The Dale Jr. Download - 521 - Business of Motorsports with World Of Outlaws CEO Brian Carter

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

Kelley Earnhardt Miller welcomes World Racing Group CEO Brian Carter for the first edition of the Business of Motorsports for the 2024 season. After growing up a racing fan in Texas, Carter ventured into the business finance world working for Deloitte and specializing in public to private transactions. In the early 2000s, while working with a software company, he was approached by the owners of Boundless Motorsports, who were in the process of purchasing the World of Outlaws and United Midwest Promoters operations. Carter jumped at the opportunity to get involved with the dirt racing enterprise, and a short time later he became CEO of what is now known as World Racing Group. Brian and Kelley discuss the state of the motorsports business world in the early 2000s, when a lot of major racing entities such as NASCAR, Speedway Motorsports Inc and WRG were publicly traded companies. He also explains the vertical structure of WRG, which encompasses 15 dirt touring series across the country, sanctioning racing in many different divisions of short track cars. The interview covers WRG’s streaming platform DirtVision and its impact on increasing awareness and exposure on both a weekly and national racing scale. Carter explains that having more of WRG’s events available for countrywide viewership has not only helped create an influx of sponsorship funding for short track racers, but it's helped bring new spectators through the track gates.  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 business of motorsports. It is yours truly, Kelly Earnhardt Miller. You know, one thing that I really hope that this series does is open up people's horizons. I got in a lot of trouble, and I got challenged luck. I don't know why you're coming here. You don't trust us. I said, no, it's not I don't trust you.

I'm running a business. A lot of people kind of feel like, well, we're never getting back to where we were. Why did we ever get to where we work? There's so much more involved in decision. I mean, I want to rip somebody's head off every day. I say yes to me. Oh, you say yes on the phone. Well, you made me say.

All right, welcome back to 2024's first episode of Business of Motorsports. I am excited to be here today with a really special guest, Brian Carter, who is the CEO of World Racing Group. And it is going to be just really cool to talk to somebody who's at the helm of another series. obviously with my background in NASCAR and then now us owning the cars tour I've got lots of curious questions I know there's going to be a lot of commonality so we're going to dive into those intricacies of that and just learn about Brian's story learn about the world of outlaws racing and dirt car series racing um I didn't know all these things so I'm just I'm so curious so excited to dive into this this segment today is brought to you by ally and I'm so excited to be back in the bojangles studio

All right, Brian. So welcome to the business of motorsports. I'm super excited. You're my first guest. And I'm so glad that when I reached out to Tish, who I've known for a long time, that you said yes. Yeah, I'm excited to be here. It's 2024 already. I can't believe it. It's trucking along. And we're going to be back in Volusia near Daytona, again, going racing. So it's exciting. I know. It comes quick and it passes quick, doesn't it? The pace today is unbelievable. It's so much faster and things happen. The expectations are high. It's, it's, non-stop 24 hours a day and as fast as pace as I've ever seen it. Yeah. So, so I want to start, I've got so many things I want to dive into because you guys have done a lot of things really cool with the streaming service and just a lot of different things. So I want to dive into that. But first, you know, talk about your position, talk about how you joined a world racing group.

Don't forget to talk about your background and financial and Chuckie Cheese. I got to hear about Chuckie Cheese. Oh my God, that's funny. Yeah, my first client at Deloitte when I started started back in 1989, I guess, 1990. It was Chuck Echee Cheese, ShowBiss Pizza, the merger of that company and entertainment right off the bat in my career. So, yeah, it's been an interesting journey. People ask me, how did you get here? It was really kind of happenstance. You know, I grew up as a race fan, started going to their track. My mom would tell you before I was born back in Manassas Speedway in Virginia. My dad was a huge race fan. So I started out as a fan. First, started going to Heart of Texas Speedway in 1974. So it was a long time ago. Just grew up as a race

fan and happenstance put me back in it in a way in which I could contribute from, from my career and integrated into what I was doing. So it's been an interesting journey from a Texas boy growing up in Maheah, Texas, and then ending up so close to where the home of the World of Outlaws was, seeing it as I was growing up, 1978 puts me a long time ago, but I missed the first race. I didn't get to see the first race, but it was a part, I knew what was happening. It was fun to see it. And just growing up a dirt racing fan my entire life. And then happenstance would have me back in a place where I can contribute in a way that I'd who ever really expected to be able to. And now 20 years later from the time in 2003,

it's just extraordinary to see it and to be a part of it. So I don't know how much of that here's sure you want to see. But yeah, showbiz, I started it as a Deloitte finance guy. So 10 years at Deloitte pretty much raising money for my clients, helping them from a CPA and from a consulting perspective and raised a lot of money along the way, almost $7.5 billion. So it was, it was fun to be able to do some things and really leverage that relationship, the background and the finance side and kind of bring some of those resources to dirt racing. A lot of this stuff had started to happen before I got involved. Actually, one of the investors initially in what became what is World Racing Group was an investor in the software company. I was taking public back in the

late 90s in Dallas and it just happened to, hey, we're starting this motorsports company. We had some aligned investors. They were investing in the software company and they were starting to invest in what was to become a boundless racing and dirt motorsports. So when I started, when I could see the software company and bringing it to a close as we sold it, the investors say, hey, we're working on this motorsport property. What do you think? And I'm like, hell, yeah, I'm in. It was like, yeah, I'm in. It's like, let's let's talk about what you're trying to do. And then it was a mess. It was a real mess. They were buying the World of Outlaws. They were buying a UMP. They were building a, hey, a motor track on top of a nuclear or a, oh my gosh, what it was called in Woxahatchahe is the old

GPX racetrack. It was a long time ago. I blocked that one. There must be some reason. I blocked that from Trauma. That's right. There's some trauma there. I guess I have to talk to my therapist about that one. But yeah, it's been an interesting journey to see how the world wants its motorsports and how it wants its dirt racing and how it wants and how it all fits. And some of the things that are, it's been an interesting ride. It was we're a public company.

I take pride in beating NASCAR and SMI to go in private. So, you know. I thought about that. Yeah. So I'm curious about that. Why take motorsports public at that point? Well, it was an easy way. to raise capital. So, you know, the marketplace was enamored with it and it was a highlight time.

