The Dale Jr. Download - 425 - The Business of Motorsports - Part I

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

Dirty Mo Media is proud to bring you a new Dale Jr. Download series called “Business of Motorsports”, featuring Kelley Earnhardt Miller. For the first installment, Kelley and co-host Mike Davis sit down with the President of 23XI Racing Steve Lauletta. Lauletta worked for many years in the sports marketing department for the Miller Brewing Company before serving as the President of Chip Ganassi Racing for over a decade. Kelley and Steve discuss what the day-to-day life for the president of a NASCAR Cup team looks like, as well as the culture at 23XI Racing. Steve explains the steps the company has taken in its hiring process to ensure a unique approach to building a brand and a successful race team. They also discuss how they keep their sponsors involved with team activities and how they sell their employees on the company’s vision. Plus Steve talks about NASCAR's current charter system and the struggles or positives aspiring Cup Series teams, like JR Motorsports, face when deciding to buy a charter. 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. Welcome to the Dell Jr. Download. It is yours truly, Kelly Earnhardt Miller. This is actually a little bit different segment. The business of photo sports. This is something that I've wanted to do with you for a long time. Do business-related podcasts. Do business-related episodes.

Open chats, right? Open chats about the business concerns of our industry, which there are many. I hope this series opens people up to the broader, bigger picture. All right, welcome to the Dell Jr. Download. Boy, does this voice sound a little familiar? Boy, does it sound a little strange? I don't know.

But here we are in the Bojangles studio, and it is yours truly, Kelly Earnhardt Miller. And so you're probably wondering why I'm here. I'm also here with your normal co-host, Mike Davis. Hey, Mike. Hey, Kelly, I'm wondering why you're here. What's going on? Yeah.

What happened to Dale? What'd you do to him? Of all people, you should know why I'm here, but yes. What happened to Dale? Oh, gosh, Dale's sipping drinks somewhere on a sunny beach. Let's hope. No, he's on a vacation. It's a spring break for the kiddos and so taking some much needed downtime.

So you let him do vacations? Well, if you want to call it let, yes. We all know who the boss is around here. Well, now Del has two bosses. Amy and me. That's right. So Dale's on vacation. Right. And listen, I've missed a couple episodes here and there. You've always filled in for me. Dale Jr. is going to miss an episode. You're, you are going to be the celebrity fill-in.

I'm so excited. So, yeah, so let's talk about that. I'm excited to be here. Right. And, you know, hosting, got to do the podcast with Jeffrey Earnhardt when you were missed, which is kind of the similar style and feel and program. But I'm excited about what we've got going on today. I am too. And I want us to talk about this because, frankly, this is something that. I'm not. I'm not. I'm a lot of I've wanted to do with you for a long time. You are one of the most brilliant business people that we know of. It's certainly what you've done with us. Even Dirty Mo Media is always just, we're impacted by it every day. And it's, hey, if Kelly's going to be on the show, why don't we use her at her strong suit?

And that is do business-related podcasts, do business-related episodes. And so we came up with the idea. Thankfully, you were open to this idea. And that was, why don't we do a series on the Dale Jr. Download called the Business of Motors and it's hosted by yourself. Not that Dale can't do business conversations. Of course he can. And we've had him on the download.

But Kelly, you're in your own level here. When it comes to business, you know, this is what you do. You run a business. You've built businesses and you have these conversations daily. So I think that when Dale's gone, rather than just have you come in and interview some old race car driver that we would have, you know, on a normal week, why don't we actually make this an actual theme, a series, and have people that would have these conversations with us, and then we can have, and we can just have open chats, right? Open chats about the business concerns of our industry, which there are many.

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I'm really excited about it. And, you know, a lot of people can have conversation. You run businesses. But I think I have a strong suit in the big picture. And just really thinking about consequences and, you know, you know, liabilities and risk and the rewards and all of those things all in one package. You know, I think that's really a strong suit of mine when, you know, I'm getting to work with you guys,

like you on Dirtymo Media or, you know, the race team or the brand team. And, you know, I was thinking about this series, you know, to me really, you know, there's a lot of media out there. There's a lot of articles. There's a lot of conversation about the business and the dynamics and the economics and all those kinds of things. But, you know, one thing that I really hope that this series does is, open up people's horizons and to see that big picture. There's so much more involved in decisions, you know, as a fan, as a fan of music or as a fan of sports or whatever it might be that I'm a fan of, and I know this is true for our race

fans, you know, they see that moment in time that's happening that they're upset about or some decision that's made or, you know, a start time or, you know, whatever it is. and, you know, maybe they don't get the big picture. I hope this series opens people up to the broader, bigger picture. Right. Right. Listen, I'll give you one example that I know that you and Dale are hit with almost weekly. We'll have a guess. Let's just say Jeffrey Earnhardt, for instance.

And then naturally, like if Jeffrey, he may not be the best example because Jeffrey has a ride, but if he didn't, they'd be like, why don't you put him in a car? They still ask that question. Right, they still do it. Like, why are you not putting in a car? not thinking about the business implications and all that goes with that. That's why this series exists. So we can actually address those.

Like you'd be the perfect person and we're going to have guests on here that we can kind of like tackle those problems together. So rather than ask them about, you know, what setup they ran in a race previously, that will be what we talk about with Dell or the first car or whatever it is. But here we're going to try to stay business focused and just talk about the pros, the cons, the struggles, the challenges, in an ever-changing climate. Man, is it changing, right? Like, just the sponsorship game has changed. And you were tasked, not just all of us,

but you most certainly, because you're our leader, we're looking to you to keep up with the changes, right? Yeah. How many employees do you have at Junior Motorsports? Yeah, so, you know, we have about, well, and I count everything under Dale's umbrella, right? So 130 of us. You're growing like crazy.

You've added quite a few people to your team. And so, yeah, with Junior Motorsports, with the brand team for managing Dell's business with DirtyMo Media with our foundation and all of those things. Right. You know, 125 to 30 employees. And so it's a lot. And it's a lot to, you know, especially in our world. I think this is something interesting for us is Dell's at the center of everything we do.

And now we've added the car store. And now you've added the car store. Man, we could do a whole episode just on that, right? I mean, because I know, because my office is right across the hall from yours, you have been inundated getting that thing off the ground. Like this has been your last what, however, three, four, five months? Yeah, three four months. It was quick. Right, right. It all came together quickly. And yet that is a very big business proposition that you guys, I mean, Dale's now a partner in the Cars Tour series. It's not easy just to go become an owner of a racing series.

Yeah, absolutely. And so let's talk about who we've decided to have on the show, our first episode of the business of motorsports. Yeah. Who is it? Yeah, so Steve Lolletta. And my background was, Steve is when he worked for Chip Ganassi racing. So he's been in the sport for a while, but he's currently the president of 23X. 2311, right. 2311, yeah, 2311, sorry. I get the whole XI, like Roman numerals have always, yeah, they've always thrown me off. Yeah, 2311.

So, yeah, so happy to have Steve on board a long time in this sport, on the sponsorship side, on the marketing side, you know, running the race teams, in the throes of what NASCAR. car used to look like and what NASCAR looks like today. And so, you know, I'm excited to talk about that. Right. He also, he started in as a Miller, I think for Miller was the motor sports director for, you know, for a major sponsor back in the 90, early 90s when, you know, they were, when I graduated from college. Rusty Wallace was doing his thing in the Miller car. You know, they were coming off a championship in 89. I don't think with Miller, but Miller was a prominent, uh, sponsor in the sport. And Steve Lilletto was part of that program. I mean, made it happen. And so then he went to Chip Gannasi as a president.

