The Dale Jr. Download - 419 - Scott Dixon - The Unconventional Road to Indy

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

The Bojangles Studio is graced by IndyCar royalty this week as Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his co-host Mike Davis sit down with Scott Dixon. Since emerging on the American open-wheel racing scene in 1999, Dixon has written his name into the history books (between Foyt and Andretti, mind you) by winning six IndyCar championships, 52 races, and the 2008 Indianapolis 500. The interview covers Scott’s early life and introduction to auto racing, which came thanks to his father’s own racing endeavors and the family promoting a dirt track in Townsville, Australia. Dixon seemed destined for success as he won his way through the kart and lower Formula ranks in Australia and New Zealand, but with every progression came exponential budget growth. As his parents had already mortgaged their home to support his racing endeavors, his father and some local businessmen started an investment corporation that would sell shares of Scott’s potential career earnings to help keep him on track. The result was Dixon moving stateside in the late 90s, wowing Stefan Johansson in a test at Sebring and taking a seat in the Indy Lights Series, where he would win the championship in resounding fashion in 2000, beginning his dominance in American open-wheel racing.The interview also discusses Scott’s tenure at Chip Ganassi Racing, his family life, and the comparability of stock cars and championship cars.  Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Watching something extraordinary here with New Zealand, Scott Dixon. This is the yardstick at Chip Ganassie racing. The six-time champion for a reason. He is a living legend, the best of the generation. 234.4 miles an hour. Absolutely incredible. Dickson is going to complete.

Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. And you're here again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download. It's Wednesday, March the 1st, 2,023, episode 419, and we got a great guest coming in here. I've got Mike Davis, my co-host, to help me here in the Bojangles studio, usher in one of the legends in motorsports,

a living legend. I mean, this guy is amazing. Scott Dixon is going to be on the show. I cannot wait to get him in here. You win six championships in your career. You are a legend. You are one of the greatest. He's up there, and a lot of his accolades

are sitting there with AJ Foyt and Mario Andretti. You do that. You hang with them. Two guys, you're a legend. I can't wait. This is going to be fun. Well, he might not know it, but we're going to call him an ally. We want to thank Ally for bringing our guest segment to us every week.

They do it right. And they are such great supporters of NASCAR, of the Dirty Mo Media brand. And they bring our guests in here, and we've been having some great guests, thanks to them. And Scott Dixon is no different. We barely know Scott. That's right. Barely known. Have you ever met him?

I believe I did meet him a time or two going over to the N8500 and sneaking around and one and around in their grotch. Right. But I am over-excited to be able to sit down and talk to him today. So let's get him into the studio. Let's do it. Hey, Mike. How are you? Pleasure.

Here's your chair. Get your water if you walk down. Thank you. No, Connor Daly said this would be the best guest we've ever had on the download. So this is what we have. There we go. Connor, right? Yeah.

He's been sending questions from. us to ask you and none of them seem appropriate. I bet. They're always the best ones, right? Actually, he's probably got a little bit of dirt on me. Yeah. I think he does. I mean, yeah, I imagine it you've been around as long as you have. Everybody's got a little something. I lay pretty low. Do you? Yeah. What does that even mean? I don't know. I kind of just do my own thing, man. You know, I maybe don't get invited to all the the big, well, maybe I do, but I just never turn up, you know. Okay, well then let's just lead off at this. He says, Ask Scott what his favorite after party would have been.

What is he talking about here? Oh, I don't know. That could, that could, there's been a lot of after parties. How, so we don't have after parties. You don't? No, no, no. Do we just put it all into the party? Did Jimmy not tell y'all?

He was always throwing an after party. I know it. That's probably why he loved it so much over there because they all, y'all always, you all race and, uh, y'all race at India. And then there's this big party in town. There is typically. And I would say more so kind of, you know, early 2000s through to like

2012, 14 and then there was a bit of a changing of the guard and that kind of then there was like cell phones and social media and I think everybody kind of laid off it a little bit more but like the kind of the early 2000s man we're pretty fun so where are you from?

Auckland, New Zealand. I was actually born in Australia right so when did you move to New Zealand? Well all my family was from New Zealand my parents were just working in Australia at the time. Why?

And then had me. But they, and actually, I've never asked my dad of how it even came about, but he brought a speedway track. What is that? Like a, like a dirt track. Yeah. Is it the flat one with the, what the stock cars? So there was.

What is it? Is it dirt, like a sprint car? Yeah, like I think they did. It was mostly saloon cars. So like, um, that's like a, like modified, supermodifies that kind of stuff. Okay. And then. So, uh, I've went over.

I went over there and went to a couple dirt tracks, and it's winged sprint cars and sprint cars. Yeah. And they had some bombers, like four cylinders and street stocks and stuff like that. Yeah. So it's kind of like that. That stuff. And so your dad owned a racetrack.

I don't know how much he owned it. He ran it, at least. He ran it. He ran it. Damn. Yeah. Him and my mom. So, you know, we kind of lived on the site at Townsville Speedway in Australia.

Is it still there? I don't know, actually. That's a good question. What's it called? Townsville Speedway. Townsville? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Lost Speedway. It's probably been, you know. Is that the name of the town? Yeah. Townsville. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So, yeah, those are my earliest memories, but my earliest memories of kind of like doing anything motorized was on a, on, like, a motorbike. Like I'm one of those kind of like 50cc kind of little things. Yeah. And then going through the grandstands after the race and trying to find money.

That was my big pay. That people drop money off the chairs right down in the ball. Digging through the can. hands and the hot dogs, you know? So is, I was kind of surprised when I went to Australia in like 06 and I was surprised at how popular oval dirt racing is. Big time, man. Yeah.

I thought that it was just like most of the world and was strictly like road course racing. I would say it was like even most of my, you know, memories of motor racing growing up were, like I watched road racing and. and, you know, Formula One and IndyCar on TV, but going to the track, actually, all my Saturday nights were at the Speedway, whether it was Waikara Park or Western Springs. Like, we kind of have two in Auckland that, you know, provide slightly different racing, and we probably frequented White Caraca Park more just because my dad raced there.

But yeah, it's, like I'd say, that was most of my summers, man, was going to dirt tracks and watching, and it was kind of weird that I never actually did it. Right. You remember much about Australia living there? Not Australia so much. Like I moved back later in my life, but I kind of have some memories, but I think I moved back to New Zealand when I was five or six. When did you come back to Australia?

When I started racing, so maybe 15, 16, 17. Did you move by yourself? I did. I did. Yeah, I left home. I moved in with this 30-year-old guy in Melbourne, who was a friend of kind of a friend of a friend of a friend and that was definitely an eye-opening opportunity man just in many ways one that I was you know moved out of home at the age of 15 or 16

to kind of live by myself with this other person that you know was successful and had his own you know day jobs I don't really see him too much but um that was that was a big deal man what kind of racing were you doing so um went through the junior categories in new zealand kind of from go-carts at the age of seven which started you know for watching my cousin's race and then, you know, just hounded on my parents. And they kind of, at the end of the day, you could jump in a go-card of, you know, one of the people that had been racing, have a go and see if you like it. And, you know, for me, two things happened on that day.

Just, well, I just really won, really. I just couldn't believe how cool it was to drive something around so fast. I thought it was so fast. They were called midgets in those days, like a little iron horse engine. And that changed my life forever. So, yeah, so race that stuff through junior categories in New Zealand and then moved back to Australia to race Formula Holden, which was kind of their version of Formula 3,000. Yeah. What kind of student were you in school?

I was actually pretty good. I was always a pretty hard work. I'd say, you know, my best subject with maths and science and, you know, that kind of stuff. And then my worst was probably English. Did that, you know, was what was the motivation for you to have your parents support your racing? Was it good grades? Was it chores? I think it was just all motor racing.

It was kind of weird. Did you probably did things like any kid pissed your parents off? And like what were some of the things that might have gotten you out of line? I felt like I was pretty good in doing what I needed to get through on the schooling side. You know, like a lot of it kind of came fairly natural. so I was lucky in that aspect. And then, you know, my parents were so deep into motor racing anyway that, you know, I think we were kind of, they were living through me a little bit too as well as, you know,

it was kind of a mutual thing. It wasn't just strictly like me hounding them and trying to get it done. You know, they were, they were, I felt like my dad was kind of living through me a little bit too and doing stuff that maybe he didn't get the opportunity to do as a kid. What kind of racing did he do? So he did all sorts, man. I think most of it started probably with like rally, a little bit of raleigh. A little bit of rally, Ford Escorts kind of stuff, you know, club level.

And then Turing car stuff, Benton and the Hedges days were big down there, which was one of the big series, and then dirt track stuff. But dad was never really conventional, you know, like most of those saloon cars or, you know, bangers or whatever, you know, would be V8's real-wheel drive. He would, you know, build a Honda Civic front-wheel drive and put the big tires on the front and go race. And it would just look weird. and sounds but that's you know that's the the thing that he he would try to not be conventional so it was it was um but that you know that was every weekend man just you know kind of during the week

watching him work on the car with friends and stuff and then on the weekends you'd go race but when you moved back to australia what were you doing for school then so i'd finished uh like my school certificate which you know you kind of finished through ages 15 16 and then you have the option to go on to you know six form certificate and then and then university so i kind of finished all of my high school level to that period. Were you early? I was kind of right on time. Must be different over there.

Right, I guess 15 and 60. I'm sure, yeah. Yeah, 16, I think, is kind of normal, I don't know. 18-ish, right? 18 over here. Well, here, yeah. In some cases, even older than that. 18 in New Zealand, you know, to go on to university, you have to finish, you know,

six-form and seven-form, and then you go through that. But you can get school certificate, 15, 6. seen. This seems to be one of those rare situations where we have a really successful race car driver that actually was a good student. I don't know that we've ever interviewed one about like that. Yeah, that doesn't match. Yeah, he says he liked math and science. What the heck is all this? You know, I got through it. I think I knew I had to get through it to be okay. And like, honestly, the schools worked, you know, really well with us. Because, you know, you're traveling a lot. Even through the winter down there, you know, you had a winter series and, you know, you had the summer series. How old were you when you moved over the U.S.? Uh, so it would have been 17, 18. So you moved to Australia for a couple years. Yeah. Right. And how, were you looking at the U.S.?