It created awareness too. So one of the, you know, the pursuits were after is awareness and being public and the excitement and energy and telling the story. And you could really merge that. So we tried that. It was a public company before I got involved, which is one of the reasons why I got involved because it was a mess. And it wasn't in compliance. It was doing all sorts of things. But we were still following the tide. We really were the awareness and all the things were happening in the early 2000s and all the good pieces around motorsports, we were able to take advantage of that and raise money in the public market. And then when all that stopped for everybody in 2008, it really had to reevaluate how much visibility we wanted to give the world to what we were doing

and what we're trying to get done because it is a place they power is based on how much you know, who you know, how you get it done. And the public environment was really tough. And I think SMI and NASCAR figured out pretty quick too, that the public environment's tough, especially in motorsports. And everybody who knows something thinks they know something. It's kind of crazy. But we beat them going private too. So now we're in a private world and we can operate in a way that's very nimble for us. I worked for action performance at the time when they were going private too.

And like you said, it was in the same timing that you're talking about when NASCAR was just blowing up. And the demands to meet, you know, what they were looking for at Wall Street were tough. And they were tough in this business, particularly because you're dealing with. You know, our timelines in the in the motorsports business don't follow. your typical business when you can plan out and, you know, with sponsors changing and things changing and drivers changing and all these things changing, it's really hard to plan around a lot of those things. Right. And then the disclosure started to become, and then the processes and when you think about trying to evolve at a dirt track or even a, even a NASCAR track when you've got all of the,

all of the cash and the transactions and the different pieces and then you try to make that compliance, like, yeah, this is going to be a lot tougher than people imagine. So we started going through that process and actually got all that done. And at the time, we're able to, you know, we raised a lot of money in private equity and we're able to navigate that exit in a way that really didn't disrupt and really people didn't understand or didn't really even know what's happening. So from my perspective, now being a privately held company with just myself and the original investment banker being the two partners, we can be. Still the same partners. Still the same partners. After all this time. So it's, it's been a great ride. And now we can

navigate this in a way in which we can behave much like a small company. can and it's actually gives us a lot of flexibility. So let's talk about how you guys operate. I, you know, I'll be honest, you're talked about brand awareness and growing up and growing up in motorsports, you know, certainly the world of outlaws is a name that I know, I won't say a lot about, but, you know, it's what I know, right? It's at the forefront. I did not realize that you guys were also the promoter and sanction body for like ump and other dirt car stuff, the super dirt series, Super Dirk Car Series and things like that. So talk about just, you know, how broad the business is.

And then I also want to dive into kind of your promoting and sanctioning at the same time and not one or the other. Right. No, it's a, it's been an interesting journey. We own UMP, we own, which is Dirk Car and Super Dirt Car series. We have 15 touring series. People don't understand all of that. We sanction weekly tracks, a couple hundred weekly tracks across the country and provide some stability and normalcy for them. So really it's been this amazing awareness campaign.

People are aware of the world of outlaws, but they don't understand what it takes to make the world of outlaws successful is this ecosystem of dirt racing that has to survive on a weekly basis and thrive at the same, you know, so that we can only be as good as the tracks and the and the racing community is across the country. I think that we think through in NASCAR with grassroots racing, right, why we're so passionate, particularly myself and Dale and junior motorsports are so passionate about late model stock racing and grassroots racing because it is what fees. the bigger ecosystem like you said. Not only the drivers, but the fans and the manufacturers and all the other pieces that the balancing act that you're trying to create. And, you know, if you keep that foundation strong, you can build something really cool on top. And that's what we're doing with all of our.

It's been the, that's been the focus since the very beginning is creating a hierarchy, a balance of how does this work when we leave? You know, we can't just have one huge weekend with the outlaws in town and then expect the ecosystem to survive the rest of the year. So we're really trying to provide an awareness and stability for the industry throughout. And then leverage, you mentioned promoting, but leverage all of those relationships then to not only schedule events, but schedule all the events in. And then you're managing the UMP and the Summer Nationals, the dirt car pieces, and you're managed a super dirt car series. You know, Ted Johnson back in the day didn't really care what Glenn Donnelly was doing

in the Northeast, but now you have all these tracks that we're trying to figure out a balancing act and getting us moving across the country now 12 months through the year with 15 different touring series, it allows us to create an offering for the racetracks that helps them survive and thrive throughout the year so that we can have a big event when we need the place at full tilt with the World of Outlaws there. So I'm going to guess, just based off of what you said, tracks like Williams Grove and Port Royal, are those tracks that are within your peripheral that you help? And what does it actually look like when you say that, you know, to keep that ecosystem strong at that level? Well, it's, Williams Grove is a great example of what we're

trying to do, you know, people wonder how do we support weekly 410 racing. What we've done is we're trying to create an awareness campaign. You know, if you look at where we've been able to do it, it's actually through our streaming platform, through our support of Williams Grove and Attica and Knoxville and Beaverdam and Hussets and our weekly DerVision tracks are really trying to create awareness and the cornerstones of the sprint car racing community so that we can support them on a weekly basis, create awareness. It creates an overall fan base so that when our events start to elevate as we come in with

the World of Outlaws. So there's, whether it's two or three X, come in for that special World of Outlaw show. We need that X at the bottom to be the important part. That, that baseline customer base for the tracks has to be strong or you end up in a place where there's not going to be a fan base to come in when we come in for the week. So, but the supporting part of, you know, if you talk about UMP and the Dirk Car piece, the Illinois and the Indiana, you know, we start to support those programs with the weekly tracks and then you end up, it's really this sort of whole machine that's moving and creating, again, a foundation to build on and then to, it's, it's a complicated business. And it's really driven by the whole balance of, you know, you need

fans first. You have to have fans or we're not going to, we don't be racing in front of anybody. Then nobody's going to want to sponsor anybody and nobody's going to be watching it. So it really is a fan first business. Then you build out how do, how do you create as many livings around it as what we're trying to do. Yeah. And really, you know, I mean, to me, it's like all the stakeholders, right? You've got, you've just got a, you're working with every stakeholder for the bigger picture. That's right. That's right. I think that's a struggle that we always talk about in NASCAR. We're, we're getting there. But, but it hasn't always been that way, you know, so. So in the, the model we bought from Ted, you know, he, he, from 1978 to 2003, he was fundamentally building a

business based on sanction fees and t-shirt sales. Let's not be. And then he had sponsors and TV and all the other pieces that really kind of got it in front of him. He kind of got it great. He kind of got it growing so fast and then it kind of ran him over a little bit, trying to get to where it wanted to be, but he wasn't really ready to get there. But, you know, as we started looking at the business, as you invest in brand awareness and you invest in the marketing side, and your only upside is the same sanction fee that we're actually getting less in the sanction fee than we were when we bought it. So the $25,000 a night for sanction fee for the world of outlaws hasn't changed in 20 years. But the evolution of what we needed to build the community, which is the whole,

