The Dale Jr. Download - 568 - Josh Wise: Life Changing Driver Coach

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is joined in the studio by former NASCAR racer and Driver Performance Manager for Chevrolet Racing Josh Wise. The two discuss Josh's post driving career, and his influential role in coaching NASCAR's top athletes.After moving into the stock car ranks as a champion dirt sprint car racer, Josh spent ten years moving through the NASCAR ranks before finding his calling to become a driver development coach and manager. Josh admits that though he was the first driver in Toyota’s development program, he was ill-prepared for the world of fendered racing and feels he failed during his time behind the wheel in NASCAR. In 2016, he came to the realization that he was ready to end his pursuit of being a race car driver and wanted to move into a position to help other drivers unlock their full potential. Josh explains that after setting his sights on this goal, he struck up a conversation with Max Jones at Chip Ganassi Racing and pitched the concept to him. Max suggested he work with a young and upcoming racer in their ranks who needed help with focus, who just happened to be Kyle Larson. Wise Optimization hit the ground running with Larson, Jamie McMurray, Tyler Reddick and Brennan Poole and quickly grew from a single-man operation focusing on workout regimens to an all-encompassing driver overhaul program. Josh attended night school to earn a degree in psychology so he could help drivers with their lives away from the track, which he found to be a major key in growth potential. Today, the operation is a facet of Team Chevy and helps some of the most successful drivers in stock car racing hone their craft.21+ and present in North Carolina. Opt in req. Wager requirements apply. Bonuses awarded as nonwithdrawable bonus bets or profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply including bonus expiration. See terms and conditions at fanduel.com/sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 877-718-5543 or visit morethanagame.nc.gov 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.

Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download here this Wednesday, the Allied guest segment and Driver Performance Manager. That's his title for Chevrolet. Josh Wise, he used to race here for Junior Motorsports, but now he's helping drivers get ready for every race they got coming up. Let's get this started. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media.

Hey, everybody, Dale Jr. Dale Jr., Dale Jr. Dale, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Jr. Back again, the Allied guest. segment today. Joshua, driver performance manager. You could have continued to race. Sure.

So how do you just say, I'm done? I mean, I don't find that to be realistic decision. It's like this girl you love so much and she won't love you back. All right, so we're back in the studio for a guest segment here. We want to thank Ally for supporting us for these guest segments every Wednesday. they brought us another ally with Josh Wise as he's going to come into the studio. We'll see if we can talk about his racing career,

but one of the big reasons why I want him here today is to try to help us understand what he's doing during the week to prep all of the Chevrolet drivers that are in his program. So Josh Wise ended his racing career and he started a performance enhancement sort of driver coach, life coach style program that is available to all of the Chevrolet drivers. Not all of them take this opportunity,

but a lot of them, including the younger drivers, the prospects, are encouraged to do so. And it's become very, very valuable. And it's really kind of developed over the last decade into something critical for these drivers and for the teams to help evaluate this young talent. So I want to learn more. I don't know a whole lot about this program

other than it's critical that we're all a part of it. Chevrolet. So let's get to know why Josh Wise and his team are so important today. All right. So Josh Wise on the Dale Jr. Nallel. What's up? What's up? Yeah. Happy to be here. What's you been doing? Man. A lot of work, a lot of family. Yeah. Trying to learn and grow in between it all. You know, it kind of sums it up, I think, for me, not too exciting. Oh, I don't know, man. I, um, so you, uh, There's a reason why you're here, and obviously you have your own racing career, and you race for us so we can talk about that, which will be a lot of fun.

But you've started a business that has developed into something I don't think a lot of people expected, maybe even yourself. And I want to know more about that. You are a kind of a entity that Chevrolet utilizes to train and prepare their drivers week in and week out. You also, my favorite part probably, is that you get to work with a lot of the young guys

that people like myself think are good prospects and you really get to learn probably better whether they're capable of doing this or not. You get to learn that before anyone. And so if we have a driver in our late model stock program or whatever, we try to find a way to get him into your system and then really get to learn who this guy's about and what he's capable of and what he's willing to do.