Like, that's where I want to be? What were you, what was, so you land in Australia, put your feet on the ground. In that moment right there, what is the car that you're dying to get into? Indy car for me, for sure. You know, like I think growing up in New Zealand, it's very European-based country. right. So everything I would say, like my posters on the wall would have been Formula One, you know, would have been, you know,

Sena, PKK, it would have been, you know, kind of that error of racing. Why didn't you go? Why wasn't your mind going there? Well, we were kind of on that way. So like the whole American thing was kind of on the way to Europe. It was kind of bizarrely how it happened, but so thankful that it did. You felt like,

so in your mind at 16, 15 years old, IndyCar was a was a path Yeah which but I never really got I never really Like I love motor racing right like I'm a fan I'm a fan of yours I'm a fan of NASCAR I love supercars like I watch Which annoys the hell out of my wife

I'll watch Formula E every night You know like any kind of racing She's like oh my God Why are you watching that stuff But It didn't really sink in I think until I think it was 97 and 98. I came to America to watch

IndyCar or cart at the time and went to... Just on a trip. Yeah, went to Vancouver and then went to Laguna Seika with Steve Horn, who owned Tasman Racing at the time. And I was just like, this is amazing.

It was, you know, the height of, you know, Jimmy Vassar and Zanardi and, you know, it was just the answers. It was the Andretti's, like it was, you know, watched it on TV, but to actually go and see it, I was just shocked how cool it was. So that later turned into, you know, we won the championship in Australia,

then, you know, we were going to Europe to test in Formula 3 with, I think with Alan Docking maybe at the time. And so Kenny Smith, I don't know if you know the name, Kenny Smith. He's like a racing legend in New Zealand, one of my, you know, all-time mentors. You know, he used to race on the New Zealand Grand Prix. He still races. He's 80, I think he's 82 this year. He'll be doing the New Zealand.

on Grand Prix or just did the New Zealand Grand Prix. And he's still really fast. He's only about this high, but he's very quick. And he had a mutual friend with Vern Schupin and then he had a team with Stefan Johansson, which was an Indy Lights team and they're like, hey, we're doing a preseason test at Sebring.

You know, can you scratch together some money and do it? And I think we ended up finding some cash to do it and tested the first day with Pac-West racing and then the second day with Stephanie Hansen. And I think we're a quickest out of about 18 or 20 cars and they're like, can we do a deal right now? And that's kind of how the American path started. We never even, never even made it to Europe. Yeah. And Stefan, you know, did a management

contract on me for kind of, you know, the rest of my career as such. And, like, what? You signed a career contract? Well, you know, to manage to be an agent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he still manages to me to this day. Really? Yeah. So I find it fascinating when we have to be an agent. Yeah. I have when we have any car drivers in the show, a lot of them are even a lot of them travel all over the world in their path, right, to get to where they're going. They seem to do it so, like, obviously very eager to get opportunities to go race in other places, but I never really can quite grasp the amount of, I guess, anxiety, stress, pressure, timidness, not to get in this other car, but to travel to another country, right,

and the culture shock and the adjustment. And maybe it's not as big a deal as it feels like it would be, but I would, I can't help but imagine there's some apprehension of, man, or just being fear of failure, right? It's not working out. when you're back and forth from New Zealand to Australia probably was very simple but coming all the way over here to the U.S., I'm sure when you got here and you saw that race

and you were watching American Motorsports firsthand, it was incredible, but when the decision was being made that you got, here you come, you get to pack your stuff, here you come. It's weird. Like, you know, you immediately grasp how small New Zealanders but it's weird in New Zealand too like the first thing anybody does

once they get out of school, graduate college, you know, they leave. It's just kind of why. Why? Because it's so, I mean,

everybody that tells me, so I'm going to mention this multiple times, but I went to Australia years ago and had a blast two weeks. But everybody has told me that I was, I made a mistake by not seeing New Zealand while I was there. We definitely got to take you to New Zealand.

Because it's a mayor. I've seen pictures and all, but to be there in person, it's an incredibly beautiful place. Yeah. And an awesome, awesome people, awesome everything. So why are you so eager to jump out into the rest of the world? Because I wanted to race, man. Racing's there. That's what, yeah, there is, but nothing on a level.

New Zealand has a rich heritage in motor racing, right? You know, I think the biggest is probably, you know, McLaren was founded by Bruce McLaren, you know, And, you know, there was such an era through the 50s through 70s, 80s that, you know, kind of a lot of things were done in Formula One because of Kiwis, you know. And it's always had that racing heritage that I think has been so profound. And especially, obviously, through my, you know, my dad's kind of lifetime, I think that was really at the top, you know. So for me, it was more on the tail end of it. But I don't know, like my brothers and sisters, first thing they would do once they were done with school was go to England. You know, tour of Europe, you know, go to America.

Go see stuff. It's kind of a natural thing. But not go live there, right? Yeah, but, well, no, they do. I couldn't imagine living in another country. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's what it comes down to, right? I couldn't.

Like, I wouldn't, I mean, even if there was something. America has everything, though. So you guys are very spoiled. We are. Yes. You're very spoiled. And I, you know, even when I first came here, like, people are like, you know, in America were like, well, why do I need to travel the world?

And I'm like, well, there's lots of different cultures out there and there's things to see. You know, come to New Zealand, like, you'll be shocked. They're like, no, we've got everything here. Everything's here. And I'm like, once I've started traveling America, I'm like, man, you guys are right. You've got everything here. Like, it's a cool place. But I mean, you know, I had, I guess, yeah, we are spoiled.

I don't know. I mean, you know, me and my wife went to France this past year. And on the Mediterranean coast. And I'm like, man, why would you ever leave? Yeah. Right? This is amazing. It's beautiful.

The history, the old, you know, the old, you know, buildings. And it's just, and so, yeah, I kind of am. Travel is one thing. Travel is something that Kiwis do. But then for me, you know, I think, you know, when you're looking at the pinnacles of motor racing, you know, it's either Europe or America. Yeah. And, you know, the opportunities are somewhat abundant opposed to, you know,

know, New Zealand, you know, it's just not going to happen. So when you had that test at Seabring, were you already living in the U.S. at that point? Or were you, because I guess what I'm ultimately wondering is what was on the line with that test at Sebring? Did you think and did you feel like you were racing for your career right now? Like this was at this test? I feel like it was.

You know, I think, like we were on the way to Europe, right? Like we didn't really have a plan as such. Okay. I think for us at that point, you know, I was lucky enough that, you know, my parents were cashed out. You know, they had, you know, refinanced their home. You know, they'd got to a period when, even when I went to Australia in 96, 97, that they couldn't fund anymore, which was when we formed, you know, Dixon, I think it was called Dixon Motorsports. I wanted to ask you about it. Yeah, which was a group of, I think, 13 or 14 fellow Kiwis business people that, you know, set up a, you know, a business to try and pay for or help, you know,

know myself along the ways, which without that, it never would have been a possibility. Explain that a little more because I saw this in our notes and I was like, wow, this is unusual. I don't see many people, you know, carving out their path to a professional race car career, driving career, this way. Yeah. Go ahead and explain what that way. Yeah, it was basically, I think my dad, my dad's full of great ideas and, you know,

I hate to say it, but sometimes, you know, the follow-through is not perfect. But he has amazing ideas, has his whole life. and I love him for that. And yeah, he basically got to the point where he's like, man, I can't fund anymore. We've leaned on all the people that we could for small sponsorships to do Formula Ford and those kind of categories.

But to get to the next level, we need to find something else. And it was him and maybe Peter Johnston and other Kiwi and Craig Harris. They kind of came up with the idea of studying this investment group, which I think it was kind of maybe one of the first of the time, you know, definitely at that point, you know, for motor racing specific. which we've seen, you know, many people go on and use that kind of platform, you know, throughout.

But, yeah, so there was 13 or 14. I would say 95% of those people were all in it for positive reasons. And but you're signing away, I don't even know what it was, probably 50% of my future earnings forever. Yeah. Stop. Hold up right there. So when your dad creates this business entity, this LLC, you agree at that point that for the rest of your career, 50% of what you when goes to these investors.

Yeah. Even today. It was a lot, yeah, for a lifetime. I can't remember what the clause was of, it was maybe a period of time, 10, 20 years, something like that. It was basically a lifetime. But at that point, you know, 50% of nothing was 50% of nothing, you know, and 50% of something was going to be, you know,

where I was going to make some money. Right. And so at some point, you know, these people are, you know, now benefiting from your success. is that true? Yeah, and I was very fortunate that, you know, most of the group were in it for the reasons. As designed. Yeah, for the reasons of helping.

And they stepped in at the point where, you know, the contracts started to get, you know, a little better. They could see maybe future earnings. And they basically just, yeah, you know. And it did work out for them. It did. Because this is fascinating. So I want to say, so, Scott, there's really, there may be a. couple similar kind of programs for a driver or two that I could think of in NASCAR.

But there's not, I don't think that there's been anything done like this in our industry. And it might be like as old as your model is. Yeah. It actually might be something that would be doable for some of these guys. You know, when they got, when you get enough people that believe, right, to have that opportunity to make an investment and to have it have that return down the road, I mean, it's so hard to get into racing today. Any avenue is worth searching and seeking out. Especially for pure talent.

Is that kind of a business and investment model, is that common in your world? or in other drivers, you don't have to name them or not, but have you used that type of strategy? I think the one I knew mostly was probably Justin Wilson. I think they'd built a similar product like that later, you know, for his career. Maybe Rossi was something involved in something like that.

It's really fascinating. Yeah, but for me, like luckily, you know, there were two or three fairly big hitters that could kind of control a group of people that stepped in at the point and we're like, hey, let's cut this deal now, and you're going to pay back what we've put in. And that's where they stopped it. Okay.

And then the only thing they asked was that with future drivers is that you also help. What do you mean? Put in the investment as well, you know, help younger drivers. I think it, you know, I was part of Brendan Hartley's, you know, rise up through New Zealand, same with El Bamba. You know, a lot of those young Kiwis, you know, it's still, once they have,

a proven, you know, business plan and they've seen it sort of, you know, go all the way through, you know, they've definitely picked a few, I think, throughout the years to try and, and that's what's made it really fun for me is that, you know, it's kind of still the same group, are still involved and they're still looking at, you know, helping these younger kids make it through. Is that business, is that business still around that LLC? Scott Dixon Motors, I think, was dissolved. Oh.

Yeah, because it was... But the group of investors, this group of... The same group. This team is still together sort of still accomplishing the same goals? It's dwindled a little bit, but yeah. But the same group, and I think, you know, we haven't had any projects of late, but, you know, I think at some point probably there's another guy that's kind of, you know, maybe going to be, you know, eligible for that.