the racing community is, okay, well, we really need to create the direct relationship. with the customer. So that's how we became promoters. So we bought racetracks in the process, but we also became promoters of the world of outlaws and promoters of events. And by doing that, we can mitigate risk across a lot more, you know, if you have a bad weekend, it's not catastrophic. To some promoters, if you have a bad weekend, it can be really painful and something some promoters may not be able to recover from. So for us, if we're going to invest in the brand awareness, invest in the growth of the sport, we only have so many weekends. We can make $25,000. We really had to come to a different conclusion as to where the sport needed to evolve to,

which is the evolution of the whole community, the promotion, the series, bringing all that in. And as you create that community, you create more opportunities. More opportunities, more opportunities. So, you know, in order for us to justify the brand marketing and the other pieces, we really needed to take on some more of the upside and then more of the risk along the way with selling tickets and promoting shows. And that's really where the business started to take off. Yeah.

We've had a lot of conversation as it relates to the Cars Tour. So with the four owners that purchased the Carst Tour, and my brother being one of them and managing, I've been helping manage that transition. And so much of what you're saying, you know, we've tossed them. We're only in our second year. And so we're not ready to take over everything. But it is, you know, you're working with tracks and you're talking about the sanctioning fees and how the track needs to make it work for what works for them all year long, just like you said,

versus how we need it to work and work for our competitors and work for our event that's there. They bring in other, you know, series and whatnot. Then that if weather comes, that leans in to our streaming and whether we can go on time or not. You know, there's just so many things there that I can understand how that would make it simpler, but you do take on a lot more risk, but ultimately more reward, right? That's right. And it allows you to do things that you didn't think you could do. If you're selling tickets and you create a ticket database, you're creating a one destination for your fans, you're creating that, again, you're just strengthening the community and trying to do it.

You know, historically, the ticket buyers at Williams Grove wouldn't communicate with the ticket buyers from Eldora. And that's what they want now. They want a one place to go to shop and then we can guide them there. our websites are really the gate to get to how do people interact. And the websites, I'm generalizing the social media channels, the different ways in which we communicate with our race fans. But pulling that community together and communicating with them in a way that you're communicating, you know, we're selling tickets at tracks in Texas we've never been to before.

Well, our ticket databases at Devil's Bowl and Cotton Bowl will help us sell tickets into Big O or into Kennedale. So creating that sort of that connectivity with the race fans has to happen more than just How are we reporting race results and reporting our schedule? It's just, it's evolving at a pace. That creation of that promoting arm, the selling tickets, that community has allowed us to be pretty flexible in how we approach things, either with the new promoters or with a new track or with a new series, different things and how to, it's moving pretty fast. But that's what this work evolves quickly. I mean, these cars, you can see it here on the table, the cars evolve. We need to evolve as a business too. So as you're making the schedules and looking, how far in advance do you work? we're, like you said, we're starting the year. You're about to come up to your second event here at Volusia.

And, you know, are you already working on 25? Like, I'm sure you are. I'm not a business. But, you know, how far out in advance and changing tracks and making those decisions and what things look like before you've maybe even, you know, gotten through part of your year here. Yeah, we're looking, I mean, we've already announced our 25 speedway. Our, our, our, our, Dirk Pro Nationals and how that fits. And the world is evolving with, with some racetracks closing at East Bay. And, and Daytona moving. their schedules around continuing. So it's, it's, it's, you'd love to be able to say this is our date, but there's so many dynamics into what goes into the schedule. And not only us, but now we're managing other dirt series. We're managing, we're trying to manage around the NASCAR fans because they have an effect on how we do things. And so it's a, it's a constantly involved. We're trying to get out as far as we can. The good thing now is we're looking as far down the field as we ever

have. You know, we're not waiting until I remember in the early days going to the promoters meetings in Reno, everybody's negotiating their calendar. And this is in December. I'm like, you know, we, if we don't have something preliminary by July for next year, we are in trouble. Yeah. So it's, it is, we're looking into next year. We're getting commitments from tracks that they want dates and how, how, what, date they want. And then we work that in. And then it's probably finalized, you know, the goal is always August, September and it comes out in October and November, but it's such a amazingly dynamic process. It's earlier and earlier and earlier. Yeah. Because you have to stake your claim. So you mentioned, you know, kind of thinking about the NASCAR fan. Is that relatively new for you?

in the last several years of having to really, you know, think about where the NASCAR fan fits into dirt racing. Because I feel like Kyle Larson and some of those drivers have certainly opened up the eyeballs to dirt racing and how much fun it is. My son races micros. And, I mean, it's the most fun. Next to asphalt modifies, dirt racing is the most fun that I feel like we can have. We talk about, obviously, I run an asphalt team, but man, we just love the dirt racing. It's so fun. Is that something new for you to think about that fan or has it always kind of existed? It existed. It existed before I, but when Bruton and the guys decided to, and Humpey, decided to build dirt tracks. The speedways, right.

The speedways. So that, that was, that was set in place long before me. So our, our job is to continue to evolve that. And what's happening is, is the, as our fans, attention spans continue to shorten, the dirt track racing tends to appeal to more. But the hard time, the hard thing now is, are the NASCAR fans coming for four days or five-day weekends? Can you build events around that? Or do you have to avoid it completely? And that's the hard balance because when we built our two weeks at Dirk Car Nationals,

it was dependent upon the Daytona running the two weekends in Daytona. Now it's not the case. We support ourselves without Daytona things. So it's a constant evolution. And Daytona didn't run that last weekend at night at all. You ran against the Thursday night. Dules, maybe. But beyond that, now they're racing Thursday, Friday and Saturday night.

We're trying to race late models at Belugia. So it's mainly trying to make sure we mix in and we understand what we're dealing with. But then going to Texas and going to Atlanta and Talladee, those things do have an effect. And the fans only have so much money and resources and time to go to races. So it is definitely part of what we're managing. But we're not near as reliant upon going to a NASCAR track on a NASCAR weekend to create our crowds. Yeah. And but back to your question about the awareness camp, you know, the crossover of competitors and drivers

and that has always been there. I think that the ability, our ability to create awareness around what they're doing and showcase it is definitely helped. Both fan bases, I hope. And that's our goal is to create awareness about motorsports. And if we do that, we'll bring them in. And once you get in, you kind of get said addiction, you can't get us, you can't get the cure. You just got to keep coming. Yeah.