I think a lot of drivers have a lot of talent behind the wheel, but in your system, we learn whether they're willing to do the work. So talk about what your program is. Yeah, it's always hard to even figure out where to start with that. And I think the backstory of it is important. you know, for me, for how it was shaped, really. You know, like you said, I, I raced my whole life. I raced here at junior motorsports for a few years part-time.

And, you know, was a pretty sought-after prospect from Open Wheel, from USAC, you know, sprint car racing, and had some great opportunities. Was really successful in that form of the sport. And, you know, people will tell you, you know, how good you are right when you're young. And you don't really understand why. You don't know why. You have some systems in place in ways you think about things.

And, you know, some skills that you've unknowingly acquired probably in some ways through your career path. But when I came to Charlotte to start racing, you know, stock cars, NASCAR, truck, X-Finity, I just thought it had this like magical power that we call natural talent that I was going to come and just, you know, bedazzle everyone with. And man, it was just hard. I just failed. You know, I just full on failed at it. Didn't know how to think about it.

Had never driven big cars. Didn't know how to shift the first time I got in an arc of car, you know. I was just kind of thrown onto these big tracks. Sure, maybe my development system wasn't the best. But also, I didn't know how to learn and grow and didn't even have a growth, didn't know what a growth mindset was, let alone, you know, have one. And so I went through this 10-year NASCAR career, you know, really struggled at first, had some good opportunity. It was actually Toyota's first development driver, you know, one Toyota's first ever midget race with a Toyota engine.

And then came down here and made some of the first apps at Daytona and a Toyota when they were coming into the sport and was what we called a development driver. And I don't even like to use that term now because it's just like so tainted to me, you know. And just wasn't developed. They put me in cars and I drove and I didn't do well was my development plan. And so, yeah, as I went through that process, went through my career, later parts of my career, you know, you start growing up, seeing the world a little differently. I started training, trying to be healthier, eat a little better, trying to prolong my career. Around the time I came here to junior motorsports, I started realizing, like, I got to find a way to,

like, improve myself, you know. So you start working out as like always the first. It's a great gateway to just personal development. And that kind of turned into doing like some triathons and stuff. I got really into it. Became friends with Jimmy Johnson. We'd train together all the time. Being around Jimmy is infectious, you know,

and he really had a lot of impact on me, probably just unknowingly and indirectly just through our relationship. And, man, I don't know. I went from a guy that wasn't very fit, couldn't like go jog a mile to, you know, in four or five years. I'm like qualifying for Ironman World Championship and I won a half Iron Man in Florida. And it's it's hard to, yeah, your mind starts thinking like, wow, that's pretty crazy. Like what the body and the mind is capable of.

And that really opened up, you know, my thinking in a sense for, you know, I just start to ask a question. Like, why don't we have a system in motorsports like to take people from point A to point B? Like not just put them in race cars and see if they are fast or if they win or lose. Like there's, we don't have any understanding of, you know, the first question for me that still trying to figure, like, what is a good race car driver? What's a good race car driver? What does that mean? Yeah. They win.

They lose. I don't know. We're still trying to figure that out. We see the results of race car drivers that are good and they come and go and they ebb and they flow. But at the core, what, what is that? And so, so yeah, just became really curious and in love fascinated by the body, the mind. And then in 16, 2016, I just decided I was going to stop racing. And I was going to, I didn't know how.

I didn't know who I was going to help, but I was going to find someone and I was going to help him. And it's one of those things, you know, I just believe in energy and the vision and seeing things in your mind. And yeah, by the end of that year, I had run into a guy, Max Jones, who was running Chip Ganassi racing. I'd done some testing at Ganassi, and they had this kid who was really fast and really good in a cup car. but they couldn't give him to show up to team meetings, and they didn't think he was focused, and he was going to fall through cracks, and the kid was Kyle Larson.

