Mazda Championship in 2010 and securing a hefty scholarship fund to invest in his future racing endeavors, Daly had to make the selection of a lifetime: pursue Formula One or Indycar?  Son of former Formula One driver Derek Daly and Indianapolis Motor Speedway employee Beth Boles, Conor was no stranger to auto racing. In fact, he begins by saying that he has hardly any early-life memories that don’t involve racing. He recalled his time spent at the Racing Babies childcare facility at IMS and his early infatuation with the sport. He also spoke of his father’s racing career, which ended when he was born in 1991, and how he has been able to uncover more of his accomplishments through the digital age. Up to that point in 2010, Conor had rapidly progressed up the opening rungs of the motorsports ladder. From his first time behind the wheel of a go-kart at age 10 to winning the 2006 World Karting Association Grand Nationals, he and his father Derek worked tirelessly on his burgeoning career. From karts, he took on car racing through the Skip Barber National Championship, which he won in his first year in 2008. Then came the Star Mazda circuit, which of course brings the story to that crossroads at the end of the 2010 season. A stipulation of Conor’s scholarship and the Road to Indy program was that while he could take part of the money and pursue GP3 racing in Europe, he still needed to enter a handful of Indy Lights events. After the first three events of the schedule, competing for Sam Schmidt Motorsports, Conor found himself with a 2nd place finish and a victory and leading the season points. His prospects in the world of Indycar were so high, that he revealed he actually got a call from Graham Rahal as he was about to depart for Europe, asking him, “are you sure you want to do this?” Ultimately, Conor left the United States and departed for England, where he’d stay with Rahal’s stepfather Chris Berry and set up a home base for his time spent racing in GP3. Daly explained that in his debut GP3 race he qualified 29th and was immediately hit with the regret of his decision. In his absence in the Indy Lights series, Josef Newgarden would go on to win the championship and sign a three-year contract with Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing. And while Daly would wind up inking a deal with the Force India Formula One team that would have him serve as a test and reserve driver, his time overseas would prove unfruitful, and he returned home to pursue a path in Indycar. Conor and Dale Jr. discuss Europe’s perspective on American racers and theorize as to why it is difficult for them to break into the Formula racing ladder. After returning home, Daly did whatever he could to be at the tracks on race weekends, even at one point driving the Indycar two-seater for fan experiences. His perseverance would eventually win out, as he rose from filling in for injured drivers to racing part-time and now full-time for Ed Carpenter Racing. Daly took time to speak on the ascension from spending his childhood at IMS to racing in the Indianapolis 500. Just this past May in the 106th running of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing”, the hometown hero brought home his best finish to date, sixth place. DIRTY AIRBefore Conor joins the show, Dale, Mike, Alex, and Hannah chat about: Kelley’s birthday bash Long weekend in Daytona The great Cup race rain debacle  Kurt Busch’s injury progress ASKJR presented by XfinityThis week the fans asked questions about: Strangest excuse to explain a crash Feelings on Greg Ives’ leaving as crew chief Updates on his ongoing car projects Championship Four predictions Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The following podcast. The following is a production of Dirtymoe media. Nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks. Nothing. A new winner inside the top 30th points could win their way into the playoffs. Newman's beside the 42. And these 42s in the wall. Everything I ever did.

The thing that they heard out of people's mouth was, that's impossible. that can't be done or no. You're the master, you're the forming, you're the general, you're the here. Austin Dillon out in front, he could be the guy who wins his way into the playoffs in the final race in the regular season. He's going to have to make it wet. Look at this. Look at this.

Look at this. To get something you never had, you have to do something. You never did. We said what would drivers do to make it happen? We just saw what they would do. Martin Trex Jr. trying to fight back. Win and he's in to compete for a championship. Cut out over yet.

Check right. Hey, everybody back again. Welcome to another episode of the Dale Jr. Download here. Episode 397, man. We're closing in on 400, Mike. That's right. We need a cake or something here in a few weeks.

How about a sundrop cake? There you go. There we go. We got the recipe. Welcome to the Bojangles studio, everybody. We got Connor Daily coming on to the podcast later. Connor is going to be a lot of fun to talk to. He is a big personality in motorsports and the IndyCar series as well.

We're just excited about this show. We're going to talk a lot about what we experienced this past weekend at Daytona, Connor Daily. But let's get right to it with some dirty air. Dirty air. So let's get right in some dirty air, Mike. Dirty air brought you by filter time. Hey, do me a favor.

Yeah. Go and figure out what sizes, air filters that your home needs and your returns. Don't they go into the return. Hell, what do I know? I don't know, man, but I think they go into the return. No, the return doesn't have a filter, does it? Which one's got the filter? The return doesn't.

No. No. But the other one does. The arrival. The intake. Is that what it is? Yeah. It's called something.

Somebody called Blake and ask him what the terminology for this is. I should know. Blake knows. Hey, go measure those. Go measure the filters you need. All right. Go on filtertortem.com, order those filters, set it up for about probably three months, and then I'll mail you your filters when they need to be changed.

And so if you like it, you can keep it. If you don't, you can cancel. There's no reason, no contract or anything. You just cancel. You can just say, hell with it, don't like it. Okay? There you go. Filtertertime.com.

Because you're not buying them. You're forgetting. That way you don't have to stockpile them in the damn storage and all that. I just came in from Kelly had her 50th birthday celebration last. night there's this local place probably about 45 minutes from here that gosh I wish I knew the name of it but it's tree houses and Hobbit houses underground and you it's sleeps 55 people people rent them for the night or two nights or four nights or whatever it's around China Grove I think can somebody see what it's what it's called me yeah I know what you're talking about

they have them on Airbnb you can get on there and like rent singular I want to promote the name of it. So the guy that started it was the pick coach at Penske for 20 years. Super good guy. Him and his wife basically had this, you know, 30-acre property and have developed this really, really cool space for exactly, you know, the kind of things we are doing. And Kelly had a 50th birthday party. She invited a very close, small circle of people.

We had food. Everybody got to spend the night. They stayed up pretty late. I went to bed. Around midnight, I was war out. Yeah, what time did you get that? there. I mean, because you would have been. Well, we broadcast all day long and then we went to, we went there probably around 8.30. Yeah. We're about four hours behind. Everybody else showed up

around four. And anyways, I had a great weekend. Daytona was fun. Aside from the fact that, you know, the rain and the weather was pushing everything around. And the race was broadcast a day late and not on the right you know not on the networks and all that stuff everything was all flipped upside down some fans couldn't be there some people left some people came back I felt like we had a pretty decent crowd for a rain day

it was Sunday so that was good for some of the folks that wanted to return it could the race was the Xfinity race was I I get done from the Xfinity race right and I'm like man I feel great about my

broadcasting job. Yeah. And then I get a text from some people and they're like, what a mess. No, what a mess that race was. That's embarrassing. And you're like, wait, wait. I'm like, what about me? So I don't watch the race is the same way anymore.

Right. Which is weird because I'm watching the damn race. I'm talking about it. I'm actually broadcasting it. So how can I step away from the extended race going, damn, I felt good about that? And then somebody walk up and go, what a freaking disaster. So that was kind of my takeaway from the Xfinity Series race.

Well, hold on, bro. This is going to make you feel good. Yeah. Because during the race, this was during the cup race, but this is, somebody text me this. I'm not going to tell who it is, but they text me this about you. And say, while he's looking.

Yeah, you found it? Yeah. It's called Cherry Tree Sort. And they have Hobbit houses. They've got a bunch of different really cool tree houses. it actually looks awesome. They've got like videos that you can do tours on. Cherry.

Cherry, T-R-E-E-S-O-R-T. Yeah, like T-R-E-E-S-O-R-T. It's a play-on-the-word resort. Yeah, and it's in China Grove. Very cool. So, yeah, if you're looking for something to do, just a party or something that might be overnight

where people can, you know, you're going to have some drinks and you don't want everybody worried about driving home. The little huts, and we stayed in a Hobbit House underground, me and Amy and there's tree houses. It is super, super, super cool. This is a great mom. and pop sort of, you know, really new development. I'd hope everybody might support that if they're ever coming through town.

The guy says he gets a ton of people that are like, say, you know, you've got some friends that live in New York and some friends that live south of you. It's kind of this sort of meeting place for, he gets a lot of people that are, that are, you know, friends from far apart sort of have made this the place to get together. But anyways, Mike, you got a text message from somebody. This is during the broadcast. Junior has a rare gift to validate report. from pit pit road by offering an expert perspective in the response without repeating what the reporter said

that's a pretty good compliment right not trying rare gift not trying to do it's rare um i yeah that's that's that's that's that i think that's important because when you're uh one of the things you know one of the things that we're doing up there so there's four of us right we're all talking somebody's talking you know you may not you know we're talking all the time i know i know that's probably not the great thing about it. But damn it, there's four people in the room with four microphones. There's not going to be a lot of silence. And so when you're watching the race or you're watching something on your monitor or whatever,

you have to listen to what another person's saying. Because damn it, we will repeat the hell out of each other. Because a lot of times you're watching something and you'll both, maybe one, two, three of you will have the same exact thought, right? And so you've got to be careful that you're, you know, somebody doesn't say something and you come right in there and go, yeah, man, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's the exact same thing he said. It's obvious in that moment that neither one of you are listening to each other. And we do this from time to time, right?

I catch myself doing it. I catch them doing it to me. And that's so I think in trying not to repeat each other just in the booth, we're Uber, like, tuned in to like what a report is from the pits. Yeah. And we're definitely not going to repeat it. Because when the producer sends us down to the pits for a report, all of us sort of stop what we're doing and just listen. Right.

Because we're waiting on the report. We don't know what it is. You don't have that. We don't know what the report is. It might be, hey, man, this guy's blowing a motor today. Or he's got a tire coming off right now. You know, loose wheel. We don't know.

So we all get real attentive. And I think we're never going to be in, you know, never going to be in jeopardy of really repeating the pit reporter because of how we're listening to that pit reporter. and that repit reporter, one of my favorite things that I learned early on, I love it when the pit reporter tosses it back to a specific individual. Marty is, they're all great at this, but Marty, you'll hear Marty do this quite a bit. In the back end of his report, he'll drop a name of somebody in the booth,

and he's basically inviting you to come on the tail end of that and validate. And another thing that I learned early in broadcasting, and this goes across the board, and for anybody working together on a show like this, Any type of show where you're working with anybody complimenting the other person's point. You don't have to say you're exactly right, or I agree with you. You can just come on the back end of it with I believe what you're saying and this is why. And if you have something else to add, so I guess the way I'm trying to explain this is somebody will say something. You'll be like, that's great.

I like that. But I also would love to add this. right and so the way to do that is to come in and go I like what you said and that's awesome man and another thing too is blah blah and so we're kind of patting each on the back right and it sort of brings morale up during the broadcast I know it's just you know people don't care about this

shit maybe they do but it's funny things that you learn in broadcasting that you don't even think about as a bracer or a viewer maybe that um you know that happen up there it feels so good when I'll say something and Lartartre will go it's a great point da-da-da-da-da. Yeah. And he adds more to it, right?

Because he's had time to think about what I said, and he's got even more information about that. I love it when we can sort of prop each other up, you know, build each other up. There's going to be moments like we had one during the race where Lattard and Burton disagreed about something, about a 19 car, right, being up in the middle of the pack and getting wrecked.

And they got, you know, they were both very confident in their positions. Steve even called it heated after a while. Yeah. And we're in two different rooms. Glass between us looking at each other. But, you know, yeah, when I step way back from the product of the, that's on the track, I don't know. Man, I just wish there was a way for us to not crash to me damn race cars, right?

Gosh, I mean, it is expensive. We would, you know, there's, look at the, I mean, the shootout, for example, the Bush clash, right? There were years when I was a driver that we weren't all that thrilled to put a car in that race. I remember. I wasn't even the owner of the car. Right. And everybody, you know, kind of, you know, begrudgingly kind of trudged into that race going,

uh, we got like a 20% chance to come out of here with something to take home, right, as far as a race car. And it's been like a long time. You know, I got some text messages at the end of that race, and I'm like, you know, this has been the way it has been for a long time. This weekend wasn't nothing new as far as in terms of tearing up a bunch of race cars. We've been doing this a while. And here, and so that's the tough situation to be in. You remember before, you remember in the mid-90s, you know, Robert Yates and Dale Jarrett would show up,

and they would be impossible to beat. lead almost all the laps coming down to the last 20 laps to go he's out front guy behind him can't get within a car length and that's the way it finished we didn't mind we loved it right Dale Jarrett Dave 20 500 champ

I'm just picking that car because it was so dominant that is what you would have if we change the rules and they crash list you'd have the leader very very difficult to pass yeah and you know the cars would be a little more strung out less

less runs, less passing throughout the field. And if you're okay, you know, if you're okay with that, that's fine. I would be fine with it, but I don't know that a lot of people would. And so there's no middle ground. You're either got pack racing or you're going to have them like, you know, like they used to run in the 80s and 90s. There is no, there's no perfect solution to it. Right.

So anyhow, you know, I wish there was a way that, you know, we could go to those races and just know that, you know, we had a better chance, at least a 50-50 chance that we weren't. going to crash out. But if you don't race up in there and try to win, you know, you're not going to win. You might save your car. You might finish good because everybody's going to wreck. Dry track helps too, does it? Yeah, that's another thing. I mean, you know, we were, I don't know what to think about that. I really don't because I'm sitting in the booth, you know, at the middle, in the middle of that race, I don't have, I don't have all the answers. I don't know every freaking

thing that is happening and in every second of the damn race. I'm sitting right next to the NASCAR booth. They're doing every damn thing they can. They got laptops galore people everywhere in there. Absolutely. Everybody is paying attention to something, right? There is a job for every damn body in there. I mean, it's busy next door in the NASCAR booth.

They're working. They're not just twilling thumbs. We all knew that the weather was imminent, you know, or a threat. We're watching it. We're way up in this tower looking at the weather kind of form, and we've got a radar in front of us. And to, you know, NASCAR's got a different radar than we got. Their radar always seemed to look a little bit better than ours,

a little more positive than ours, I will say that. The radar I was looking at on our NBC showed, you know, a lot of green when I would look at the NASCAR radar in their booth. They had it on a big TV in the back. And they would be less green, you know. So I don't know if that plays a role or has an effect. Maybe they need our radar because our radar was definitely showing a little more of a threat, right? And I looked at their radar and go, well, damn, maybe we are going to race today.

But the cars are going around the track. We've been beating back the weather all day long. They come around turn three and four. They come down a front straightaway. I don't see no rain. Right. I damn sure don't see no rain. I ain't looking for it, though.

Right. The cars come by, and they go in the corner and crashed. and none of us thought rain immediately. We start watching the replay. I don't know how long it was. It might have been five seconds. It might have been two damn minutes. But eventually it dawned on us.

Damn, the track was wet. That's right. It wasn't immediate. That's right. You thought somebody might have hit somebody to start that. Of course. That's what you assume every time. For sure.

And so I'm thinking, well, damn, there's three cars wrecking, I guess, from contact. I don't know how in the hell that happened. there was three different wrecks going on. But then when you watch it, you're like, oh, shit, there was something on the track. And then when we get into the end car, it's obvious you see the rain. So, you know, we start thinking, all right, you know, what could they have done? Like in the moment while you're standing there, the crash is literally five minutes old, and you're sitting there thinking, well, hell, what could they have done?

What could they have done? You know, we had this situation before. It's happened. There's many, there's a few cases. I don't know if you can count them on one hand or whatever, but I remember the Winston All-Star race one time at Charlotte. That's right. Right at the start.

Yeah, they all drove. Their track wasn't ready, and they sent them down in Term 1. Yeah. And it was bad. I think it was 2001. And I'm sitting there, and I'm like, with everything that we have right here today at the track, I can't say I can give them a hard time about it. I know I can't.

All right, I can't. Yeah. Now, can we get a better plan? Can we come up with some more? There is technology. There are sensors that they could place a, they could build a perimeter around that racetrack of sensors. There's these things that greenhouse owners have that since rain coming

and they will shut and open that greenhouse because they can't have, you know, they can't have, certain type you know they can't have downpours coming in and so there's a there's systems that that can sense weather and rain in the area and they will function in a way right and they go let you know right so there are there is technology we don't we wasn't at the racetrack you know based off of what i knew we had and had there in that moment i don't think they could have done any done a better job now what do they need to do going forward that's the question the drivers are going to demand better they are i think that and we can you know i think that they can look into technology that

would be able to help them build a perimeter around the racetrack you would only need this technology in the banking or the turns where there would be calamity if they you know going down a straightaway on the backstretch you don't have to have sensors protecting you there uh that might not be as critical as having it in turn one and two turn three and four you know so you could you could get the technology. But also, I mean, if you can't do it with technology, you could have physical people out there. Look, we're not always going to have to have that every single week.

We're not always under the threat of weather. But in a case like that, when weather could happen at any moment, maybe that day you've got a guy or a gal in each corner, one, two, three, four, you've got a person up in the booth in NASCAR, and those five people are on the radio with each other, clear their own channel, can communicate anything at the moment. And if there is a drop of rain from any one of those people, that person in the booth has NASCAR hit the button.

I don't know. I mean, that's just an idea, right? I assume they do that already. Well, I don't, I mean, they do have corner workers. They used to have people that wave, you know, caution flags in the corners. I don't know that those people are, you know, they got spotters. Where are those spotters? I don't know where they're located at Daytona.

I don't know that there's one all the way, you know, in each turn. Maybe there is. you would assume. But based, you know, we, you know, listening to, listening to NASCAR, you know, the, well, the pace car was down in one. The pace car, you know, hadn't had rain. Well, that's on the interior of the track. At that point, if the pace car is seeing rain on the windshield, it's too damn late.

That's right. You know, you've got to have a perimeter outside the track. We need something, you know, if not next to the track on the access road, at least 500 or 1,000 feet away. you know, from the track in only in those situations, Mike. If it's clear skies, we don't need people sitting around the racetrack waiting on it to rain because it ain't going to freaking rain. But if it's Daytona in the middle of the summer,

maybe we need those people. Maybe we need to stack up a few layers to insulate ourselves from anything like that ever happening. I will say, I don't know what NASCAR could have done any different in that moment with what they had in that moment. And maybe I'm arguing that maybe that's not enough. I'm sure they're going to look at it and try to figure out what to do better. It should be pretty simple, common sense, to be able to make an adjustment and improve.

You know, you had certain drivers saying, man, it was rain in the lap before. You had some people saying, hadn't seen any rain the lap before. Kyle Bush said, no rain until I got back to turn one and crashed. And so, you know, you had conflicting opinions. then you had some fan video. I saw that. That was compelling to see the cars, you know, guys watching the cars go through turn three and four,

raindrops are falling in front of him. Now he is in the grandstands, but damn, that's close enough. That's enough. I mean, you don't want to, you're not, we're not waiting on the track to damn get lost. If there's rain in the area, that's enough. That's enough of a reason, right? We're not going to argue that, well, you know,

it wasn't raining on the track in that video. You know, if there's raindrops in the stands, that should be, you know, how did that, watching that video, right? You saw it. Yeah. How can, how do you defend that? I defend it by saying that that's a big ass racetrack and it is absolutely, listen, you're not going to have people stationed in every 10 feet around a two and a half mile race track.

I think it just was one of those perfect, quote unquote, perfect storms where it just hit in a situation that is probably one in a hundred type situations. And I don't think every situation has to have an asshole, right? Like, everybody's so quick to blame somebody. That's true. And in this case, I just, I think NASCAR, if you listen to the radio control or the NASCAR control on their radio channel, dudes asking for track updates like every, saying like every 10 seconds, every 15 seconds.