Do you scout? It's hard because I don't get back to New Zealand too often. Yeah, but like even when you're just racing in the U.S., not even for these guys or this investment. group, do you just, do you personally watch people and go, man, I like that guy's got it. It's guys, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's a certain thing that I like, and are you paying attention to young talent? I think you definitely see it.

For us, you know, it's like kind of probably Xfinity or whatever. Right. You get to see, you know, Indy Lights or Indy Next. It's called now, you know, you get to see those or even Formula 4, 2000. Yeah. Some of those races are some of the best races all weekend, you know, and. So you're watching. You do for sure.

Like, I'm a race fan, man. Yeah. I love watching racing. In hindsight, would you do that again? Would you do it this model again to fund your career? Oh, hell. Absolutely.

There was no doubt. There was no other way. There was no other way to do it. Well, there is a downside. I mean, look, I'm reading between some lines, and it did seem like it was always seamless. There may be some people in there that are disruptors of some sort. I would assume that's in any business.

Like, that's common. But you're also giving away a lot of money, too, at the same time. Potentially, yeah. But then you wouldn't have earned any of the money. Sure. No, I get it. There's pros and cause. So you would do it again.

Oh, for sure. And you would recommend that to anybody, some other young, well, I mean, you're actually putting your money where your mouth is. Yeah. You still scout. I think there's no downside, man. Like for me, the passion was for racing. Okay, the money thing becomes a thing later on, you know, just because of a lifestyle that you start to live. But, you know, I still tell Chip to this day that, you know, he pays me to do all the media stuff and I race for free, which he hates, you know.

but it's kind of, you know, I see that as the work and the enjoyment for me is actually driving the car, which unfortunately over the years, you know, you just drive less. You know, there's no testing. There's no testing even on race weekends. You know, I think we get like an hour and a half of practice now for a race weekend, which, you know, it's probably a lot even for car.

But, you know, it's just, it's bizarre. I think the first year I did IndyCar, did 60 days of testing. Now we're limited to like four. Good heavens. Yeah. That's a lot of testing. Yeah. That's why I have to do sports car stuff, you know.

You've got to race. Just to, yeah, it gets more laps. So you moved to the U.S. Where did you move to? Indianapolis. That's where everybody goes. Yeah. I'm a Hoosjeer, man.

I've been there for 25 years. So that's fascinating to me too. So, you know, because in my mind, my narrow vision of racing and motorsports, especially in the U.S., NASCAR, Moresville, this area is kind of the hub. I do know that Indy and Indianapolis, there's a massive, massive group of racers, not just for

like IndyCar and open wheel, but the dirt world, the sprint cars and so forth, so much, so many racers there in that area that you wouldn't even know it when you go up there, right? When you're driving around a city and so forth. That's true. But you, so when you're in, does it feel

the same as when I'm in Mooresville? So when I'm in Mooresville, I just know that, you know, 90 percent of the cup drivers are a 10-minute drive away. There's, you know, Casey Cain's right over here. True X is right over here. Yeah. Is that what's like an indie when you go home?

It kind of is. Like I feel like we get more of a, you know, because we're probably more of a diverse community, right? Like I think if you look at the field, there's probably maybe, I don't know, seven, eight Americans and then, you know, the rest are probably 20 from other countries. They're living everywhere. So I think, you know, especially the South Americans. don't really choose to live in Indianapolis. India is not like New Zealand, that's for sure.

It's very flat. You know, I know you ride bikes and I ride bikes too. The only kind of mountain or hill you get is the fierce wind, you know, on the flat plains. So, yeah, you see people come and go. That's kind of, but I like it because the people are lovely, man. The Midwest, you know, even here, you know, it's a different vibe. The coastal areas, you know, are very happening and, you know, people are doing things. And then you kind of get into the middle and it's kind of quiet and, you know, everybody's chilled.

And for me, you know, that was always a good thing to keep focused. How far are you from the shop? Probably 15 minutes. Not bad. Yeah. How often are you over there? It depends. Yeah.

Yeah. It depends. We've been spending a lot of the off seasons in UK at the moment. You and your family? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know.

What's the reason for that? well my wife's mom was not you know doing so well with health and then her sister was fighting cancer so there was a lot of things it was actually it happened during COVID and some of the schools started to close and go to online stuff and then you know the UK was still wide open and and we're like oh let's just go there and try that for a little bit while everybody's kind of in limbo and not really knowing what they're going to do and yeah still doing it a little bit so you're still spending time there a lot yeah yeah yeah once the season starts like this is you know February through September

maybe make two trips back there but you know the off season is pretty flat. Did you buy property? We've always had property. Always had property in England since what part of England? So London and then kind of the outskirts maybe kind of Windsor area. I've never been. Are you having? No. Yeah, you should come in. I know. I really want to go.

I did some genealogy and traced my mom's side of the families from England so it's like something I've got to see. From the UK or Scotland, Ireland or you? UK. Yeah. There's a lot. There's a G-cross. There's an area.

It's like a, you know, a little four or five block area called the G-cross. Okay. And apparently that's kind of where her surname comes from. That was a weird story. Actually, my grandmother was super into genealogy and tracked all of it. And actually, when I met Emma, she's like, oh, you got to call me. So I called her. And she's like, I think you guys are related.

And I was like, no way. But we actually came from, you know, kind of sister towns in Wales. But thankfully, we went related. And I bet that how did y'all meet? Like, so I asked this because Amy, my wife, she's from Texas, went to school with Kentucky. I mean, me and her were nowhere near each other for the majority of our lives, but her family is from the same part of Germany as my dad's family. Oh, crazy. Or the Earnhardt, right?

Her surname and ours, it's like 100 miles between them. Yeah. It's weird. Nuts. Yeah. Nuts. So we had mutual friends. My wife was a runner for Great Britain.

She was an athlete. Her specialty was kind of 800 meters. You know, she did Commonwealth Games. I think she was on the Sydney Olympics roster. Yeah. Had you heard her name before you met? I wouldn't say, you know, like I've always been into sports, but, you know, not so much, I guess, as, you know, in New Zealand for sure, but not, you know, European or UK. athletics. But, you know, she was a hell of an athlete herself that, that, yeah, so we met through

mutual friends, went out a night in London. I was actually over there trying to, I think it was maybe around one of the F1 tests that I did and went out, a bit of a drunken night and started kind of a long distance there. And so we had meet in New York kind of every two or three weeks. What year was, how old were you and y'all met? That would have been, oh, it was 26. Yeah. Yeah, it was 2006. Yeah. 2006. Yeah.

And how old were you? 26. Wow. Yeah. Those were the days, man. Those were the days. You're younger than I thought. Oh, really?

Yeah. You know, you talk. I don't know if it's good. You say you'll look old. Well, no, like when you look at your accomplishments in motor sports, you know, it sounds like, you know, the accomplishments of a 48, 50-year-old man. You're 42. I'm getting there. I think that's a compliment somewhere in there.

I think it's a compliment. I'll take that. Thank you. You're like, yeah. Well, you're kind of like the Jimmy Johnson. and Dylan Hart, Richard Petty of Indycar, you know, with all of the things you've done. Yeah.

Jimmy's a good dude, man. And Jimmy, he's had a lot of fun with him. He's up there. Yeah, he's 47 or 8. Yeah. Is he that old? See? Maybe, maybe I better take that.

I better take that back. Yeah. He's up there. He's right behind me. I think so. Let's go 46. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. It's happening, man. It's freaking gone. So he was your teammate then, and he was the old guy on the team, We were the statesman, yeah. No, we, you weren't. You by your stats, but him by his age.

I think the funny thing was was Palu and another one of our teammates. He, yeah, he was kind of taking the Mickey a little bit of Jimmy, because Alex's dad is younger than Jimmy. Oh, yeah. That's great. So, yeah, yeah. No wonder it didn't work out for Jimmy in any car. He was all in his head at that point.

His teammates' dads were younger than him. He was loving it, man. What was the toughest thing about living in the U.S.? I think being away from friends, you know, family is one thing. My family would come and visit. Friends, you know, it's a big trip, you know, it's a long way to go. It's expensive. So, you know, I think we ended up, you know, kind of getting a plan together.

But I'll tell you what made it a lot easier for me was that the team that I joined which was Stefan Johansson's team. They had two Kiwis on the team, Blair and Anton Julian, which Blair was crew chief on the nine car for 20 plus years. Just recently he's kind of moved up into a management role. But that was probably made it easy because it was kind of, I had an apartment downtown, but I think I literally stayed in that apartment maybe four nights of the whole year

and the rest was on their couch just in off Rockville Road in Indianapolis there by, you know, kind of gasoline alley. So that made the transition for me so much easier to have the likelihoodness and kind of the common ground of New Zealand and trying to conquer or be a part of the American culture through motor racing. What is the style of New Zealand and Australian motorsports drivers? Like what are traits that stand out to you? And I'm asking this question because when I watched V8 supercars forever, and I've in meeting a lot of Australians, Marcus Ambrose coming over here to race.

In all of that, I feel like there's a level of really controlled aggression, like just as insanely good as possible in breaking zones. There's just this sort of style when I think about Australia. in motorsports, there's just a sort of by the seed of your pants, but also controlled and measured at the same time where it's really hard to beat.

Especially in road course. I'd probably call that stubbornness. Yeah. I feel like there's, you know, and it's... Stubberness, yeah. It's a great way to put it. Kiwis are pretty laid back, but they're extremely hard workers, I think, and it's kind of you know, from a young age, you're kind of

just to do everything yourself, you know, whether it's, you know, simple things like over here, you know, most people get their lawns mowed by someone else. Like a Kiwi would be like, why the hell am I going to pay someone else to mow my lawns? Like, that's what I'm going to do. You know, that's part of what I do. And I think, you know, if you look at Bruce McLaren, you know, goes to England, builds the, you know, builds the car himself, engineers and himself, you know, that's kind of he wanted to be part of every step. And I'd say, you know, Kiwis are similar to in the fact, like through my career, you know, I had to work and prep my go-kart, then to even even the off season of Formula V and Formula Ford racing,

you know, I would sand the bodywork down. I would, you know, go through the mechanics of the car with my dad. You kind of learn, I don't know if that's kind of explaining much, but it just kind of, it built into me, too, of having control. Because I also knew that the next crash was probably the last time I could run the car because we didn't have the money to repair it. So you kind of always had that thing holding you back to a level of not going, complete chaotic and flat out, you know, is always having something in reserve or trying to,

you know, look at strategy or play it back a little bit to understand how there's other ways of winning. Yeah. Or getting, or getting better. But it also helped, you know, on many levels of the mechanical side of understanding racing in general as well. So I don't know. Like it's, you know, I wouldn't say there's plain traits, but I think there's definitely that never give up. Like, when you race against so many people from all over the country, though, don't you see some, don't you see a little bit of, like, personality embedded in each nationality? Like, when you're, you know, when you're racing Americans or Europeans, they have a predictability, maybe, about them, or, you know,

there's things about them that you're like, yep. Yeah. That makes sense. Which in New Zealand, you're kind of lucky, right? Because our, our prime season is everybody else's off season. So, like, even in my junior categories, but it was, you know, Formula Ford to, you know, Formula Atlantic. It's like Summer is Winter. All those Europeans come to New Zealand to race in the off-season. So, you know, a lot of those seasons, you're kind of learning a lot of different things. I think, you know, I even, my first Formula Ford season raced with Toto Wolf. Like, that's just the people that were coming down at that period, you know, that's just kind of who you raced again.