Was he president, Chip Ganes? Yes. And then he's president with Denny's team. There's so many fascinating things that he can talk to. I just want to hear his opinion. I want to hear the president of Junior Motorsports talk to the president of 2311 and just compare notes, right? And just see like, okay, what's your day to day like?

And then also, I'm interested to know what is his thoughts on the charters and what is his thoughts on, you know, the business models that, uh, that are constantly changing and the new car that's supposed to be cutting costs for teams. And then what your cost are like, uh, you know, running the Xfinity series program with four teams. It's just fascinating for me. So I hope our listeners appreciate what we're going to do for this series and also just, uh, you know, learn a lot. Because I'm, that's what I'm looking forward to. Yeah. I think that we're going to share a lot and we're also going to learn a lot for sure, you know, because we're, we're, you know, running this business you're running dirty mo media been involved with us for so long on the team here for

junior motorsports and dale so um you know i think we can have some great conversations and and comparisons and you know all of those types of things but yet learn as well and so i'm super excited about it um it just reminded me when you were talking about stephen miller that um i was on the rusty wallace account in 1990 oh gosh six seven eight somewhere in that time frame and i wonder if I worked with him and I don't even recall because I was just this little college graduate. Okay, so let's back up for a second. What were you doing?

Who did you work for? Yes, I worked for Action Performance. And I was the account manager for Rusty Wallace and like, so the sponsors on his car. So, you know, I dealt with the T-shirts and the hats and the die casts and all those. I remember going to Graceland with Rusty and his team when they were running the Elvis Presley car.

Was Action Performance the first job you had in racing? Actually, no. The first job I had was with Champion Sports Group was the name of it. So David Allen, you've heard that name before. Okay, so like the publicity. Yeah, publicity. They had good wrench. They had AC Delco.

I did that. And then I went over to work for Sports Image, which then got purchased by action performance. Which guys, so then did you, and so you were climbing the ladder over there, were you not? I mean, like, I mean, you were. Started in account management. I mean, I was just the receptionist at Champion Sports Group, answer the phone. but, you know, took mental notes, learned what I could, and, you know, got handed different jobs that I could do with my experience.

And then went to Sports Image, was an account manager, worked under Joe Mattis, who is with us here today, there, and went on to action and worked, you know, under a lot of different people and Fred Wagonalls, who ran action. And, yeah, so just learned a lot. I did purchasing and account management and customer service management and all kinds of things. I think we're not doing our job as a business sports podcast if we don't mention the fact that Kelly has a business book out there for people to buy.

Right. So can people still buy that? Yeah, so it's still available. I haven't even looked on Amazon lately or anything like that. But we have copies in our store. We have autographed copies. I have autograph copies online available so you can check out my social channels for that. But I'm glad you brought that up, too, because I, I,

I was joking going to bring a book, you know, and be like, ha, you know. But, um, yeah, Steve LaLetta, where's your book? But really, you know, like those lessons, like, I think that's another cool factor of us talking about business is that, you know, my book's called nine lessons in business and life, to win in business and life. And there's so many things that, um, I think we can take from our makeup, who we are, how we're ingrained, you know, personally into our professional world, right? and how we lead, you know, and how we get business done. And that's a lot about what my book, and I use stories, obviously, from January sports and my experience. That's one of the things also that we'll ask Steve, because what an interesting culture.

I don't know what the culture at 2311 is, but I know that it must be interesting. I mean, like just with their own leadership group or their ownership group between Denny and Michael. Also, you've got Curtis Polk over there, who is this, I don't know, he's like this, I don't know if Hidden is the right word, but like everybody looks at it. him is the, you know, the mad genius behind the whole operation. Yeah, who's the guy in Wizard of Oz behind the curtains? He's the wizard, right?

Like, he's the guy. And he's this brilliant business mind. Denny's talked about him a lot when he's been on the show. We know that he was Michael Jordan's business guy. Michael Jordan done quite well in business for himself. So, you know, I'm just curious about the leadership practices that they employ over at 2311. Like, you know, I would imagine. Imagine there's a bit of a different culture.

Who knows? I think we're considered to be a little bit more of a laid-back family operation. I think that's fair to say at Junior Motorsports. I don't, certainly there's multiple ways to be able to lead a company. You don't have to be that way. Maybe they're more structured. I'd be interested to hear what he has to say about that. Yeah.

So what do you say? Do we get him in here? Yeah, I'm ready. All right. All right. Ready for that ally guest segment. Let's welcome Steve Lillette. There he is right there.

production. Man. How are you? What's up? Kelly, you're going to see you. How are you? Great. Good to see.

What's up? Welcome. Thanks for joining us today. Happy to be here. We've got one question. I've got to get out of the way before we like really roll. Yeah, this is it. You know, these 2311 guys always look at their shoes when they walk in.

Oh, yeah. What you got? I got good ones. Oh, red and black. You're matching. You're matching like Dale. That's what you got to do. It's part of the game, isn't it?

It is. Shannon Hooper says hi, by the way. Hello, Shannon. and hooper. That's right. You've been hiring over there. You've been building your team. Trying. Yeah. This way I don't have to work as hard. Yeah. So welcome to the Dell Jr. download, but this is actually a little bit different segment, the business of motor sports. And Mike and I are excited to talk to you today, but I had to get one thing out of the way because we were talking earlier before you came in. So you were on the, you worked for Miller from 93 I saw until 2004, which I'm assuming you did a lot of things for Rusty

Wallace. Sure did. And I was at Action at the time, and I just, did we cross paths then? Absolutely. We did. Yeah. Because I was trying to recall and, you know, college graduate, just taking it all in, figuring my way, figuring things out, and my memory's terrible. But I was like, I was Rusty's account

manager at Action, so I'm sure that we worked together from a time or two. Those were the good old days. We had a lot of fun with Action, you know, doing special paint schemes and all the stuff we used to do with the Deuce and Rusty at good times. It was good stuff.

I remember getting to travel to Graceland and stuff like that, so it was lots of fun. That's right. So, yeah. So, you know, we want to talk about so many things today. I hope we have time just to cover what we have going on. But we really want to talk about, like, the business of motorsports and your role currently, presently at 2311. I know you've had a long tenure in the sport.

And so I guess just start out a little bit about what your job looks like at 2311 as president. You know, it sounds so awesome. CEO here, you know. But if you're like me, you do soup to nuts. It's a lot. I was just saying outside how I describe it as when people say, how's your job? I go, I'm just juggling chainsaws, and I hope I don't cut a limb off, right?

Like, there's so many things that go into this business, right? And I think that's what I love about it. I never thought about working for a race team. And, you know, I did it for 10 and a half years with Chip Canassie, and now I'm back in it at 2311. And I really do think that it's probably the most, challenging business and sports, just the way it's structured and all the things that you've got to take into consideration. So, you know, for me, it's really about hiring the right people and making sure

you give them the culture to excel and, you know, give everybody the chance to really do their best and be innovative. I didn't come back with Denny and Michael and to work at 2311 to do it the same way I did before with Chip. We had a clean sheet of paper. We could build a brand and a team from the ground up. We could try to do it differently in a sport that needed a little bit different thinking. And I hope that we're on the path to do that. We're only four races into our third season, so it's all still really new. And that's been the fun part about it, is that building something from the ground up. All right. So we got to talk about culture. Kelly and I were. Yes, that's where I was going. Kelly and I were talking about the culture here.

and we're always fascinated about the cultures that are the race teams. Frankly, I don't know what they are. I know that if I took guesses, I would say that, you know, it has to be interesting just knowing who the ownership group is. I also think it would be interesting to know what a Chip Ganassi culture is like and how it differs at 2311, because I would imagine there's, you know, some specific differences. So how would you best characterize the culture at Ganassi versus the culture of what you guys are doing and building at 2311?