I mean, like they were on top of that. They saw what everybody else saw. And yet it still was an unfortunate situation. I think that you're right. I think they'll look at some resolutions that fix this moving forward. But I'm just, I saw some crazy suggestions from fans and from various people that were upset about it. And I just think that none of those crazy suggestions actually fix it. Because you know what?

We still race outside and outside still has weather. And so, you know, you can go move it to Talladega. You know what? You can still get rain. The same situation can still happen. So I'm just saying, I think NASCAR did everything they could, and it still just was one of those weird deals. And I don't think we need to go be quick to try to fix something that, you know,

I mean, they did the best they could. Yeah. Some of the things that I saw in terms of criticism from people that I follow on social media, I'd love to see them in that NASCAR booth trying to handle that same situation and watched them piss their pants when all that went down, because nobody would have been able to do it. doing a better job in that moment. I mean, that's just the way it went down.

Now, can we improve going forward? Absolutely. The other thing that I found interesting or had had some kind of questions on is like, who was the leader, right? There seemed to be good communication from NASCAR that, look, you know, we mash a button, we go back to this loop, and this is, it spits it out. It's not debatable. We're given the information from the data of everybody.

You can't debate it. Not a judgment call. It ain't a judgment call, but damn it, I want to know where this loop is. That's the judgment call. That is what I want to see. Like, okay, I hear what you're telling me. But take me through the replay and say, okay, pause it. Button was mashed right now.

This is the moment the button was mashed. And then tell me where this loop is, the previous loop that they crossed, that you're taking this line up from. And that's all I want to know. I want a little more detail. and I think that we are in a position as a, you know, I think we're in a position that to be able to have that. That's not asking a lot.

You're right. You're right. That's not asking a lot. I don't think so. That's some of the stuff that I wish was just really clear. It's, you know, we went, I think NASCAR for, you know, 50 years was okay just saying, look, man, that's the way it is. And everybody, you know, we dealt, we were fine with it.

We were absolutely fine with it. But in this day and age, people need shit to be drawn. out people need the map people need the directions people need the information and we had the technology it's all around us we see other examples of it in other spaces right and so we ought to i think we ought to be pushing ourselves to really kind of have a better visual understanding i mean i hear what you're telling me and i believe what you're telling me but give me a visual of this right maybe I'm just that type of person that needs that type of information. I consume things differently.

But I think you want that information because you want to defend the sport that you love. I mean, I feel the same way. Look, we just want to validate things. And when people sit there and want to shout conspiracy theories, I get on the defense. Yeah. And you get on the defense. We're like, no, that's not, you know, I used to be this way anytime they said, well, caution came out to help you out at a restrictor play praise.

And I'd be like, that's not true. Come on, NASCAR. show us the proof and show them and then they're like oh there's no proof oh got it we're going to have to just take your word for it and it's just like man yeah help us defend you yeah give us information dirty mo media fans this is indy car driver connor daily and comedian joey mullinero we're here to tell you about the most honest unfiltered and informative indy car podcast on the market speed street Connor and I break down the weekly happenings of IndyCar, our lives on and off the track, and talk a little NASCAR and F1 as well. Dirty Mo Media's newest show is available now on all major podcasting platforms. And be sure to give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram at Speed Street Pod.

Watching the end of that cup race come down, I was glad we were able to get the last 20 laps started after all that mess, and we had a legit true winner. Austin Dillon was able to hold off everybody, as we know. Ryan Blaney Martin Trix Jr. had a little point. battle such a heartbreaking situation to sit there and watch Truex cross the finish line he's side by side with two points and he's got one point right there dead in front of him he could reach him he's literally a half a car link to front of him is the other point that he needs right he I mean he said it best when he gets out and goes look man we lost those three points at many

points throughout the season this is not you know it didn't all come down it did it ain't all about just, you know, you know, finishing, you know, 50 or 100 yards short in this particular race. There were a lot of moments in the season where we failed and faltered and I understand that and I kind of, I would look at it the same way as to not allow that one day in that one moment to eat my gut out. But, man, that was compelling, right? Two cars, soldiering on, damaged, missing fenders. Yeah. And Truex comes off of two and those cars, start passing him, David Reagan and a few other guys. I'm like, there it goes.

Yeah, there it goes. You guys did a really good job of explaining that situation throughout those last 20 laps. Because it was like, let me give you the example. The example is, here's where the points are right now. And it only matters if Austin Dillon wins this race. Now, if he doesn't win the race, this points thing doesn't matter. They're both in. And you guys would come back with an update as the race was developing there at the end.

I thought y'all did a good job with that because it was necessary. You threw Landon Castle, Noah. Who else was there? Oh, Cody. Was it Cody Ware? Cody Ware up there? I mean, like, all of these scenarios are playing and it's like, but we need to know what Martin Truex and Ryan Blaney are doing

and why it matters based off of the front two guys. Y'all did a good job on that. So during Truex's wreck, and we've seen, we've heard, you know, James Small, Trex's crew chief, and have been a little. test you over the radio the last couple of weeks. I don't listen to their radio all the time. Maybe this is the way things are. They seem to think that it's just the way they are, right?

But I guess when Truex gets caught up in the wreck on the back straight away, he says we shouldn't have been up there, and James is like, shut up, we're fine. What do you thought? I mean, I... Unnecessary. I agree. I have been... And I'm only talking about this because I have been in this situation.

Look, I have been in the wrong, multiple. times running my mouth on the radio to Tony Jr. or to LaTart or, you know, anybody. Now, there's times when you can be funny or be a smart ass, but you can't ever be mean. Or belittle your driver, the face of your team. Belittling your driver in front of people that are listening and fans that spend their money on tricks. That is not cool. Yeah, and we put it on TV. We're going to. We're going to. Yeah.

You have no choice. No. Yeah. All the comments in the media, if you go, you know, Cobbush goes in the media center, whatever he says, we're putting it on TV. It's part of, as soon as we hear about it, our production crew goes, that's going in the show. And any type of conversation on the radio, if we pick it up or hear it or it, it's coming, whether it even relates to what's happening in the moment. That audio is getting played. Hold up.

Somebody said something mean. we're going to go over to the radio chatter here. Let's just check in with Martin Truex. Yeah. And I understand it now. I used to hate it because it was me a lot of the time. You started that. Listen.

All I need to, look, Truex has said he's going to run one more year. And him and James can say that they got this under control or there's no big deal or whatever, but they probably need to have an agreement. They need to come to some sort of agreement where they can get through this without getting too. nasty in the public eye because their radio channel is public consumption right I mean everybody can listen to it and it's been it's not this ain't the first time we've heard it this has been kind of a thing that's been going over the last couple of weeks but I just thought it was worthy because I had been in that same

situation and when I heard it it made me cringe man because I remember being that way I remember being on the other end of it and it doesn't go well. If you don't sort it out or help, you know, get together somewhere offsite, it don't end well. If they think that there's nothing wrong and that's just how they are, I wonder if they think that if they went back and listened to it, you know, because when you're in the moment, you know, when you and I had that debate a few weeks ago about Pocono, I don't think either one of us thought that we were actually arguing, at least I didn't. I thought we were just having a conversation, but when you go back and listen to the podcast, then it makes sense why everybody had, you know, I

balls as big as half dollar bills or half dollars because it's like oh yeah well i guess we were kind of going at each other but it didn't seem i wonder if the same thing i mean maybe it is i would tell you this it is okay for a crew chief to talk like that to a driver if it's proven that that's the kick in the butt the driver needs it leads to results but considering they just missed the championship playoffs that has not been proven in the case of martin truex so i would not belittle him like that on the radio kirk bush announces he will miss the beginning of the playoffs and it was drawn his has withdrawn his playoff waiver request. I had no issue with this whatsoever.

I know a lot of people were thinking, oh, man, it's helping Truex. As it turns out, not the case. And I don't think that that was Kurt's intention at all. I'm certain that Toyota was pretty fine with it as far as the circumstances previous to the finish of the Daytona race. But Kurt, in my opinion, I mean, I've been in this situation, and Kurt is trying to get back in the car as fast as possible.

And so he is putting, he is updating us on the delay of him returning in a brief period as possible, right? So he's, you get hurt, right? Man, I'm going to be back in a couple weeks. My hope is that I'm back in a couple weeks. That's my hope. So that's what I'm telling you. Two weeks ago, go bye. Nope, not ready.

Well, I'm a hope that it's two weeks from now. And you get two weeks from, you know, two weeks down the road? Nope. I'm not 100%. Can't do it. Doctors say no, I know I'm not right. Maybe I should say four weeks, guys. Yeah.

Or, you know, the doctors give me the opinion that I need to make the runway a little longer. And so that's kind of what has been happening with Kurt. And it's because he's in. You know, it's the impatient, I want this to get better. I want this to fix itself. I want to get back in the car. And so you really put out the shortest runway possible, right, that gets you back. When in truth, you really just have to let that runway be as long as it possibly needs to be, right?

And I remember when I got hurt in 2016, we were going to do, you know, hey look, we're going to miss two weeks, four weeks, whatever it was. And eventually my doctor just, and this was all the setting of the, hey man, it's two weeks from now, we're going to try to get back in the car. We'll give you an update, right, in two weeks. All of that comes from sponsors, organizations, owners, team. They need to, there needs to be a press release. There needs to be something to tell the media. A plan. A plan.

That's where all that comes from. Not Kurt, not the doctor. The doctor would just say, look, don't tell anybody nothing. We're getting better when we get better. You're out of the car. When you're better, you'll be in the car. But that is not the way it works in the industry, right, in the media sense. So the media needs information.

The media wants to know. They're going to continue to ask. And so the team comes up with a plan and says this is the plan. And in truth, you know, Kurt and the doctors have been just, you know, sitting back and going through this properly and when he's right he'll be right and until then we all just got to sit back right I don't know if he'll come back in the middle of the playoffs if he won't come back at all this year if he retires forever doesn't really matter guy's a champion doesn't doesn't have to prove anything he might have a little left in the

tank he might want to do this on his own terms the way I wanted to go out there and finish the last year of his contract and that's up to him and the doctor will tell him, you're absolutely fine. You're going to be back in a race car. If you want a race, you can race. And you're not going to be any more danger to get a concussion than the other guy out there racing beside you. And if you get one, I can fix it.

And it's your choice of whether you want to really go through that or not. Right. And if you're 25 years old, you absolutely are going to probably take that risk, the same risk you were taken before the injury. But if you're, you know, 41, 45, whatever current is, you're going to, you're going to to think, man, maybe I don't need to do this again. I went through this rehab and it was hard work to get back. And maybe I'm okay.

Yeah. With my career and look in the rearview mirror, I'm going to do something different. We'll see. And we all just see the weight, right? As you say that, those memories in Pittsburgh are coming back and you are 100% right. I remember as cooperative, listen, your doctors, Dr. Collins, Dr. Petty were certainly cooperative, but they did not care about anything other than your health. They didn't care about the sponsors.

They didn't care about the racing. They didn't even care where we were racing next week. Didn't matter. Did not factor into it at all. They would answer your questions because we would have questions that, you know, you're dealing stuff, but they didn't care. They just care about the health. So I'm remembering all that as you speak.

I personally not knowing a thing about Kurt's situation other than just reading between the lines and the fact that he's not well. So I would not mind just seeing him sit out the rest of the year and then coming back next year when I know that he's had time to really heal. That would just be me. I would really be worried seeing him back on a track after this much time off. But I know he will and his doctors will make the best decision for him. The last thing I want to talk about is some fans won a lot of money on this radio.

You saw that. My gosh, somebody did. Yeah, a couple of them. There were a couple guys and girls that made some bets that won, you know, thousands of dollars. There was one that won a million bucks. Yeah. And so we, you know, I don't feel like that racing is a big space for betting and betters, right?

I mean, it's certainly, you know, certainly these people want some money, but it's probably not dominating. the sports book at the MGM, right? I would agree with motor racing, which is what you're referring to. Obviously, horse racing, dog racing. Sorry, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But I know what you meant.

Do you think that this type of thing, it will certainly get a lot of attention? Do you think it generates some action for motorsports going forward? It's coming. You think it's coming. I think it's coming. It's not going to go away ever. Because when it comes, I think that people like gambling. I just think they do.

I think the chances of winning money. Look at Vegas is built on this. that. I mean, but that parlay, it was a parlay. I don't know much about gambling, but I know that do you have it there, Hannah? Yeah, I was going to say, I have it. And if you read the comments too, because it was Fanduals sportsbook that like tweeted the screenshot of it. And the comments from people were like, well, if I didn't bet on racing, I'm going to start betting now, like turning into NASCAR now, because if you can win this money, but the parlay, this guy won almost a million dollars, like 500 bucks short of a million dollars. And it was a four-leg

parlay with Cody Ware, B.J. McLeod, Landon Castle, and David Reagan, all finishing inside the top 10. And the bet was $13, and he won almost a million dollars. And then there was another one that had a three-leg parlay with Ware, Castle, and McLeod all in the top 10. And he won $70,560. Okay. So tell me the drivers that had to finish in the top 10 again. Basically, Ware, Castle, and McLeod. Where Castle and McLeod. Cody Ware, Landon Castle, and Beard. G. McLeod. And like, seriously, that sports book, if you, like, read the comments, people were like, I've never watched a NASCAR race now, but apparently if you just hit random

buttons and let it select drivers for you, you might have a pretty good chance. And people are like, I'm watching all the super speedways from here on out. So, like, wherever you stand on the sports betting side of it, I mean, like, super speedway racing, I think, just got a lot of people in the betting world's attention because of the roulette that is super speedway racing. Super speedway racing. It's a roulette, right, like you're not going to go, sorry, but you're probably not going to go put Cody Ware, B.J. McLeod and Landon Castle finishing top 10 in Waukins-Glen. You'll win more than a million dollars if that's what you do. Yeah, that'll be a big bet. So it was crazy, like some of the money that some of these guys won

on parli. Yeah. Incredible. So that was, that definitely got a lot of attention post-race, and I think that that's going to be a story going forward. Yeah. Yeah. Good, good for them. I like it when race fans win. So anything we're missing? Oh, wait, we got a race this week. We do got a race this week. Running a late-mostock car over at North Westboro Wednesday night. That's right. Race starts about 7.30.

They got a camping sold out. I don't know how many tickets they got left, but they say they got some seats in turns one and two. I said they just opened those up. Yep. I met a guy that just bought some a couple nights ago, and so they do still exist as of this taping at least, but probably not many.

This is going to be insane. It's going to be sick. It is going to be insane. I hope you don't start letting that just start causing you anxiety. I want you to enjoy this because you've been looking forward to late models. And so, like, even with the Dirty Mo crew, we're just like, let's just not be very visible because we just don't want any of those little triggers to make you go, God, why did I agree to do this? No, I don't think that'll happen.

I think I'm more worried, really, just about, like, what do people expect that in my performance? You know, I know a lot of people are coming, listen, I know a lot of people are coming. there to watch racing in North Westboro. There's a lot of people that love the late model stocks. They've got drivers in the field. But there are some people that are coming there to watch the sundrop car run. And I'm just hoping that I don't disappoint anybody. That's going to be a big concern of mine is that, you know, nothing happens with me or the car that doesn't, you know, that ruins the experience for somebody else.

So that's the only thing I'm worried about. I want to cross the finish line, complete all the laps. That'll be good enough for me. Anything, you know, whatever the result is is the result. I'm going to race hard. I'm going to try to do my best. But I think I'm, you know, to the universe and all of the magic out there, I'm hoping it all lines up to where I at least finish every single lap

and can get out with a smile on my face. Because, man, I just have wanted to race there for so long. So, you know, if anything short of finishing the race will be a real disappointment. Here, I'm going to help you out. We're going to set the expectations for all of the listeners right now. Here we go. All right. And this is to help you out.

This is a compliment. I hope it does. Look at his late model record when he was doing it every week. He only won three races out of 159. He wasn't that great then. He hadn't done it in 30 years. He's going to suck Wednesday night. And so everybody, just relax.

And if anyone needs to get their expectations and check, I will be drinking beer in turn one and two, and your expectations seem to drop when you drink some beer. So come find me and drink beer. with me. Measure it. All right. So now that we know what the expectations are, it's just going to be nice watching you out

there, getting it done, and then afterwards, you're going to drink a beer. You're going to still drink a beer afterwards? See, that's what we're watching. If you don't drink the beer afterwards, then our expectations, you would have let us down. That'll be disappointment. That's it. That's all that we're bringing. Hopefully, yeah, hopefully this is a great thing for late model stock racing.

Late Mall Stocks are a regional series. It's a regional car. It races in Virginia. a little bit in Tennessee North Carolina South Carolina that's about it and that's where it's pretty much ran for years Hopefully you know that's where I got my start and hopefully this is a shot in the arm for late model stock racing And all the tracks that that host the late model stock car so I think that you know I just you know we got pro late model super late models they're doing great They're nationwide they're everywhere

And just won't the late model stock car to have have its little piece of the pie too, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, hey, by the way, I was at a cross-country meet this past weekend, watch my daughter, and I had a guy come up and he goes, hey, did Dale Jr. tell you what that news was yet? I mean, I know he wouldn't tell you about this next big news at Wilkesboro on the show he wouldn't tell you afterwards, and I'm like, no, of course he didn't tell me nothing. I didn't tell you.

So you ready to say something? No. All right. I have Dylan all spun out by that, by the way. I came home and said, I don't know what it is, but he said it's going to be amazing, and he's like, so we started throwing ideas around. and we got as far as like they're putting a roof over North Wilkesboro. Like we went.

I shouldn't have said anything. Really? Yeah, well, I should not have said anything, but yes, that's the truth. I did not tell you behind closed doors. So I hope that that is heard by the right people. I got that question. I got that question and did we go magnet fishing? And the answer to that is?

Not yet. Not yet. After Wilkesboro will go. Right. We're busy. We'll have time on our hands. We are so busy the next couple of days. That's right.

All right, let's move on. Hey, Dale Jr. fans, listen up, especially if you have kids. Or if you know somebody that has kids, if you know kids, this is for you. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is teaching children to face their fears with his upcoming children's book, Buster's trip to Victory Lane. Kids will follow Buster, a rescued race car who navigates new challenges and learns to never give up. In Buster's trip to victory lane, Dale Jr's flair for originality, humor, and fun shines through as Buster the race car teaches kids to face their fears. And when Coach Chomp rescues Buster from a failed racing team, Buster has to figure out how to race with new teammates. Learn to keep going even after he makes mistakes and he tries with all his might to make it to the finish line before the other cars.

You're going to love it. Race fans, your kids are going to love it. You can pre-order Buster's trip to Victory Lane. right now. Here's where you do it. Dale Jr.com backslash buster. That's Dale Jr.com backslash buster. Go get it right now. Pre-orders available.

You will love it. Man, I'm really excited about the guest this week. Super duper ally. Let me try that again. Hey, everybody. I'm really excited about the guest this week, and he is absolutely an ally. I mean, we got Ally to sponsor the guest

portion of the show. And have we had a better ally? as a guest than this guy. No, if he's, if he hosts a podcast on our platform, he's an ally. Connor Daly is going to be here. You know, I can't wait to hear about his life. It's pretty interesting how he got involved in motorsports and what his family connection is to it and everything that he's experienced.

And as a driver, he's a massive fan favorite, especially in Indy for the 500. And he's a great personality. You mentioned the podcast. He's sort of putting himself out there, you know, It's good to see drivers sort of create their own content and be willing to share. Yeah. He and Joey Mullinero bring it on Speed Street every week.