So you would, there was always a good mix of seeing it. But, you know, I'd say, like Europeans, I think, for sure. are definitely more, and I hate to, I shouldn't say erratic, but they, they, they will be maybe more exciting in some ways trying to pull off a move, whereas, you know, maybe Kiwis do it kind of more quietly. I don't know, like, I wonder, um, not as dramatic. Yeah, I know you're a competitor and so it's tough for you to make this, um, make this assumption, but, um, or even form an opinion on this, but in, in, in NASCAR, where I, in, in, in

You know, we're all from, for the most part, the same place, right? And we all kind of, like, it's a predictable, you know, you know, kind of what's expected when you drive down in a corner three wide with these guys. Yeah. And some of them are goofballs and some of them are smarter than others, but you kind of have this, we all went to the same school. Yeah, yeah. Whereas in IndyCar, you got guys dropping in that have been racing something completely different. So a block to him ain't the same as a block. you, right? And what's acceptable on the breaking zone move? And it's all different for everyone,

right? Jimmy had a different opinion about what this was. And so how do you, I guess how do you, how do you handle that? Because there are times in IndyCar where there's disagreements about on-track etiquette. That's got to flare up quite a bit in your career particularly. For sure. Like, you know, I think you kind of nailed it on the head there. You've got definitely a lot of disciplines that have come from different directions that, I don't know, I feel like it, it's a lot better controlled these days, you know, because the penalty structure and just how it was, you know, there was definitely periods of time where it was the Wild Wild West. But there's some drivers that have come in lately that have sort of, you know, ruffles and feathers or so, you know, like,

hey man, that's not how it's done. It's normally the rookies, man. Yeah. Exactly. Right. And I was the same way. Like, I even talking to Daria Franketti was a longtime teammate. He's like, man, your first year, you're a, you're a, you know, you would lunge people, you'd come from miles back. And I was like, yeah, man, I was trying to, you know, trying to put my stamp there, man, I'm here, I'm here to stay. And I think you do see that. But I think it's also with an IndyCar, man, especially on Oval's, like, the frickin' hit is big. Yeah. Like, there's guys that you kind of see that will react that way until, and then you see a crash, them in a big crash, you know, and, you know, you hope that they're always okay.

but you know that that knocks them down a peg in making the decisions that they do. You know, we're lucky to live in, you know, the error that we do with how much safety is improved, even through, you know, from my start of career on IndyCar to now, just, you know, how dramatic that change has been. Is there a perception in the international racing community about American drivers, either positive or negative? I think, I think good, you know. Like, honestly, it's, it's, I don't know. No, so coming from New Zealand is probably hard to comment, but, you know, I've, and even the categories I've raced and have always been very mixed. So, you know, I think NASCAR is probably, or even,

you know, kind of the road to NASCAR or to Cup is, is very American-based, but it's probably hard to comment, but I think we have amazing drivers in Indycar that are American, like, fucking Joseph Newgarten, Rossi, like, they're outstanding. And they've shown that on the World Station, no matter where they race, man, like they are. Yeah. To your point about the the rookies, we used to say that, you know, when a guy would come in with such raw speed and ability and just risk-taking, lunging, as you say, we would say he hasn't hit anything hard yet. Yeah. And that really changes a guy.

It changes your perspective, for sure. Like, I know it took me a little while. Like, I always always, like, the five minutes to five on a test day, all right, let's put some tires on, let's go throw it down. Bang! And I'm like, man, that was a dumb idea. What was the first hard hit you took? I think it was Homestead, maybe in Indy Lights, maybe in 1999. And man, in an indie car and even indie lights at that point,

I'd never hit anything like, I was like, oh my God. Like, you know, you stop and you're like, that was huge. Like, am I okay? Like, are my legs still attached? Yeah. Like, they're pretty brutal. And especially the early period of IRL cars, like 2002 car, which we only had in testing was just brutal when you hit the wall.

Brutal. What makes the difference? I think it was just the way they were built. They were super robust, you know, like you would, I remember a test at Phoenix, I think, in 2002 at the end of the year, and I was testing before we started and moved to the new car for O3, and I spun in turn two, or the old turn two, to the current track. And I think, you know, kind of took the attenuator off,

which is the crash structure and maybe hurt the rear wing a little bit. But I remember hitting it, I was like, man, I'm not sure if I just got knocked out, but I don't feel great. And the car, they take it back to the pits, and then literally 30 minutes later, they're like, yeah, the car's ready to go, we just changed your rear wing, replace the attenuator, you're good to go, and I was like, oh, man, I don't feel great, yeah, but still got in and trucked on. But it, like, those hits were, and even in 03, I think it, it's, the crash TK and I had in Japan, you know, I think I fractured my pelvis,

you know, broke my ankle, broke my hand, broke my wrist, and, you know, the, the, the crashes were just, were just huge. What's it like being in a different country with all of those injuries, how difficult is that emotionally to think, all right, now I've not only got this long road of recovery to get all this stuff back to, you know, one piece, but I'm going to get all my shit together and get out of this town. Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty freaky. Like, I think at that point I was still traveling by myself. Yeah. And I think in Japan, they don't, they don't really give you, well, I don't know, is it narcotics or painkillers or whatever? You kind of just get aspirin. I remember I was like, man, I just want to get back to America.

Like, you know, you get drugged up. Get some relief. And then I think I was in the wheelchair back at the hotel to get my bags and stuff in extreme pain. And I think I ran into Halen's a junior's wife. And she's like, well, what do you need? And, you know, pulls out this, you know, this kind of rollaway pack of stuff. And that definitely got me back to America, you know, luckily in a plane. But, yeah, it was a 22-hour flight or something or some crazy-law flight.

Yeah, maybe 12 or 14 hours. but like just, just, you know, with a broke pelvis. I mean, it's uncomfortable enough. I don't know. I know. Like I kept, well, we hadn't even diagnosed that at that point. Oh, wow.

TK was almost in the worst situation. He had the suspension arm go right through his leg, you know. So he had to go in for immediate surgery to, you know, stitch that up. And all I remember is him, you know, just yelling in the hospital room that we were there. And we're both on the helicopter going to the hospital. Oh, geez. It's pretty freaky at that point. Yeah, it was only 22 at the time.

And yeah, you buy yourself, man. By yourself. I was in Milwaukee when I broke my shoulder blade, and that was weird being in a, you know, being in a hospital alone, and, you know, with the doctors, not home, right? Not in your area, not in your, you know, your comfort zone. I was thinking about, you know, Sonoma crash. Yeah, that was weird, too, but I was on enough drugs that I really did.

Yeah. Yeah. They put enough morphine in me. I didn't care where I was at. You see California. California is like a different country for him. You understand? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Milwaukee, I've had highs and lows in Milwaukee, too. I think I destroyed two cars and four laps at Milwaukee. You didn't run the race. Yeah. You missed the race. Wow, yeah, I was pretty beating that, man. But Chip was like, you're out of cars, and I think it's a good time for you to go home.

That's an interesting part. So reading some of your career accomplishments and the ups and you had this sort of ebb and flow, right? Like, look, you know, you're considered, one of the greatest to ever do it, the championships and the wins, but there were some years where just things didn't go right. The performance just wasn't there. And so, you know, I guess, you know, it's easy to sit here today and feel like, you know, well, we got through it.

But where there are these times, even Kyle Bush wins this past weekend. He says, hey, you don't doubt yourself, but you kind of do. You do. In moments. What is wrong? too. That was really cool to see. But yeah, it's, yeah, 0405, man. Like we win the championship first year in IndyCar racing,

you know, you think you're unstoppable. And, yeah, you definitely got knocked down a peg pretty quickly. And that even started the first race. I think I was fighting for the lead and then spun coming into the pits and hit the fence. And the year just never really got any better after that point and, you know, destroyed cars. I think over that period of time, I think I went through like six teammates, maybe more, six, seven, eight teammates. I think we crashed about 30-something cars.

Goodness. Like it was a brutal time. And then, you know, you're trying to figure out what the issue is, right? From, you know, the top of Chips Company to the drivers and everybody around it, you know, to see how we fix it. And summing that up, it's definitely the two years I learned the most about myself and about the sport and about how lucky I am to get to do what I do. So, you know, there are positives out of it. Sure. You know, but when you get caught into meetings and they're like, you know, So what do you think the problem is?

And you're like, it's not me, it's not me. You know, but it's pretty daunting for me, I think, at a time where I think it would have been definitely a life changer for my career. You know, Chip, I've never met Chip, but correct me if I'm wrong. He's one that is not afraid to hold a driver accountable to the action. What kind of holder is he? Rightfully so. I mean, he just said that the drivers can do some pretty dumb shit. you know?

Yeah, but so like, you know, I can only imagine going through that time 2004 and 2005, I would be terrified of the guy, frankly. I would be. But like what was it like? I got so many Chip Ghanasi questions, so let's just have this one. Like, what was Chip driving for Chip like during that time? It was tough. You know, I think it's always, it's demanding, right?

I keep saying it all the time. We're in the business of winning races. If you're not winning races, then, you know, it's. it's probably time to move on or you've got to find what the problem is, you know, whether it's yourself or, you know, just the environment that you're in or, or whatever it is. But there's so many moving pieces and parts, right? Like, it's never, it's never easy.

But I find Chip most of the time in the low points is he's the best version of Chip. Like he's, you know, I don't know how many times I've crashed cars. And he's like, don't worry, you know, don't worry about the car. Like, you're okay. You know, tomorrow we're going to go out and win. And, you know, that's just, you know, it's, it's normally. when you're on a bit of a winning role, he can be, you know, a little bit picky on you sometimes. Is that right? Yeah, but, you know, I respect Chip because in so many ways and for so many reasons.