And they're like, we need someone for him to work out with him, to mentor him, to do this with him. How did that introduction happen? I ran to Max, and he asked me what I was doing for driving. I told him I wasn't going to drive anymore. What was the emotional process of making that decision? Because, like, just stopping, you know,

it's not that simple, you know, just like, I'm going to, to give up on my dream. I mean, you had worked hard to make it what it was. And it was a, I know a lot of us remember at the end of your driving career, it was a struggle to getting a certain equipment and go to the track with a positive attitude. But you, you were as talented as you were in all other forms of motorsports that you raced in, sprint cars and so forth, you could have continued to race.

Sure. Right, and you still do. You still have this kind of one-off weird thing you do and you go have fun and you win. Sure. So how do you just say, I'm done? I mean, I don't find that to be a realistic decision. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know. It's like this girl you love so much and she won't love you back. Yeah. You know, like I just, I wanted to win. I wanted to be the best. I wanted to be successful. but I just couldn't figure it out.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't get, you know, you could say I didn't get all the right opportunities at the right times, but yeah, I just, I just, I fell out of love with it, you know? Yeah. And then I was doing it for to make a living, and I don't want to do that. I don't want to live my life to make a living, you know.

I want to live to live it and make an impact in some way or another or at least enjoy what I'm doing. And I got to a point where I just didn't enjoy it, you know, and became so fascinated by the idea of what I saw. And really, you know, at the core, when I started with Kyle and McMurray, so it was Kyle and Jamie and Tyler Redick and Brendan Poole were the first kind of group of drivers that Canassia started with. And in a weird way, I just saw every one of them as myself, you know,

like what gaps are there for you? What are you missing, you know? what do you love about this? What do you not love about this? You know, what are you challenged with? Everyone's challenged with something unique. And so still today, you know, I think I'm trying to solve my problem, you know, of not developing as a human and as an athlete.

So when you saw Kyle and how receptive is he of, I mean, you know, he's got these things that he's not doing that he needs to do. some, you know, he, even if he does take it seriously, perception is he's, you know, I know, you look, you can look at him, even today, and he's got this sort of, you know, expression that's very like, ah, whatever, I don't, you know, it doesn't matter.

You know, he just has that sort of, you know, look on his face, whether he thinks that or not, you kind of have a hard time really seeing what's going on in his mind. So I'm curious as to how you got in there and how you convinced him, because he's the one, called me.

He was driving down the road somewhere in the Midwest between dirt races a couple weeks ago and said, I'd like you to interview Josh. Oh, how funny. Yeah. He's the one. And so I'd always been curious about your system and your program. We have a lot of drivers at junior motorsports that have been a part of it for years. It's become as important as anything else they do.

And it came and it wasn't there. It didn't exist years ago. to your point when you were driving for us, we all thought you get in the car and you go. If you don't go, you don't go, right? And it's either the car or the driver and we figure it out, right? And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. And there was no midweek prep.

And so going back to Kyle, how do you get him to trust you? How do you get inside his brain and start like helping him understand. where he needed to plug in? I don't know. I mean, I don't think I came at it from the angle of like I'm trying to convince or I'm trying to, I think we had common ground, right? We're both open wheel racers. So I was a sprint car driver.

We just missed each other. I kind of had left open wheel sprint car stuff when he was coming in. But he knew who I was. I think he'd watched me race. I'd met him a few times when he was younger. I knew he was really good. you know, long before a lot of people did, right? Because I was monitoring that kind of racing.