Yeah, there is no cure for sure. That's right. So let's talk about streaming. I purposely didn't look this up so that I could maintain my curiosity. But when, you know, talk about the idea of streaming, owning it yourself, just the whole why and how. Because to me, that sounds super complicated and super expensive, you know, to do. It is definitely both. It is definitely both.

You know, Dirt Vision has been around. We bought the Dirt Vision brand in 2004 when we bought it from Dirt Motorsports from Glendonnelly. It was a TV production company that was used to support this week on Dirt and some of the other pieces in the Syracuse area, mainly syndicated TV. So, you know, our struggle with TV at dirt racing is has always been difficult because it's not really, the environment's not conducive to live TV. So when the heyday, when live TV was happening with Ted and with Glenn and the guy is, we were trying to adapt our sport and our entertainment to live TV. And that's a, that's a tall task because we, we have all the dynamics even different than, you know, with the track prep and the short spurt

racing and the different, the different pieces. It's a difficult task. So what we knew that we wanted, wanted to and actually dabbled with full live streaming in early to mid 2000s, 2007 and eight, but the technology wasn't there for us. You know, the internet connectivity that required, the different pieces just wasn't there. So we actually used it only as our own TV production department. But what streaming is allowed us to do is not, we're not adapting live TV or our sport to live TV. It allows us to adapt live TV to our sport. So it allows us to to really portray what's happening at the racetrack on our pace and then create an entertainment value for. for our fans that cannot come to the races. So we've been, we tried, you know, from DirtVision from all races on DirtVision only happened in 2017. So this is a real, you know, really short period of time here.

And then that was only with the World of All right, Sprint Cars. Now we're talking about 70 races. This year we're going to broadcast over 600 live dirt racing events on Dirt Vision this year. So to come from 70 to 700, in a matter of a very short period of time is definitely an advancement of the technology,

the staffing, but it's a lot more complicated and expensive than people imagine. But it's been an amazing awareness campaign, is what it really boils down to. You can watch dirt racing just about any night of the week, and you can watch it on our platform or other platforms, and it really has raised awareness, which is all we're after anyway.

Yeah, I read a story. I think it was David Gravel, who maybe had gotten a sponsorship based off the fact that you guys were able to have the Word of Outlaws on TV. Am I remembering that correctly? And that was kind of a check mark for you guys because I think about it from the standpoint of my kid racing at Millbridge, which is on Dirt Vision, and I'm so thankful. And just all the different places we race, sponsors for one, you know, it costs money to do this.

And I'm talking about a 12-year-old kid trying to get sponsors. And the other thing that you mentioned that I just see, you know, clear as a bell is how you do adapt it for the television and the streaming because people will ask me, well, I want to watch Wyatt on a Friday night. And I'm like, we're not going to race our feature until midnight. So how long do you want to stay up? You know, we start racing at six or seven. You've got, you know, six divisions and all these heat races and beam. And you can't, by that point, it's hard for me to even explain the format, you know, and they're like, midnight. How does a 12 year old run at midnight? And I'm like, yes, that's a great question. I know you guys, you know, have your programs and, and they're more condensed because you don't

have all these divisions to deal with, but it's the dirt vision aspect of it. I know for Millbridge has been huge and I can't imagine for all the other tracks and just the visibility that gives the competitors and your series and then for the fans. Yeah, no. It's it's being able to craft the story, create, and the story is from Millbridge, that's the beginning of a lot of racing careers. So our job is to nurture that through the ecosystem through, through Millbridge is a strategic addition, not that it's just we all love those little cars. And I I've been in midgets before, and I love that. And their great family and all those things that make Milbridge so special.

But we're really documenting, when you think about it, we're documenting the racing careers of these children that we are going to watch race at a worldwide level somewhere. They're going to be stars. And we're supporting that infrastructure and ecosystem and creating that awareness at Millbridge. And now we're doing it through the extreme midges. And then we're looking at other properties. On the stock car side, on the dirt car side, it's really easy for us to see. We've got all of the divisions to do that. On the open wheel side, we're working on filling in those gaps.

Melbert's was a strategic part of that. And, you know, creating that awareness. We have multiple handfuls of different examples where Dennis and Teresa Roth are racing full-time with us because they can watch their car on Dirt Vision. They can watch their car. They're at the age where they can't travel. But they still enjoy it. They still support the sport.

They don't have a cure, right? They don't have a cure. And they still want to be on the track, but they can't go. So they can watch and they can be engaged. And as a fan base that's engaged, that's all people want to be part of is that community. So gravel, we have lots of customers and lots of sponsors that are there because they can watch their car on Derr Vision. They can watch their car on streaming. And then if they can't watch it that night, they can watch it the next morning when they're having coffee.

They can see the highlights. We really are capturing so much more of the true raw part of our sport and portraying that in a way. I think that's, you know, we're creating great entertainment value and engagement with the race fans. and that's all you can do. Yeah, yeah. I have this question. I don't, and you can just double it to voge what you want to divulge. But in terms of streaming, you know, we, our competitors in your series, the Cars Tour series,

micro racing, whatever it is, this grassroots kind of racing, you know, outside of NASCAR. We're kind of fooled by what we hear in the NASCAR world as far as it relates to TV contracts and rights fees and all this kind of stuff that which I know the Cars Tour is not, we're not privy to all that greatness but competitors and fans see the streaming and see want to participate in it right but i think you know i think it would have to be true that it's just really a blessing that we have it you know and there's money to be made um at some point where it where it makes sense but you know the the newness of streaming and the ability to provide these races is very expensive to do and i just don't think we're there i'm curious you know how how your competitors and your tracks and i'll view

that and how you deal with that. Yeah, it's, it's again part of the difficult balancing act. I mean, the piece that probably is when it comes to it, there's a lot of, there's some pieces that are a little bit disheartening because the assumption is that we don't. But the fact the matter is is that we do. Yes. In different ways than they expect. Do we write everybody a check based on what the streaming was? No. Right. You know, but do we make investments in racetracks? Do we make investments in events? Do we make investments in our infrastructure? Do we, do we create awareness in different ways, things that we believe is long-term investments in the growth of the sport. We started that from day one. So, you know, as it relates to, to the extent of even putting in lighting systems

at racetracks to make sure the TV was right. So it's hard to, you know, you kind of balance that in. Is it a direct revenue share? I don't see that in our model. It's just not going to work because there's so many forward-thinking investments that we have to make to continue this path. And for me, that's, is navigating that world, balancing out, okay, the investment in world racing infrastructure. or the investment in the fan experience, whether it be buying a video board for every single one of our racetracks when we haul them around the country. Yes. Added investment, no additional sanction fee. How do you create the increased point fund, the enterprise money, the tow money, the support for the, the support for the owners through tow money, and those pieces, those are the balancing act, and it's getting it in and putting it in the right spot to make sure you get the right return on it, managing the long-term growth of the sport.