And obviously, you know, we've been together for, I think it's my 21st or 22nd year with him. He pulls the best out of you, man. He really does from the top level. And whether it's, you know, whether it's a knack he's got or just a version of chip that you get, that he pulls the most out of everybody. And it might not be the conversation you want, but afterwards when you look back, you're like, yeah, I probably needed that conversation. Is there any part of his driver career that matters to you in terms of like I'm understanding you more or you feel like a connection there because he's been behind the wheel, right?

And when you're telling him, hey, man, these are the problems I'm dealing with or this is, I'm trying to make this happen and the car's not capable of doing it. he's he's able to better accept that information because sometimes man you got to say look the car is not capable of pulling this move yeah and and the you know you can't say that if you don't think the owner the crew chiefs going to going to absorb it right yeah but i imagine with him having some driving history really helps i think it's a big deal if you if that's something that you can have you know someone that's been in that environment and you know to the level that he did you know, with running indie and, you know, it's, you know, being the fastest rookie at indie, you know,

he's got a lot to be a proud of from his racing career as well. And I think, you know, that definitely I always say, you know, I'm surrounded by probably the two most competitive people and number one is chip and then, you know, number one also is my wife. So I get it at the track from Chip and then when I get home, I get it from my wife, you know, and it's an interesting environment to be a part of. But, you know, think having chip gone through the highs and the lows and and you know especially on ovals man like someday you well most days you can't drive around that it's the car is what it is you know you can try and find bits here and there but that was the biggest thing i learned in my junior categories was that you can't drive around it and half the time i tried to i would destroy the car you know so it's it's

uh having you know when you have those conversations with chip and he's seeing it from you know many different sides, whether it's from the sponsorship level to running a team to running a successful team, to winning, to, you know, having driven himself, you know, like it's, it's, you know, you're talking to somebody through a conversation that understands most of it, you know. So it's, it definitely is, so lightning. Go ahead. And there was a point when you, BMW set up a test for you for Williams. Yeah.

It was that year, right? It was in, it was in the 0405. Yeah, so, oh, so we started working on, I think it was end of 03, season. in my first championship year. And then, so it was meant, I think, the preseason test was start of 2004. And it was a legit opportunity, or you were, you had to decide what,

what you were going to do. I think it started that way. Yeah. So Stefan, again, Johansson was, you know, knows a ton of people. And then Jonathan Williams, son of Frank Williams, was kind of the lead point there.

Yeah, I remember just, we went to London and had discussion. They're like, hey, we got, you know, maybe an opening that's, going to work here. Yeah. So we did the test at Paul Ricard. Test went really well.

I think we were maybe fourth out of, I don't know, 14, 15 cars or something. And it was cool as shit, man. Like to drive one of those cars, like the V10 era, just the power. Because everybody was like, oh, the brakes, man, the brakes. And I'm like, holy heck, what about the power of this thing? Like, it's crazy. The power of weight ratio, you know, the cars are super light, a ton of power. And it was weird for a normally aspirated engine, you know, V10 that just had so much talk

from like low RPM. It was completely bizarre to anything I'd driven before. But an F1 car just does everything right. It's a car that you've always dreamed of driving. So yeah, that was special. And then during the period of the test at Paul Ricard and then Barcelona test. You tested twice?

Yeah, so did the first test and then the lead up to Barcelona. We'd kind of, I think I don't remember how the story goes exactly, but it was, I think it was maybe Manardi. Paul Stoddard's team, I think was maybe getting sold off. Williams at the time had Weber under contract and I need to actually I need to talk to Weber about that to see if it was actually factually true but he ended up being brought back by Williams

so even before I got to the Barcelona test knew that the seat wasn't available it would only be for maybe a testing possibility And you weren't going to give up Well it was it was You weren't going to give up your situation in the US for a test It was still a tough decision right Because you know F1 is F1

You know we just won a championship I was competing in an all-oval series, which... Do you wonder what... You might have been? I don't, actually. No. No, I don't at all. Like, I'm totally sound with the choice that I made.

But at the time, right? Like, again, like, I'm a Kiwi. I only ever raced on road courses and... But what was the decision? Going to the IRL at that point with all ovals. I was like, man, like, I'm not going to say no to Chip Gannasi and driving for that team.

That's just not an option, It's not, if I had another option, I'd maybe look it a little bit closely. Right. What was the offer, actually? Or was there an offer? I mean, like you said Weber got the seat. Yeah. So what were you deciding on?

To be a test driver. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, test driver and F1. I mean, yeah, that's... Yeah, you know, your point of that for most of the test drivers is that you then continue on to, you know, being in a lead role of some sort. So, you know, I think...

Yeah, and a test role back in those days especially was a, you know, now it's just you run on a simulator. Whereas those days you would be doing 30, 40 test days a year. You know, like it was pretty brutal. That team kind of was a separate team that just ran off and did a bunch of testing for new parts for that season. So, you know, it's still, you know, it's a big decision, man. Like it's, but yeah, totally sound with the decision that I made. You ended up racing in the IROC series that year. Yeah.

What was that? What did you remember from that? Man, I was just, eyes were open, like wide open. It was cool. Like, you know, again, I'm a race fan. So all these, you know, people that I'd watched, I think it was Harvick and Mark Martin. I don't know if you were in it that year, but it was even some of the spring car guys. But I just, it was nothing that I felt that felt normal.

Right. I think I turned out for a Richmond test. Oh, no. I'm like, wow, what am I supposed to do here? and nobody was actually really because none of the none of the cup guys or anybody were there right like they just turn up rock up

and you know fast straight away and you're trying to learn I think maybe it was Sam Hornish maybe I think went with me that year or something and it was it was a steep learning curve dude like steep Steve Kinzer I think was also trying to help me a little bit too but I didn't even know I'm like man have you driven these things

much like you shouldn't you be helping me yeah you race at Daytona what were your four tracks we did Richmond Daytona Atlanta Michigan maybe? I don't know. Had to have been a road course in there or something. No, there were no road courses.

I was asking about that. I was like, come on, we need a road course. It doesn't seem fair. Yeah. But I think Richmond was my most fun race. Yeah. Yeah, I think I was running okay. And I think I got into it with Harvick, maybe in turn three,

and sent him, sent him around. And, you know, it was definitely a wild time. Daytona was complete bizarre land for me. Why? Just because it was. I mean, you. I'll have the draft at Indy and there's, I mean, the fundamentals. Yeah, but you guys had the side draft in different ways to, you know, us, I guess we were probably similar in the way that you could pick lanes and you could maybe see the lane coming and how that's going to, you know, maybe get lucky by, you know, sort of.

But you, you know, in that, you could kind of move them around a little bit. You could kind of push a little bit. You could, you could do different things that we couldn't do, you know, so trying to do that all in a race of, you know, I don't even know how long it was, 20 or 30 minutes. Yeah. You didn't get a ton of practice. I mean, when they'd send you out there, you'd be maybe with another car or two. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. It wasn't like a... Which I totally understood because I didn't, you know, most of us idiots were just destroying stuff. Yeah. But it was a fun time, man. I wish I'd done more of it. If I, you know, I think I had an opportunity to maybe do it a little bit later and I

kind of skipped out on it, which was a bad decision, yeah. Another opportunity to do it? I would imagine I rock didn't hang around much longer, did it? I mean, like, like, 06 or 07. I was not able to run that year because. of its sponsorship with Crown Royal. I was driving a Bud car, and Bud said, nope, you can't do it.

I got it. I still have that bottle somewhere. Says I was a proud of the, yeah, that was cool, man. I love that. I guess did you ever, you know, Chip owns stock cards, right? I know that, I don't know how closely aligned his entire organization was at times between the stock car guys and the IndyCar guys.

I know they probably weren't on the same planet, but there were some opportunities for some of his drivers to drive stock cars in the Xfinity series and so forth. Had conversations ever gotten anywhere between y'all about doing anything like that? Were you interested? Were you like, uh-uh, I'm not doing nothing, but I'm focusing on my Indy car ride? I want to win championship after championship. I'm not messing with nothing else.

What was going on in your mind? Yeah, there were some. There were some chats, and maybe on a sponsorship, you know, kind of business level, I think, through the business team, maybe had brought it up previously to, you know, I think it was maybe in the lines of, you know, some of the middle higher races, you know, Alcott later on, things like that. But I was like, man, I want to have a go to short track with all the power, you know. And so I did the ride swap, I think, with McMurray. But I got Talladega. He got Barba Motors Park and an Indy car. So I felt like, you know, I was a little shorthanded on that one just because it was just.

me at Teledyga driving around by myself you know so um after about four laps of that that's pretty much it yeah like i couldn't imagine it with 40 plus other crazies out there you know like getting after it um but yeah so you know i think uh i was meant i was actually scheduled to do a um new smyrna test yeah and uh it was right around the daytona 24 hour and chip called me like if you crash that car you got to pay for it and i was like He really said that? Yeah, I was like, well, I was like, man, I don't need to do the test. Right.

Like, I thought that's, you know, so I never did the test. Yeah. So that was kind of the short part of the possibilities. And then we did talk about doing road course races later on and stuff like that. Yeah, that's interesting because I would think that chip and certainly the further outside of that bubble of chip you get in the motorsports industry, like everybody wants to see, you know, one of the greats in IndyCar drive a stock car or ever anytime anybody came over to Indy car or came over to Xfinity series or the Cup Series uh we were like can't wait to see this you know this is going to be awesome same thing when like our guys go run indie yeah like we're we're

fascinated it's not even competitive you know it's not competitive in a sense of you know one's got to be better than the other or or how's it got to do you know it's really just about like I want to see this guy that's really great at this, try this. You know, and I hate that never materialized because... What was his reasons? I don't know. It's probably just caught him on a bad day. But it...

You know, probably if I turn up and crash the car, or, I don't worry about it. But, you know, it is important sometimes, I think, to stay in your lane. And I don't know what. You know, that year, I think sometimes it could be, you know, I think it probably might have been right around two, when, you know, one of the, everybody was having money problems. Sure.

You know, I think. I'm as guilty as everybody about not doing things I could have had, you know, turning down opportunities or not seeking out opportunities. That's true. I'm guilty of that. Maybe that's part of where this comes from is like I regret, you know, maybe not putting myself in uncomfortable situations. I was afraid of failure, right?