That's a good question. I think the culture at both teams, and I would say at probably every team, is certainly about performance and winning, right? And Denny says this the best. You know, we're trying to focus on two cultures, right? There's a culture of how you work together. There's a culture of collaboration,

of, as I said earlier, innovative thinking, trying to do things that maybe haven't been tried before, risk-taking, and really be focused on that task, treating each other well, communicating well. And then there's a second piece, which is winning and being competitive and fighting for championships. Because you don't want to have a culture where you are all happy and working well together and finish in 17th every week. That's not great, right? It doesn't work. So you've got to kind of balance both of those, which I think.

think is the real challenge. And, you know, we've really pushed at 2311 and Chip did this as well, right? The difference with Chip's team was he had NASCAR, IndyCar sports cars, and how could those different forms of racing benefit each other to learn more than maybe one of those teams could? In our situation at 2311, you know, starting as a small one car team now where two cars is how can we work as one, truly as one. A lot of teams talk about we want to be four cars, but act as one, and you realize quickly that that's hard to manage. But I think so far, again, two years into it, we've done a really nice job of everybody's focus on this 2311 logo and organization advancing, and whether that means the 23 or the 45 gives a little bit, communicates a little bit. I think

the perfect example of that was last year, right? We put, we took, we took. took Bubba out of the 23 and put them in the 45 to give us the best chance of going for an owner's title, which was earned by Billy Scott and Kurt Bush. So that, to me, is examples of everybody kind of looking at it a little bit differently and saying, you know, I want the best for the organization and not necessarily me and my, you know, bonus or what my team does or any of those things that go with it. What is your thoughts to that? Because then compare it to junior motorsports and like what I'm interested to hear what your reaction is. Well, I mean, I think that obviously performance is the number one thing. So I think if you're not focused on that, like you said, I mean, who wants to be just

coming in here happy, go lucky? Oh, you know, we're having fun today again. And you know, you're not performing on the racetrack. But, you know, the culture for me too is is about the way people feel at their job, right? And do they come in excited to focus on partnership and performance and communication and all of those things? And, you know, hiring those. I always people will say, you know, we just have to hire the same people. Well, you don't want to hire the same like-minded people. You do want similarly like-minded, but you need that difference, you know, so that you can bring that innovation to the table and those differences. But, you know, I want the people that are excited to be here that I know this is one thing that you talked about in an article I read is just

passion passion for what you're doing having a job that you love so that it's not work I think one of the other things we've had the chance to do here at 2311 building it is is really expand the reach of who we're talking to to come work with us right if you look at our team you know we look a little different than other teams because we are trying to find people that are bringing a different perspective. They're not all growing up in this sport. They're not all necessarily growing up in motor sports in any way, shape, or form. We have some, you know, we've hired an engineer who was in Brazil, who worked in touring cars, and we've got a mechanic who came from Formula One. And that's not new, but what's new is I think the way we're trying to find people, whether they're on the

business side or the competition side, to be able to come in, and I say this a lot, I want people to come into 23-11 and go, what are you doing that for? Like that doesn't, you know, and have us go, well, you're right. Why are we doing it that way? Because the sport's just been plugging along for so long, doing kind of the same thing. And unless you pick your head up and say, what the heck are we doing that for? It doesn't change. And that's what we're trying to do.

And so with your time in the sport, how are you seeing that learning curve for people that you're talking about that are coming from the outside? Because I'm seeing that, too, on the business side. especially, you know, coming in from other businesses or other sports or what it might be, you know, what do you see that learning curve? Is it pretty quick? Is it different? It depends. That's the part of trying to find the person that's going to adjust to that really quickly. You know, again, I try to tell people when they say, well, I don't know motorsports or I don't know NASCAR. My answer to that is I've got 50 people in the shop that know it, right? So just

ask the question, right? Don't try to figure it out too long on your own. Ask for the help from the people that know that part of the business. And so luckily, that's a good balance of them being able to feel comfortable doing that and at the same time feel comfortable saying, let's go this way, because I haven't seen that done before, whether that's content development or, you know, how to pitch a PR story or how to manage a partner when they ask about doing a particular program on the business side. Same thing on the competition side, have somebody come in and say, well, we should be doing a post-race report this way or how we looked at data that way because they've seen it in a different area.

And I think that hopefully will help us take some steps faster than some other teams. Because, again, I look at this and realize the powerhouses of teams that we're racing against that have been doing it for 20, 30, 40, 50 years, and we just finished year two, right? And if you think of it that way, it's like, holy cow, how do we even compete? but obviously we're doing an okay job of it, winning three races in our first two years. So we just got to keep on that desire and that curiosity to go find those answers.

How many employees do you have at 2311? Right now we're about 67. Okay. And that was the jump because we brought 11 new people on and we hired our own pick crew this year. So we went from, you know, 56 to 67 just like that because we did the pick crews this year. So the question I have, and it's really for both of you, is how do you get 67 people at 2311

and 130 at junior motorsports to buy into this vision? Because at the end of the day, we're in a very competitive, high-energy industry. Everybody wants to win, and you both said that performance is the key to this culture, right? But in performance, you want people that are going to win, but then there's, There's multiple teams, so they're going to get competitive with each other. And so now this idea of having a team, you know, a team unified vision can also have fractures. It's susceptible to fractures. So how do you get an entire employee base to buy into a vision?

It's not easy, and it starts from the top down. And when I say that, that means for us, it starts with Michael and Denny and the leadership team, making sure that we're constantly talking to everybody to understand where their questions are, where they might have concerns, where they think we're going off track or on track, and really building a environment where honesty and, you know, being open with people is valued. Because I think where the fractures come is when they're little groups off to the side. Like there's that water cooler talk. And you can't let that happen because that's where the disease starts to kind of creep in or that's where the fractures start.

So I feel like having your finger on the pulse of what's going on, talking to people, having folks that want to be part of that leadership group, even if they're, quote, unquote, not a leader, but they want to feel the success and they want to be part of it, I think is really important. Yeah, I think I agree. I was the top down thing for me was top of mind communicating the same thing, setting the expectations, you know, listening to what they have to say, allowing them to have feedback. I mean, here for me, it's, you know, always open door and it's cliche. But I mean, I have people that come right up off the shop floor. They'll text me and they'll say, do you have a few minutes? And it'll be something as simple as, hey, do you think we could get, you know, X, Y, Z in the break room? You know, but that's fine. That's the kind of communication. I want. I want them to feel comfortable coming to me with that kind of thing. And the other thing that I was, I gosh, I'll write this down and look. I've got to have my glasses is, and I think we've done this well, and you've been here a long time, is addressing, giving your employees as much of the picture as you can, right, so that they don't have to wonder why, wonder the what, wonder the where, you know, and we can't give all the details all the time, but getting up in front of them and saying,