And, I mean, I think that the first time we sat down, I just was really honest and said, look, I don't know if you know much about me, you know, I don't know, but I made a lot of mistakes. I missed a lot of opportunity. And, you know, I think that, I think you know you're really capable of being successful at this. And, you know, I'd love to help you, you know, try to see those gaps and to, to, to grow, you know. I think a lot of us just don't even know what we're capable of and to have someone

that can see your true potential and then help you identify a process that you can reach that potential. Is it exciting for most people, you know, especially if it's in a relatable, authentic way. So, yeah, we sat in a conference room. I remember the day, you know, we sat in a conference room and I told them what I thought about racing, what I thought about some things that I missed with it. I told them, you know, the first time when I decided I was going to do this, I sat down and I wrote down, you know, four key pillars that for race car drivers. You know, it's physical, it's psychological, and it's technical, it's tactical.

And funny enough, like, these actually spill into more sports I find out later on, right? It's actually pretty common. But really, it was just me thinking about it that day and that way. and I kind of laid that out for him. And, yeah, and I mean, and Kyle, like you said, he's really laid back about things. He was like, I'll give it a try. Yeah.

You know? And so for a long time, I just talked to McMurray the other day. And, you know, I had a little tiny, like, closet at Ganassi with, like, some weights in it in my little desk, and we look at some video, and we list some weights. And I had a sprinter van. And so I'd load up, I kept their bikes in my sprinter van. I kept some helmets for carting in my sprinter van.

I'd go to their house, and I'd be like, hey, Time to work out. Really? I don't get ready yet. Have them of, you know, doing workouts in their garage, and then I'd pull the road bike out and be like, okay, we're going for a ride now. We're going for a run. And so, yeah, it was just really, like, just gritty to start, you know. I'm coming over.

Like, whether you want me to or not, I'll be there at 10 a.m. tomorrow, you know, and that's how I kind of started with those guys. Jamie, I rode with him a few times and since then, and he has turned into, you know, a workout freak. He's amazing on the road bike. And so I remember his entire career and how he changed physically and became better suited to do his job. And I imagine your influence there was all over that. Hey, everybody.

I want to talk to you a little bit about safety culture. You may know safety culture's logo from Shane Van Gisbergin's car, but safety culture is more than just a sponsor. It's also the workplace operations tool for the trackhouse racing team. And what does that actually mean? Well, the team uses Safety Culture's app to manage everything from pre-race inspections on the car to assembly checks and they even do some of their training on the app. Every race team has an incredible amount of individuals that maybe don't even travel to the racetrack, work back at the shop that are a big part of the success of that race team, preparing cars, getting them ready to go to the racetrack and run these races and try to win checkered flags

and ultimately championships. No matter what you're trying to achieve, no one has time to waste from construction sites to factory floors. Safety culture is designed to drive improvements not just in safety, but broadly across quality and efficiency too. Are you ready to put your workplace in the pole position? Well, head to safetyculture.com slash SVG. I imagine you didn't have this vision of turning this into something grander.

You were probably very thankful to have this opportunity to work with these, this group of individuals. When does it change? When does it develop into what it's become? I mean, you talk about riding, you know, when it started out, you lifted weights, you rode bikes. But now there's all this mental and eye test. and there's a lot of information that y'all go over it, you know, pertaining to each race. And so talk about how in depth the program has gotten and also how it evolved into this all-encompassing, you know, sort of like, here's, this is Chevrolet.

Chevrolet owns this, right? This is yours and you created it, but it's part of the team Chevy concept. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it gradually happened in a healthy way, I think, you know, and I was always careful to not move too fast. You know, I wanted to kind of solve, I don't know, we're still solving the most foundational problems, but I wanted to feel like we could just add value to, you know, for me, we're a life development program, right? And at the core, the philosophy is you erase the way you live. So we see an issue on the racetrack,

we see an issue competitively and immediately. Like what? Well, what would be an example of an issue? Like poor judgment? Yeah, poor judgment, just a rad inconsistent. Radical, you know, just like quick snap judgment. Making mistakes, you know? And a lot of it just comes back to like, well, how disciplined are? Do you feel like you are right now in your day?