I knew I could do this really well. Yeah. What if I went over here and this didn't go so well, right? What if this is a miserable experience? And it can be, right? Especially now at the level that it is, right? I think gone are the days where you turn up rock up and you're going to be on it. That's why.

You used to be able to do that. People say, I've went to work in NBC. I worked 24 hours Daytona for the last three or four years. And everybody's like, when you're going to get back in one of these? I'm like, it ain't 2000 anymore. When I ran in 2001, I went over there and Andy Pilgrim's like, listen, you're running plenty fast enough. You can back it down a little bit.

You only need to run about 80% the whole race. And now it's not even, you qualify every lap. It's flat out, flat out. And, you know, I think probably the worst person involved at this point in my life is probably Jimmy Johnson because he's like, he's always thinking up ideas. He's like, well, you think you want to do a cup race? And I'm like, I don't know, man. Like, what are you saying?

He knows a guy. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's definitely, he's definitely one that I hand a lot of credit to him for actually having the nuts to try it. It's the whole Indy car thing. I was blown away. Like I knew it was coming because we had talked so much, you know, the year or two previous to it.

And even before he did, you know, the F1 test and all that kind of stuff, I was like, man, you've got a big itch here. Like, and for him to actually pull the trigger on it, I was shocked. Yeah, me too. Did you ever run an Indy car? Never. Did you ever have an opportunity that you turned down? I'm sure you did.

That was probably some Inde 500 stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I actually did get a chance I did get literally like a couple years ago Penske was going to put me in a car That's right

To run around Indy Oh wow Yeah like like you know They were going to You know Put the downforce in all that It's different ways to do it Yeah

I was like I probably don't need to do that I'm too damn old Man I wish you're too old Yeah I would have been out there watching man If you Yeah well I mean if you got a call To drive a next gen car

the thing that's funny about y'all is you'll get a call to drive a next-gen car at Watkins Glenn which is absolutely something you should say yes to and you'll go no man I want to run Bristol yeah all of y'all do that everybody that said at this table goes no man I want to run a short track yeah yeah it's true though because like I feel like you're getting the real the real I don't know it's just the real formula right like you're getting what it's all about I know for sure, but the, you've got to go and drive it at a place where you're familiar so you can understand the inertia and everything of the car, right? The center of gravity and how far you can go before you slip tires and so forth.

But also adds to, you know, back in the day, like in the 2000s, you would have been able to probably go and test, you know, three, four days or something, whereas now you just, I think you maybe do get a new driver test nowadays right in Cup, which I think we get two days in the car. That's still probably not enough. For you, for me to feel like that you're in the best position to succeed. Yeah. Right. But if you get called and you get asked to run a road course, you better say yes.

Yeah. It's hard to do these days. Why? It's not. The manufacturers get funny. Yeah. Well, that's all that lines up. The timing, I think, you know, if you could do it after, you know, after the season, but then you kind of get into the mix of the chase and all that kind of stuff.

The roval. I have spoken about that. previously but yeah I don't know. Chips like, hey man, how about you just focus on what you're doing? How about you just focus on me? You have earned it. Look at you.

No, but you know, like I still want to just focus on what I can try and win at right now because I also, you know, it's not going to go on forever. No, but. You know, a seventh championship is right at the top of what I'm trying to do.

I hear you, but also being in the peak, you know, your peak ability, you're in that window, right? I think, I don't know how, I'm not so familiar with IndyCar, but like for stock car drivers, that's sort of 35 to 43 years old is like that's where everything comes together. The nerve, the guts, and the experience all lines up perfectly. And if you wait, right? Yeah.

You may likely, if you ever get a chance down the road, have a similar frustration that's like Jimmy had with Indy car. Maybe I could do an Xfinity race, you know? Ah. You want to run an Xfinity race set of road course? We're wide open. We're ready to go. We'll make that happen. He wants Daytona.

Yeah, yeah. He wants Bristol. Give him his short track as restricted play. I would give up one of my races for you to run. That's right. Hey, man, that was, you know, so you could, you know, had that experience, right? I think we should talk, man. Yeah.

I agree. What do you guys think about when you hear Kyle Larson's news that he's going to go over and do the Indy 500? Not surprised. Not surprised? I think he'd been trying for a while. I think he definitely got on Chip quite a bit about it, I think. And honestly, you know, it's exciting for all of us. You know, again, you know, that's the thing you want to see is people crossing over

because it is quite difficult to do these days. You know, with him and the team that he's going to, you've got the alliance of at least the manufacturer that makes a little bit easier. You know, those ties can be pretty tough to sever. But, you know, I think it's exciting for Kyle and he'll do bloody well. So you were saying that Chip, Chip would have prevented him from doing that back when he drove for Chip? it sounds to me like Chip doesn't want his prize ponies playing in the other sport

that's what it sounds like which I can understand he didn't want to mess up a good thing no no I agree with that I think that that's fair I think it's completely fair it can get complicated yeah

there's things that can not go well right yeah it's very good I think at seeing you know the problems that it could have yeah sure so and it's not you know indie indie indie you can mess up pretty quickly and pretty easily you know it's not a real race to flirt with because the consequences can be tough.

You know, you can honestly crash and have a small hit and walk away, but like the speeds there are high, man, and the accidents can be brutal. So what are the realistic expectations that you would have for Kyle? I don't know. We've seen it. I think, you know, Kurt did a phenomenal job. I don't know if he was fifth or six maybe that year. I think I crashed out of that race.

It's incredible. He, you know, the Honda package that year and the team that he was with, were the favorites, which makes the transition a lot easier, just because you've got people that are in a positive mindset. We've seen it with Alonzo that came into a really horrible situation and didn't even qualify, you know. So there can be, you know, a lot of things against you. But I think, you know, he's going into an environment and a team that, you know,

at that point, especially for next year, I think, will be very strong. You know, he knows a lot of people in the industry. I think, you know, all of the IndyCar guys are wanting him to, you know, see him do well. Probably not win it, but see him do well. That is a hard race, man. Yeah. I watched it all my life on TV, and, of course, it's amazing, but I never, I've never seen it in person and seeing the race play out. Yeah.

It's a really, really mental, mentally difficult race. It's a roller coaster. Yeah. There's so many highs and lows. Like, I imagine, you know, any of the, you know, the 500 or. of 600 mile races too for you, you know, there's different intensity levels. It's changed now with your segment races, but...

But I will say, like, so to compliment, y'all, I grew up in stock car racing. Nothing was better. Daytona 500, the Great American Race, most important race of the year. Nothing is comparable. I went to the Indy 500 for the first time, walked out on to the pit road and saw the grid,

and was... And it made me realize why that race is, is the biggest race in North America every year and why it's so important. It's a true. And it's, there's, every moment is full of tradition. And if you've never experienced, uh, the Indy 500, I mean, it's something, it's a bucketless thing. It's like the Kentucky Derby or anything else.

You have to see it once. And that as a, so when, when I walked out there, I try to put myself in the driver's frame of mind. And I know you guys are, are prepared. you know how to shut all things out, but that is such a difficult environment to remain focused in. You walk down onto the grid. You can't see none of the cars.

There's so many damn people, and the cars are literally, you know, two foot of steel and fiberglass right on the, you know, the fighter jets laying on the ground. There's people everywhere. Yeah. I don't know how in the hell the driver gets in any kind of, like, frame of mind to get in there and go.

and so that sets the tone for the importance in the weight of the moment, like the weight of the day. And then the race happens and all of that rings true. Lap after lap after lap, you feel that pressure and that intensity in the moment getting bigger and bigger and bigger and it starts to whittle down to the drivers that you think are going to be the ones that compete for that win. Yeah, yeah. And you start to imagine in their minds how,

how freaking stressed out that must be to know you're either going to be the guy or not be the guy. It is just another race, right? It is just another race. That's, you know, that's, I think, the mindset that most people try to go in with, right? Because it's the only way you can find some common point.

But, you know, yeah, the intensity is much higher. You know, the goal is something that everybody dreams of. It's a life-changing moment, you know, and to, you know, be lucky enough to race with a team that I think deserves to win a lot of the time is, it's very special, man. It's very special. But there's one race that you just, it's so difficult, man. It's so difficult. Is the Indy 500, I mean, you've won it in 2008?

Yeah. But you have had some, you've had some absolute stellar pieces there. And like last year you go there, you set the fastest pole speed. So if there's expectations and anxieties that come with it, boy, it just ratchets up. I would assume even more when you're out there with a car that you know is considered the favorite, right? All right. So what is your relationship like with that race? You've won it, but then I think it's fair to say that you could have easily had four of those things by now.

Yeah. I think this year I became the all-time lap leader of the 500, which is pretty crazy to think with, you know, almost 110-year history. but I obviously haven't figured out to lead the right lap at the right time, which makes it, you know, it makes it frustrating. I think the last two years of, you know, we had the fuel issue where I think we had as great a chance in 21. And then, you know, last year the issue I had on pit road or getting to pit road, you know, it's just, I think I finished second there five times maybe and probably four of those under caution. You know, those are the ones that hurt.

And I think two of those were to Darry and my teammate, where you just, actually, I think all three of his wins are finished under caution. Two of those were, I think I was second. So it's those, those are the hardest because you never got to fight for it. You know, that's, but that place owes me nothing, man. I feel privileged to go there. I love the history of the sport. I think the longer I've been in it, the appreciation that you get for it.

Yeah. You know, I think when you're younger, you're kind of, yeah, it's just another racer. It's pretty big, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the enormity of it is pretty special. and to be, you know, one of 33 each year. And for me, I think the last year was my 20th race there. You know, it's a big deal and very special. So, yeah, of course you get pissed off, man.

Like, 19 of those times of racing there have been pretty miserable. Yeah. So I wanted to know, like, what is the, I see, I see cars go out to Indy and set on the pole. but there's a difference between that car and the car that's going to race good, right? The car that's the fastest in qualifying and the setup and everything about it is not, you know, I don't know, is it true to say, okay, yeah, I love that we went and got the pole. I love that we're the fastest, but I still don't know what kind of race car I've got. And talk about, help me understand, I guess, why, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of,

lot of people would assume, well, he sat on the pole, he's Fazz's car, turn him loose, and he should, you know, he should have the best car. It's not the case. It's definitely not the case. I was really shocked when I was sitting down in turn one, that there was, you know, how out of the throttle the cars are. Yeah.