you know, these are some of the reasons that this decision is being made or this is what we're going to be doing and this is why. I think it's so critical because you don't leave room for them to make assumptions and have that water cooler talk so much. That's exactly right. Yeah. Definitely being open and honest, like I said, is a key. Yeah. So you talked about performance and that mindset in our sport, which is, you know, the epitome of what we do. And one of the things that Mike and I were talking and tossing around is kind of in my series, this is kind of, this is kind of, of performance for the team and everyone going for that 2311 logo and then brand superstars

and how you go about managing that from from your aspect and I have from junior motorsports um obviously having Dell junior are part of the team and having that Earnhardt family and that legacy really helps us but we're in we're a stepping stone series and so i don't think we necessarily run into that maybe so much as cup teams um can in terms of building your brand building building 2311 what how do you help the drivers build their brand how do you balance both you know that team um aspect of the brand and the driver brand um for when they move on and so and and then it gets to me it's even more interesting now with the charter situation because you know you have this value in your team yay um you know you finally have something that's valuable and um and so

building that so i'd love to hear your thoughts on kind of that that dichotomy there yeah i mean building the brand was one of the real reasons that I got excited about 2311 is because, again, there wasn't one. And now we came up with something. And again, I kind of, I don't know if I'd say argued, but I was a dissenter in the discussion about calling it 2311 because I said, it looks great when it's 2311 and we have the number 23 car. But when we grow to a second car, a third car and a fourth car, it's going to be number soup. Like, how do we differentiate that, right? And sure enough, now we're 2311 with the 23 and the 45, and they're both on the car. And it just so, but I love it now.

And the reason why I love it is because it's different, right? It's not, this isn't Michael Denny Racing or Jordan Hamlin racing. It's a brand, and I talk about this a lot. We're building a brand in 2311 that happens to be a race team, not a race team brand. And so I want to show up in places and I want us to have this brand show up in places that is unexpected. So Denny and Bubba being in a post-Malone video or a streetwear collaboration that we did with McDonald's or what we can do with Jordan brand and some of our other partners being in the outdoors with Columbia. All these different things are not because hopefully where this race team competing on the track, but because of what the brand means. The example I use is you could walk down the street in Charlotte or any other city and pass somebody with a New York Yankees hat on.

and there's a chance I could stop them and say, hey, name me three players that play for the Yankees, and they won't answer it. But you know what they'll say? Why do you wear that hat? Well, it's championships, it's attitude, it's New York, it's Jay Z wore it in a video. I want somebody in Seattle, Washington,

walking out of the street with a 2311 hat on so they could say, you know, they're badass team, they're changing the sport, they're, you know, innovative, competitive, whatever those things are that stuck with them. So I feel like that's a big opportunity for, for us being new in the sport, but it's also a big opportunity for existing teams

to continue to kind of develop what they really mean. And then we can stand alone or we can stand with Bubba and Tyler or whatever the pieces of the puzzle are for that particular thing because we need to have, we need to have a value and inequity

in the brand along with the driver brands because that's what we're delivering to all of our partners and that's what we're delivering to all the fans. So it's definitely a dance. I hired a woman named Jamie Ruiz from Warner Brothers out in L.A. to come be our VP of marketing, entertainment brands, Batman, all these.

You know, like that's kind of the thought process of like, come in and build this with us and take it to different heights that we can do and maybe no other team has thought about doing. And that's, again, another piece of the fun that we get to do because this is a new brand. Yeah. I made the comment to Kelly. I'm glad you said that because, Steve, I made the comment,

and it was just an observation that I can name partners and key sponsors on 2311 that I cannot name other significant race teams, even race teams that are notably doing well with their own race team brand. And I don't know if that's a coincidence or if that's intentional. Like the example is, I know for a fact that McDonald's, and DoorDash. You know, I know these are on your team. I don't think I can name a track house sponsor.

Yeah. The track house is doing a fantastic job. Well, listen, Trackhouse does a fantastic job with their brand. With, like, very notably doing creative things. But I'm saying is it a coincidence? Is it Bubba Wallace and his attention? What is, why do I know your partners better than almost I know my own? Well, it's essentially you bring that up, Mike, because I just came from a

meeting where we talked about how, you know, back in the day when I was at Miller, we were marketing the hell out of Rusty Wallace and commercials and, you know, Budweiser was doing the same for Dale Jr. And we've kind of lost that where these big brands aren't doing as much of the marketing to make these drivers as recognizable as they might have been in the past. I think ours are, right? McDonald's put Bubba in a Super Bowl commercial. DoorDash has put Bubba in multiple commercials. You know, Dr. Pepper, we've made a bunch of noise of the scholarship program we're doing with them. And, oh, by the way, they do a scholarship program with the college football playoffs.

So we're like in that same, you know, realm of what they're doing with is one of the biggest properties in the country. So I feel like our partners are doing a really good job of using our team in ways that maybe some others aren't. Yeah. So that they break through. And, you know, we're doing the same thing from our social channels. And we're trying to be in front of those opportunities, like I said, about the video with Post Malone, where they are giving us the chance to maybe break through a little bit more than just what's going on during the weekend or in a race market. And so we got to keep pushing on that and we got to keep bringing in partners.

And we just signed a partnership with Walmart. And it's all around health and wellness where Bubba and our team are kind of delivering a health and wellness message to, to underserved communities where we race. And so that's a place where nobody else is playing. So when we start to have a partner like Walmart talking about 2311 and Bubba Wallace, that breaks through. And that's what we need. Yeah, absolutely.

We broke through today with Drake wearing a Dale Earnhardt jacket. I saw that. See? And that's cool. It is very cool. That makes him an Earnhardt. That makes him part of the family right there. Doesn't it?

Either that or, yeah, we're going to be part of the Drake family. I don't know which one. Either one. You know, this is an interesting thing, and this teased me up for a question that I also, and Kelly alluded to it a little bit, but that is, you know, I've always been fascinated with like the Cleveland Cavaliers situation

where I, you know, I remember listening to the vice president of marketing speak at a conference, and when they had LeBron James, their stock was at the top. LeBron James went to Miami, and you couldn't name a person on the Cleveland Cavaliers team. He goes back to, Cleveland and all of a sudden they're back again. But then he leaves for LA. And it's in the question

is when you're getting it's a great thing when you have you know drivers that are capable of getting outside of the NASCAR bubble as we call it and it can really resonate in mainstream, right? And it's especially good when those when you can allure or attract sponsors that have the capability of doing that and it has the budgets to do that and the influence in Super Bowl commercials and whatever. But then if they're tied to a driver, how do you keep the driver from leaving and taking all that equity of your race team and putting it somewhere else? How do you do that? Yeah, that's part of the business, right? Hopefully the driver is happy enough that they want to stay and be part of it. And you've given them every opportunity to

succeed on or that you want them to stay same thing right like that's part of the business and it's very it's hard to keep that going indefinitely but you know you try to deliver between relationships and I look at it you know if you everybody's talking about Formula One and the success and I use the analogy that if you look at Formula One teams most of their fans I'm not saying all of them but most of them are team fans like you're a Ferrari fan you're a McLaren fan whether Vettles driving or or LeClerc's driving, it doesn't matter. Like, you're cheering for that. NASCAR is drivers, right?

And maybe a little bit teams, but it's certainly the driver is the driver. And IndyCar is in the middle. There are some Penske, Ganassi, and Dredi fans, no matter who's driving, and then there are some Scott Dixon fans, Tony Kinnon fans, and, you know, Rossi fans. So I think there's this challenge of making sure that all of those brands have enough equity so that one piece doesn't make the whole puzzle fall apart. All, it's in one basket. You can't.