And that's the hard part. So, you know, for me, it's the integration of the streaming, making sure that the fan at the track doesn't, when I started to hear some of the stuff in 2017 and 18, well, for you guys at home, here's the replay on Dervish. And my fans are sitting there going, where's my replay? So it's like, that started to, now we're starting to encroach on what's the fan experience. I do not want to encourage anybody to stay at home. Right. So that, that became one of the things that I'm going to be honest with you that disenchanted me with some of the coverage at the NASCAR races. As a gearhead, I want to. wanted to see the telemetry and hear the crew chiefs talk and all the other pieces. Well, you know, I can see that at my TV a whole lot easier than I can see it sitting in the grandstands. Right. And that, that was hard to do. So I just wanted to make sure I tried to avoid that and try to learn from all of our peers and figuring out how do we do this so that I can keep my race fans coming to the races. Yeah, good point. And for me, that was the real, when you start investing seven digits on the video experience

at the track for the fans who are already getting the visceral experience of the cars going by, it starts to, it starts to become a real addition to the at-track experience and that's what I that's what we wanted to do and continue to do but that balance in of where it goes the investment in the motorsports part of the dirt vision streaming piece flipping that model on where TV doesn't cost us money it's actually making us money that happened day one and and long term I can expect it to continue to grow as we continue to grow awareness in our fan base exactly finance and marketing your finance background I'm just really curious I'm kind of I'm a black and white operations you know kind of mindset and and I look at the finances and how we do it.

Marketing is not my thing. How do you balance both of that with the finance piece and then because as the CEO, I mean, you kind of got to have a broad spectrum of everything and where do you, where do you feed on learning about all of those kinds of things? Well, it's for me is to know my limitations. So I know that I'm not a marketing guy. Don't ask me to look at a logo and pick between the two. I can tell you which one I like better,

but I can't tell you why that shape is there to create the, the different parts of the logo. Houseby sees it. You don't see it the same way as a creative person. Exactly. It's kind of black and white for me. I can, you know, as a CFO, you can make the number of be whatever you want to do right too sometimes. But no, it's a challenge.

It's understanding my, you know, introducing the financial discipline into the sport was something that had never really happened before, raising, you know, tens of millions of dollars and allocating that. Sometimes I was a little tighter on the purse strings and maybe I should have been investing in growth. So the hard part is balancing. My dad promoted motorsports. He promoted rodeos. So I kind of grew up as a promoter kind of could see that.

So I understood the balance of needing to be the show, but that usually costs money. And how do you balance that in? Are we getting our money investment back? So it's mainly knowing that I'm not a marketing guy. I'm not a marketing guy. I love promoting. I love entertaining people, but I'm not a marketing guy. So I hire marketing people.

I put a marketing staff in place. I have to trust them in doing what they do. And that's the hard part. As a CEO, they do that better than I do. How many employees does World Racing Group have? Full-time employees right at 100, believe it or not. I think we paid 275 or something like last week with contractors and part-time. And so it's a lot larger than people realize that back to the expensive part.

People see this, they hear about subscribers and streaming and all this stuff. They don't understand the infrastructure that it takes to run it. The connectivity that it takes, you know, at any particular point, we could have 10 or 12 broadcasts going on at the same time. So that takes a one per at least plus the whole team to support the infrastructure. So any particular point on a Friday or Saturday night, we could have 25 people working, not even at the race track. So it's tough piece. You're managing people and money and money.

It's your most important asset and your biggest challenge at the same time. Absolutely. That's one of the things that I was able to learn from Mr. Hendrick from day one was just people, people, people. I mean, you got to invest in them and figure it out because otherwise our worlds don't. go around, do they? No, they don't. And, you know, our sport's not really, and it's hard to create a long-term career path. People come in, they're really good at what they're doing, but then creating a sustainable career path for them, that's part of our goal, and starting to figure out how do you nurture the young enthusiasm, the high-integrity people, how do you, how do you

nurture them and keep them in motorsports and create a career path inside the business? And, you know, you come in as a competition director, how do you become series director? How do you become an events court? You know, how do you move through the business? And that's something that are, particularly the the all of the people want now you want to have a long-term path yeah for somebody and once you like I said it's an addiction too from a you do it because you love it and that's I'm blessed to have a team that loves what they're doing yeah that's totally something here at the Xfinity level that we deal with is you know people wanting to use this as a stepping stone obviously into cup and whether you're a driver or crew chief or a PR person or whatever it is I usually don't have any problem keeping my

operations people you know my human resources and accounting and IT and all that state pretty much in place, but when it comes to the competition piece of it, you know, they're looking for that growth and there's only so much growth that can happen here. And, you know, it's another issue with sponsorship kind of in the same light, right? Because you have sponsors that are attached to drivers who move up and then that moves on. So it's kind of a constant thing that we battle here is that change and evolution of people and how do we make them want to be lifers in the Xfinity series? Right, right, right. If that's possible. Do the best you can. That's all you can do.

Just try to keep it where people are challenged and feel the success. Yeah. So I wanted to talk about just kind of the perception of, you know, what do you think the perception is of the Word of Outlaw series? And when you say the word Outlaw, obviously it has all these connotations right. And, you know, just what does that marketing look like for you guys in the series and the perception that you want people to see? Yeah, I want to see them as the, I want people to see us as the pinnacle of dirt racing. I want to see, you know, I want them to know what they're going to get. when they come to the racetrack. They're going to see the best accumulation of drivers

in an environment that's visceral and they feel it. And the sprint cars are awesome, but the world of outlaws, racing, the program, the entertainment value, the part of the community, really. The world of outlaws is really just the name of the community.

We have some badass racing. There's no doubt about that. That it's just amazing what these guys can do in the car. And not only in the sprint cars, but on the late models. But what we want, which is why we've always had open pit area, I want people to feel connected to it.