And how disturbing the area is and how challenging it is, the further back in the field, the more out of the gas, the more dirtier, the air. Yeah. It's crazy. It's not. Are you breaking? Yes. Sometimes you're breaking. Right.

which is something that I don't think is explained or conveyed very well to somebody like Moos casual, right? I had no clue that you guys were dealing with such challenges in terms of balance and comfort in the race. Yeah, and I think when you're on that limit, right, you know, it's the smallest things change, right? The ambient, you know, weather changes a ton, you know, whether the tires become quite sensitive to sunlight and track temperature. and the wind direction. Wind direction is brutal at Indy now. Like when I first went there, two and one was like, you know,

turn one is turn one. You know, it's the one you've got to get after. But like turn two is just, it's relentless now. Like it, because of the break and the stands and you kind of come over this crest a little bit

and into a, you know, a compression and then you get the wind up behind you, if that's the wind direction. It's just, it's one of the toughest corners where you'll go through it, to find one lap

and the next light, you're like, oh my God, just about crash. And, you know, so I think, again, it's the emotions that you go through

with that. It comes back to just a plain respect thing. I think you've always got to go out there on your tippy toes of knowing that it's not going to be the same all the time and that the car's not always going to be great. And I think to the race, you know, you just add thousands of variables to it that it changes it that quickly, you know, depending on where you're placed behind the car in front of you where, you know, where you come out in traffic, you know, to, you know, how the forecast changes during the race. But, you know, we have a lot better idea nowadays of going into the race of how it's going to forecast as far as car set up and what you've been working with, you know, the early to mid-2000s you were getting new cars each year. So the variables were much bigger

and the unknowns were much bigger as well as far as, you know, what that was going to be mechanically or just how the car was going to drive. So, yeah, it's weird that place. You can feel really comfortable one minute and then next minute's like it could be one of the worst days. as you spend at a racetrack. In a cup car, our cars were, you know, term one was really tight. Yeah. Balance-wise,

getting a car to rotate and turn there was tough, a lot of braking sometimes. But each corner was turned better and better, freer and freer. Like four, four was where you could, you know, if you didn't get through four,

you were in trouble because most people could get through there pretty good. Yeah. And carry down the front straightaway. So in an indie car, it's more based on air direction, wind direction.

that's going to affect the balance of the car throughout the four corners of the racetrack more than anything. What are the... I see when I'm watching that race happen, drivers find themselves in these old shit moments when they unintentionally put themselves in a bad position behind the car in front of them.

What is happening there? Most of the time it will just be, you know, lack of grip, you know, and then you'll run... It's like a giant switch. Yeah, you know, the car loses hundreds of pounds of downforce, you know. And if you hit that at the wrong point of the corner or, you know, how much, you know, wheel you've got in the car to what attitude the car is in general, you know, can mean that it's going to get super loose or you're just going to understeer and pancake the things. So, you know, it's always about anticipation, right, like knowing where to lift at what point, you know, especially in 2 and 2 coming over the crest, you know, you kind of want to give it some. you know, a little bit of a breather before you get there just so the car's kind of settled

and you're not kind of jerking it around and making it, you know, kind of pitch sensitive and things like that. So, but those are kind of things you're thinking about every corner, every lap. Like you're trying to look for the compromise that's going to get you to the end of the race before you have to really race for it, you know. So it's, it's, one, you'll know how the car balance-wise has been through most of the stint and then you're trying to work on it and make it better for the next one and things like that. But, you know, you learn to compromise in the right spots, but it's, it's never, it's never an easy thing of that place.

Do you have some of this? The tie diggers become a lot more for us too now. That, which is a good thing. Yeah, we love that racing in our stock cars. Do you find those same aerodynamic challenges at road courses? Is it such a big deal with a guy crossing the wake of another car? Oh, yeah. Like anything with, you know, wings, man, is greatly upsetly.

You know, it's why F1, you know, the racing can be so bad sometimes. It's such a big car now that the wake off it is just horrendous. Do the drivers in IndyCar complain about the package? Do they complain? Yeah, I mean, there was a period where there's like four or five years. Drivers always complain, man. Right. So there is like this, oh, man, we need to do this.

We need to change. There's rumblings, right? Yeah. Underground, under, you know, undertones of this needs to change. That needs to change. Can't, you know, cars bad. in traffic, things like that. Yeah.

Yeah. It's, uh, which I think, you know, IndyCar is pretty proactive and finding ways, but, you know, it's, it's normally always a cost effective way to, you know, blah, blah, blah. I try and help this,

you know, tire testing, I think would help. We don't do a whole lot of tire testing anymore, which, you know, I think was probably, you would find big gains. What about the new idea of having multiple compounds that,

what was the, what was the, where is it? I think maybe one of the short tracks, right? The, uh, Oh, I think, where?

No, it's at St. Louis. Yeah. St. Louis? Yeah. Not Iowa? No. Are you all running there? I think it's St. Louis race, maybe.

I think we get a couple of, maybe it's two sets. We get one for the race and, or maybe two, and you can use them how you want for qualifying or anything like that. So you'll have a softer compound laying in the pits for the race in an oval race. What is, what does, why does that matter? I don't know, because we've never really done it. Nobody's going to test it. You know, you just kind of kind of turn up and, and, and, you know, you just kind of turn up and, and see where it goes.

Do you have any idea how much faster it will be? No. Not at all. Like we could probably, once we get to that portion of the season, we'll simulate the heck out of it, right, and figure out, you know, what we think it's going to feel like. But you don't know where the dig's going to go. You don't know how important it is going to be strategy-wise

at what point in the race to do it, how long it's going to last, exactly. So it's... Everybody in the motorsports world will be paying attention to this, particularly like NASCAR. Because they're, I mean, not that we're, Not that that's a thing we could produce immediately, but we'll all be watching.

It's an oval. It's never been done before. We were meant to do it last year, and I don't know why it kind of got scratched. I don't know if it was a production thing or whatever, but I think it's a good idea. Some of the tracks that we struggle with now for multiple lanes, you know,

I think it's definitely something we should do. You know, there's been a lot of talk of running overtake at some of these tracks, too, which, you know, when you're adding 60, 70 horsepower. What do you mean? What do you mean? Yeah, overtake, which is the push to pass. Yeah, yeah, they've been talking about adding that to short-old. Had y'all ever had that?

Not on a short track. Only on road courses. Okay. We have it on road courses, most of them, all of them, you know, whether it's 150 seconds or 200 seconds of it. But which helps with racing. The only problem in the formula right now is that the person in front has it to defend as well. So it's kind of, it's a bit of an oxymour line.

But he has the same amount of time as you. Yeah. Push to defend, we call it. That's right. Yeah. Same thing. Yeah. Which is hard when you get to lap cars because they just keep pushing it.

So they're going to, they're going to implement it? There's talk of rumors about it. They've talked about it, but I think the biggest issue there is just the safety. You know, an oval is a lot different. You could be getting to the corner 10 plus miles an hour faster, you know, especially if everybody's pushing it once, you're going to get to that like, well, who's going to lift and who's going to turn. And, you know, you just add to how big the accident is going to be.

So I think the tire thing is a great idea. And, you know, we'll see how that plays out. but yeah I think they because we're going through a portion of hybrid too right that's coming for next year so hybrid will be a big topic for for what we do at Indy 500 as well that's going to be hard for that's going to be hard for um you know old long-term fans myself included like it's coming i know it's coming i will embrace it somehow some way but it's like i don't understand it yeah and so i think they're like how do you you know maybe you're not ready to answer that just yet but like how do you help somebody understand like it's a good thing and it's efficiency right like

you're just you're kind of going with the movement of the world right you know kind of you know the evy thing is its own thing hybrid to me is makes the most sense because it's the best of both worlds and it kind of charges itself it's it's just efficiency right it's just how you just it's a it's an energy motor yeah how they create the energy is is you know going to be interesting i think for a lot of us for the next 10 years. I know. And I wonder, like, how you'll, you know, I don't know what about you,

but my mind works off of sound, right? RPM, all of those things. And is that sort of stripped away, like, how do I understand, like, what I'm doing? Yeah. Speaking of different language almost. And a lot of them are just, you know, like I have, I had a Tesla years ago,

and like it's just a single gear too, right? So it just keeps accelerating. You're like, where's the shifts? Right. So it's, it is weird, but it's exciting too, because the technology, like even now with emso you know we just we just ran the 24 hour with cadillac and that's a hybrid you know it's a seamless one whereas the indycar one will be you know you region will be done by the driver

deployment will be done by the driver whereas the others are seamless you know so it's it's going to be interesting to see it's going to be a lot of controls right you know you're constantly trying to hold a paddle then deploy one then you're doing gears at the same time you know i think their first inside of it they thought it was pretty easy because you know formula e do that all the time but they don't have any gears. So what we talked about, you know, you racing other things outside of your IndyCar world, what you're in your race fans. This is a good question.

When you watch racing, you know, tell me a car that you would love to drive. I think you'd love to experience. Yeah. I think the sports car stuff is, you know, I'm living one of those dreams, especially going to, you know, I think they announced yesterday going to Lamar in a car that has the chance to win the outright, you know, Previously, I've done it with the Ford GT program, which was a ton of fun, but you're still racing in GT. Your schedule is going to allow you to go Lamar?

Yeah. And Garage 56 didn't call you? I was already tied up. I was already tied up. That's going to be a fun. Who are you going to ride with? Who are you racing with? So I'm with Ranga, Van Zanli, and Sebastian Borde.

So there will be our three. So I've got a French driver in the car, which is definitely always a big help for LaMont. But yeah, they're taking chips, taking two cars, which, you know, it's going to be interesting to see that plays out. There is a little bit of challenge, you know, getting the hypercar and the hybrid categories to supposedly go for the outright one. Have you tested it? Have y'all been testing? Yeah, we did. We started testing since probably July of last year, and then we did the 24-hour race

this year, which we finished third. But, yeah, it's a very complicated car. There's a lot of things going on, a lot of things. But yeah, that's so, I don't know, always a bucket list item for me is probably, you know, a supercar at, you know, Bathurst. You ain't done that? No. Have you, I've done the 12-hour in a GT. You drove around it, raced around it.

Yeah, which, you know, I went to a bunch of times when I was young to watch the... Up to the rental car around there. Oh, you have, yeah. It's a wild track, man. It is the wildest track. Yeah. Like, there's not another track like it.

I actually spun. I don't know if you know, the corner that goes kind of onto Conrod Strait. So I think, I don't even know. I don't know. So it's the left-hander onto the, so the right-hander, the fast right-hander, which is fourth gear,

I spun there. I did a full 360, landed at the apex of the corner and continued on. Because when I was spinning, I'm like, man, I'm going home. It was only the first practice. I'm like, this is the end, because it's going to be a big crash. And, yeah, spun around and continue on.