Yeah, you have to have, you have to build all of it enough back to the point we were talking about before so that you don't, you know, lose, any of those players lose in the potential of a change because change happens, right? That's part of what we're having to deal with. But it's definitely something that you've got to be prepared with. You know, one of the things we asked about my job. There's so many people in this business. that are, you know, staring at the tip of their nose, right?

What are we doing in Atlanta this week? And then what are we doing next week, you know, in Austin? And then what are we doing in Richmond? And so I feel like I've got to be one of those people that's looking at least one, if not three, five years out, right? Because nobody, most other people are looking this week because that's where the rubber hits the road is this week. So that's when, you know, Denny and us being aggressive in sign and Tyler Reddick, you know,

19 months before we were going to hire him. When was the last time that's happened in the sport? But it was like, let's get ahead of this. Let's start to figure out where we're going. And when the talent like that becomes available, because he was available, you go and you get aggressive, you get it, and then you give yourself time to kind of build the plans around that. That didn't happen, unfortunately, because of Kurt and some of the other stuff.

But that's the piece, I think, is where my role has to be focused on is a little farther out so that we can hopefully stay ahead of some of that stuff, but there's no telling what's going to happen. So that made me think of kind of the driver brand stuff. Do you guys put emphasis on Bubba, you know, obviously he's outspoken, he's, you know, he's out there, he's energetic, he's a great personality. I don't know if Tyler, if I would consider the same for Tyler, you know, I think he's a lot quieter and obviously he rode he drove here and um and so i'm curious do you in that balance of team

and branding and driver because the performance has to be there and you could have you know two rock star performers and and win half the races and all that kind of stuff but for your sponsors for that engagement for that content that you're talking about for this VP that you brought in um from the team aspect to work you know where is the focus um and and is there a focus you know to build who they are, what they are, personality-wise. You know, we always heard for years, oh, Jimmy Johnson's so vanilla or whatever it was, right? Yeah.

But he was a rock star performer. Yeah, I think you have to, right? You've got to be there to support the drivers developing their personalities. Again, the partners play a role in that. They're going to be able to bring resources and ideas on how to put drivers in a situation that maybe they didn't have the chance to before.

I think a lot of, I think most of the drivers, and I've been around it for a long time. They all have a unique perspective and personality. And the challenges or the goal is to pull that out in the right instances. You can't put them in a place where they don't. Are uncomfortable. Yeah. And they come across as phony.

And I think what I'm excited about with Tyler is I don't think he's had partners around him yet that have brought that out or given him the chance to bring that out in terms of big brands. And now we've got McDonald's with him and Jordan Brand with him and money. line with him and, you know, Xfinity, which is going to be on his car this weekend, Monster with their Beast Unleashed, you know, alcoholic beverage, which puts him in a different perspective and a different audience. So he's going to excel when we start to give him the chance to do that. And I think that's what you got to, you know, focus on is trying to put the right, the right partner and the right situation with the driver and let them take it from there. By the way, Tyler brought us a Beast Unleashed last week.

I did. Yeah, yeah. I had to slow down during the middle of our show because I didn't know if I was going to make it to the end, frankly. 6%. It crept up on me a little faster than I thought it would. It tastes real good. But it also gave me...

So it could have literally unleashed the beast. Yeah, but it did because I don't know that I would have asked Tyler about the way they announced that whole thing on the Zoom call, the media conference. But then after I got halfway through my beast unleashed, I was like, Tyler, I need to know all. all the details about this. So, okay.

But we asked Tyler about that. I'm not asking you about that. I want to ask you guys about just the business model of racing. Ben said by more than one person that, you know, it's a challenging business model, you know, so dependent on sponsorships and corporate partners, the lifeblood of the sport. But then the charter system now is coming on the cup level. The charter system has changed that and adding value to the race teams. And you got Kelly Earnhardt over here.

here who's trying to acquire a charter. Yeah. And I would love to know what your opinion, but let's just start with, in both of you guys tackle this one, the business model, the business of motorsports right now, how would you grade it? What is the health of it right now? Well, I think it's two things. The health from a fan interest momentum standpoint, I think, is an A, right, with NASCAR.

I think over the last, you know, call it three or four years, there have been some really strong leadership choices that have started to do some things differently. Like when I left Chip in 2018, he was like, come on, Steve, stick around, like this is great. And I said, Chip, it's not, I love this team. I like working for the team. It's out there, meaning the outside that made it so hard

because when you keep doing the same thing over and over again, it's not working, try something different. And I was beating on NASCAR about, like, let's try some things different. And guess what? That's what they're doing. And it's great. The clash, the Chicago Street Race, the new car, you know, schedule changes. There's a lot of different things that I think are really positive and has shown results in terms of engagement by fans, attracting new fans.

You know, hopefully our team's part of that. Our fan base for 2311 is way, way younger, more diverse than the standard. typical NASCAR fan. Hopefully we have the typical NASCAR core fan as well. But like all of that stuff I think gets me to, it's an A from a momentum perspective.

Anything that is a team being 70 to 80% of their revenue dependent on corporate sponsorship is really, really hard. I mean, trust me, you know it's really hard. And that's because there are so many choices

out there now, right? When, you know, Back in the day when I was running sports marketing for Miller Brewing Company, we spent money in sports and we spent money in music. Yeah. Two things. Like now, think about the kind of sports that are out there, social, digital media, content. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. There's so many more choices. Yeah, one thing for the choices of activity, but then the way that you market, right?

A paint scheme was a great thing. A tractor trailer going down the highway was an awesome thing. Now you can do so many more things socially, digitally without leaving this table. That's right. You know, I mean, we can, you can reach so many people. So I think that's definitely a challenge. And that's what I see is I'm ready for that gap to close up a little from the economics of the team part of it to the sponsorship, from the sponsorship part, right? So, you know, can we, you know, do this in a different way from a cost perspective, you know,

and things like that. I know the next gen car, you know, for you guys is part of that model. Yeah. And let's just, just to put a little, for everybody, just to put a little sort of comparison to it, when I say 70 to 80 percent of the team's revenue in NASCAR being from corporate sponsorship, if you look at a traditional stick in ball sports, somebody in the NFL, a team in the NFL, a team in the NBA, I'm going to tell you, from my experience, it's somewhere in the 13 to 20 percent range.

Wow. Corporate sponsorship. And that's because they're getting their share of the revenue from the league. They're selling tickets. They have local media rights. They're selling sweets. They're a merchandise. You know, all those things have so many different buckets.

We don't have that many buckets. We've got, you know, what we race for, what our corporate sponsorships bring in. And that's pretty much it. So even licensing now is not enough to drive. Yeah. It's nothing. You know, I joke before we had the second. highest selling die cast last year with Kurt Bush and that jumpman car that won in Kansas.

And I might be able to buy you guys lunch for what we got from our royalties off of that. Like it's just not, it's, it's, it's not even bother with it. So I feel like we've got to figure out a way that the perfect model is the collaboration by the entire sport to grow it to more people so that we have more opportunities to all succeed. And that's another piece that's, that's been missing that I think. thinks getting better is we beat each other up all the time. Like, because there's no sort of format where it's not me against every other team or me against NASCAR, me against these tracks or me.

You're like, that just doesn't, it's not healthy. And it's not healthy from the brand perspective because they get calls 42 times a day going, you want to sponsor this? You want to sponsor this all NASCAR? And finally, they just, they become like, you know, I'm out. Just don't even talk to me about it anymore. Just don't call me. Just don't want to hear about it.