For some reason, you know, I want them to feel whatever it is. It's a personal attachment to the racetrack. You can get people to come out, but until when they're connected personally, it becomes a part of their lifestyle. And that's what we're after with the World of Atlas is,

how do you create it where they feel like they're part of something special? They can escape from whatever they're going to escape from. For that moment in time, they come into the racetrack or watching it on TV and just enjoying themselves, watching some really, amazing entertainment. And if we can do that, that's my goal for the world of outlaws is to become

and then to become as aware as possible. I don't have to change the thing. We're not going to the next level. We're not doing any of this other stuff. We are going to just help make people aware of what we're doing and invite them in. And my goal is to see if we can do that as to as many people as possible and entertain them along the way. If you collect diecast like I do, the beginning of the new NASCAR season, that's when you start thinking about what cars you want to add to your Lionel Racing DiCass collection. Many of the sponsor changes, and new paint schemes that have been unveiled so far are sure to make some great-looking diecast.

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But what's that experience like in the World of Outlaw series and the dirt cars and how is it changing and how are you being okay with that? Everybody wants to live this accelerated lifestyle. Yeah. So they would now, now, now, now. On the World of Outlaw's side, I mean, I was there for Kyle Larson's first win at Chico and he was six. I mean, we don't let them race until they're 16. I have to have this conversation once a year with an. Somebody.

Amicious dad. My son's the next best thing. Guys, listen. 16. It's 16. These cars are, there's no reason. There's plenty of races so you can go race someplace else. When they show up, they're going to, when they're this amazing person.

They're going to win when they're 16 in a day. They're still going to be amazing. So the hard part is balancing that accelerated lifestyle to the expectations. And everybody's on the chip, especially a lot of people going to be on the chip at the racetrack. So but it's just balanced. Stick to our guns. It's 16 on the world of outlaws. We've got plenty of other places for you to go racing, managing those pieces.

But, you know, it's hard. you're not going to slow anybody down. You just have to stick to you what's best for the business there and what's best for the sport because the last thing I need is to be talking to somebody about somebody doing something, getting hurt. Yeah. The risk is still very high. And mitigating risk in this business will be the thing that's, I mean, that is the highest. Number one thing on your radar. It is. Mitigating the risk is the one thing that's the single point of failure for us. And we just got to keep managing that. And we have a great relationship with our insurance companies and all the rest. But, you know, managing those expectations. and giving them a place to race, whether it be in the micros or the midgets or other places where they can race in their youth. We want to see that. I grew up, again, as a fan at the racetrack when I was four, I want there to be those lifestyles created around it and people do crazy things for the kids. Yeah.

So I've been there, done that. So I just wanted them to know that we're consistent and professional on that front and just be patient. Patience here will help. Yeah. And how do you see, you know, what do you feel like, builds these drivers, you know, persona and charisma and personality that are coming into the sport. Well, you just named it. They have to be connected. People want to be like them. When you look at all the people that were our, there was this allure of what they were doing that you

wanted to get to know them, you wanted to be like them, those sorts of pieces. So it really becomes how good a person you are. Can you be the kind heart? Can you be that amazing race car driver, do you want to be somebody that people want to be around in the pit area, around your, and that's really just building that community. Those are the people that will be successful. Some of the best, best guys and gals in the sport are there because of their relationships and what they, what they were like, not how they performed on the racetrack. And that's what, you know, you've got to continue to perpetuate that.

You know, people can only go so far being that great a race car driver. And if you're not a good people person, can't create the relationships, a long-term sponsor connections, a long-term fan connections, then you're going to be short-lived in this sport. It'll reach up and spit you right back out. Yeah, I think about it like, you know, and I've heard this all my life with my dad. He's just like me. I feel like I can sit down and have a beer with him or sit at the dinner table, but he has a superpower, right? He could like see the air at Daytona or whatever it was, right? And I think that's, that is how people want to see these guys. They want to see them just like me. I have that connection. They're just like me.

But man, they have this superpower to take this beast around the racetrack at these exhilarating speeds and do things, you know, race by side and create that. Still death-defying, right? We want that to be that case. And what they do is extraordinary. But, you know, we want people to see them as they're available. Yeah. They're available. And you can connect with them.

Yeah, exactly. All right. So I want to talk about competitive series. And the introduction, obviously high limits last year and the introduction of, um, um, uh, their new program and talk about the World Racing Group and the World of Outlaws, you know, pay out some programs and how it all works for the audience. I'm even for myself. I'm not super familiar with it. But I want to talk about that and how that has, how you've, how you're managing that and working through that and what that looks like for you guys. Yeah, no, it's a,

you know, my job has been to create opportunity for everybody, right? So we create opportunity. So I can only fill so many weekends with the World of Outlaws schedules. And if there's desire from war, they're going to, that this opportunity has come up. And that's, you know, I take pride in the ability to grow the sport. And everything I do is still going to continue to be about growing the sport. So, you know, the competition is there. And it's always been there. We're always competing with somebody. Yeah. So whether it be high limit this year, the all stars, the ASCS, or candidly soccer and baseball and all the other entertainment value that we have. So we've been competing our entire lives. So competition is not new. And direct competition just makes you to hone your

decision-making skills. So it's, you know, I'm very proud of creating opportunity for 20 years. I believe sprint car racing is in a better spot than it was over in the past. So for that, I'm very proud of that. And creating opportunity, you know, our business model is based on how we got here and the evolution of where I think it's going to be. And I'm going to stick to that. And we're going to be true to what we are going to be. We're going to stay the course on entertaining race fans, bringing people out, creating the community, being true to what the world of outlaws is, creating a roster of drivers that's unmatched in the sport and then on entertainment value when you come to the racetrack you know what you're getting so we're going to stick to that um you know the payouts and all that i've been

evolving over time and we when you look at the point funds we we still stick to the same thing we've we reward drivers for a great over your annual performance we have big praying prize money we want to be a part of the biggest shows in the country and we want to figure out in a way to reward the teams for that commitment to us in a way that matches what they need for us to so um For us, it's trying to stick to our, you know, not getting too distracted with the competition. Because we've been competing our entire, every business is competing. You guys, whether it be in a car down the street, you know, the two cars are going faster. You see who's faster.

It's really about sticking to what our commitment is to the race fans and to our team and then, and then excelling. I can't, you know, pursuing excellence. And if we do that, then whatever part of the world we get, I'll be real happy with. But, you know, the people ask me, well, you know, you're doing this because of that. Well, no, that's been in the process for a long time. You know, we've been increasing our point funds. You know, we're paying triple what we paid five years ago for our incentives to the teams and different pieces of that. Yes, they're aware of it because we have somebody to compare us to.