If you are not listening to that podcast, that is one that you need to add to your lineup. But yeah, let's get Connor in. Let's be fun. Yeah, let's welcome. Connor Daly on the Dale Jr. Download. I hated this place the last few years, and now I'm on the cold, so this is hilarious. For the first time in a long time at an F-1 weekend, the American National Anthem will play this time for Connor Daily.

I won't sign it anywhere south of the male's belt buckle, that's for sure. Look at him. You have it? Oh, wait, you don't know what's in there. I don't know what is in there. Where did it come from? Here. Your front desk.

Okay. Why don't we see what's in there? What did you? Got a bag. We're going to look in here. Connor's here. He's going to open the bag. Y'all, get rolling on this because it's going to.

about to blow up, right? Is this new merch? Is this fresh? Has this ever, has this ever been seen by anyone? Let's see. Oh, that's a different shirt than I thought it was. Wait a minute. Damn it.

Yeah. What a bummer. It's a fishing shirt, Mike's all he's talking about. I didn't know that. What is it? I don't know. It's like a workout. Yeah.

But it's like a dad shirt, I feel like. We call it lake shirt. It's like medium sleeve. It's not a long sleeve or a short sleeve. Oh, whoa. Is it medium? What the freak, Mike? Who likes that?

It's a baseball shirt. I appreciate. Hold up. You can't incriminate the sleeves until you put it on and you will shake. It's not a lake shirt. It's a baseball shirt. A baseball shirt. I like it.

The three-quarter sleeve. Yeah, that's a baseball shirt. That is not a fish shirt. I thought it was that one, you know, the, what is that stuff? The wicking. Yes. Moister wick. Yeah, that's a fishing shirt.

Oh, that's not what that is? Nobody. It's got, it's got a truth. How many of those did you order? I mean, I like it. I do like it. And I will work. wear it fishing or whatever baseball.

I'm not a baseball guy. I can't do the three-quarter sleeve. It bugs a shit out of me. I'm like, wait, always either trying to pull them now. Would you like it? No, I've got one. Okay. I'm always trying to.

I appreciate it, though. I am thankful. Normal length sleeves, Connor. Look, normally. I don't know what your arms are doing over there. Wait a minute. They're normal league sleeves. Are you sure? Connor!

I don't know what your arms. I think they're medium length sleeves. I don't know. Connor must have really long arms. I know, right? What's going on? Ambitious thoughts about my arms. Yeah, maybe.

I thought that when you brought in a package of shirts, I thought that was the Speed Street shirts that we had worked on, but I guess not. Everybody's so freaking confused. I don't know why they just didn't hand you the shirt. They had to put it in a manila envelope. I have no idea. Imagine everyone listening is really confused.

Yeah. This is probably not going to make the podcast. Why isn't it? No, it's perfect. Well, Connor, thanks for coming. Thank you. What are you in town for? Well, I was at the simulator this morning.

We're obviously a Chevrolet team, so simulators in Huntersville, and we use it quite a lot. So we're there. The Pratton Miller? Yeah, Pratton Miller, Sim, yeah. So we're there about as much as they'll allow us to be there, which is probably like three days a month-ish. And, you know, I live in Indianapolis, so I fly in this morning, and I'll fly home tonight, and we do that a lot. So it's not bad. So you live in Indianapolis?

Yes, indeed. Have all your life? Yeah, pretty much. Well, I spent four years living in Europe when I was racing over there. Everybody goes to Europe. Yeah, that was a different scene. But a lot of people, like, it's funny, like my dad's Irish, right? And so a lot of people ask me, like, were you born in America?

I was like, yeah, I was literally born in Indianapolis, Indiana. My dad moved over to Indiana and never left. Like, he came over in the 80s and he never left. He never went back to Ireland. So it's kind of funny the story, but I'm full on American. Do you have friends? Do you have family? So do you go visit family in Ireland?

do you have like reunions and such? Well, I wish, I haven't been over in a long time, but we would go every year, like, because all my dad's side of the family is over there. So, like, my cousin, Nikki. You haven't been in a long time? No. Well, things get busy.

I'm an adult. It's wild. Apparently we have a lot to do as an adult. I didn't expect that. As a kid, we could go over for Christmas all the time and have a great time. I haven't even had a beer in Ireland yet, which is supposed to, I think it's like what I'm supposed to do as an Irish heritage person. I don't know if you know a friend of mine

named Tim Dugger Cutchinger. I do know of him. He has fallen in love with Ireland. It's a great place. Like he went over there. I think him and his wife got married over there and he goes, he has, he'll just be like, hey man, what are you doing?

I'll be like, not much man sitting home. He'll be like, I'm on a plane going to Ireland. I'm going to do an all-nighter. Come back home. Wow, that's aggressive. That's aggressive. Super aggressive. He loves the drink.

When I say he's falling in love with it, I mean, he'll fly over there for a couple nights and then come home. I like that. I mean, so my, oddly enough, my cousin, Nikki, she was, she played for Ireland in the Olympics, the last Olympics. So, like, I was, like, very passionately Irish very recently. And I had, like, dual citizenship for a while as well. But being sponsored by the U.S. Air Force for a long time, could not focus on that. I was like, I had to be as American as I could be for a long time. Plus, if you haven't, if you haven't had a beer in Ireland yet, I think that revokes your citizenship. Well, look, it's debatable. But, yes, it's not great. It's not what I am very proud of yet.

I am planning an off-season vacation to Ireland. So I'm going back, going to see the family, and it's going to be a good time. Yeah, well, my friend's been begging me to go with him. You got to go. Well, if I go, we're going. I'm in. Yeah. Because we'll have.

Send me a text because I'll both have our first beer. Do you play golf at all? No. Okay, there was a lot of golf there. No, no, no. Well, you drink, though, and people drink and play golf at the same time. I just drink. That's fine.

I'll do the golf. Another trip Dale Jr. is committed to that he will never go on is this one right here. What? You're not going to Ireland. What are you saying, Mike? I'm going. You haven't even asked for the hall pass yet. This is how it works.

This is how it works? She'll learn. She'll hear about this second hand. No, she'll hear about this second hand. And then I'll go, oh, man, you know, just talking about it on the podcast, honey. And she'll be like, well, you know, she'll, it works. I mean, I'm in. I love that.

Hey, let's do a live podcast from Ireland. What are we talking about here? From the Guinness Factory. Yes. It would be perfect. I mean, Joey, you, this whole thing, we'll even let the DBC guys go. They'll have to pay their own way. Our first, it'll be built around the first beer in Ireland.

I'm in. You guys have me sold entirely on a drinking trip to Ireland. We'll call it a research and development trip. There's got to be a sim. What's the racing scene in Ireland? So you know what's funny? I did one race there growing up in go-karts. I was like 15, and I was wearing a helmet like my dad's helmet,

like painted exactly like his. And it was at a track called Mondello Park in Ireland, and that's where my dad raced Formula Ford. Didn't there a beer called that? Probably. Everything goes back to drinking, isn't it? There's a beer named everything these days. But yeah, I only raced there once,

but that's where my dad grew up, obviously. and my uncle race over there as well. They both did Formula Fords, Formula Opel back in the day, small open-wheel cars. But yeah, that's kind of where it all started from my dad, and I just kind of dabbled a little bit over there. Talk about your dad. Yeah, so my dad, I mean, I was very lucky to grow up in a motorsport family.

Obviously, you know what that's like. But my dad's dad owned a little corner grocery store in Ireland, little small family home. Still there? No, no. But my nana and my grandma, she still is a, in the same house that they've had for a hundred years, it seems like. And she's my last living grandparents. She's like 94 years old. She's over there, walks to the store every day, you know,

in Ireland. And my dad went and saw a race when he was younger, and then he was fully locked in, and he went and worked in an iron ore mine in Australia to buy his first race car. So he went over there to work in the mines, like an ore mine, to buy a race car. Because back in the day, that's kind of what you had to do. You had to buy your own car, go race it, you know, stuff. He had to go all the way to Australia to work this job. Apparently, that was the only way you could earn enough money to buy a Formula Ford. And so that's what he did. And then, you know, he made it to Formula One pretty quickly. He actually, like, I'm actually pretty proud of, like, you know, his career is really cool

to look back on. And it's interesting in the internet era. Almost every week or so, someone tweets like a photograph that I've never seen before. A discovery, yeah. Like, in Formula One. And it's like, that's, like, I've enjoyed, there's a lot of terrible parts of the internet, but I've enjoyed that part of it. And I save him every time. And it's like, it's cool to see that. It's like, oh, wow, that's, you know, that's something I'd never seen before. I didn't get to see him race because he retired when I was born. I do the exact, exact same thing. And it only started when social media came around. So I, you know, of course,

I got a big kick out of my dad, but I was seeing all these pictures. So I did start saving them too. And I've got them split into decades. You know, like, oh, this is dad's, you know, sportsman 70s folder. Exactly. Yeah, and so I'm the same way. I've been saving all kinds of shit off of the internet and Twitter particularly, but... It's really cool to see. And it's, you know, and it's Formula One.

Like, obviously that is, you know, one of the highest levels, right? So it's cool to see and, yeah, it just makes you appreciate it a lot more. Because since I didn't get to see it myself, all I have is the pictures, right? And all I have is video and stuff like that, which is kind of cool. So the move... Go ahead. The move to Indianapolis for him. What was the decision behind that?

Well, my dad in 1982, he was teammates with Kecki Rossburg when he won the World Championship at Williams, the Formula One team. So, you know, pretty decent position. But I don't know exactly how he lost his ride or what the situation was, but he went to Indy to try out the Indy 500, and he never left. So 1983 was his first Indy 500. So the 80s were kind of, you know, and he met my mom at the racetrack. So my mom was working at the Indianapolis Speedway during radio advertising, I think, or something like that. And he never left. So from then on, it was all indie, and he did, you know, several Indy 500s, I think six or tried to qualify for six and only made five, something like that.

It's no big deal. My dad missed one race. I have not missed race yet, so it's fine. Who's counting? Nobody's counting. I'm not counting at all. But, yeah, so that was kind of where we got our start as a family, like in Indianapolis. Yeah.

And so what was his career like in the States? It was, like, really average. He was, you know, he was, he did a lot and did a lot of races and was like, you know, one of those guys that would like finish like fourth to tenth, you know what I mean? And, but he had a great career. Like, I'm not trying to, like, downplay my dad's career. Like, it was very, he was racing against all those guys like Mario Andretti, Michael Andretti, even Michael Andretti, even Michael Ander was racing by then. And, you know, all the big names in open wheel racing, the foights, the Fittipaldies, the, everyone that you would recognize in open wheel racing, like he raced against. those guys, which is really cool. And then he kind of went into sports car racing where he found

a lot more success. Like, he won the Sebring 12 hour twice with Nissan in the GTP era, like really impressive sports cars, you know, did LaMalle, all those races, which, which is really cool. And, you know, he's in the Sebring Hall of Fame. But I was born in 91, and his last, his last race was in 91. I don't even know how old he? He's kind of, I don't even know how old he's. He's kind of, I don't even know. How old was it when you were born? I don't even know. I mean, give me a guess. I'm lost. Was he, was he in his late 40s? I would know. No, I would know. I would say he would have had to have been late 30s. 30s.

Yeah. All right. So yeah. We'll say that. So like similar to Chase Elliott, you know, like Chase doesn't remember much of anything from most of Bill's career, especially like the 80s when Bill was the, you know, awesome bill. Yeah. And so I guess how do you consume all of that history? Well, it's honestly mostly through the internet.

Like when I, when I grew up, right, you see trophies around the house. You see, you know, he's got some die cast cars. and I wish he saved more of his stuff. That's like the only thing that I'm upset with him. Helmets, suits. I don't even have one of my dad's helmets. And I'm like, and he has like two of his helmets. And I was like, man, where did they go?

Well, you'll get those. Well, I know, but I'm like, where did they go? He's like, I don't know. I just, I gave them to people sponsors or teams or whatever it is. No one's walked up to you in the garage with a suit or a helmet yet? Not yet. But I know some people who have them, right? And so like, like, there's one guy with the collection in Indianapolis.

who like, and he's an older fella, he's like, oh, you know, if I die, like, you can have it. I'm like, well, I appreciate that. I don't necessarily want to wait on that. Like, that's, I feel bad that that's the case. But, but, yeah, I know of some, but I wish I knew of more. You know what I mean? And it's something that I saw so much of, and I saw him on TV, right? He went right into TV broadcasting.

And so all these people, for years as I grew up were like, well, your dad was great. Your dad was great. Or like, he did this, he did that. And so it's kind of weird, like, hearing that all the time because I never saw it. I mean, I saw, like, videos and stuff like that, but I wish I would have seen it in person, you know what I mean? Do you watch old races? I do, yeah. Like, some of the old Formula One stuff is really cool, because obviously you have Murray Walker,

who was such a great broadcaster back in the day, and his voice is so iconic. Like, I mean, everyone knows Murray Walker's voice. And so, yeah, there's a lot of, you know, interesting clips, you know, to watch. Never, like, the full races, but there's always really cool clips. Even my dad is, like, I found a race on YouTube that I had never seen since. I race it, which is really cool. Yes. Yeah.

I save all that. Yeah, exactly. Dude, he just watches. I had a server. I've got a server in this building that has like 400 races on it. Wow. It's a lot. Not just dad's races, but like back from the 60s, every race that any kind of,

even if it's 15 minutes of a clip of a race, right? Yeah. And so I can go watch it anytime I want. I don't know. I made up with it. He actually hired an employee just to digitize old races. I respect that. I mean, we love racing.

Like, I'm a race fan. It's a entry-level job, man. But don't mess it up. No. That's a bad deal. All right, so you do what, you get, you come across old races, so you get to see that. And so, yeah, I mean, Dale, you just had a dude just show up and give you your dad's, was it his helmet or his fire suit?

The second one, the yellow and blue one up there. Oh, wow. Yeah. They came a couple weeks ago and gave that. And a year before or two years ago, somebody brought a suit. So I mean, I'm just saying like, man, yeah, there it's out there. You know, dream it and it will happen like kind of like a law of attraction. For sure.

So if you imagine it, those type of things might start happening to you. Well, I've tried to imagine a lot of things. It hasn't happened to you. I'm going to keep working on it. I'm going to keep working on it. So this is just to let everybody know if you have a Derek daily helmet or a fire suit. We would like to, you know, talk to you. Exactly.

When you were born, your dad's career is ending as far as his own track. career. What is your first memory? Like what is you like what is your first memory of anything motor sports related? Well, it's a great it's a great question because there's almost uh no part of my life that I remember without motorsport. Right. You know what I mean? So like I don't really remember an era or a time where it's like there wasn't a race car around or there wasn't something on TV or we weren't going to a race. You know what I mean? And like when my dad was done racing like he was very much done. He was like he had lost that drive to do it. Like he's like, I, and it was like, it's not like, well, I want to dabble a little bit.

It's like, nope, don't care. Like, he won't even drive historic cars anymore. Like, he, like people, I know several people who own. I don't understand that. Yeah. Because I talked to a lot of drivers that have retired. Yeah. How do you not have anything in you that's curious?

It's very interesting to me because, like, I literally wake up and live and breathing, like, I want to drive whatever I could, like, I don't care what it is. Like, let's go racing. You know what I mean? And, but it is interesting. He was like, yep, I one day. just woke up and it was like, that's it. I don't need to do it anymore. And, and, and, which is fine. But, but, but yeah, I always remember just being at the Indianapolis motor streetway.

That's, the most memories that I have are at that racetrack, uh, in a place called racing babies, which was like a prison sort of, I thought that it was like this all cement area that, like, other drivers and TV people sent their kids to, like, be watched during the day. And we had no windows, but we only had one television that, like, broadcast, like, what was going on during the day. And that's what I remember. It was me and Scott Goodyear son, Christopher Goodyear. And he was like one of my good friends as a kid. And Scott was obviously racing and we were there in prison watching the race cars from this weird little children's hut.

Yeah. That's so crazy. Free of our own deals. Yeah. Yeah. You got 15 minutes to go outside and see sunlight. Exactly. Yeah.

It was like that. It's like one of those traumatic childhood experiences you have like, darn it, I wish I would have been outside. I imagine there's like random toys screwed across. floor and there's missing everything's missing parts beases there's like nothing you can't play with it because nothing really you know doesn't have all the stuff it's just all kind of scrambled everywhere blocks and yeah i mean there was and there and it was and it was all like you know it was it was people worked to the tracks kids you know i mean so we were all like affiliated with the event somehow you know what i mean and it was it was but those are the earliest memories but other than that i i

as soon as i could i was wearing team shirts or i was wearing someone's hat i mean there are so many photos of me as a kid. One of the things that I collected as a kid was the every year at the Indy 500, they release a grid sheet in the Indy Star, the local newspaper, right? All the rows of three, the cars were in color. It looked very cool in the newspaper. And I would watch the race with this grid sheet. And every time someone would crash, I would X them out. I would put an X on them. And that's like, still to this day, I have, I've tried to like find all the ones that I haven't kept them all. But I have a lot of the grid sheets from many of the years, like from when I was born to like to even now like I still have every race that I've been in every 500 that I've been in I have that grid sheet framed uh which is kind of cool I love the history around it I'm kind of a 5500 nerd yeah which makes it all the more cool and I know that this is jumping ahead here but I mean the fact that you you get to compete in the endy 500 and hearing that you basically grew up in the you know in the belly of the speedway literally you know in the cell blocks or whatever but just this kind of history lesson that you're giving us I mean man

that it's got to be amazing right like do you do you still understand the coolness of that there is never a day that goes by that I'm at that track that is not enjoyable I got it's very tough there obviously the Indy 500 in this era for sure is very very difficult it's very challenging the series is so competitive um but it is it is such an incredible experience to walk through gasoline alley and like to walk through in like a race suit and like to get in that car and we're going really freaking fast now too and like that is the the biggest adrenaline rush that I ever get is leaving that pit line every time and people ask me like does it get it never gets old like not even close and and I enjoy it more every year because I feel like I'm getting

better every year too you know what I mean and like results wise we have got better every year and it's like and I kind of like start to understand it's like we're not that that's not that that far away from winning this thing. You know what I mean? Like, it's really, and I always thought of those people as like complete and utter superheroes. Like anyone that even raced at the 500, I was like, I don't even know how you get there.

I assume you're chosen by some, you know, committee of wild other superheroes that you're allowed to race in the Indy 500. But when I got there, it was like, this is like, this is exactly what it's made out to be. It is incredible. And I love everything about it. I really do.

It's incredible. So when you're young, your dad's doing television, what races is he broadcasting specifically? So it was all like the all IndyCar stuff. He did every race that was at the Indy 500. So even like the brickyard in the 90s, you know, when they came, like he did the local TV for stuff like that. And then he would kind of travel the circuit with like the champ car. Like when Champ car and Indy car had split, like he was on the champ car side doing the champ car stuff and cart, whatever that was. And your mom worked where? And my mom still was at the car.

Speedway. So she did a lot of the hospitality suites there on the front straight, managing a lot of that stuff. And so, yeah, so I was kind of more on the Champcar side, but then I would also then go on the IndyCar side, because then my stepfather is Doug Bowles, who was part of Panther racing, like back in the day an IndyCar team. So, like, my dad was kind of doing this TV stuff for Champcar, and then I had Doug on the, on the IRL side back in the day as well. So there was really everyone was connected to motorsports somehow. Yeah. When did your parents, split. I was probably like 11 or 12, maybe even younger, I don't know. You remember? Yeah, I do remember for sure. But it was, you know, it's, everyone's in a better

place now, which is good. And like, Doug is incredible, right? Like, Doug is, you know, I, I heard, um, um, on one of your episodes recently someone mentioned there. I was like, oh, I appreciate that. Like, it's really cool to, uh, why, why am I forgetting his name, a drug guy that sold all the drugs and raced? Uh, Randy Lanier. Randy Lanier, yes. It was Randy's episode. He was like, He thanked Doug, and I was like, that is so cool. I was like, I appreciate that. Because, like, Doug loves the race, right? Like, he loves the event, loves racing.