So how do we? we how do we all collaborate and work together to make it easier for these big brands who want the audience we have and see the benefit of it but it's just not easy to figure out the best way to maneuver because we're not working together yeah we're competing for those dollars you know at the end of the day i mean it's you know a lot of our sponsors will say and and they've been a sponsor of ours for a long time and they still get you know 10 to 20 proposals from 10 teams, big and small, you know. And, yeah, so that, that, working together, kind of having that common interest so that we all can build and gain together, you know.

We have different motives, right, right now. Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing is, this is a huge pet peeve of mine, is to have, is to provide solutions to brands instead of, I always joke around, like, I always thought that the way NASCAR team sold was, like, hi, Mike, I have this. this to sell. You need to buy that. And you go, I don't want that. I went, okay, I'm leaving, and I'm going to go take it and go somewhere else. Like, I got to build a solution for everybody, and the solution's not the same. And it's certainly not how much per race is a paint scheme. Like, I've never talked like that in my life, nor will I ever. And I feel like the industry,

you know, talks about selling, well, how much does it cost to put the logo on the hood of the car? And I go, I don't know. Like, because if I say, $10 and you say five and you say 11, it becomes a product of like, I'm going to spend the least amount of money to get the most. And nobody wins from that. And all the other things we're delivering have value. So I tell my friends in the business all the time, like, stop talking like that. You're making it harder for everybody. The Dallas Cowboys aren't saying, here's how much that sign in the end zone costs per game. Nobody talks like that. So we just got to be smarter on how. how we position the sport from a business standpoint, and I think it will be easier to maneuver

in the future. Is it fair to say, though, that is it just a product of timing in which I'm paying attention, or has the argument picked up on behalf of the team owners and the drivers and certainly about how that revenue is split? I certainly hear it a lot when we're talking about the TV renewal rights, you know, renewals. and, you know, Denny certainly has made a loud enough argument to say, you know, we're trying to, you know, get a little bit more of that pie so the teams don't have to depend solely on the corporate sponsorships. Do I have this right? Is that not the argument? Is that not been picked up lately? Yeah, I think that's certainly what's being talked about. And everybody agrees with it. It's hard to argue the logic, right? Like, oh, yeah, that does make sense.

But the question is, agreeing what the issue is is different than what's the solution that works for everybody. Yeah. Okay. What's the solution? I thankfully am not involved in those conversations. I think the solution is what I said, where everybody feels like it's fair and there's a collaboration desire to grow the entire revenue. Because your point, the TV revenue. is a big piece of it, but it's not it's not the only thing.

Right. How can we all be smart enough to find other ways that we're all making the sport more valuable to the industry itself, but also attracting more people so that the pie gets bigger? Because the more fans you have, the more they're going to watch TV, the more they're going to buy merchandise, the more they're going to come to races, the more they're going to follow us on social media. That's what everybody needs to really be focused. on. Yeah, I think that that's fair. And the cannibalization of each other has to stop, right? Like,

that's what I'm hearing you say. Like, it's like, and I don't think there's an intentional. No. No. Just for some there is. Is there really? Oh, heck yeah. Is it cutthro? You don't think? I don't know. Yeah. You guys would know more than I would. 100%. I mean, and that's just between the teams, but just the industry. I'll give you an example. We've been lucky enough you've outlined some of them where we've brought new brands to this sport for 2311. And as soon as we announce a brand, I will say every racetrack is calling them for sure, right? And I've had conversations.

Want to sell X, Y, Z? Yeah, and I've had conversations with the tracks, and I simply say this, why are your people calling the sponsor that I have a relationship with? They should call me, because I have the relationship. So I can do one of two things. I can either help you,

or I can kill you. So why don't you want me to help you? Because I want them to be part of all the other stuff, but I don't want you to be doing it around back doors and alleys and all the other things. Like, let's work together on this because I'll tell them, don't do a deal. And you know what? They'll go, okay, because I'm the one that brought them into the sport. We're the one that brought, not me.

But you know what I'm saying? Like, that's the mentality that we've just got to get over. And we've got to be smarter about the solutions we're putting in front of. of people so that they're more all-encompassing so that they're easier to maneuver and not, oh, you did this with me. Now go do five other deals because they're easier to, you know, you got to go deal with them individually. Wouldn't it be easier if I just put the one solution in front of them?

Kind of like what we talked about. That's right. You know, like I called Mike about Dirty Moe saying, I have a partner. Could you help me with this and the other thing? It's easier for me to do that because I know where to go than some. somebody sitting in New York going, what do I do? Right. That's one of the things from our standpoint here at Junior Mergersports and the sponsorship

piece of it is a lot of times, you know, like you talked about, it's not that price per race, but kind of what is your budget, you know, what's the budget that you have to available to spend and does that include the activation? Does that include the marketing? Does that include these parts and pieces? And sometimes we'll go out for a sponsor and kind of put that whole package together, right? Talk to the tracks. What, you know, oh, you want to suite at X, X, Z.

or you want this and that and kind of put that whole thing together because they don't want to talk to multiple people. And then, you know, you kind of have that whole package together, like you said. Not only do they. You own the relationship. Yeah, not only do they not want to talk to multiple people? They don't know what to ask for. Like they have no idea. Like I said, they're, they've never been to a race before potentially. So they wouldn't know a suite in Daytona versus where do I sit in Sonoma. So that's on us to, again, as a group to just be smarter and help these big, brands and smartest marketers on the planet figure out why they should be involved in NASCAR, not why they should not.

Why us? Yes, exactly. I know. I get so, I get, I get really discouraged when I hear these days. Well, we had an experience in NASCAR 20 years ago and it was terrible. Yep. I might just give us a chance. Right. Give us an opportunity. Because we are thinking about it different. There are teams out there thinking about it. There's tracks thinking about it different. And, you know, I do see us moving into more collaboration, obviously, but until everyone wants to sit at the table, the solution's not going to be there

unless we all, you know, give a little to get more later, right? Very well said. Exactly right. So until everybody's ready to come to that table with a little bit to give up, you know, for something to gain later down the road. And I can only talk from the discussions that I have, and I'm certainly not in all of them. I feel like we're at that point. I feel like people are saying, okay, you know, whether it's NASCAR, tracks, teams,

who media, whoever it is. Like let's all, if we got to give a little to do the right thing for the long term, let's all figure out what that is because that you don't want to, you know, the sport, and I was around it and you were too, the sport saw this massive growth spurt. And I think there's a lot of things that we would go back and say, we really mismanaged that on a number of fronts. Too many grandstands built. Maybe you added too many races, whatever, whatever, whatever.

Let's not do that again. Just deal supply of demand. Yeah. Let's let's be. real smart now that we've got some forward momentum on how we manage it so that we don't have a, you know, a slide that's too dramatic if it ever was to stop down the road. Yeah, I know. There's so many good things.