So I'm okay with that. More has come out of the bag, right? Because you learn more because now there's something else to talk about, right? That's right. And you have to, you're allocating resources as, you know, I've always been very consistent with. I'm going to, I'm going to strengthen the racetrack. Some are strengthening the teams. I'm going to strengthen the delivery to the race fans.

And some version of that's going to get a priority every year. You can't, everybody can't be top priority or you start spreading yourself too thin. So just continuing to make those investments so that we are on a long-term path to make sure we can continue to do this. And that's my goal. Well, and it says something when Brad Sweet shows up to your first event, right? I know he won your first event. But when they're still coming and participating, there's something to it, right? No, that's right.

No, I've been very clear on my message. I don't care what color of the car is once it comes in the racetrack. Like we want everybody to come. We want everybody to have a great time. We're not going to, there's no bias. It's fair. But the guys that stick with us and are committed to us long term are going to be rewarded for that. Yeah, and nothing wrong with that.

Nothing wrong with that. That's what they agreed to and what we agreed to. And my goal is to continue to make sure I can make that number grow for everybody. Yeah. And that's the same. I mean, in our sport, you know, you have, you sign up to run points in a particular series. And you have, you're on the owner's plan if you run with a full-time driver, etc., etc. So there's lots of similarities there that make that.

I mean, and that makes our investment worth it from the competitor side, right? Right. That you have that kind of system in place because for my standpoint in NASCAR, I need the longevity and the stability to be there for me to make the investment year every year, over year, so that's right. Works for your competitors. What about, I want to know your thoughts on charters. You know, it's such a big topic in NASCAR with the cup charters.

Obviously, High Limits has talked about charters. You know, what are some thoughts there? I don't see them being successful in our world. When you look at what we're trying to do, I'm not managing 40 teams for 40 spots to start. We've got 24 spots and we've got 400 competitors across the country. So what I need to do is make sure that we're compensating people fairly. We're creating rewards and incentives and we're creating prize money and events that continue to grow. So again, the money comes inbound.

It's pretty simple. Historically, it was fans and sponsorship for us. We didn't, TV was a minus number. There was no question that TV was always a negative number for a World Racing Group and World of Outlaws. Now it's a positive number. It's creating those inflows and creating a growth plan for everybody involved. You know, I don't know what the right number is. I've, you know, I've never seen the charter agreement that High Limits are proposing.

I know that the charter agreement's causing a lot of animosity right now in the NASCAR world. So I'm not, you know, but we're managing 400 competitors. We're traveling across the country. We're only bringing 12 to 13, 14, 17 on the late model. We're bringing a certain number of full-time teams. You know, to the point where we only travel in and there's only 40 cars, I'm really going to be. That's concerning. That's not our business model.

So creating the balancing act of how everybody's compensated, including the local and the regional, super regional teams. That's an important part to me in getting that managed in. And right now it seems to be working. So right now I don't see any place for that in our business. nobody's tried it. Hopefully we all learn something from it. You know, NASCAR's tried it for seven years and they're running into hiccups too. So, you know, there's obviously always a chance to learn. Yeah, right. But, you know, for us, you know, I'm not, I don't see it right now in our future. Yeah. I can totally see that. I'm thinking about, you know, I reached out to a lot of our cars competitors and just talked about as we were

moving into this year talking about our purse structure and we really don't have. a year-end points fund and things like that and just really thinking, I said, what's important to you? And they're like, it's important to me that I can show up to the events that I'm able to show up to based off of whatever, you know, financial backing they have or whatnot. So the long-term year-end isn't as attractive because like you said, it ultimately ends up with there's, in our series in particular, there's, you know, maybe there's 11 to 15 that can do that all year long. But like you said, there's 60 to 80 competitors that can come out to an event. And so then how do you, you know, make that event the best that it can be?

And so, yeah, I don't know how that would work the charter situation. I know that, you know, particularly in NASCAR, it created a barrier of entry, quite frankly. And now has it been some more lucrative for them to have some guaranteed numbers on the team side? And all great, yes, absolutely. But it has become somewhat of a barrier of entry to what you can do and how you can participate and what you, I mean, for somebody like us who's been in the sport this long and then wanting to maybe dive into cup racing, you know, it's a, it's a big decision these days. Well, I don't know what the numbers look like anyway. So if you're consolidating it into five or 10 teams, how much it gets to, that consolidation of wealth concerns me a lot. So how does that, how does that happen? And, you know, again, I didn't have to make the economics work for everybody. Do the best I can add it anyway. I don't know what that number is. I don't know how much should be allocated to those teams or not. And then if you create this, like you said, a barrier to entry or a. consolidation of wealth and support. That is not what the world of Atlas is going to be about.

Yeah. Yeah. Very, very true. All right. So you've raised some yourself. Tell me about that. You still dabbling a little racing. Yeah, no, I've never ridden a very good race car driver. I enjoy it. I have a good time. That's right. Yeah, what are you race? What kind of stuff do you enjoy? Well, I still have a sprint car. I've won as a car owner. I'm enjoying that a lot now, too. So I've been one locally here with Jake McLean. I've done some stuff there. But I race a little stock car. I have a pro stock in the Northeast, which should become the national dirt car stock car class, but I've not really been successful doing that yet. But I have a great time racing with the guys. Again, it's just trying to broaden my perspective as a decision maker. I enjoyed racing. I'd race some before I started

World War Racing Group, but just a whole I AMSA stock car around Dallas. And I just enjoy it. I'm more of a tinker gearhead guy. And I like, I end up having to fix my race cars a lot. So it was one of those things it was it was a good time for me and and that and over the course of my career I've had a chance to play in a sprint car and a midget at the chili bowl and and the dirt late model at volusia and see how fast they get really going around that place and so it's just again it's it's it's it was fun for me it's still fun for me and as long as it's fun for me I'm going to have some version of a race car for me to go out and play you know it's hard for when I go to the racetrack I want to play and people come up to me and now I'm working it's like so it's a difficult but I just enjoy being part of the group and and it does

broaden my perspective to help me understand, okay, it's expensive to go buy race tires. It's expensive to go, well, that body panel, is it plastic? Should it be aluminum? Is it should this? It's like, you know, when I get my money out and pay for it, you know, buying pit passes and all those pieces. It's, it helps me understand the whole system. And I'm blessed to be able to do it, because most of the time I'm doing it's because my team has got the event under control and I don't have to really work there. So, but it's, again, it's just as a car guy, I just enjoy it. And I, I love the community. I love who I race with with the Pro Stock Series up in the Northeast. And I just, I like being able to just jump in the car and put the helmet on and everything else goes away.