And my dad does the same thing. So it's cool to be in that position to kind of have a family that's expanded now, but everyone appreciates it. Yeah. Was it difficult, though, 11 years old? Yeah, I mean, for sure, it's odd. But I, like, didn't derail you in any more. No.

No, because everyone, like, my mom loved racing, too. So, like, and I got into racing when I was 10, right? So I was in there pretty early, and I, and we were so focused on racing, like, me and my dad as well. Like, because, like, my dad, when he moved, when he had his own place, they separated, right? Like, my dad had a house, and we had a barn, and that's where the go-car was, you know what I mean? So we would do all the work on the barn and the go-cart, and that's kind of where we all started it. Like, dad had a trailer, and we would load the thing up, and, you know, I'd spend the weekends at my dad's house, obviously, because we were racing on the weekends, and then I would do, like, the school week at my mom's house. Which is fine.

When did you start racing this go-car? So I was like 10 years old, Whiteland Raceway Park in southern Indiana. What kind of racetrack is that? Just a little, like very small, like road circuit. Like just, I mean, it must have been 28 second laps. I don't know, 30-second laps maybe. A small place, real rough, but it had like a real banked corner like Indy because it was like they tried to make it like the Indianapolis under speed.

They wanted to have one big banked corner. And Sarah Fisher actually owns it now. So it's still there. And so that, and I've actually been, my little. little brother has raced there now as well. But then Mark Dismore built his track in Newcastle, Indiana as well, which is still there. Obviously, that's like probably one of the best go-car tracks in America. And that's kind of when I, it was, it was me and Joseph Newgarden, who were, who were racing there in the club series. Like, it was just me and him. He was, he's one year old

of the me, and he came from Nashville, Tennessee, like every weekend, or Hendersonville, Tennessee every weekend, and we would go at it in the club races every weekend around age 12, 13, and that was kind of where it all really started going. Do you look at that, do you look at the other kids that you raced against back then and kind of wonder where they are? It is wild to think, yeah, because local racetrack, you have me and Joseph Mugarton, who's obviously, you know, Penske driver, two-time IndyCar champion, and we had a couple other kids as well who were really talented, didn't quite make it like as far as we did, but several of us had gone, you know, into the car racing circuit as well. but just me and Joseph alone

that was a really good competition and Joseph was a guy that I then raced against my entire life I've raced against Joseph literally since we were kids which is crazy when did you run the first oval race in your life? My first oval race was 2009 I think I was in the

Road to Indy series like little smaller open wheel stuff and it was at IRP I think we had two races that year was at IRP and Iowa, Iowa Speedway. I think I won every Oval Race that I did right out the gate. Or maybe, no, we did the Milwaukee Mile, and I got wrecked on lap one of the Milwaukee Mile. That was a shame, because I actually really wanted to race there, and I never got to race there because it was off the schedule the next year. You remember who wrecked you?

Oh, yeah, never forget. His name is Richard Kent, a British guy. I'll never forget. He was my teammate, and it was a tough scene. Yeah, it was a tough scene. Richard Kent. Yeah. But, but yeah, oval racing for, for.

For me, I didn't do any of it. And I loved it. I loved every bit of it. And even still to this day, like, I prefer oval racing. I love it more than anything else. Why? I think the level of competition when it's close at an oval and the level of when it feels good on an oval, it's awesome.

And when it's obviously the opposite, when it's a tough day, it's the worst day ever. But, like, that feeling of when you have set yourself apart, like, you might have found the small change to separate you from. from your competitors, I mean, you feel like a hero. And I love that. And I, like, I remember racing at IRP, you know, the night before the Indy 500, which was, like, the coolest thing. I was graduated in high school. I was 18.

Or 17. I hadn't even turned 18 yet. And it was, like, it was an interesting track for me because, like, the high line is the quicker line there. Obviously, like, there's a little bit more banking when it's up top. And, like, we hadn't really run in a situation like that before. And I won that race with, like, my entire. high school graduating class there.

And it was like, my mom, like, brought everyone out onto the racetrack after the event. And, like, it was just such a fun experience because, like, everyone in the crowd can, like, see it all right there, you know what I mean? So, like, Oval Racing, I kind of just developed a love for at an early age. Yeah. I loved it. You were diagnosed diabetic at 14? Yep.

What is that news like? Well, it wasn't awesome. We didn't really know anything about it as a family. And my dad, not really a big school. guy didn't go to a lot of school or educational areas and he was reading books on how to fix it you know what I mean he was like how do we how do we get rid of this uh assume we can soon we can tune something or figure something out and get rid of this just tune it away and he's deep into a conspiracy hole as well he's like well if you do this and go to this country I'm like let's okay stop like it's it's it's not that bad like for me it was something that was very difficult and it still is like it's something that I deal with every day right it's it's it's not it never goes away, but I was racing the next weekend. Like literally, I was in the hospital for two days. What happened?

I had lost, like, a lot of weight, like 30 pounds probably. Like, I was looking like I was shriveling away. Yeah. And that's kind of one of the symptoms. And I was drinking, chugging a, like, a gallon of water every 10 minutes. Like, it's just so thirsty. It's like dying of thirst because everything's kind of just withering away in your body. And so we were actually at my first.

Skip Barber racing school. I was like, I was like 14, 15. Now we're just getting into a race car. I have my helmet, everything ready to go. And my dad was like, let's not do this. And we should probably go to the hospital instead. And so we did. And they were like, congratulations. You have type 1 diabetes. And so what is the daily monitoring and regiment? Well, it was a lot different back then. Like, you know, you have to always monitor it every day. Like I wear a CGM now to the constant glucose monitoring system. So it's attached to me all the time, goes to my phone. It's what I read in the race car while racing. But back in the day, like back then, like we had to, you know, prick our fingers every, you know, five, six, seven times a day.

Especially when I was racing, right? Because, like, when racing is the most important part, we didn't want anything to go wrong because that obviously wouldn't have been great. And at the time, there were no diabetics that were racing. So, like, I didn't really know what to expect. Like, what to expect? Or, like, there wasn't anyone I could have asked, you know what I mean? But, but honestly, like, I'm kind of thankful for the, like, the mindset or temperament that I have. And my mom always says, like, well, I'm glad you're the one who got diabetes because if it was any of my other three boys, they probably would have not have made it.

And I was like, well, all right, congratulations. You know what I mean? Because it demands, like you. It's just a lot of work. Yeah, it's a lot of work. And a lot of people that struggle with it, it's just they don't do the work. And it is hard and it's annoying because, like, I deal with it every day. And like, I'm telling you, it's not fun, but I've not done anything in life.

You know what I mean? I've done everything that I've wanted to do. I've never let it stop me doing anything. So when you're racing, when you're racing a race, right? How do you monitor it? Where is this information? So it can be on our steering wheel, but I have a little monitor that connects to my little sense that I wear

that I have mounted in the cockpit. I see it all the time. We have a drink system, obviously. That works most of the time. Is it stuff they can watch? It can be. Yeah, it can be. And so you're sorry for being all up in your business.

but you have a special drink system for when you have a problem, or is this already in your system that you're going to traditionally have? So the funny thing about, like, there's obviously been a couple other diabetics in racing, like Charlie Kimball, Ryan Reid, like Ryan Reid was my teammate when I did NASCAR Exfinald racing for one race. But, like, there's a lot of things that you can do that you might need. But, like, realistically, you have. one thing that you need and that's just a drink bottle, right? But even if it doesn't work,

if you prepare enough before, you shouldn't need it. You know what I mean? Like, it's all for me, and like everybody is different, right? Everybody's different. Everyone's made different. But like, for me, the consistency and like the way that I work is like very routine. And like, if I do that, then it'll be fine. Yeah. But, you know, sometimes your body throws curve balls at you, sometimes in conditions. If you're just a little hot, it's a little bit different. But, but my crew knows that like I've got a gatorade at the car before I get in or water. And I got if I need sugar, boom, we go gatorade. If I don't, then we have water and that's kind of what it is.

You ever had any kind of a problem? Never in your whole life. Yeah. Yeah. I think an interesting theory, which is probably not scientifically correct, is that adrenaline cures everything. And I think adrenaline is so powerful that like you kind of limit, it's like when you see people have really bad crashes and like they get out of the car.

Their legs broken, but they like get out and walk. Yeah, for sure. It takes a little while. And they're like, oh, this hurt. I got to fall over. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, it's kind of like that. Like, you produce so much adrenaline when you're driving at this level.

You know what I mean? It's like, it's such a high level that I'm convinced that your body's kind of like, let's focus on not dying here first and then we'll worry about the sugary stuff later. I think there's something to that because you know how like when people retire and then they all of a sudden their mind, they have nothing to do but focus on their problems or focus on the fact of their bored or focus on this stuff. And they kind of like kind of deteriorate just mentally. right like it just but you maybe there is something to that that you're right i like how you put it it's

scientifically unproven but but maybe that just the fact that you are so committed and zoned in during a race or during practice or whatever helps you yeah to a degree i mean certainly could believe that well i see i see it in the data too right because like i have this thing that i wear that like i can see where my blood sugar is like during race and so like when you see that it doesn't do anything or like it literally just stays exactly where you need it the whole time. You're like, well, that was convenient, you know what I mean? And so it's kind of interesting to look back on that. And like every race is a little bit different, like I said.

But again, if I've been doing it for this many years now and like nothing has been an issue, like it's not like it's a system that doesn't work, you know what I mean? Which is nice. 2006, you won the world carding the WCA, like a national championship, the whole thing. I think so, yeah. So I used to race go-carts, and I thought, you know, everybody thought, man, to have that WCA decal. Yeah. It was a bad-ass deal, right?

We remember, yeah. We had dirt tracks around here, and that was kind of our thing. But when you're – so I'm curious about that. When your racing was that the goal, that year when you started out, like, championship, WCA championship. The interesting thing about the carding years is that there was – there were so. many races you could do. You could race in four different championships. There's like regional championships and then there was a national championship and there were like a grand national thing and then there was the stars of card. There were so many different things. And like I remember

we did, that was the most driving I think I ever did in my career was like when I was carding. Because like we would test for six days in a row. We'd go to just park at a racetrack and just drive every day, just try to wear out tires, you know what I mean? Try to figure out what chassis works best. You know what I mean? It was very, and my dad, being the scientist that he is, is always, you know, looking for the technical edge. He was making me read books when I was 14 about cart setups and stuff like that, which I appreciate now. But it was an interesting era. We won things, but then, like, some races, I would not do well. I'm like, man, like, what? Why? You know what I mean? And I would say I was like an okay go-car racer. Like, we won a lot, but, like, I would say I was way more comfortable when I made that step. into cars and like when you got into cars there was like there was really only one series that you did so like

everyone was there. So it wasn't like it wasn't like a questionable like am I really good enough to do this? It was like well everyone's there and if you're winning there well that's that's good. So like did you go to Europe with your cart? I only did once in Ireland. That was that was the one race that I did and I think I finished third. Did you take your cart? No we we had one of my dad's friends run us over there. Do you know the what's the big? race in carding over in Europe, like the world championship? Yeah, the world championship. I never did that. Did you, have you ever heard of Lake Speed? Oh yeah, of course. Yeah, absolutely. What is the, what is the open wheel world know of Lake Speed? I mean, you just, I don't know a ton about him,

but like you hear the name all the time. So do you know much about him? To be honest, yeah, I don't know enough. So, yeah, so Lake is a stock car racer. Yeah, he raced this, he raced, he raced full-time some, but he was always on a very limited schedule or limited budget, I mean. And he won a race. He won at Darlington one time. And he had some good runs, but that was it. You know, he came in in the early 80s and then, you know, late 90s, I guess, or so forth, sometime around 2000 or whatever his career was over. But he was a go-karter first. And now he's back to go-karting. But he went over to the World Championships and beat Senna. Oh, yeah. won the whole thing.

And I just, we know him because of, he spent years with NASCAR, but I'm always kind of curious as to what open wheel guys think about that name. Well, it's fascinating that you mentioned that, though, because, like, I think there are really good go-kart racers. I think there are some drivers, like, that I raced against in go-carts that I thought were like, oh, these are the guys. Like, they're going straight to Formula One. But the transition to cars doesn't work for everyone.

Like, for some reason, whether it's the suspension or, like, now that there's body roll or something. I don't know what it is, but like I can think of at least two or three guys that I saw racing when I was a kid. I was like, those guys are the best. Like, they're literally the best. And they didn't get to Formula One. They didn't get to IndyCar.

You know, some of them might have gone sports car racing or something like that. And like, they're good drivers, but they weren't like the standout guys. Like they were in, you know, Shifter Card Illustrated magazine back in the day, stuff like that. Like, I saw those guys. Like, man, I wish I could be like, you know, Gary Carlton or Joel Miller, you know, two guys that I, like, two guys that I remember for sure, American guys that were so good in Go-Carts. And I was like, man, it was wild. How much is it, how much is the cart and the motor in the particular person you have,

like, you know, tire treatment or whatever it may be, right? How much is all that? I have. No idea. But a lot of it. A lot of it. I mean, it's supposed to be, you know, everybody sits down on the same thing. Well, I'll never forget when I was, one of my first, like, stars of carting races,

we were in the junior ICA class. I'll never forget. And we showed up with this big team, like big team tent. and there was like a young driver there who had who actually like ended up racing an indycar as well uh i think it was carlos munoz at the time he was my teammate at foy in indycar uh but like they had like this engine set up that a bunch of engines and stuff like that me and my dad showed up like and we were like do we do we need that like what's going on it was it was crazy to see and again i like that when you got to cars yes everyone's going to complain about their equipment at

some point or someone there's going to be a discrepancy somewhere but like when you first got into cars it was pretty much like well you better get in and drive and be the best guy you know what I mean and that was I really enjoyed that like there were there were less question marks I feel like what's the step out of go carts what's the first step so at the time it was the skip barber national championship and I think everybody goes to skip barber yeah a lot of people are familiar with skip barbara right and and and I remember like when I was coming through you'd see so many named you know Ryan hunter ray Marco Andretti you know all these guys went to the skitabob Barber Series. And like when I was in the Skip Barber National Championship, I mean, it was, it was

incredible because like even Jordan and Ricky Taylor, we all race together in Skip Barber Regional Series. And like that year in the National Championship, it was, you know, me, Joseph New Garden. You had Connerty Philippi, who's a factory BMW driver now. You had Gabby Chavez, who's multiple-time Indy 500 starter. You had a bunch of, a bunch of guys from Brazil and Columbia that were like so good, like really good drivers. And there were 30 cars at every race weekend. And it was like, this, I mean, this is it. Like, this is like, and to win the championship, it was like a $250,000 scholarship. So like for us, as, as, you know, youths, that was, that was everything.

And, and, and I won the championship my, my first year. And so we were like, well, here we go. You know what I mean? And, like, that still is, like, one of the coolest feelings I think when I was a kid. Because, like, I knew those guys were pretty good, like, that I was going up against. And, like, I didn't really know what to expect in that first year of Skip Barber National Racing. but like I knew that I had to win and we did and like that kind of really kind of set us up on the right path really where'd you go next so then it was kind of up through the road to indy right we had it

it was still freshly set up like now it's like officially the road to indie and like there's you know four steps and every step has a scholarship level but that was kind of still being set up when I was coming through and like Mazda was behind it really big like Mazda was the really the the sole like funding component of the road to indie and so like I owe a lot to them for sure they were a huge scholarship portion of my life. I kind of college scholarship my way through motorsport for the most part because we got into pro Mazda, the pro Mazda division, which is now Indy Pro 2000, I think, whatever it is. 2009, I finished third in the championship. And my dad was always very convinced that we need to do two years at every level. We needed to have a learning year,

and then we need to win the championship in the second year. And so that's kind of, I kind of broke that mold in the first year of Skip Barber, so it was like, all right, well, here we go. And then So, yeah, we finished third, won a race in my rookie year. And we were like, all right, we're going to come back with Juncoast Racing, who's an IndyCar team now. They weren't an IndyCar then. But then I won the championship then in 2010 with Juncoast Racing, which was their first championship as a car racing team as well.

So kind of, and then I was like 1718. So then now we're like, now we're going. And what did that win you? I mean, in terms of scholarship. Like, how much money are talking? That was like, that was like 650 grand or something like that. So it was like, or 600, give or take a few dollars. I didn't see any of it, but my dad sure was controlling some of it.

Yeah. But, yeah, that was the moment where then life, you know, there was a big decision, right? Because, like, technically the road to Indy hadn't quite been set up because Indy Lights wasn't part of the Mazda system yet because they used to be like infinity branded motors. And then it was, you know, different engine manufacturer. And so then that was kind of the moment where we were like, all right, well, I'd like to go to Formula One. That's, you know, that was always my dream as a kid. Yeah, and we decided, you know, we could take part of that scholarship and fund a year in GP3, which is F3 now.

But Mazda was like, well, we still kind of need you to do some Indy Lights races. So we had five Indy Lights races on our schedule as well. And that's kind of when things really got to like, that was a big move in my life. That was like, do I stay in America and continue this ride? Because I had won two championships in three years and I was kind of like really going towards the IndyCar route. And, like, it was awesome. And I was like, this feels great. But going to Europe was a completely new arena.

And that's what we ended up doing. Do you think you would have done it differently? It's the question I think about all the time. It was funny. I remember because I, and the funny thing is, the decision became even harder because I did the first three Indy Lights races. And I won the second one, and I was leading the Indy Lights Championship after three races.

And Joseph Newgarten was my teammate. And Esteban Guerrero, really good South American driver. Like, teammates, like, a field of really good drivers yet again. And I was like, oh, man, like, we're in a great position here. I've been on the podium. I'd won a race. And I remember Graham Rahal called me at the airport as I was, like, leaving, like, to go for the first race overseas. He was like, hey, man, like, are you sure you want to do this?

Like, are you sure you want to leave? Because, like, right now, like, every IndyCar team would, like, want to hire you're like it's like you're in the right spot you know what I mean and I don't really know if that was true or not but like we had won everything that we could have won which is great um and and I was like yeah I mean you only have one shot at it so yeah we had to go for it yeah what was your dad one well I see I don't I think my dad was always going to support what I wanted but for sure like what he saw I think he really believe like he obviously believes in me right But, like, I think he saw a lot of, like, he knew what it took.

And, like, if I was, you know, winning against the people that I was winning, it's like, well, you might as well give a shot if you can, you know what I mean. And we had the opportunity with the scholarship. Because honestly, if we were to, like, funded ourselves, we would have never been able to do it. But we had a scholarship fund to do it. And that's kind of what launched us to that level. And so I think he was really happy about it because he didn't have to move over with me. I moved over by myself and he was staying in America. Which, by the way, gets, there's been stories told at this table by people that you raced with over there.

I think Jordan was one of them, and somebody else went over there. I don't remember who it was. But, like, you guys were racing together. You had other Americans and friends over there, right? Honestly, not really. Who was it that raced over Europe? Maybe it was Alex Polo? Maybe at some point?

Well, Alex was over there for sure. Yeah. Yeah. But you were over there racing. and we always were curious about that because didn't you give up the chance to win a championship? Yeah, yeah, no, I gave up the Indy Lights championship. And then who wins?