It's like you talked about that Fed experience being in a. There's so many great things that the attendance, the fans, the engagement, the experiences at the racetrack. And, I mean, we're still one of the best viewed sports, you know, out of all of them, right, consistently. Yeah. And then everybody wants to talk about. you know well how bad it is you know not but there's and and there's a lot of reasons for that from the economical aspect of what things look like but um that lots of momentum i feel like lots of momentum you would be hard pressed to find another sports property other than the NFL that has three to four

million people every week watching it on tv like it is absolutely and the size of the crowds we have i mean that's again what makes it so exciting and i think the more um we continue to push new solutions the better off it's going to be yeah i'd love to switch gears because i want to make sure we have time to talk about the charter situation and mike brought it up um uh the charter is just in general you know what they've done for a race team and then for somebody like us who wants to get in there's a it's a it's a very interesting spot right now for me in terms of um you know to purchase a charter or not to purchase a charter there's been no movement obviously um you know in 2022 so much movement obviously with you guys in 2021 on charter positions. But, you know, just curious how you see it working for the teams,

you know, what do you see going into the future as far as new teams being able to come in, what that investment looks like. I mean, that's the biggest thing for us is right now we can't make sense of the investment, right? Between the dollar figures that are being thrown around for what a charter is worth or valued at, what it's going to be worth and valued at after the TV contract comes out and the TV negotiations. and then sponsorship on top of that. And then the assets that you need on top of that, the capital that you need on top of that to make it on work.

Yeah, look, I think it's a great step forward, right? And we could ask Chip Canassi how great a step forward it was, right? So, you know, it could have been a team owner like Chip who put his blood, sweat, and tears and money into being in the sport for many, many years. If he decided that it wasn't going to work for him, he would have had a building and some cars and it would have been worth basically nothing, right? Especially in that year because the new cars were coming. So his scrap metal wasn't even worth scrap metal.

And thankfully, you know, he had these things called charters that he could sit down with Justin Marks and he could get something for the effort. And I think that's what everybody in sports that's a team owner is looking for, whether you own the Minnesota Vikings or the New York Yankees. You want to have an asset that's going to hopefully appreciate in very, value that at some time, if you or your family wanted to sell it, there's somebody that's going to buy it. And I think you see today with the amount of transactions going on, whether globally in European

football or here in the U.S., there is tremendous interest in owning professional sports teams of any kind. Right. And so I feel like the challenge is, and I would say, Kelly, would you have a different opinion of being able to you know businesses like professional sports teams and many other businesses just trade on a multiple of their revenue right so how you know you bring in x amount of revenue and a buyer's going to give you three times six times 10 times 20 times what that is and that's how they value it yep i think the challenge right now is because after 2024 nobody knows

what that revenue is going to you can't value it how could you i think one of Once that happens, there's going to be a lot of people that are going to say, oh, okay, let me take a look at this and see this charter over the next eight years, 10 years is going to throw off this much money and I need this much money in sponsorship. And if I come up with that number and you can find a willing person who owns a charter now, there's a conversation to be had. So that would have never happened before without charters just like it doesn't happen in the NBA without franchises and their whole model. So it's a great model for teams. Scarcity is what drives value as well. So there's 36 of them, right? Like that's it.

There's 32 NFL franchises. That's it. So if you want to be in the game, there's something to be to be, to have around a conversation with that. And so for me, that's all positive, what it looks like, you know, between now and the next charter deal. I have no idea. I feel like back to the conversation we had, there is really good alignment on what it should look like, you know, in terms of this model moving forward. And now it's just the devil's in the details. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that's exactly where you're at because I had those exact thoughts and figures, you know, a year ago going into discussions with people in terms of looking at charters. And now I just don't know what it's going to look like. Nobody does. How can you make a decision on. I mean, look, we want to be. We want to be. You want another one. We want to be three cars, right?

But I'm not, I wouldn't sit in front of Michael or Danny or Curtis Polk and say, oh, yeah, we should go get this one at this amount of money. And they just like, well, what's it going to, what's it worth moving forward? None of us know. Why would we do that? You know, like it's just a weird time. It is. It's just a weird time in terms of the discussion right now. Yeah, it's like trying to go out and sell something when you don't know what the cost is going to make it or whatever.

You know, you don't know what those margins and all that kind of stuff looks like. You mentioned Curtis Polk. I'd love to know a little bit more about him. He's like this mystery man to me. He's his name. I haven't got to meet him. I haven't seen his face, you know, or anything or met him in person. But, you know, he's obviously very involved in the team.

And is he a former manager of Michael's? He's, yeah, he manages Michael's, you know, businesses and business ventures and his family. And has he been with Michael for a long time? Very long time. Very long time. Michael's whole team, whether it's him or S.D. Portnoy. who does marketing and PR, Gene Mason. Like they've been,

Michael has a great group of people that surround him and kind of help him manage all of his different business issues. And Curtis, you know, is one of the smartest people I've ever been around and, you know, who I work with the most in terms of kind of managing what we're doing from a race team perspective. And, you know, his experience with the NBA team

and just in sports in general, has a very interesting perspective on what NASCAR could be if we do some of the things we've already talked about, collaborate, and all of us give a little to make the pot much bigger. And that's why he's wanted to be involved. I think his quote was, you know, that him and Michael talk about NASCAR being this sleeping giant,

like the experience you get. I mean, even he was blown away coming to Daytona with us for the first time and standing next to Bubba, you know, with the jets flying over. And he's like, I don't even. and go in the locker room in a hornet's game and we're the owners like this is unbelievable and so the more people we introduce that to from outside of the motorsports realm the more exciting it gets because there's this different perspective and he brings a lot of that to what we're trying to build

at 2311 very cool is michael's is michael's involvement through curtis polk is it fair to say that because i'm talking when denny was on the download he brought up curtis named so many times. It's like Dale and I are looking at each other going, it sounds like Curtis Polk is the one that's the key to... It's kind of probably like when Dale talks about me. Come on now. Of course it. Of course it is. Exactly right. Of course. But, but like, you know, I'm curious of like, what is the management of 2311 look like? And where is Curtis fit into that on a day-to-day basis? I mean, there's an there's an ownership group, you know, which is Michael Curtis being part of that as well, Denny. And that's who we, me, and our competition group kind of keep involved, just like you

would. Any owner, right? Like, yeah, that's who we report to. And I think Michael, while it was him that kind of said, let's go do this, you know, after him and Curtis looked at sort of the business plan that we put together in terms of forming 2311, you know, Curtis is involved more on the day-to-day business stuff with me and, you know, Danny and the team. So that's kind of where he has certainly become more involved on the team side as well, working across the other teams, bringing his perspective and Michael's perspective. Michael's in these meetings as well sometimes. Is he really? Oh, yeah. Talking, you know, he talking about what he's learned and some of the things that he's seen. So it's just, you know, it's a regular business structure. It's nothing special. Does he live here?

Who? Curtis. No. Curtis does not live here. Does not live here. Okay. Okay. But not that you need to.

Of course you don't. Not today's world. Not in today's world. That's right. So Curtis doesn't live here, but he's very involved in the day-to-day stuff. And that's interesting because I've read a sports business journal piece just a week or so ago that he was featured in. And it's just like everybody says the same thing. And you just said it.

Like he's just this brilliant mind, right? He brings a lot to the table just on his business sense. and I find that interesting because I feel like this sport has a lot of great business minds in it. Totally. And, you know, so I've just been intrigued by the Curtis Polk. And many of those. Yeah, absolutely. And if you look at, you know, the business minds come from other areas.