Yeah, that track to me is like at the top of, you know, when it comes to talking nerve and nerves of steel and guts and bravery, there's not a track that compares. The whole downhill section, man, is. I mean, all of it. Nuts. Yeah. Nuts.

It's wild. So, I know you're only 42, but, you know, when do you start thinking about how to wrap this up? I don't know. Are you one of those guys going to be driving competitively at 80 years old? I hope so. Still fast. I hope so. You know whether I'm getting paid to do it at that point is probably something totally different.

Like you drive forever. Yeah, like I, man, I love driving. Like, it's the whole reason why I got into it. You know, it's, it's definitely a lot of complications along the way. And, you know, time management becomes, you know, difficult, I think, with a family. And, you know, then you've got different, you know, categories that you're jumping into and things like that. But, you know, I love it, man. I love racing.

I think why that question, I think why I asked that question is because in NASCAR, we race 40 races in 40 to 42 weeks. So like, you know, you're thinking, good Lord, I can't do this forever, right? You can't. And but you, on the other hand, and a lot of other people that have said in that chair, you know, the schedule that you have, has a little flexibility in it. Yeah. You can travel. You can go, you can take the family here and there. You can do, you can live, you can live the life you want to live and continue to be a race car driver.

Yeah, I couldn't imagine, you know, doing, like in my young years for sure and, you know, without. you know maybe family and stuff like that i think it would be a lot easier to do you know the the workload that nascar does but it's it's impressive did you ever talk to juan or anybody that raced came back to indy that raced over here and yeah he loved it like one's similar man he just loves racing you know he he he loves racing everything and you know another guy that you know went from indy car to formula one then formula one to nascar and then back to indy car like he's he's kind of in a bunch of sports cars and in the intermediate part And, you know, I think his family at that stage were at an age that travel was pretty easy as well.

So, you know, it's, yeah, I couldn't imagine going that direction now. It'd be tough. It'd be tough. But, you know, maybe I'd really enjoy it. My wife brought it up and I'm like, are you sure that's really something you'd be wanting to be a part of too? You know, like of doing 30 to 5, 40 weekends a year, you know, like it's a brutal schedule. So, okay, you've got a seventh championship to win this year. It's keeping you up at night right now thinking about who's going to have to

race to get that. No one, really. They don't worry? None of them scare you? No, I think, you know, the important part of that is you can't focus on anyone. I think, you know, there's so many. You know, I think for rivalries, you know, Penske, I think, you know, I think if, I think you just sort of stat where, you know, maybe the last 10 years it's been one of our teams,

you know, that whether it's Chip or Roger that have won the championship. you know you're going to have to go through them to win for sure and power did a phenomenal job last year i think to you know his temperament was definitely changed from previous seasons and you could see that play out and you know he was a true champion last year he played it extremely well so you know he's going to go on with a bunch of confidence i think from from what he learned and what he did last year you know joseph's going to be strong mclaughlin's a you know new young stud and thankfully from new zealand which is pretty cool um you know our team team's going to be, you know, Marcus has got a ton of, you know, I think positivity from his

500 win and Alex is, you know, young and hungry and a path champion. And, you know, it's going to be, it's going to be tough. I don't, you know, I guess the short answer is you can't single anyone out, you know, that's, that's the problem. You just got to go on to focus on your own stuff. When we were running, when the, when the world was, um, on the sidelines, we were having the virtual races. Yeah. Um, were you part, were you doing all that with us or no? I did a couple of the Indy car races. Did you, did you?

I did Michigan. Michigan. Yeah. Well, mine crashed like at the start line of Michigan. Yeah, we had a big wreck.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But then I could never go again because it, I think it might have been the time when they implemented where you could actually repair the car. Yeah. But my repair wouldn't work. So I was over it.

So I remember, um, really being taken aback by how chatty they all were with each other. Yeah. And, um, and how Will was, uh, was on everybody's ass pretty good about everything. Yeah. Yeah, he was... He's a character. He's a character. So what kind of relationship do you have with him? Uh, comes and goes. You know, we've, uh, we've had our moments. I'd say we're in a good spot right now. But yeah, we've, we've had some, I remember St. Louis one year, like it got down to the end of the race and I went up and I think I finished second or third. We had a pretty, pretty fierce battle, especially through one and two at one point. And I was like, hey, congrats, man.

And he's like, you know, F you. And I was like, what, man? I'm like, what are you talking about? And he's like, well, you know, you kind of crowded me. I'm like, man, I didn't like go back and watch the replay. But it was, I knew it was about something else, you know. And it all turned out it was about some media thing I'd done. You know, he probably doesn't want me talking about it.

And I apologize now, Will, but, you know, it was bad dad jokes. I was doing something. It was for car and driver or something. And it was, um. You were telling bad dad jokes. Bad Dad jokes and it was what petrol or what fuel does Will Power's car run on

and the punch line was Arso lean He's like man you're talking You know you're talking smack about me and I'm like No man it was just a joke but I thought You know with Will he gets very deep And I thought we were gonna I thought we were gonna fight

Because I'm like man you're giving me a look like This is getting pretty aggressive right now He's volatile Yeah but I love Will I love his passion He's very passionate a hell of a driver super fast and what he

did last year was very special but this is you know the ups and downs of all the IndyCar drivers I think you know you kind of but well yeah we'll keep some self mostly I think I was wondering so with everybody living you know everybody kind of you know from different worlds

are there any of the guys in the series that you connect with and that you know you might you know might vacation with or keeping contact with current yeah probably like felix Rosenquest spent a lot of time with him tkah um kind of the old guard of you know maybe

marco and you know dario and you know a list of those guys like i still dario is still part of our team and works and but he lives in england we don't get to see each other as much as we'd like but yeah you know it's definitely changed you know used to be where i would say 80% of the field would go out after the race and you know you would you know have some fun a lot of the new guys don't like to drink a lot of the younger guys like it's you know you kind of see yeah it's just a generational shift whereas you know i feel like you've kind of moderation at everything right you know it's it's uh you got to you got to enjoy life like racing is one thing you know for me and and especially with the family side of it it it snapped me out of being totally obsessed with racing you know and diving down that hole that was going to be pretty ugly and you know my wife is like such an amazing person and, you know, so positive, you know, finding your soulmate is definitely life-changing as well, and she changed that all for the better and having kids and just being able to,

after a bad weekend, walk through the door and, you know, at that time with two little girls, you know, play with, you know, Barbie dolls and not really think about racing, I think, was definitely a life-changing moment for me for a positive to help my career as well. Speaking of your girls, I wanted to talk to you before we close this up, you're you have a program women in motorsports that you're you're a part of which I think is really really cool so I got I got two little girls two and four you've been there and you know whatever they choose to do is what they choose to do but I would like for some way to at least open the door for them to say hey take a look you know look around right what's the

possibilities for you in motorsports. And if they would, you know, if there was any way that they ever found a interest, man, I would love to have an opportunity to help them realize, you know, what's possible. Yeah. And so I think that's what this program's about. Yeah, and I think, you know, I don't know who actually came up with the idea. It was probably, you know, probably Chip, but, you know, PNC Bank, you know, the primary on the nine car, you know, and Chip Ganesi Racing, you know, run this internship program.

for women in motorsports and, you know, it kind of, it ran really well last year. We had five interns. We wish we could have kept all of them. But I think, you know, there were many kind of moments through that, that, you know, being a race car driver and performance-based, you know, you're kind of seeing different conversations going on, different questions being asked, which is helping grow the team. And on a selfish moment, you're seeing it as a performance gain, right? But the kind of the penny drop part for me was just, you know, at Indy this year.

and Tilly, my youngest, who was, I think she would have been 10 or 11 at the time, you know, it's like, who are these women that are, you know, working on the stand or working on the car? Because it was definitely different from what she had seen previous years, you know, and to see her ask about that. And I was like, well, you know, they've got a program where they're trying to make, or not make, but have women be a part of what is mostly known as a male-dominated sport. You're lucky, you know, with your sister who's been there for a lot of your life and worked deep in, you know, this industry.

But it's not common, right? And I think that's what, you know, PNC Bank and Chip have tried to do. And, you know, you, of course, you see different versions of it. But for me now, I can see with Tilly or even Poppy that they're like, wow, I could, you know, I could actually look at doing something in this sport. And that's, you know, that's what I guess all of us wanted out of it. Yeah. But then on the performance side and just how the conversations change, you know, when it's not just a room. full of men. I think

there's a positivity to it as well. There's a whole vibe that kind of changes and it's been pretty powerful and a pretty quick change. I think that we've seen just in Al-Patic alone, which is impressive. I think that's great. You know, when we go to the racetrack and the little dirt tracks that run around

here, there's a lot of girls racing in the sprints and so forth. And I'm like, Isla, do you see her? Do you see she races? You know? And she's like, I can see her trying to put it together because she knows her cousin or cousin Wyatt and think you know she's seen me race and so to be able to introduce her to that that reality is a lot of fun so I imagine you're really enjoying that um well man I uh I want to thank you for coming no I know you got a lot of things going on

in your life it's race week man yeah it's race week yeah I'm excited well we're excited for you we're going to be paying attention this year and looking forward to what you can accomplish uh you're going to be hard to beat. But we are lucky to have had you come on the show and sit down and talk to us. It's been something I've wanted to do for a long time. I've never had a chance to really get to know you or sit down and have any time with you. So this has been a big privilege for everybody in the room. I'm the lucky one, man.

So I'm a big fan of yours and obviously what you've done through your career. But it's definitely, I don't know, it's kind of weird. I thought this was kind of a long time coming in weird ways. but it's great to be here and I'm very thankful that you guys got me out. Before you leave, go pick out a car

you want to race. Yeah, oh yeah. Bristol. There's lots of cars. Yeah, go pick one out. Write your name on one. We'll get it ready for you. Let's do it.

You can call Chip, okay? I will. I will. He's going to be so mad after this. What are you talking about? That's all it takes. I'll call them up. Yeah.

Well, we appreciate you, Scott. Thanks for coming on, man. Thanks, man. Scott Dixon on the Dale Jr. Download. Man, I'm really excited to have Ally Help us bring the guest segment every week. It's one of my favorite parts of the download. We get to talk to so many different people in racing, outside of racing. But everybody that comes in here, I want them to

have had a good time. I want them to want them to want to come back. I want them to feel like an ally to Dirty Mo Media. Thank you, Ally, for your continued support of the download and the entire Dirty Mo Media team. Check out Dirty Mo Media. Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.