Joseph Newgarden. And then Joseph Newgarden signs a three-year Indy car deal right out the gate. And then that, you know, he does what he needs to do and eventually, you know, ends up with Ed Carpenter and then Penske. Yeah. But it's, it was, the way it plays out is really interesting because, like, I love, like, my biggest rival, I think, not rival, but like the biggest person that I try to do. judging myself against is Joseph because I've known him for so long, right? And I feel most good when I

beat Joseph if I do beat Joseph, you know what I mean? And obviously that's hard to do now. But, but yeah, it's really just interesting how that played out for Joseph because Joseph was in a very tough place himself because he had gone to Europe earlier than I had and was, and had to come back to America, it was on a very shoestring budget to do Indy Lights. And like, he really had to have won that championship to like to keep it going. You know what I mean? And he did. And like that vaulted him to exactly where he want to be. So it's a, and obviously he deserves it. Like he won.

And he's obviously proven that he's one of the best drivers, you know, of all time. But it's really fascinating to look back in life and see kind of those decisions that you make. And, you know, I don't regret anything. All right. It was fun. So, I mean, imagine when you're going over there, you're excited. You're like, hey, man, I'm doing what? This is the decision I made and I'm all behind this and I'm heading over there.

But where did you go live? So I live with Graham Ray Hall's stepdad, actually, in England, because Graham's mom is, like, one of my mom's best friends. And she's married to Chris Berry, who Chris is over in England, and, like, his business is over there. And we basically just asked him, like, hey, like, do you have an extra room? Yeah, and so I just moved in. And so they brought you in and treated you like family? Oh, yeah, yeah. You lived there how long?

I mean, I was in that house for, I think, three years. Three years of Chris, yes, like 2011, 12, and 13. Did you know him before? I had met Chris that couple times, yeah. Okay. But he was awesome. I mean, it was a great, and like I, the Ray Hall family has always been really good to me as well. Bobby and Graham and they're just everyone, Jared Graham's brother.

I mean, they've all, and I mean, I dated Graham's sister when I was 18. So like I'm very close to the Ray Hall family. So it was, it's one of those things that like I've always been very thankful to them. And it was a situation that, again, we didn't really have the money to like go buy a place in England. You know what I mean? So like we lived with Chris and it was really helpful. So who's getting you around? Who's telling you where to be and what time to be there?

So thankfully, Mazda gave me a car to drive while I was over there as part of the scholarship system. Thank you so much. So you had a Mazda. Had a little Mazda, had a little Mazda 3. But I was pretty much just doing my own thing. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I was cooking for myself. I was living.

Getting yourself to the racetrack. Yep, pretty much. Like the team would obviously book my flights and stuff like that if I needed to. But there was a lot of races we drove to. I drove onto the train. under the sea to go to the European continent and drove to the Belgian race, drove to France, drove to a bunch of the races. By yourself?

Yeah, yeah. Was there anything that was... I'm just having a hard time with this, Mike. Because the acclamation process. I'm 30. No, then. Oh, then I'm like 18. 18 years old.

Like, I mean, you're... We didn't know how to get around here. No. So that's the far, that's the craziest thing, because we've had so many people come in this room and sit down and say, yeah, did four or five years in Europe. And it's nothing. Like, you know... Yeah.

But I'm trying, like, I would have been so overwhelmed. I'm pretty much anxiety ridden and it would have worked out. But, I mean, you're 18 years old and you're driving all these different countries to get to these, you know, you're trying to race. You're trying to make it. I don't understand how you're doing this. Yeah, I know you're not all alone. Yeah, yeah. I know, I don't understand at 18 years old how you and so many other people had the, had the fortitude, you know, the mental awareness.

It's tough, man. I would have ruined that. Yeah, I think when I look back on it, like, to be honest, those weren't the most fun years of my life, that's for sure. Like, they were like, it was hard. Like, it was, because, again, you're not making any money. Like, you're not, it's not like we're doing this to make a living. You're literally doing this in hopes that you're good enough to make it to eventually make a living.

You know what I mean? What is going on too with, so one of the things that I always leaned on in racing was like this marriage with my crew chief. Like I had to have, I had to know this guy wasn't bullse-h-hitting me and he really believed in me. And if we weren't already family, right, you're almost required to believe in me. You pay him to believe in you. You're in Europe, you know, you don't know these people, right? You're racing cars around, you know, with a crew and a team that you're developing this new relationship with. How are you, how did your confidence not get rattled?

Oh, well, it did because I had just come on. off leading the Indy Life Championship and I was feeling real good. And the first GP3 race, I qualified 29th of 30 cars like in Istanbul and Turkey. And I was like, yikes, that is not great. Beat that one guy's ass, though. Beat one guy, yeah. But again, like that, it was such a different car and tie, like the tire was actually the biggest difference. Because we'd gone from Firestones in America to then the Pirelli's. And the Pirellies were just, just fresh to the F1 scene sort of back in that era. And I was 29th.

My teammate was on pole. Holy s p. Not a great, not a great scene. Do you know what you did, that lap that screwed up? You missed a cold? I thought it was a great lap. You did? Yeah, I thought it was a great laugh.

It was such an interesting era. Like, I just, I walked back and I was like, oh, this is, this might not have been a great idea. Like, this might not have been the best decision. But it was, it was so different. And it was so tough. And already as an American, like you're already just discarded. Yeah, because you're an American. Because at the time, the only other Americans over there were me and Alex Rossi.

And Alex Rossi, obviously, good driver. We all know Alex, good driver. But like, no matter what, and still to this day, we obviously still see it with what's going on with Michael trying to get a team. And they're like, we don't need them. You know what I mean? It's like, why? Like, what are you guys talking about? And like, even if, like, Alex won a World Series Renault race or like a GP2 race or like if I won a GP?

Because eventually, it was a tough first year, right? But that year was, like, we basically used as a learning year, right? Like my dad said, we want to do two years in a championship to make sure we learn. And so from qualifying, like, 29th to the first race, by the end of that year, you know, we had scored points several times, which is obviously you have to finish in the top 10 to score points, top eight to score points. It was a Formula One point system. And in the final race of the year in Monza in Italy, we're running third, right? We're finally in a position for a podium, and I was loving the car of Monzo.

I was having the greatest time of my life. And guess the name of the man who wrecks me out of a podium position? My parents were there. Everyone I thought my life was over. It was horrible. Valtieri Botas. And I was like the Mercedes Formula One driver now. I remember a former one driver.

And to this day, I look at that guy. I'm like, you, son. Yeah. Can't let it go. I can never let it go. And it's funny because I still laugh about it with him to this day because he had already won the championship that year. But like that those are the guys that we were racing. that we were racing it. It's like this, this was like not a group of, you know,

idiots over there, you know what I mean? And so thankfully, like at the end of that year, a Formula One team then finally signed me to then fund my rest of my racing year, which was the Force India Formula One team at the time, which was really, honestly, that was like the craziest thing ever. Talk about it. I mean, well, I had, I was like, I was disappointed of myself, obviously, but I'd come back again and did two Indy Lights races in the middle the year and we were fast yet again like got right back into it competitive and i was like man this is uh like it still was kind of a weird decision but but my dad had kind of made my dad's a very good salesman i would say and he knew a lot of the folks at the force india team at the time and they

had kind of been watching what was going on because again there was some interest in having an american in formula one like at the time not as much as there is now but like at the time it was a really interesting conversation and so those guys had seen kind of the progress that we'd made and said, okay, we need to put you with the top team now, which at the time, I was with Carlin, which I love Trevor Carlin, and they gave me an incredible chance in IndyCar to be competitive, which is amazing. But at the time in GP3, we were not competitive. Like, it was a very tough situation. And so for the, for 2012, they put me with the ART team, which is a French team owned by Nicholas Tot, who manages a lot of the, you know, a lot of Formula One drivers.

You know, it was, it was the best team. Okay. And that was when I knew. I had to do it. But it was essentially, it was tough because jumping into a French team, the best team, and they immediately were kind of like, well, we don't know about this guy. You know what I mean? What is that? So let's step back a minute. So I've always felt that there was a way that the F1 or European drivers, particularly, maybe the industry,

even the fans, the opinion of American drivers, what am I? I, what is the truth? I could literally talk about this for weeks. Like, because it's, it's wild because I went over there and saw it firsthand, right? Like, you get talked about just, like, differently. And you're just like, well, why? Like, I understand if we would go over there and, like, suck. Like, all of us were, like, awful.

But, like, to be fair, like, Scott Speed was really good when he was over there. And, like, Alex Rossi was, like, really good in both, you know, GP2 and World Series by Runo at the time against guys that, you know, Daniel Ricardo, in Formula One now. And like, you know, I was on the podium 13 times, like, in F3 and won two races on the poll. Like, it's not like, it's not like we were bad, you know what I mean? But it's just this general opinion that it's like, it's not for us.

And I don't know why that is because it's not based on anything. Like, I understand we obviously, America's live a bit of a different lifestyle in certain ways, you know what I mean? Like, it's a bit of a different place. We get it. But it's, it's just. tough to go over there because, again, you're thrust into an environment where it's their environment. And so, like, it's not like you can defend yourself very aggressively. You're just

kind of like, all right, yeah. I wonder if, like, Daniel Suarez can relate to how he may feel his experience is gone in NASCAR, right? Yeah, maybe. It's been sort of this uphill, you know, got to prove it every day kind of thing, right? Yeah. Do you think that there's people in that sort of, that European circle that want Americans to be great? I really have no idea. I would love to think so because at the time, I have to give a credit to a lot of the guys at Force Indy. They were great to me.

There were a lot of people who were awesome. Bob Fernley was my main guy who believed in me, and he ran my dad in Formula One, and he believed in me, but also, you know, they are very tough. It's like, unless you win this, you're out. That's it. And so, like, I understand that. And you have Otmar,

Otmar Safnar as well, who's at Alpine now at their team. He was at Force India when I was there. You know, he's a great guy, but I think, I don't know. I wish I had, like, until it's proven to me, because even, like, the Haas team, I don't consider that an American team. Really? I don't, like, because that guy, Gunter Steiner,

has said so much awful stuff about American drivers. I'm like, you literally have. an American flag on your car. Like what are we doing here? Like what? Like someone in the PR department tell this guy to stop talking like that. I have a theory. Maybe it's this.

Maybe it has less to do with how they view American racers or American racing. And more it's just how the rest of the world views America to begin with, right? Like if they think that America has this arrogance, I don't know. I mean, I've been overseas once. And yeah, I gathered it too. Maybe I felt like, wait, is it me that's so over-thinking this, or are they being rude? Wait a second. What's going on?

And maybe it's just, maybe that's just the way it is. It doesn't matter if it's racing or not. It's just they think that we're arrogant. And they might be right. They could be. Yeah, but it's funny because there are, like, I even met some young engineers who are American kids like that were working for Red Bull, working for Force India. And I was like, oh, that's really cool that you guys are doing this. And they're like, yeah, we love it.

But like, I, and I, and I, and obviously now we know that. America is wildly influenced by Formula One, you know what I mean? It's, you know, the most popular it's ever been. But I just, until someone proves that they're willing to, like, accept the fact that an American could be good in Formula One, like, I don't believe that anyone will get a proper shot at it. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, someone just say, okay, we see Colton Hurda might be one of the most talented young guys out there right now, or we see, let's say, Logan Sargent, who's part of the Williams

driver academy right now. I don't know the guy, but like, he looks like he's doing pretty good an F2, so like, let's give him a proper shot at it, you know what I mean? And I just, I want to see someone get like a proper chance and made it, like, make me, lie to me even if you want, but make me believe that you might believe in this young American kid. And if he ends up sucking, well, then you're right, you know what I mean? But like, if he's really good, then like, like, wow, I don't, it just, it boils my blood

because, like, we went over there and we won. I have so many trophies from that place, and people forget about it, or, like, you don't, like, it's just, and at the time, you're like, if you finish second or third or something, like, well, I see it the next one, you know, I'm like, oh, that was pretty good day still, honestly, like, it was all day, and even, it was just, that part of my life is such an interesting, like, just, it was tough. So who, it was fun to win over there.

When you win over there and you beat all those suckers, it was fun. I imagine. So you think Colton, is a guy or one of the guys that has, that would be if you were going to push a chip into the fight, right? He's the guy. I would say so. Yeah.

And so is there not a part of you? I mean, for me, when I think about it, when I think about it, yeah, it's exciting to having, it's exciting to think about a guy like Colton getting that opportunity. But my concern immediately goes to he's not going to get the opportunity. Exactly. He's not going to get a fair shot. The fair shot. And then I hate to lose him for what he could be here.

I completely agree. Because I think there's a matter of testing Colton like McLaren did at Porta, in Portugal, on some older car, you know what I mean? And like, everyone can speculate on, well, I think we were, I think he was good. But like, okay, what's really, like, that's not a real comparison yet. You know what I mean? Like, you can always tell when someone's good or not, like, in a test, whatever it is. But until you put them actually out there in the race environment, like, you don't,

or at least get him experience, right? But I think Colton is for sure one of the most talented Americans there is out there right now. I mean, he just does stuff that were just all of us. And even in like the IndyCar group chats with the people who were like, I don't know how he did that. Yeah, I mean, it's just like it's something that's really, really impressive. And he's so young. So like give him a shot. Why does Michael want to have a Formula One team?

After, you know, he went over there and raced and that was a difficult thing. Yeah, yeah. No practice. Didn't get a lot of. of laps in the car and had had a hard time sort of just trying to learn the circuit and then have a great experience yeah well michael's very smart and he's a very good businessman now and he's building a 200 million dollar race shop in indianapolis so their their business is very strong currently and i think the next step is going to formula one and they have a lot of great partners in that team right now

as well i i really enjoyed driving for michael it was you know it was only two races but like really cool to be able to say you drove for Andretti and like it was one of my best Indy 500s at the time with those guys. But you also can see how professional of a group that is. And I really hope it happens. You know what I mean? But if you got Stefano Domenicali coming out saying like, nah, we don't need these guys. It's like, what do you? Why? Why not? Why would you? Yeah. It's just mind-blowing me because it's such a big market. Like this is a big market. Even if you don't like us. If not now, win. If even if you don't like us, everyone loves money. So like what if we bring more money. to the series and like the drivers get paid more and everyone gets paid more what's the problem as big as if one's blown up in in the states i mean why this seems to be like the this is the time yeah let's get

back to your career you um you're driving you get paired up or partner with this f1 outfit right what how what happens seemingly going in the right direction how do you end up back in the states why did why did things not work out well very interesting but so the the formula one program was good because in that first year that I was with the top team, right? It kind of, it's a, it's a completely different situation. And we had won a race. We'd won the first race right out the gate. But I also was making some mistakes. I had a few crashes. I had some things happened that I was just like, I was just making mistakes. Wow. I don't know. But I saw, I was working with a psychologist in that off season between 2012 and 2013 because the Formula One team

was like, all right, well, you know what? That was your first year with a good team. It was good. Like, I don't know where I finished the championship, like, fifth or six. Like, we weren't bad. There were still 30 cars, right? But we were going to come back for a third year with ART, the best team, and we're going to win the championship, or I was done in Europe.

So I saw, like, a psychologist over the off season, like, really worked on my mind a lot, like tried to work on, you know, focusing in on starts. Like, the race starts, standing starts were a tough thing for me. And so I really needed to figure that out. And then 2013 was one of my, I was one of my, I, would say one of my, like, proudest years that I've had in my career because going up against, you know, guys like Danny Kiviat, who obviously just made his NASCAR Cup series debut recently, but he was a formula, he ended up in Formula One.

Carlos Sines Jr. was racing against us. He was in, he's at Ferrari, obviously now. Jack Harvey, who's an IndyCar, he was in that championship at the time, guys who have made it in sports cars in very, very, like, really good field, like a very, very good field. And I was, I was leading the championship that year. I had been, I'd won one. one race was on the pole and was on the podium like six times. So we were very consistent. If I won the championship, I was going to go straight to GP2 then the next year and then like be more of a reserve driver role with the Formula One team, which is obviously that would have been like amazing. Because at the time, I was doing straight line testing for the teams. Like I was

driving the Formula One car. I was going to the airfields doing the different tests in the car, which was like amazing for me. That was a dream as a kid. You know, as American kid driving a Formula one car. Like that was awesome. But we got to Monza, the second to last race. And, and, you know, And one of my best tracks was Monza. I love Monza. And got a great start. So the way those races worked, right? You qualify for the first race.

There's 30 cars, whatever it is. And then the second race is a reverse grid race. So if you finish eighth, you start pole for the second race. And then wherever you finish, the rest is where you start as well. So we start the race. We qualify like fifth or six or something. Get a great start. Get down the inside.

And there's one guy who in the middle of the pack who misses the brake zone. And I don't know if anyone's familiar with the Monza. a racetrack, but it's a very, very long straight into a first-gear chican. This guy flies, I'll never forget his name, Dino Zamperrelli, flies in through the grass, wipes out about everyone in the first chican. And I had almost got by. Like I had just, someone had just made contact with, like, my right front tire. But I got out of the chican and I was second. And I was like, I was exactly where I needed to be. Like, at that point, I was, like, leading the championship by, like, 15, like a lot of points.

And the right front tire was punctured. And so I finished last in that race because we, we basically, they're only 30-minute races, right? So we couldn't finish. Like, yeah, if you come in to change the tire, you're done. And so then the guy who wins that race is Danny Kiviat, who then takes a huge championship lead, Red Bull, obviously. And then the second race, still to this day, I think is one of the best races of my career

because I started like 29th or something. And in like 13 laps or something, we finished 8th, set fast as long as long as, lap of the race and like I was just driving my butt off like just trying so hard but again setting fastest lap and finishing eight that's three points compared to like a win it was 25 so it just separated everything and so instead I finished third in the championship and that was it even in the last race you know I finished like fourth and third or something like that two you know solid races again but we lost the championship and that was it all the support from the formula one team was over and life changed like very dramatically after so all the guy the guy that wins the championship

gets the next opportunity, the guys that run second, third, fourth, fifth, they all get plane tickets. I mean, pretty much because Carlos Sines, I think he finished like fifth in the championship that year, and obviously we know where he is now with Ferrari. But Danny, yeah, Danny was Red Bull already, Danny Kiviet, or Kviet, whatever you, however you say, the same Russian guy. He went straight to Formula One either the next year or the year after that. But yeah, like two of those guys or three went to Formula One, and then like two or three of the other guys went to, are you glad that you didn't go to formula one uh when you watch formula one now i would have loved a proper shot at it because like i i really do think that at the time like in the and the trajectory that

i was on and the things that i was learning i was going the right way to understand it and to to do at least the best job i could have done in it you know what i mean and i think at the time there was formula one wasn't as popular in america it wasn't but there was because like austin was like just coming around, like the USGP at Cota was like just starting up. And so there was some excitement around it. But yeah, I would have loved to have to have at least, at least got a shot at it for sure. What were driving those cars like, even on the straight line deal? That was awesome. I mean, like, how would you describe it to people that will never have that opportunity? Well, I mean, the interesting thing about it is we were running one car at these

tests, right? But there's like 40 guys in the car. You know what I mean? And they're like every, there's like four guys per tire, you know, whatever. I didn't get out of the car all day, but like you're well taken care of. Everything is like, you know, it's just, it's just the highest level, right? So it's, it's, but it's also, you know, people are spending $400 million on stuff. So it was, it was what you would expect if you're spending that much money, I would say. But the car. Did the expense and the money that's in your head, I mean, like, I could never see you enjoying that experience because of just the amount of money that

you're now responsible for even going in a line. Yeah. I mean, it would be, to me, it could play with the mentally weak. I mean, you'd have to have some. Oh, you got to be ready for it. You gotta be, yeah, yeah, exactly. But it was also, like, I'm a guy who, like, I'm a race fan at heart, right? So, like, I was like, this was cool.