You know, Roger Bensky and Rick Hendrick and Maury Gallagher and, like, those are the people that, back to what I said of the people we're trying to hire it and say, what are we doing it that way for? That's what you want. And, you know, those guys came in and bought this team and said, what are we doing it this way for? Could we, and again, just our business, forget about the bigger NASCAR structure. And I think that's valuable beyond any thoughts that I would have had to pushing us into different places. I hear you. So, Kelly, you know, to put a bow on the charter conversation, fair to say that we get asked about once a week on what's the latest on our interest. one on buying one or two right well are you trying to buy two like i would be ideal we're just

get started with one but yes and so uh let's just go ahead and just address this week's concern is like you know is it a wait and see game i mean obviously maybe you guys can't throw out the the numbers or mention the numbers that are being thrown around but i can i know what i read we're seeing numbers like 35 million for a charter i love hearing dale react to that that because I know how tight Dale is with cash. I always make the joke that he's the brokeest rich guy I've ever met, right? Because it's like, you know, he'll go through a Taco Bell drive-thru and he had to pay for this. Right. So like when you say 35 million, Dale Jr. about passes out, right? But that is an extraordinary number. And I think that like if we're saying,

let's see what that number, what if that number keeps going up? Great for the charter holders, bad for the people trying to buy one, right? Well, I think to Steve's point. earlier. I mean, you've got, you know, business people make business decisions, right? So, you know, I don't know very many people unless, you know, maybe Elon Musk or someone like that that's just going to, you know, throw a lot of money at something that he's not sure what the return is going to be or what it's going to look like. But most business people are going to look at the model. They're going to look at the revenue. They're going to look at those multiples and try to figure out, you know, that's how you buy a business, right? And so I think just because, like you said, we don't know what that

looks like right now. I mean, you know, we haven't had a charter sell for more than 13 million, you know, so 35 million three times, you know, as much. And, uh, well, I could also say that Phoenix Suns just sold for four billion dollars. So 35 million is kind of a deal. Right. Right. It depends on how you look at it, right? Exactly. That's right. It just depends on how you look at it. Tell that to Dell. I mean, believe me, it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. I do that a lot when we're talking about potential, you know, sponsor packages and things like that. And you throw a number out there and you're like, holy cow, that's a lot of money. You know, like $5 million, that's a lot of money.

Yeah. And we just toss it around like it's. Like it's nothing. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. They do. A lot of money.

You know, they have money and need to have money to sell their product, you know, to consumers. So, yeah, it's a big circle, isn't it? Yes, it is. Well, as one of my former bosses used to say, this is the life we've chosen. That's right. So, here we are. I know we just have a few minutes left, and I just want to ask you guys both, what are the biggest challenges that are facing you moving forward? Oh, gosh.

Biggest challenges. Well, this is something that we didn't hit on. You know, I think that right now the workforce is a challenge. And you were talking about bringing people from other disciplines and things like that. that. You know, I think that's one thing that we've certainly struggled with. We've had more turnover in the last year. When we were talking about culture, I really got to thinking about this too, is that I feel like it was easier pre-COVID to have that buy-in, to have people all, you know, rowing up the same river at the same time, you know, working on the same things and looking at the same

thing. And since COVID, people's priorities have changed, you know. For sure. How they want to do things, how they want to consume things, the time that they want to spend with their family and so on and so forth. And, you know, we have had people leave here to go work on elevators. We've had people leave here to go retire and, you know, be minimalistic or whatever. And so that workforce is really interesting to me. And that we are, we're no longer looking, it used to be, like you said, too, the race team, we were looking for motorsports people. people had been in the industry, people who knew what we were doing, and now we're looking beyond that and we're competing. We're competing for the same people that under other industries

are competing for, right? Our engineers are leaving to go to other industries and so on and so forth. So that dynamic for me has been really challenging. I think that that's certainly what's on the table. That is definitely a challenge. You know, I think I'm a little bit focused. on the fact that at some point, I hope it's a long time from now, we won't be the new young team anymore. So what does that look like? How do we manage that growth? How do we, you know, continue to evolve what we're doing for our partners? You know, so again, that's what I'm trying to figure out now so that when we're in year five or 10 or 15 or 20, we haven't missed anything. So, and I hope that is us continuing to bring

a new workforce to your point, Kelly, new fans, you know, just kind of keep that forward momentum going and not be, not lose that desire to really kind of shake things up and do things differently. Adapt, change, you know, not be complacent. Yeah. I know I said that was the last question, but actually I have one more. How much do you guys lean on your drivers to carry a lot of that mantle to go get the new fans, go get the new, you know, we already talked about the sponsors, but like, you know, how much are you guys relying on your driver lineup? Yeah, a lot. Yeah. I mean, they're the personalities. And then,

and then how hard do you have to work to get them to understand their importance of their role? Because a lot of the, listen, I know these drivers. Sometimes they just want to drive in the race car and they'll, you know, turn you a quick lap. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, so far, again, and I've worked with a lot of them across different disciplines over a number of years. Like, they may say that, but at the end of the day, they understand what their responsibility is. You know, there's 67 people, like I said, at 2311, and, you know, what Bubba and Tyler are doing for us and what Kurt did for us last year. Like, that is a big part of how we position ourselves for the long term. So I feel like they are, they've been very bought in, and I feel like we just got to, again,

keep that mentality and that mindset so that we don't lose the desire for everybody, whether you know, you're driving the truck or you're driving the race car, you got to make sure that everybody has that same feeling. Yeah. Ultimately, you're making connections, right? I mean, everything that we're doing, every person, the driver, you're, you know, you're making a connection, a team owner, whatever it is, and you've got to look at your place in the sport in that manner.

because McDonald's can bring it to the table, DoorDash can bring it to the table, our sponsors can bring it to the table. But once they've got the attention of that person, it's like today, you know, or the photo with Drake and Del Earnhardt. It's got to be more. You know, you've got to then get that connection.

Why? You know, why is McDonald's playing in NASCAR to their audience? And then that audience has to get connected in some manner, you know, not just that they love their burgers. Right. Or their milkshakes. Which we want them to do. Love your burgers and milkcakes.

No, we do want them to love it all. Yes. Love it all. Yeah, good stuff. Well, what kind of, you close us out here, whatever final thoughts you have. I want Kelly to be the last word, certainly not me. Oh, gosh. You know, one of the things for me that, and Mike and I hit on this a little bit in our pre-conversation

is I want our fans to broaden their horizons to learn, to understand the bigger picture, to get in the boat with us, you know, and help carry us forward, right? Because, you know, we talked about the core fan and those NASCAR fans that have been around since the days of my dad and like things done a certain way and so on and so forth to what we're, you know, we're moving and changing and trying new things and introducing new fans and that there's a place for all of it, you know, there's room for all of it. And so I hope that the conversation that we've had here today and the conversations that we have in the future just kind of, you know, broaden those horizons for all of us, for the fans,

for the team owners, for the stakeholders in the sport. And so I just appreciate you sharing your experience and the wisdom and all because, you know, you've had, you've had it for a, gosh, I don't even want to go. I want to age myself. I was said I was graduating college when you started. It's a long time. Thank you. And, yeah, but, you know, it's, yeah, I just, I want us to be able to bring depth to

people's thinking and let them see, you know, what we're what we're trying to do with a sport, you know, to grow and to change and to adapt and to be bigger and better. Yeah. And that they have a voice, right? Like, we listen to them. You know, we listen to the fans. And that's one of the things that I hope we're doing as a new race team is when they reach out or when they say something on social media.

Like, we do pay attention. We are paying attention. So keep, you know, keep the good ideas coming and the construction, constructive criticism coming because we do listen. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, listen, Steve, nobody will ever beat you all in your shoe game. Shoe game is just going to be. On point.

You just give you the championship right now. You win the shoe game every year. It's going to be. My 11-year-old just got in to Jordan, so here we go. And you're off. That's good, yeah. Thank you. All right.

Thanks so much for being with us today. You got it. 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.

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