Yeah. Everything else goes away. A lot of, um, it's fun and like stress relief kind of like just, you know, be in a different world, right? Not your everyday business world. So I know there's lots of great world, um, word of outlaw events, dirt, car events. What's, what, give me, give me some top five events that if you're a fan and you haven't been out to see, uh, your series. run. Where should they come? Wow, five. I don't know. 250. I know. Well, I mean, you know, give me the top event from each division. Yeah, there you go. No, that's even harder. I know. See? Just give me some top events. No, here you go. No, that's, it's great. I have so many to choose from. It's amazing. I really enjoy. I mean, there's nothing about the community at the Knoxville

Nationals. The campground at El Dora. The pit area at Peevely are at a at Prair Dirk Classic. Just the the whole environment of pressing the speedway to the limits at Volusia. You know, it's really about the community. People where we're gathering all these people that becomes a family reunion for them. You know, it's something about seeing the scenery. I miss Calistoga with the mountains in the background.

There's just so many things, you know, pick one and come out and take a look. That's my goal for the race fans. Pick one, come and take a look. The history of the last, you know, the first and the last race at Devil's Bowl were meaningful. It's just, there's so many different things. I still can see the grandstands full at Syracuse

the last year. What we're trying to do now with, we're doing Oswego. The Hell Tour, in the of itself, isn't one event. It's a whole, this month of craziness, and these guys are, it's amazing to watch them. There's so many different aspects. It's pick something and come out and take a look at it. And for me, the best racing still at Peevley with Kenny Schrader's track. I've never been to Peevley.

It is, is, is Minnie Eldora. For me, that you can see, it's, you know, running 55 laps in less than 10 minutes. and I see Sheldon lap up to fourth, no green, no, no yellow flags, and it's just insanity. It's just so many different moments and time. And I don't know where the next one's going to come from. And that's the beauty of it. I don't know. We're going to be in all these amazing new race tracks.

We're going to be at all these amazing historical tracks. What are some of the new tracks that are on the series this year? Oh, don't start me long. We have out so many. I mean, mostly for us, the hole in my heart with Luzin Devils Bowl. where at Kennedale, which is where I grew up racing my stock car a little bit, and just south of downtown Fort Worth, Kennedale Speedway, that's going to be a go one.

We're going to be hanging from the rafters there. Big O Speedway, there's so many with the late model series, I can't even start to list them. It's a beauty of it. We can move our series around. We can adapt them to the speedways. We can adapt. But the staples still stand there.

You know, there's nothing that going fast at Houston. It's just so many different places. You know, friends at Beaver Dam. I missed the old clubhouse at Beaverdam. It was just so many different things about it. Yeah. Overwhelmed kind of think about it, actually. Yeah, I've learned a lot with Wyatt Racing, dirt racing, on the dirt.

And, you know, he watches nonstop YouTube and everything under the sun. And I didn't even know he knew so much about the late model drivers. And I've just, for Christmas, he wanted some of the late model guys die cast and this, that, and the other. And, you know, he's telling me names. You know, I mean, obviously, Brandon Shepherd, and there's some that you've, you know, Jonathan Davenport, there's people that you've heard of. And then, you know, he's like, my favorite driver is, oh gosh, I don't even knows, Tyler somebody. Maybe. Is there a Tyler?

There's a Tyler. Might be Tyler, I don't know. But he's, I mean, he just, it's just so fun to listen. And like you said, there is a lot going on. That's the one thing that, and particularly, again, you know, my background in NASCAR hearing all about, you know, is NASCAR what it used to be? you have the same fan bases. What are the TV ratings doing? Do da-da-da-da-da-da.

Everybody wants to debate all this stuff. There is so much racing going on in the United States of America. Everywhere you look. When I get on my race pass or when I get on race monitor to look for my son's event on what I'm doing, I am amazed at, you know, 40 to 50 events every weekend somewhere. A race fan can catch something somewhere every single weekend of the year. Every single week. Every single weekend.

Most of the time, four or five nights a week. Absolutely. There's something going on. That's the beauty of it. It's alive and well. I know that we fight a bunch of challenges. And like you said, just keeping the whole ecosystem healthy and all. But it's alive and well.

And it's alive and well because of people like you. Well, it's alive and well because of the community we built and the community that continues to grow. Like you said, the race fans evolve. The sports evolving. The entertainment's evolving. Our communication is evolving. everything is evolving. So how do we position it for the best chance of success going forward?

That's right. And how do we, everybody bring a friend. That's my theory this week. Every year, this is my theory this year. If you go into the racetrack, bring a friend, bring a friend, show them something. Introduce it to somebody. And then give them a chance to see it. And then we'll keep the ones we can and then we'll keep doing the best to keep as many as we can.

So that's, that's my ask for all the race fans, bring a friend. Bring a friend to the racetrack and then we'll spread that resource. You'll do the rest, right? We'll entertain them and we'll introduce you to all of our friends and you can just see how crazy we really are. All right. Last question. What legacy do you want to leave at World Racing Group? Wow.

I want it to be better than it was when I got here. That's what I wanted to be. I want to put it in a position that the foreseeable future, there's a success path for people, really just to entertain people. That I wanted people to see that we really did try and we really did make progress against. a really tough time to evolve the sport. The early 2000s, the late 2000s through the dynamics of bringing parts of the sport. When we bought the World of Outlaws, there were four full-time drivers and seven employees. We bought the business from Bob. Memmer had passed away and it was really lost. And when we bought the business from Glendonnelly, it was just in a different place.

So my goal is to make sure that I've positioned it when I'm done in a spot for success in the future. And that's my, that's my, what I want to leave behind. So it's a challenge. It's a dynamic I never kind of expected my career to get to. But for me, it's about leaving the legacy that I've, I've left it in a spot that was better than I found it. And I've positioned it as best I can for the future. Excellent. Well, this has been really interesting.

I've learned and grown a lot. And I can tell you're the right man for the job. and leave a great legacy, I can tell, for a world racing group. So thank you so much for coming on with me, Brian. I appreciate it. It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me. All right.

Well, that's it for this edition of motorsports. I hope you enjoyed it. And we'll look forward to seeing you again soon. Check out, dirty moe media. Check out dirty moe media. Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.