Like, can I have my head red? I wanted to take, like, souvenirs home. I mean, like, stuff like that. But the car, I mean, the car was, I was the V8 era still, so, like, they still sounded cool before they didn't sound cool. And it was, it was an awesome time. in life but yeah it was it wasn't meant to be which is totally fine because i love indigar racing well so on a level of one to 10 or on a scale one to 10 how dejected were you to come back oh it was that was a

tough time in life because like it was because both my dad and i didn't really know what to do because again a lot of this sport is relying on the funding that you have right and we we didn't really have that like it's not like we got back home and we were going to go racing because we could you know I mean, it was like, well, who do we call? You know what do we, how do we do this? So it was definitely a tough spot in my life for sure. Because we also didn't let go. Like we still stayed in Europe a little bit in 2014.

So let's talk about that. So in 2013 you got a chance to make your IndyCar debut for AJ Foyt. How did the hell that happen? I mean, you're in the middle of doing this Europe thing. Yeah. It was very interesting. It all started with like at the end of 2012, 2013, we had kind of made the decision to go back to GB3 again with A.R.T.

like with this program that we were going to be in, I'm going to be a Formula One driver in two or three years, right? We're going to sort it out. And I just won this championship in India as well, this like Formula 2000 championship in India that they invited us over to do, which was great fun, honestly, wild experience. But Larry Foyt calls me at like four in the morning. Like I'm in India.

I'm literally in India. He's like, hey, man, what are you doing like December like 13th? I'm like, I don't know. What do you mean? He's like, well, Takuma can't, because Takuma Sato was, driving for FOIA at the time. He was like, Takuma can't get in the country for some visa reason or something right now. Like, we need someone to test the car. Like, would you do it? And I said, for sure. Like, I was like, I didn't even have to call my dad. I was like, yep, sign me up.

And so it was really just kind of an opportunity to test. And the test went really well. And so after that, you know, like, I had told them, I was like, hey, man, like, I'm still like, I'm on this Formula One trajectory. And they're like, well, is your month of May, like, free? And I said, Yeah, yes. And they had had a plan to run the second ABC supply car at the time, the 41 car. And so they were like, yeah, we'd like you to do it. And I said, yep, sign me up. And it just happened to work perfectly because we raced in Barcelona and Spain like rookie orientation day, like weekend.

And so I actually had to miss rookie orientation, which is like not, I was frowned upon, if you're a rookie. to race in Europe. And it went well. And then I get right, like literally like a night of sleep and then boom, right in the Indy car first day, like on the Oval. And I mean, again, one of the, that was just one of the coolest experiences ever. But that whole year of 2013 was just like the craziest year ever because like we did Indy lights.

We raised the Indy 500. Raced, you know, F3 like right after the Indy 500 went right back over and won the next race. So there was a lot that was going on. But that really, that really started burning a fire. for IndyCar in my heart that still to this day, obviously, burns aggressively. In 2014, you went to GP2. Yeah.

With the bottom. Yeah. With a team that wasn't very competitive. Yeah. And so how long did you run that car? Did you run the whole year? Well, that was the first year that I was asked to launder money, which I've never experienced in my life before.

But sometimes we're going to need some detail. Yeah. Yeah, well, I got asked if I had a Panamanian bank account. And I said, well, no, I don't, I don't know what those are. And obviously this team, like, everyone's trying to get funding in some way. And someone had wanted to figure out if we could send a certain amount of money to my Panamanian bank account. And we get it in cash. And then I bring it to somewhere else.

I think that's illegal. I don't think that's legal. And I remember calling my business advisor at the time. It was still been a longtime sponsor mine. he's like, yeah, no, don't do that. I was like, all right, well, great. But it was one of those teams that they needed a driver. And I had obviously, like, had some success over there.

I knew the tracks. And to this day, still, that team owner is a great guy. Like, I'll never forget him. I lived in Italy that year a little bit, like, near the team owner's house, like in where Aristotle grew up, like, his tiny town of Padoba, Italy, and, like, his wife owned a restaurant there, you know what I mean? Like, it was a wild experience. But, like, the cars, like, when you got to Jeep, you.

too. The equipment was definitely, there was a difference in equipment. And it was, it was tough to take. But the cars were awesome, like awesome cars to drive. I'll never forget, I just looked at these, for some reason I tripped over these results sheets the other day, but like Monaco, 2014, that was like, we finished the points at Monaco, and the team had like never finished the point. We finished 10th. And that 29 car field or something like that at Monaco. And the team was like, I'll never forget the guy, the main guy who funded the thing. He was in bright red pants all like in pit lane, like just this super overly like just excited rich guy from Venezuela who was just having hit the time of his life because we scored points that day. And I look at the results. She is like,

me finishing 10th, Alex Rossi was 11th. And I was like, yes, I beat Rossi too. It was like, it was one of those things that you had to beat the other American guy too. And it was such an interesting time. Like there were some great highs in that point. I was like, man, that was fun. But like, realistically, it didn't do anything for me. Like, I was just there. And, like, it didn't, it didn't, like, launch me into anything else. So I probably stayed a little bit too long in Europe. What is the opportunity in the United States?

So basically, I pretty much just launched myself back into America. You just said I'm coming home. Yep, coming back. Like, it was time. Why would you leave Italy, man? It sounds amazing. No. In some tiny little town in Italy.

No. No. No. I've been over there. Me too. Me and my wife took a vacation of France. It's amazing. Well, you weren't asked to launder money.

Yeah, I was going to say, and you might have done it. I was living in a Super 8 essentially. Okay, yeah. That doesn't sound so amazing. There was no lake. Yeah, Lake Como was far away. The Mediterranean Beach? No, no.

Yeah, Aristotle grew up in a Lakinta Inn, by the way. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, very, very similar. Everything was made of rock. I honestly, like, I was very happy to get back, but I was also in a place where I had no money. I was not making a living in. You could have got a job. It's a little shop.

The lady owned. Could have got. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I will. I was working at the time trying to earn money. But it was, it was definitely time to get back to America. The funny thing about that is you kind of look back on and you're like, well, I just thought IndyCar opportunities would just appear.

You know what I mean? And it's like, nope. That was not the case at all. And it was tough, man. We had to figure out, I remember when I came back to America, I had to raise $30,000 for an IndyCar test day. Good God. Like I was like, okay, I called everyone that I knew.

Marco Andretti even gave me $3,000 of his own money. I had several other people help out, but we raised the money to do a test with, well, it's McLaren now, but it was Schmidt-Petersson Motorsports back at the time. And I was like, this is it. Like, this is if I do this test, which, again, looking back on it now, it was never going to be. Like, I could have been faster than Michael Schumacher in that test, but I wasn't going to get to tribe. You're literally calling people up to ask for money. When you say raise money, what are you promising them in terms of why they should help you

raise this money? Great question. Just a kid with a dream. That was it. I mean, in other words, play the sympathy card and try to get their favor. I mean, like, I'm sure, Dale, you understand, but there's several different types of sponsorship in this game. There's the emotional supporter and then there's the marketing support, like the actual, we need stickers, we need pictures type thing. But there's also people who literally help you out because they love it and they love to be there for the ride. You know what I mean? So you were going after the emotional support. Yeah, because the car was all gray. I put like three stickers on it and I put Marco Andretti logo on top of my helmet. But that was about it. And still to this day, I have this, I have that helmet with his logo on it, which is quite funny.

But yeah, that was what I need to do. And honestly, that test day, like James Hinchcliff was my teammate during like on that day because he was driving for Schmidt at the time. And it was a great test. We were fast. There was like, 12 cars, so many cars down there, whatever. We were like, we were not worse than third or fourth. Like, we were quick. And like, I had not driven the car much. And I was like, yes.

And they were like, well, do you have $4 million? And I said, no. I said, I do not have that. Because that seat then went to Mikhail Alessian, the Russian guy who was very well funny. They had $4 million. He had more than that. Yeah. And so that was tough.

But it did create the opportunity for the Indy, 500 that year with that same team. And Smithfield, who sponsors Eric Almerloa now. Right. Yeah. Right. You had the bacon. I had the bacon wagon.

Yeah. Which, again, if you look back at old bad luck Conner's life in times, that car was going great until it burned to the ground before the green flag. Yeah. Yeah, what happened with that? What was the deal? One of the most devastating moments for sure in my career, which is like I've had a lot of weird, hilarious moments in my racing career, as every driver does, you know, at times,

you look back on things you're like, how in the world did that happen? Right. And we had a great car like all month long. Like I was like, this is my second 500, but it was only my second ever Indy car race, too. And I felt like I had some experience from my first year. Like we felt quick in practice and just solid. And we leave the grid like on the formation laps at Indy, you know, I'm a three by three. And Townsend Bell is starting right next to me.

And Townsend rolls up next to me. He's waving at me. He's waving at me like this. I'm like, what's going on? And I look in my mirror and there's smoke building up the back of the thing. We were fully on fire. Like, we were like, everything was on fire underneath the engine and, like, in the back of the car. And I guess I was told that fuel had leaked overnight because they filled the tank with fuel the night before

to, like, make sure it expands as much as possible the fuel tank to make sure we get as much as we can in there. And I guess it had leaked somehow. And so when we started, we obviously don't run the cars until the Indy 500. Like, we don't move the cars with the engine running until the race starts. the fuel just dribbled back and all got set on fire. God, that's got to be so awful. I mean, you think about the buildup and the money that we had raised. Like, it was, you know, Smithfield spent almost like, you know,

400 to half million bucks on this event. They had never done the Indy 500 before. Like, we were super excited because they were in NASCAR. Like, we love that. Like, I was like, that's awesome. You know, they were on the 43 car and I was like, that's great. And like, we'd love to get you to the Indy 500. And like, they never came back.

You know what I mean? I was like, but, like, but, It was, it was, but they're a company who did it, you know, for the marketing and for like, they did, I was at a bacon eating contest, the race morning, you know what I mean? It was, it was awesome. It was such a great experience. But I was like, man, we didn't get to race for them, you know what I mean? And, and that was, that was, that was tough. That was a tough moment to take, for sure. So all the way up until this year, you've sort of made, you know, scratch and clawed. Yeah. Right. Before this season, what was the best, one of the better opportunities? Like, what was the first time you got in a car? You're like, this is a winning car. There was, so several times my rookie year in IndyCar with Dale Coin Racing, Michael Cannon was my engineer who's Scott Dixon's engineer right now, and they're obviously competing for a chance.

They're not dumb. And Michael was a believer in me. And still to this day, Michael is one of my favorite people in the paddock, because anytime he'll see an article, because, like, I've obviously struggled. There's no, there's no doubt. Like, everyone knows if you follow Indycar racing. I've not had the best couple years in this aeroscreen era of car, but Michael always text me, he's like, you are a rocket ship.

Like, it's not, like, always have faith in yourself. Because, like, he, when I was with him, we didn't have the best equipment at the time. Like, Coin at the time, we were low-budget team. Like, I remember my sponsor, it was very small dollars compared to everyone else, but we were on the podium my rookie year, which everyone just went crazy about David Maluccas on the podium, his rookie year with Coin as well.

I was like, well, we did that also. five races into the season, and we were almost on the podium again in Watkins Glen, we finished fourth because we ran out of fuel in the last corner. You know, it's like very, very small things, and we passed the most cars of anyone that year. Like, and that was, I was like, man, that was awesome. Like, I loved that era of car, too, with a lot of downforce. That was, that was what I really, really wish I could kind of go back to sometimes. Yeah.

What is it about the car that's been difficult this time? It's tough because obviously with all the arrow kits, right, where the air kit days, we had a lot of downforce, a lot of different pieces you can put on it. And with the arrow screen now, we have less pieces because of the universal arrow kit, which I think is great for everyone, obviously, cost cutting for the manufacturers and stuff like that. And I always get in trouble for how I talk about the aeroscreen. But it's obviously for safety, right? Like we've seen some very, very tragic accidents in IndyCar related to head injuries, right? Like that's what we want to prevent because we want. people to be going home to their families after every weekend, right? We want that to happen. And they've done that. Like, they've done a great job with the development of the aeroscream, but it's heavy. And the chassis wasn't designed for that piece, right? Like, the chassis was designed, like, as a car, as an open wheel race car without a windshield, right? So that just, it just, it changes a little bit, the weight distribution of the car, changes a little bit mechanically how it works. And it's quite a lot of weight over the driver. And it's definitely affected several

different drivers in different ways. Obviously, Scott Dixon is still competing for championships. He's going to figure it out. But there are sometimes where Scott Dixon qualifies 19th, and you're like, why? You know what I mean? I think it's narrowed the window up of operation for the car and like getting the ideal

lap and the ideal race scenario. And it's also helped the young drivers, I think, because they don't know what the car was. It's like the next gen cup car. Exactly. That's right. The guys jump in it and they go, this is fine. Yeah. Exactly. Like old veterans are like, this ain't good.

Yeah. I mean, that's why I said. I grew up an old veteran complaining about it. But it's, it's been a challenge for me. Like, I'm not, like, I'm pretty honest with myself. Like, I get it, right? But there's been a lot of places where we've almost won races

in this year and last year and a couple different places where we've shown really well. Yeah. Especially at the Indy 500. You know, I feel like two years in a row we've had, like we've been in with a shot to win, which is realistically all you can ask for. I mean, if you show up at the Indy 500 and you have a chance

to win that race, that's the best feeling in the world. And like, that's what I love about, that's what I love about our team, like, Bitt Nile and Ed Carpner, like, when we show up to the Indy 500, like, we know we've got a good unit there. Yeah. How come you, so when you're telling me about your career, you know, you're on this sort of path and everything's going, you know, you literally walked away from pretty great opportunities in the IndyCar series.

And now you've spent the last six years trying to, you've been. to prove yourself. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Even now, like you're this hometown hero when you go to the Indy 500, but it's almost like all those years never happened. Yeah.

People forget. It's the weirdest thing. Yeah, it's kind of sad, to be honest, because, like, obviously, there's people that, like, have either just discovered motorsport recently as well who only see, you know, whatever results have been in the last couple years, right? They only know you as this scratching and clawing guy. Exactly. And that's literally what I've done, though.

Like, it's, it's, you go from being fired at the end of 2017, well, not being fired, being bought out, essentially, of my ride in 2017 with Foyt, to then having no races. Like literally in 2018, I was, like, driving the two-seater. I was, like, living at Hinch's house. When you say driving the two-seater, what are you talking about? Like literally just showing up for a couple hundred bucks a day to try to be at the racetrack and taking fans and, yeah, yeah, doing the Indicartos and stuff.

Yeah, which was great. And I still love that program. They still let me drive sometimes, which is fun. But it's something that, like, I just did anything. I remember, in 2018, I think I drove a van before the barber race on a pace lap, like, just for fun. Like, it was just, it was like part of the pre-race ceremonies. But like, I did it. Like, I did whatever you did whatever you had to do because, like, I love IndyCar racing.

I'm a huge fan of it. But, like, I so badly want to win races in IndyCar, right? And I truly believe that I can. And, like, we've come so close so many times to, like, that's why that fire doesn't go away. You know what I mean? Because, like, if you were just finishing 20th every race and you're, like, really awful, like, I see that fire going away. But, like, when we qualify on pole or, like, we qualify on the first two rows like at Iowa this year, or if we lead most lapsed to Indy 500 last year, and then we lead again this year, and then you're, like, one pit stop away for finishing the top three.

Like, it's like, well, how do you, how do you, how, well, of course you have that fire. Because you're like, you're so. close to certain things, you know what I mean? And, yeah, it's been a grind. But, like, I love, I love IndyCar racing. And, like, I think it's such a great series right now. And, like, I've seen it come from, you know, wherever it was when I started, to now, I mean, you have Jimmy Johnson, you have Roman Grojan, you have Marcus Erickson,

you have all these guys from such a Scott McLaughlin's from such a diverse background of motorists. I got to race against Fernando Alonzo, you know, like, all this crazy stuff that you just, like, it's such a cool thing. and I just hope that more people begin to see that also as well. You raced in the truck series in 2020 at Las Vegas. Oh, yeah. What did you want to do that for?

I'm not going to lie. I love NASCAR racing. Like, I really do. And also with my love of ovals as well, oval racing, I don't know if it's, if people would be surprised to hear how like closely I pay attention to like every cup race and like every truck race and like every X-Finity race. I watch all the sessions I can, every single one. Because I love the style of racing at times.

Obviously there are some places that don't race as well as others. But I love how the cars look, sound, and obviously now that I've driven the truck, I like how it was a really interesting, just different feel. But it was really fun. And it was something that I love to push myself to things that I've not done before and like new opportunities, you know what I mean? because I love driving as well. Like that's why like I raced, you know, the Chili Bowl, did some dirt racing.

You did. Never done that before. It looked like a complete clown doing it. But I did it. Like, and I learned and I've gone better at Oval's ever since. You know what I mean? So like I just love learning. And I feel like when you put more and more experience in your toolbox, like you have more, you know, in the long run eventually.

How did the truck opportunity happen? Well, Travis Pistrana and I got drunk one day and decided that we wanted to go truck racing. This is every truck story right here. Exactly. Yeah. No, it was honestly, through the whole pandemic, like the 2020 year, all of us basically just, I mean, and I even text you about maybe doing a couple of these races in the LCQ league, we called it, this little online racing league.

Yeah. I sent you the league invite, no big deal. You didn't do it. It's fine. I get it. There was a lot going on at the time for the online racing community, right? It was crazy. And so, like, every week we would get together.

It was me, Travis Mastrana, Chad Reed, Ricky Carmichael, Landon, Calichael, Landon, Castle, Parker Clingerman, James Hinchcliffe, Alex Rossi. It was like a wildly diverse group of drivers and riders. Sounds amazing. It was awesome. But like Travis would like try to do it every week. And Travis loves to live life on the edge all the time. So you never know what shape he's going to show up in. And one time we, you know, we were racing trucks on high racing, whatever was. And he was like, hey, we should do this like in real life, like all of us. He was thinking like eight of us in a series. and he like legitimately started doing research. How much would it cost to get like eight NASCAR trucks for like a half?

It was like me, Alex Hinch Hinge, Hitch. And then we started thinking about like, well, Alex has Honda commitments. He can't do it. Hinch Kegg Hidded is. Like we're like legitimately thinking and we ended up basically on like just me and Travis could do it. And I was like, how much money do we need to raise? He's like, I'm going to start working on it. He's like, all right, we got to raise 150 grand.

I'm going to go here. You go there and let's see what we can find. So we, and he obviously knows the guys really well at Nice, Cody Eiff, all over there, like, great people. They were like, yeah, sure, like, we'll make it happen for you guys. And it was honestly one of the most fun experiences. And that was a tough time in life, too, because, like, there was obviously no, like, no one could attend that race. And, like, we had no practice or anything, that first truck race that we did. So it was very, like, not awesome.

But, man, the experience of trying to get that race going and, like, iraicing was a partner with us, which was so cool. So you showed up at Las Vegas to run a truck and the green flag drops and that's your first lap. First lap. God, I don't mind. I could, I had to figure out first how to get the steering wheel straight. Right. Because we all had to stop on the backstreet, which I didn't know. Obviously, in Indy car, we just put the wheel on and there's one position, right?

Yeah. Not in the stock cars. Like, I had to, I was like, I have no idea what, I don't know where my wheels are. Like, I don't know what's going. And I, that was an interesting experience. Sounds dumb. someone who's never driven one of those before. It's a new experience to me.

So you started, where'd you start? In the back, somewhere way in the back. And so when the green flag comes out and you're going down the front straightaway, are you like, I'm not sure how much throttle to be using right now. Like when you go down into one? Well, I'd never race to Vegas. Never, never. Yeah, right.