You showed up here 10 minutes late. You think you're going to execute pit road this week? Like, get here on time. Be prepared. Prepare to prepare. You know, and so we have a list of, you know, on our wall. It's like 10 things that require no talent, you know. Like, number one, be on time.

Number two, come prepared. Come with good in it. Like, these things don't require anything other than your awareness of them and executing them. And so, yeah, at the core, we're a life development program. And we see it as, you know, guys are. going to race the way they live their lives. And so we want them to be disciplined. We want them to be healthy. We want them to be sleeping well. We want to know how their relationships are. We want to know how they're thinking, all these things. And then, and then we go race the car. But if we're not doing

those things, well, then it really, we're not going to see their results on the track. And so, so really quickly as I, you know, was with, with those guys early on, Kyle, Tyler, We would watch video or we'd work out, but things would come up, and I would just have this feeling of how unequipped I am for helping. You know, I was just like, I could get, I knew about fitness, right? Because I was racing and I was doing the triathlon stuff. And I also knew there was, I guess you'd call it a ceiling or a cliff with fitness. And in a sense where fitness wasn't going to win you a race. You need to have the stamina, the end.

endurance, the ability to, you know, maintain attention and focus. But then there's a point where, like, you're just working out to work out. So you're wasting time. You're wasting energy. On our main wall, when you walk in in our facility, it says, energy is everything. That's all there is to it. Einstein said it. There's more to the quote.

But in a sense, energy is everything. And that's how we think about it. So someone comes in, you know, they're not fit enough to run the race. We've got to get them fit. We've got to get them where they can sustain the level of energy required to execute. event. But then we have to start figuring out how to allocate their energy during the week to impact their race performance because that's what they care about. And so, rewinding back to where I started with that, I remember we're working out, we're looking at some video, but then

things would come up and I didn't know. I didn't know how to help. And I remembered when I was driving, you know, I'd like Google like, you know, how to have a good mindset or how to think, I don't know, just psychology, like things about my mind. So I'm like, man, I feel lost. I feel like I don't understand this. And so within about six or eight months, I went back to school. I went to college at night, you know. Nine to 12 at night.

Where in? 2017 to 2020. You went back to school. When I'm back to school and got my degree in psychology. And so I'd go, you know, my kids during the day in the morning and in the afternoon. I'd run the business during the day, travel with races on the weekends, and then 9 p.m. to midnight every night. Holy crap.

Get the computer out and do my work and study. And that was really powerful. It was really powerful for me because I was growing in the work I was doing, but I was also becoming really informed about human behavior, you know, and how people think and, you know, motivation and language and learning and all these things that at the core are really important components of what we're doing. And so that really steered a lot. of the early development of the program was, you know, it was, it's all based on the mind is what

we care about. We want to get everyone fit, but even our workouts are geared towards thinking in a lot of ways. So, so yeah, and then, and then, you know, you talk about the business, right? It was just me for, for three, four years. And then you get to a point where people want the help and I can't do it. And I also started to realize that there's people out there that could do specific parts of the work I was doing better than I could do it all. And so, you know, started trying to find these people. You know, now we have, you know, Dan Jansen, who's an Olympic athlete, you know, doing our strength and conditioning.

And Scott Speed does all the technical and tactical work with the drivers. Have a couple engineers who do data and analytics. Have a mental skills coach who, you know, a psychologist and an ex-pro soccer coach, just really high level good people, good humans that we surround everyone with and tried to build an environment that just cultivates greatness. How many employees do you have? I mean, it depends on how you carve it up because of contractors, but we have, you know, six to 12 people, you know, between our carding programs and our micro programs and in the office

and probably, you know, six core people that are working on the drivers and working for the drivers, you know, every day. So what drivers came into the program, like give me a case where a driver came in completely in bad need of your assistance and help, right? And you turn this driver, then they absorbed all the information and accepted it and did all the work. Who's a great example of a success story? I mean, it'd be hard not to say Kyle, right?