So like, at what point in the race did you go, oh, this is starting to make sense? So it wasn't until probably like, I'd say halfway through the, second stage maybe because like the first stage i'm just like i have no idea what i'm doing don't crash don't die you know what i mean like it was like oh we have no idea what's happening but it was such an the biggest thing for me was like figuring out how much yaw to like drive at and like how much downforce like the side of the truck creates and like how much air like where that goes you know i and it's fascinating to me like i i loved it because like i i really drive through the seat of my pants and like I can feel everything and I'm like I'm like feeling this thing slide up the track but like then

it's like rear movement but then then it gets tight and it's like okay well if I drive in a little bit differently like this now it's way free at the center but like it's just there's so much more on like how you drive it I think which is fascinating and I I loved every lap of that race it was so much fun did the truck drive okay it did I thought niece gave me a great truck yeah I thought it was fun but But what's really interesting is that when I came back to do it the second time, we had a really fast truck. And like that was like that was when I kind of thought, oh, maybe like, maybe my truck was like good, but like it can be like this good, you know what I mean, which was I thought was into.

I obviously then wotted it up into a million pieces and set the thing on fire. But it was going great until that point. It was going great until then. Jesus. But it was fun, man. It gave me so much more respect as well for the whole stock car community because I watch, you know what I mean? I just so badly want to feel like what it's like I would love to do the Daytona 500 someday. Like that's on my bucket list of things to do like I want to race a car somewhere, particularly on an oval because I think it's fascinating to see how the air works.

Yeah. The air is like, I mean, even just watching over the weekend at Daytona, like I'm like, how did that happen? And you're like, how did that happen? You know, like I just, I love that the scientific side of it, you know what I mean? Yeah, when you talk to a lot of it? Yeah, when you talk to a lot of fans have like this sort of wish list of, oh man, I'd love to see this driver, this driver, this driver. And anytime anybody in IndyCar or F1 or anybody in a different discipline mentions NASCAR,

everybody is, oh, you got to get him in the car, put him in the car, put him in there for a race. You know, and everyone assumes that you guys are going to go right to a road course. Exactly. But none of you all want to run a road course. Like none of you. I mean, I would. Well, yeah, I'm just saying, like if you have, your choice. You're like, no, I don't want to run a court. I've done that all my life. I want to go to,

you know, Vegas. I want to go to, Las Vegas now. That's what I'm talking. And so like all these, you know, like Daniel Ricardo and all those guys are like, yeah, they're like, man, I want to run oval. I don't want a damn road course if I'm going to go do it. But it was funny. I was, you guys had a great episode with Justin Marks. Like, I like Justin a lot. Justin came to to my motorhome at the ND 500 this year. Like we just, he just wanted to come by. And I've known Justin for a long time and we were just sitting talking, talking about, you know, what's going on. Like, I was kind of asking about Cup stuff. And obviously, you know, his team was doing a pretty incredible job this year. And he started telling me about the whole project 91 stuff.

It wasn't public yet or anything yet. And I was like, that's really cool. I was like, can I, like, what is going on there? But like, I love what Justin is doing. Like, that whole team has done so much cool stuff and they've been so fast. Like, a team can do really cool stuff and, like, do great stuff for partners. But if they're not fast and they're not winning races, that's kind of harder to sell. But like not only other than winning races, like with both of their guys, but like then to put a really competitive car out there for Kimmy. I thought Kimmy was doing a great job before he got watered up in that wreck. But like, that is awesome. I think for the sport as a whole, you know what I mean? Hey, so your buddy's with Noah Gregson. Yeah. So were you

watching the race, you know, I know it was delayed by, you know, a day or whatever, but were you able to watch the end of the race? I did see it. Yeah. So when, Noah is now in the top five there towards the end of that race. What are you doing? Well. Because you can do got, but you got friends in NASCAR, man. Like a lot of people.

Yeah. Landon. I talk to Corey all the time. Right, right. So you got Landon up there. You got Noah up there. What are you thinking? Well,

the one thing that I do hate to see that all of those guys were wiped out. And like in that last. That was kind of sad. But like, then there's that part where it's like, that's kind of cool to see all these guys having a shot at it. You know what I mean? I think that's what makes it so fascinating to me sometimes is like, really anyone does have a shot at Daytona or Super Speed, like whether it's Talladega, whatever it is.

It was funny to see. Oh, no, I haven't talked to Noah since, but I did send him a picture of his face out here. So I'm curious to see. On the big picture. At the shop, yeah. So you're full time in how long is your deal right now? So we're finishing up year one of a two-year deal. And perfect world, what happens in the next five?

to 10 years with you. Oh, great question. I don't really know. I want to do this as long as I can. Like, I have a lot, like, I have a lot that I want to do. Like, I know I'm 30, which is like really weird to say. But like, young. Yeah, but I've only done four IndyCar seasons, like, or maybe coming to the end of my fist. So I haven't done a lot of, like, like, my career has been supremely sporadic since 2017. So, like, I've still, and like, every year that I go to certain places, like, I learned, like I put to use what I know. And like this year has been one of my better years statistically. Obviously, it's not where I want it to be overall.

But like a lot in a lot of ways, like we've, we've not crashed at all. Like we've been very minimal mistakes. Like the car has been very reliable. Like we've been, you know, we've done a lot of good things. But we're just lacking in certain areas that we know as a team. And I think, you know, in next year is all I can think about right now. Like I want next year to be, you know, the year where we're finally winning race. together. We're putting things together. We win the Indy 500. I want to do that really badly.

We come so close. Like it's so, so close. But I don't know. Part of me, like, in my heart, I want to go NASCAR racing at some point in my life. I really do. Like, I would love to, whether it's a season of trucks, whether it's a season of Xfinity, whatever it is. Like, I really, I would hate to get to, like, age later in my life and be like, darn it, I didn't get to go NASCAR racing for a season. You know what I mean? Because, like, I loved the the short times that I was in it, I loved it because I didn't feel like I was completely lost. You know what I mean? Like my Exfinity race that I did, I was like, oh man, I got to race against like Elliot Sadler and like Bill Elliott was in that race too. And like there's some guys,

like, I'm a big NASCAR fan. I thought that was really cool. And like I would love to race those cars at road courses, at ovals and kind of be a part of that scene. But I also have no idea what life's going to take me in the next couple of years. You do seem to take things in stride better than anyone I know. I mean, for real. I mean, listen, if we go back to the beginning of the conversation, you know, when you're talking about how, you know, your parents split, and then, you know, and then when you get your medical, you know, news in 14, I mean, like, I don't know, you do seem to have an ability to process things on the fly way better than most normal people. Thanks. No, I mean, I mean, life is good. I mean, honestly, like, I love this sport. It's done a lot to

try to kick me out of it, and it's been a, it's been really tough at times. But there's something about when you strap in that race car and you get to line up on the grid with, you know, only, there's only, at the Nd500, there's only 33 of us they get to, you know, do that every year out of seven billion people in the world. You know what I mean? It's, it's really special. And even just being at the track, there's something about it that's like, yep, I don't know where else I would be. I literally can't even think of, like, my life if I'm not at a track, whether it's whatever race it is. You know what I mean? So we'll see what happens.

I like being where I'm at, but I want to be better every day. Like, that's the goal is be better every day and do more and more. The podcast. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Why do a podcast? I just like racing. I mean, honestly, that was, I've been thinking about it for years, actually, which is oddly enough.

Like, I've done podcast interviews, right? Like, I've done, I've been a part of things. And I was like, man, but it was always like, I got to have someone else to do it with. And then I go through all my friends and I'm like, well, they're not going to be committed. Or you go through any of the driver. You're like, well, they're not going to do it for that long. You know what I mean? They'd be a good guest.

But it's just, it's fun to try to be able to, if I can, not saying that like I'm going to be the guy that's going to help anything, but like, I want to try to see this sport that puts food on my table, right, grow more and more so I can put more food on my table, you know what I mean? And like, and maybe expose this thing that I literally live and breathe to more people. Because I think it's such a great sport and great community to get involved in, I think, as well and we need more and more young people first of all like for the race teams as well like our team you know they're one of the shortages in indica right now is just like people right like we need

people on the teams to be you know to be getting out there and working with the teams but also we want the young young fan base young people to get involved and just it's just fun also i like talking about motorsport so um joey your partner on your podcast how did y'all meet so joey and i met, oddly enough, years ago. Because Pat McAfee, I was a former opponent of the Colts, he's got, you know, big podcast, big, you know, big football guy. Pat had like a lot of, you know, several interns at his, at his establishment there in Indianapolis. And Joey being one of them, and like I obviously went in there where Pat a couple times was on his show very early on, met Joey, met Joey's wife. They're like both great people. And, and I just, like, I mean,

I just kind of loosely kept in touch with Joey, but obviously saw him more and more as he kind of exploded on the internet. And he's just always been cool to me. And we kind of just talked about, like, I did his internet videos every now and then. I was like, yeah, that's cool. You know what I mean? He's a funny guy.

And he just kind of sent me this text randomly one day, like, hey, like, have you ever thought about doing a podcast? And I was like, absolutely. And it just made sense. Like, it's just kind of one of those things that was like, yeah, you're the perfect person to do this with. You know what I mean? Because he's, you know, he's so, he's got so much content on the internet, right?

And he's got so much experience with what, what plays, what doesn't? you know what I mean? And I don't, but, like, it's, it's, I have the racing experience, you know what I mean? So it was kind of a, just, and he's been such a big race fan, and he's becoming even more of a big race fan that it works out quite well. So has anything you said on Speed Street podcast? My next question. Because we all know, he's so candid.

You're so honest. Listen, you are, you are why podcasts exist because people, no, listen, for real. And it's what made us so interested in Speed Street, because. I don't care about anything. If I feel like they're full of crap, then it's just not worth my time. And you just bring it. And so we all want to know,

especially now that you're with us, is we don't ever want to be the reason you get in trouble with your race team, right? So has anything you've ever said, have you been called into the principal's office? No, not yet. But I think what I try to do is basically, like, I love being honest with people,

but I also like to make sure, like, if I'm going to say something honest, I'm going to give some background to it. Like whenever I talk about the aerosreen, I like to say, like, hey, I'm happy about the safety. Like, I'm just telling you from an actual, like, scientific and math perspective, like what it does and how it's different and how it's been more challenging

for me personally. You know what I mean? That's my fault, right? It's me as a driver. But, yeah, people hate that stuff. You know what I mean? Because, like, there are certain things that you talk about, and you're like, nothing's got me in trouble.

I don't think. Well, not with the race team. Okay. So, but what about, I mean, listen, listen, you and Simon Pagino don't see eye to eye. No, no, not at all. And he's not the only one. Yeah. So, like, what about you, your approach to talking about your fellow competitors,

especially the ones that when you cross contact? Well, yeah. I'm glad you didn't say cross swords. Yeah. They're right there. Well, when we cross contact, whatever you just used there. Yeah. I mean, IndyCar needs a hundred times.

more emotion and anger than what we have currently. Because NASCAR has so much, like in the whole NASCAR Cup series, in the Xfinity series, there is so much emotion and I love it. People love it. What makes SportsCenter a lot? Well, people punching someone else or someone throwing something or something happening. Like, I'm sorry, like, some people don't like that, but it does get a lot of attention, you know what I mean? And like, why not be honest with people? Like, if you're mad at someone, go tell them you know what I mean like that's like we all put so much of our lives into this sport like why like of course you're going to be emotional about it you know what I mean and I think there's so much so many drivers in Indycar who like I know for a fact hate each other or like hate certain things that

happen and like well you're like well you know I'm just proud of my team and guys and so like can we just like someone throw a lawn chair at someone like just do something like I just like I don't care what it is no one's getting fired like clearly but like you might get a talking to about someone like, who cares? All right. So after the indie, after the indie 500, there's a party. Oh, yeah. It was in my mind. There was. Right. And that's, is that every, every Indy 500? For me. There's going to be. Well, I get, I want to everybody, I'm imagining in my head that like, the majority of the fields shows up. No. No. Only a handful of drivers show up. Yep. And all of them are friends.

Yeah. Except for maybe one or two. Well, I would say there's a very different, there's two different parties. There's the party for the folks that consider themselves at an upper echelon above me and my parties, which I feel is very unfair. Do you go to that one? No, no. So they don't tell me about that one. I am not invited to that one. I don't even hear about it until the next day.

All right. So there's a party where they serve caviar. Yes. And then there's your party. And then there's the man of the streets. Yeah, that's me. Where I'm inviting everyone. If you went to the race, you can come.

You know what I mean? Let's just use this as an example. You and Faroochie. Not great pals? No. We're not close. No, no. But you did invite him to the party?

Well, I invite everyone to the party. Right. So you did invite him to the party. Yeah, everyone's involved. And when he got there, what did you tell him? Well, there were some words exchanged there, obviously, because I, you know, we had experienced some inebriation. at the time. We're obviously hammering some beverages because we just celebrated surviving the greatest race of all time.

We didn't win, but we made some money. And yeah, it's just, it's one of those things that sometimes people rub you the wrong way. Why'd you have to call him out? Well, because I don't, I don't like one. You invited him to the party. I invite everyone to the party. I didn't like write a letter and put it in his mailbox. I know, but you invited to the party to make him feel like a complete shit. No, that's actually not what has. What happened? What happened then? Everyone is invited, but like, it's not like, it's at a nightclub, right? So everyone's got their separate areas. All right. You know what I mean? But here's what I said. I said that direct words. I said, I said, I think you can drive because I do think he can drive. I think he can drive. I think he's very talented, actually. But I don't like him. I said it to him. I said it to him. He's like, all right, I respect that. And I told his friends that too. And he had some friends with him? Yeah, of course. Yeah, I got the homies there. Everyone brings out the friends. And you were like, I want all this to be clear to all of you? Yep. I don't like him. Which, again, I don't mind. And I think, again, not many people will be honest about what they feel in IndyCar.

But I don't care anymore. Well, yeah, listen, look, we all appreciate the honesty, but 50% of the time that ends up in a fight. We're all clear about that, especially at a nightclub. Exactly. Yeah, if fists were going to be thrown, my team was going to win. You had to take, you had people that were going to jump in. Well, no, it was just me and Scott McLaughlin and Colner. Colton Herda.

The best American drive. We've already established. Did you go to Colton's, when Colton played the bar the night before or whatever? No, I did not, but he came out to our party on Saturday night after the race. Have you seen Colton play? I have not, but he is very talented at everything he does, so I'm sure he's quite good. I watched a little bit. I just watched it on social media.

I didn't go. Okay. But I saw, I gathered as much as I could because I used to play the drums when I was little or younger. Me too. I got a drum set when I was a kid, not bro. very talented. Me neither. I figured it out.

Me neither. But Colton is good at everything. And Colton, one thing I respect about him, is that Colton is a guy that is so wildly talented, but is also just like he's ready to just have a great time with the boys. And like, I love that. Like, he's just a normal dude. He shows up to everywhere wearing the same hat all the time.

It looks like he hasn't showered in two weeks. But we know he has because he's a respectable individual and he's going to go racing in Formula One. But like he's just a cool, normal dude. And he's probably making more money than anyone in IndyCar right now. He went to play... You think so? I don't know.

He went to play that little show, knowing that a lot of people like Jenna and other people are going to come, that probably not to say that she doesn't like that type of music, but he's playing his music for a lot of people that might not listen to that type of music, and he could care less. He's like, did you see, he just played his ass off? He's living his life. They just played their ass off, and it was hilarious. The interesting thing about life is when you're so good at something,

you can give a lot less of those Fs than other folks, I think, in certain areas. Which I love. I respect that. So when you go to the club and you walk up and tell somebody you don't like them, who are the boys that you want to be there in case the blows do start happening? It's a good question. See, I'm a lover or not a fighter. I'm never going to get into a fight, but who needs to be there so there's a guaranteed victory?

Are we talking driver-wise? Yes. Scott McLaughlin, for sure. Scott is, he's a all-in type guy. You know what I mean? If there needs to be something that is, you know, said or done, and he needs to be on your team. Again, another very talented driver and very talented in every aspect of his life. So Scott's our guy for sure, no matter what. Colton, I don't know if he's going to be a fighter, but Colton is just going to be there to watch and cheer people on, I assume. But other than that, no one else comes out. Wait, wait, wait. Will Power sat here and talked about how he likes to get in fights. He used to get fights on the time. I think you'd have to have all of the Australians. Right? They'd fight for fun.

Yeah, they are, they will throw. I wish I could, like, I wish I, sometimes I wish I was born 10 years earlier, and I would have been in, like, IndyCar in, like, the mid to late 90s, like, before social media and stuff like that. Yeah. Because there are a lot of stories that I hear about them, like, man, those guys are way cooler than we are now. And I just, I look back on that sometimes and like, again, like Willpower was probably one of those guys that like, again, going out on the race weekend, winning every, like, so

fast. Like Will Power, obviously one of the best qualifying guys in the history of IndyCar racing, right? But Will Power can probably have a great time, too. Well, I'm sure. Listen, anybody that's going to go double barrel to the control tower during a race to somebody that you probably would have, he could at least be your spokesperson in a fight. Exactly. You want that guy on your team, a thousand percent. I would think so. Is New Garden? I mean, he's built, but I don't know, man. It looks like he might have had a little too much of the good life.

Is he somebody who in time? I mean, we saw what he wore it to Kentucky Derby, and I'm like, uh-oh, we're not going to have a... For a long time in life, I could probably count on one hand the amount of days Joseph New Garden has ever consumed alcohol. And I was probably there for 95% of them. And he has a great time with his life. You know what I mean? but I think he, again, Joseph is one of those dedicated, you know, well, which is fine. It's obviously worked out for him.

I'm not saying my lifestyle clearly hasn't paid off the same. But he's, he, like, Joseph loves to have a great time when you can get him out there. And I respect Joseph for being the straight-edge sword guy that he is and the, you know, the Penske-Pensky perfect fella. But when you get a couple, you know, Tito sodas and an old Joe, he's going to have a great time with you. Yeah. Yeah. That's it.

He goes to Joe New Garden. No, Joseph with a pH. Yeah. Do you get a chance to drink any with Jimmy this year? So Jimmy did promise me a night out. Did you meet Jimmy Jam? So Jimmy, Jimmy owes me a bottle of champagne. You've got to meet Jimmy Jam.

That is an interesting guy. The amount of times I have FaceTime Jimmy Johnson at 1230 in the morning is hysterical. I have many screenshots of him not answering at 1230 in the morning after the race. And I'll always get a text It's funny because it's usually on Sundays and he'll text me at like Monday at like 6.30 in the morning. He's like, hey man, just had to send my kids off to school. Sorry, I missed your call.

I'm like, oh, I'm sorry, Jimmy. Like, we were just, me and Scott McLaughlin and Colour just having a great time. And Jimmy, you know, he said he was going to come out, but he's got, you know, he's a dad. He's an adult man. And he's got a life to worry about and probably less things to consume with a bunch of babies. I don't know.

He has his, he damn sure has his. moments, you know, throughout the year at some point, and you just have to be there when it happens. It's kind of like a comet, Haley's Comet. Lunar eclipse. It's a freaking amazing sight. I did get to drink, I think, with Jimmy once, and it might have been after your last cup race at Homestead. It was, like, when you were final full season, that was at Homestead, right, the last

race. So, like, I went down there on a last minute invite from Marco Andretti, and I was in Nashville the night before and I just kept on going south to Florida and I didn't have any clothes and I bought a Day Learn hard junior T-shirt. No, you didn't. At the store, at the airport, I think, or something. And it was way too small, but boy, was it a National Guard, ADA? It was a great-looking shirt and I wore that shirt for two days straight. Are you serious? And that night I actually had to borrow someone's jacket to go out to this nice restaurant in Miami because Marco was there, Jimmy was there, Alex Rossi was there

and I think that was the first night that I had cocktails of Jimmy Johnson was down there for your last cup race You wore the national guard Oh yeah The Dale Jr. shirt? I had the Dale Junior shirt

It was gray Yeah it was full art on front and back Had no clues. Way too small for me though It was a medium I'm a large for sure And it was you know It was hot so it was a little sweaty

But that was hot That is the only piece of DeLer &Rat Jr. That I think I have sadly Still got it I still got it somewhere in the house. It just occurred to me, I mean, because I was going to ask, you know, when you guys ever met,

but it just occurred to me. You both also shared the booth. I mean, he's a broadcaster now, too. Like, you're doing the SRX series. Did you enjoy that? You were good at it? Yeah, I loved it, honestly. Like, I think talking about racing is fun.

Like, I think you do a great job, obviously, because you have that first end experience, but you also, like, it seems like you really love it. You know what you love what you're watching. And, like, you have experience enough to, like, share with people what these guys are feeling. what they're doing here and there. And, like, I like to just try to do the same. Like, those guys in the SRX series, like, half of them I've raced against. Half of them I haven't.

Half of them I've just been fans up. You know what I mean? Like, I know they're history. So I really enjoyed that. And I have a lot of people that come up to me every race weekend who have watched them. Like, hey, we really enjoyed that. I'm like, well, thank you. That's cool.

Because I don't, like, it's my first time kind of doing that. I don't know if I was good or not. Yeah. I'm like talking about racing. Yeah. Getting in the broadcast and having no, no experience or no history doing it, man. Yeah, you don't. know what's a win and a loss.

Yeah, but like, thankfully, I had Alan Bestwick, right? Like, Alan Bestwick is, obviously, he's a, he's an experienced veteran. Yeah, and... Knew exactly how to take care of you. Oh, yeah. He was teeing us up well, but also he's a shoulder to lean on if you needed someone to fill the time, you know what I mean? Which is really cool. For sure.

Well, man, it's been a lot of fun talking to you. And, uh, it's, it's been great to become friends, you know? I appreciate that. Through a, through a, through a professional, a professional relationship. in our podcasting and all that and just a mutual respect we have for each other. I really appreciate you. And I'm thankful that you took some time today. I know you're in town doing some work, but thanks for coming over here so we can learn more about you.

No, I appreciate it, guys. Honestly, this has been really cool for me personally. And, like, the fact that you guys, you know, I didn't know who Mike was. And he calls me one day. And I'm like, you guys want to do what with our podcast? You know what I mean? It was really cool because, like, I love what you guys are doing? in here. I've been a huge fan. Like there's some of the interviews that you guys do,

people that I've never heard of before, but I listen to their full on story. And it's fascinating. And the questions that you guys have, the things you guys have done, this whole situation in here is wildly impressive. And it's just, and again, it helps the people that help us get to the track, like, enjoy what they're watching more. And it helps just the sport grow, hopefully. And so, like, I, I appreciate you guys giving us a chance for sure. And I know Joey would say the same thing. And it's, And honestly, I feel really special to be on this show. It's really cool because I listen to it like every week now, which is, which is really, it's really special.

So we, we appreciate it for sure. Well, you got a lot of people in the NASCAR industry. And I know you know this about your own IndyCar bubble that just really, really pull for you. And just love your personality and love who you are as a person. And so we're real lucky to be able to partner up with you. And I think, you know, I'll be honest with you. I'm talking in circles here, but I had nothing to do with the vision. Like, I've loved being a part of this podcast, and I love being a part of Dirty Mo Media,

but the vision for it, and the idea of what it could become is all Mike. That's awesome. So, you know, he really believes in what you guys are doing, and when I see what you're doing, it's just the same thing we were doing just a few years ago. And the opportunity for what you can become, man, is just wide open. and I'm I think if you you know you and Joey stay dedicated to it man you guys can come become a massive asset to any car and motorsports. I appreciate that. And that's how I like to think about us is just like we're an asset.

We're like a, you know, we're an asset to NASCAR and trying to help and grow it just like you want to for your own, your own little, you know, corner of the world. But anyways, man, I guess. Thank you. That was all very nice things he said. Yeah. We always try to, we always try not to talk a lot of shit before we send some out of the room. That's all right. Yeah. Yeah.

Man, you're on a asshole. Right. See you later. We'll talk about it when he's gone, but no. Well, we all have to have a couple beers at some point. Man, that would be fun. In Ireland. Yeah.

In Ireland. In Ireland. We're going to Ireland. Hey, hey, you got to wear that shirt, too. Okay. I'll wear my golf baseball, sweaty workout shirt. There you go. I like this.

We're all about the workout merch here. We're big fitness. his folks here at Dirty Mo Media. This is actually something we can say. So, Conner's here, and I'm going to give him, there's a couple of Speed Street shirts that we're going to be selling to our fans. Listen, he's got a podcast at Speed Street. We're going to have a couple shirts. They look awesome.

And so, yeah. It's all about the merch game. Well, listen, a lot of people, you got, you have an audience that listens for you, and I think that audience is growing. And they like to feel like they're a part of it. And shirts, man, that does it. Way for them to do it. Yeah. Yeah, it makes you feel a part of it. And I want to echo one more thing. Everything you said is accurate. The other thing that people need to know, and people that listen to Spee Street know this, he's the biggest advocate for his sport, and he does so to the degree of he knows the TV ratings.

He knows, like, he is marketing peacock. He's marketing NBC. He wants the people to watch. And when they haven't, he knows it, and he says it. They really do this every week. And so that's something that, strikes me as, you know, look, the passion is right there. He wants to grow the sport, and that's something that I recognize with Speed Street. And he also obviously wants to grow IndyCar racing, but he also wants to grow motorsports. And so that's something to be commended, and I mean that. Well, no, I appreciate it. I mean, that's what we're trying to do, right? We're trying to build, you've got to lay the building blocks to build up this, you know, this Indy car powerhouse that hopefully, you know, obviously NASCAR is super strong. There's a lot of incredible things going for NASCAR in Formula One.

and we just know that we can't get left behind. And, like, I don't think IndyCar will get left behind, obviously. But, like, we have so much cool stuff going on and people just don't know that it's happening. And it's like, we want to push that, like, we have a really awesome racing series right now, like, really cool. And, like, as, like, I know for myself,

I will watch as many racing series as I can on the weekend. So why are we not all doing that? Yeah. I mean, what's stopping you from saying, you know what, we'll leave this on the TV for a little bit. Well, you know, whether you're going to watch all of it or not, Just give it a shot. I mean, all we're asking for is a shot.

That's it. Just a chance. Having the opportunity to work with NBC has really introduced me to a side of any car that I'd never seen before. Having an opportunity to really get down on the ground and get to know some of the personalities, it is incredible. The diversity and, you know, there's drivers from all over the world and all of them with unique personalities. And you're one of them. And you're right. I think once people tap into it, they were really

find it compelling and interesting, and you're just doing all you can to make that happen. And the sport needs more allies like you, buddy. Thanks for coming on here, Connor. Thank you guys. I'll do it anytime. You got Connor Daily. 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 a true ally.

Thank you, Ally, for your continued support of the show and the entire Gertie Mo Media team. We are live on YouTube. All right. Hey, everybody. Doing a little Dale Jr. download here. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for supporting all of our YouTube efforts here at Dirty Mo Media. And I hope you'll tell your friends about it and get a few of them to subscribe as well.

Anyways, let's get started. I think I just put two and two together of why we're recording today and not tomorrow. There you go. Yeah. Thanks. Welcome to the lead lap, Hannah. I was like, oh. Welcome to the lead lap. Oh, okay. So this first question comes from NFLA.

Garage 88. It says, you joked with Jeff Burton during the Xfinity broadcast that you wrecked him and blamed it on the sun. What is the strangest excuse you've ever heard or that you've had to use to explain a crash? So Jeff, yeah, Jeff said he wrecked me at Homestead. There was a restart. We were headed down to turn one. Sun is dropping in our eyes.

Everybody started checking up and he didn't. And he hit me and turned me right into the wall and killed the right front of the car. We were both at the back of the field and got the worst of that chain reaction. and he said the sun was in his eyes. You know, I don't know that I've ever really thought to come up with a lame excuse other than it was either my fault or I did it on purpose, right? I just remember, I remember reckon, this really isn't an answer to that question, but I remember reckon, I think it might have been Stanton Barrett.

We were at Pike's Peak. He was driving the Channel Lock 40 car. and we had stayed out on old tires because we were trying to save our last set to the end of the race and boy the leaders were running me down and they had used all their tires so if the caution comes out leaders don't get to pit for tires I do we're going to win this race and so I went down into turn three and wrecked stanton spun him out NASCAR ends up giving all the teams a set of tires to finish the race ruined our strategy I'd never seen that in my life but the teams all work, you know, Robbie Reiser and everybody from Kansas team

and everybody's complaining, well, we can't make it to the end on our tires, you got to release some tires. So NASCAR gives every team a set of tires. There goes our strategy. And, you know, we got no track position. Poor Stanton Barrett. We end up getting in a fight with Tony Stewart. Oh, that was that race? That is that race.

So we get called to the NASCAR hauler for Tony Stewart and his crew chief, right? And so me and Tony Senior are there. I get there early, and I'm standing, there's a door on the side of the hauler. I walked up in the back all the way toward the lounge up in the front, but there's a little door right there, and I'm just standing, doors open. This guy comes up, older man, and he's like, what the heck? And I'm like, what?

And he's like, what did you do that for? And I couldn't, I'm like, what does he got to, is he with Stewart? Is he with Stewart? What's it going on? And he was really angry. It was the owner of the 40 car that Stanton Barrett drove. I totally forgot about it. So, so wrong.

Yeah, so I was, that was, I purposely wrecked someone. I can count on, you know, one hand how many times I did it. I didn't do it often. I mean, a lot of people did it a lot, but that one day, that was a full on, I remember I'll go down in this corner wreck this guy, and it's a dirty feeling. Yeah. When it happens and you do it, you're like, man, that ain't good. I didn't like doing that.

And I've never forgot it, obviously. Does anybody know? Ben Stanton became pals. Yeah, I was going to say. Where is Stanton Barrett these days? He ran a race a couple weeks ago, yeah. Road America or something he showed up. He's a good guy, man.

He used to race in the Xfinity Series a little more regularly. But anyways, I've gotten, I mean, I had huge respect for him because of his dad. Stan Barrett used to race. You know, he was the original driver of the Skoll Bandit car, number 22. Then they hired Harry to drive the 33. And then they fired, they got rid of Stan because he wasn't really that great. He was just a stuntman. And so Stanton's a stunt man too.

That's cool. Yeah, yeah. It's a great story. That was his thing. And Stanton is a freaking solid guy, man. Just super cool. And I talked to him about that. I was like, man, I did that on purpose.

I felt like shit for years. He's like, I don't worry about it. Oh, that was the end of that. I was like, but I figured it was still going, like how he ended it. Yep, that was it. A lot of people actually bringing this up, which is good because I know we wanted to talk about it. Some news kind of coming out of the Hendrick Motorsports camp being that Greg Ives is coming off of the road, retiring and taking a position, which I do not think has been announced yet within Hendrick internally. What are your thoughts on that?

I'm excited for Greg. You know, I think that I got to know Greg in the Fantasy Football League way before he was my crew chief. He was the engineer on Jimmy's team, and he was part of the Fantasy Football League. and Hendrick and me and him got in a little bit of a sparring talking sort of situation and uh which was unique because i didn't understand any of his humor uh being from up north we are our our our humor neither one of us sort of got each other but uh and i didn't think we would ever really work together or become friends for that matter uh he comes over to junior motor sports and has great success with chase and and got to know him really well obviously during that period of time

and man he is just a you know he's just he's a good dude got a he's soft sensitive you know got a good heart um believes in what he's doing stand up for you go to back never once

never once did you know and I mean being my crew chief is probably one of the least uh enjoyable positions in in NASCAR not just be not just in crew chiefing but in the industry. It is not fun.

You get blamed for everything. A lot of the stuff I should be blamed for, you get to blame. Man, he never once turned on me, never shared a bad comment to the team about me, or I never heard him ever, ever lose his patience or lose his cool or composure in that situation. And, man, I mean, there were some,

I read it. I mean, they were after him at certain points. And, but he was with, you know, he was with Jimmy and Chad when they won all those championships. The guy is smart. And I knew that he, I knew that he was the best option for me at the time when we started working together in 2015, had a lot of fun, won some races. But more importantly, like, we became, you know, even what we became friend-wise off the track was even better.

You know, when he went through some difficult things with his family and experienced some loss and so forth, I was so happy to be there for him and when he needed somebody. And we are bonded, man. We got each other's back. He's always been in my corner, always. And so I've been, you know, just when you're, you know, everybody out there, think about what matters to you the most. and think about trying to do that thing or whatever that is, that job, that role,

and the people around you not believing in your ability or you're not believing in you. That is no fun. But man, when you find somebody that thinks that you can make it happen and believes that you can make it happen, man, you feel so supported, so lifted up. And that was Greg. So we had a great experience, and we still are great friends together today. He's going, he's a great dad, and he wants to be around his kids more, and he deserves that.

He's put his time in on the road, and he wants, you know, you could see that happening over the last year and a half or so with him as far as his interest in his kids and being there for them and being absent from things was really getting to him. And so, and I'm excited for Alex to have a change, right? right? This could really be a good thing for Alex going forward to have some new ideas, a sort of rejuvenation to his career. I believe in Alex as far as a driver and what he can do and his pace and speed and how smooth he is behind the wheel. So hopefully he gets put with somebody

that can help him accomplish the things he wants to accomplish. And Greg's going to be in a better place and enjoy the change. So it's going to be fun to see what he ends up doing. physically as far as his role at Hendrick. I mean, he was amazing as a compliment to Chad when they were on a race team together with Jimmy. He was really, really exactly what Chad needed. I don't think Chad ever found that type of fit after him and Greg split. But, you know, maybe Chad can, you know, have the foresight to put him in a great place

where they can succeed together. Yeah, Greg is one of those people even as, like, the media members. You're going to miss his presence at the racetrack because you rely so heavily on. on those crew chiefs at time to like get the answers you need and get information. You get a guy that under all circumstances was professional, respectful, didn't mind if I climbed up on the pit box, you know, your first year in the cup garage, you're like, hello, like I'm so sorry, I have questions. And Greg was stand up, like someone that'll definitely be missed, you know, in the garage on a

weekly basis. This next one comes from Lenny Turner. It says, I know you have a few projects going on, the Nova, the truck, the, the the old dresser desk. How are all these projects coming along? Any updates running out of time in the day? Yeah. Nothing's really moving forward right now because this is just a

this is just a super, super busy time of the year. For whatever reason, you know, the racing, the NBC role, the cup stuff, traveling to the racetrack and all that. So it just, you know, it's playoffs. You've got to really start putting a lot more time in the day throughout the week into what you're doing as far as preparing for the weekend and to be able to broadcast.

Then we have the late mall stock race and all that and all the content we've been creating around here. Everybody is just super busy this time of year. It's hard to do any of those little fun side projects. But man, when November rolls around, right around the 1st of November, we all kind of get a little bit of space and the vice sort of loosens up a little bit, I think, for everybody. I don't know if y'all experience it that way. November I'm looking at November on the gallery going get here not wishing my life away but

November's you know kind of when things will loosen up a little bit and I was at home today and walked in the door we'd been we'd been at a celebration for my sister's 50th birthday and Amy and I'd been at the race with the kids this weekend and walked in the door and I saw like three projects I saw like three projects that I like got to get to and I won't be able to touch them this week. I got to wait to next week. I'm moving some doors around in my house and guess who's helping me with that? Rick Allen. A lot of people don't know that Rick Allen's like a master carpenter. Oh, he's a stud at that. Incredibly good. It would work. And so I have this little, I have a double door that I want to move to this jam and I want to take the big door from that

jam into this jam, but the width is not the same. There's about an inch difference. So I've got to shave down some doors and build up some door, build up the other jam. And then I got a, I got a, I got to fill in where the hinges were on the double door because you don't need hinges on both sides when you put a regular door in there anyways i'm i'm getting a lot of help from rick he's took all the doors home and all the stuff home to his house so he can work on it and trim it up and shape it and all that and then he'll bring it back and we're putting it in there and i got a lot of woodfiller and stuff to be able to patch up the old hinge holes and whatnot anyways uh home projects are on pause.

All the, all the, I got a Nova Wagon that I'm working on. You guys have heard about that a little bit. It's still over here in the Fab Shop. But it's coming along, actually. We got the rear end underneath it, about to put the front clip on it. But all the other stuff is sitting still. But as soon as I haven't been able to post on Instagram, that's kind of where I go to show like updates on stuff.

But as soon as we kind of get a little space during the week, we'll get back to showing everybody what we got going on. I need to call Rick and have him come look at this deck. Yes. At my house. They're like, hey, not broadcast questions, but can you come look at the deck? Last question here, and it's a quick one. Now that we're rolling into the playoffs, it's time to pick your drivers that you think have the best shot of making it into the championship for.

Chase is definitely going in with the playoff points that he has and he'll continue to accumulate throughout the playoffs. I think that he's a lock. I think that I think that Larson gets in. and I think Denny gets in and something tells me that maybe it's going to be a surprise on that fourth guy like a Reddick. A Reddick?

Yeah. Okay. I know that's crazy, but so the Paul's on a Redick is probably RCR, right? Their history. But look at, they've gotten they've gotten there a few times. And Reddick's coming into,

some races here that he's really good at. Y'all remember when Newman, like, runs second at the race at Homestead? I mean, I was won the championship. Yeah. They are the team that has some tricks and tricks that have been sitting there waiting for the right time.

And I just don't, you just never know with those guys and Reddick's really kind of peeking. And they found some pace in their cars. and he's had some good runs at other tracks beyond the road courses. So anyhow, yeah, is that it? That is it? That's it for this week. Thank y'all.

Thanks for sending those questions in. Thanks to Xfinity for supporting this part of our show, the Ask Junior segment. Thanks for tuning in on our YouTube channels and supporting all that. Xfinity X-5, if you haven't, you know, if you have in trouble with your service that you have or having outages or just unreliable speed. Maybe you're paying for 200 and you're only getting 100 or whatever it is. Try X-FINITY. I'm a customer.

I purchased it myself. I didn't even call Xfinity and ask for it. I just said, look, man, I'm going to try this out. I've heard about this. And I have it. And I've had it for about two and a half years now, and I love it. And it's just reliable as can be. I got all kinds of gadgets plugged into my internet and everything's been wide open.

as a father with baby monitors, you know when them things go down because mama comes calling. And we haven't had any problems whatsoever. Stuff is steady as it goes. So X-Fi, thanks for everything they do. That's a great show, man. A lot of fun with Connor and excited about what he's got going on

and everything going on in his life. He's going to be fun to watch going forward. I mean, the more we get to know this guy, the bigger fans we become. Yeah, yeah. You got to love the personalities in the sport. We need more of them. But yeah, very fortunate that he came down here.

He lives in Indy. So, you know, it was really great to have him in studio. We'll continue listening to Speed Street as he develops that show. But, yeah, man, it was a lot of fun. All right. Well, I hope everybody enjoyed the show. Hope you enjoy the North Wilsonboro race here Wednesday. And then we'll see you at Darlington, Big Race for the Cup Series and Xfinity Series this coming weekend.

We'll be there covering it all. If you're at the track, come say, hey, take it easy. Until next week. Check out, check out, Dirtymo Media. Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.