I mean, and I think everyone need, I think I need someone to help me develop, right? I think that it's just we all need some qualified outside perspective. So to be fair, that's my starting point for this answer. But, but, you know, Kyle's been around the longest and he's in a special place, man. I mean, you're seeing it with his performance and I see it off track with him, right? Like, he's an incredible human. And he's an incredible dad. He works hard quietly.

And everything that he's worked over the years to develop within himself is showing and how he performs on the track. But I mean, literally got a text after the race this weekend from a driver of, you guys have changed my life. And so I'm really fortunate that it's a regular thing, right, that we hear this feedback of, man, I feel better. on the track, but like my life has changed forever. Do you think that it's fair to say that your program being so supported and trusted by Chevrolet, when some of the, often I think you probably get all of the prospects at one point, when Chevrolet sort of says, okay, you're in their pipeline. They're going to end up in your program.

the work that you ask these people, these drivers to do, they're not only, you're not only trying to help them change their lives and influence themselves to lead better lives, but you're also evaluating them for Chevy, right? And there are guys that just flat don't want to, want to do the work and won't show up and avoid, you know, you and the effort that it's going to take to be in your program because it's hard. Yeah.

Right. And I want them to hear that. I want those drivers that are in the program today or want to be in that program tomorrow to know. Isn't it fair to say that like, you know, they're not only putting your program to help. but they're also putting your program to be tested. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And we walk a really fine line with this too because at the core, we do this, and Chevy is aware of this. I do this for the drivers. And so the most important

thing to me is that the drivers are growing. This is productive for them. And, you know, someone asked a question, and they said, how do you decide like if a driver gets moved out of the program. I say we run them out. Yeah. I'm out. I can't do this. I don't want to I don't want to be here every day. I don't want to be like these guys are wearing me out. I'll go do a fitness thing on my own or I'll go and so we don't run into a lot of X. We just run them out. They realize that they don't want to operate at that level and that's fine. That's what we want. But we also we walk a fine line with with our feedback, you know, because we don't want to be, we don't want to tattle on guys. Sure.

This guy's not showing up. This guy. When we, you know, there's a front end process where I try to make sure people know the commitment that we're going to ask of them going into it. And I make sure they know that like we play the long game. Like we're not going to change you. We're not going to do this in a month. We're not going to do it in three months.

Sometimes it's a couple years. Really. It really is. And it's a. couple years of really hard disciplined work for them and for us. And so we try to find people that we want to play the long game with and that they want to play the long game with us. Say I'm a, I'm a prospect, I'm a rookie, and Chevrolet's, you know, plugged me into your system. What do you, what does my first, what does my first week look like? I mean, we move in slow. We don't,

like, we're not, we don't do like a, like a hell week. like try to scare you right away. You know, we're pretty gentle, actually, you know. And so, it's going to be introductions. It's going to be some sim work. And we don't really, we don't necessarily, we don't really just plug a guy in. You know, it's, it's about, you know, Tristan McKees, our youngest guy right now, really good little racer, really good kid. And we spent six months before we took him in the program, you know? What do you mean? We got to know him for six months. Oh. Yeah. We sent, we sim, we take him to the racetrack. We have them come by. We take him to When you go to the racetrack, like you go with him to his races?

Sometimes. Sometimes we have a, you know, a carding team that doesn't race, but we take them out there. And I drive with them. Scott drives with them. Like a GoPro here? Yep. So we put them in race cars and we just want to get to know them, you know, and see if they want to show up, see how they think, how they communicate.

You know, the family's important, right? Like they're the types of, yeah, communication and environment that they have at home is really important because we can't overcome a family that's not instilling a growth mindset into a young racer, right? So we want to really get to know the families too and see if their values are in alignment with how we look at things. Can you make it? Can you change that if it's not optimum? That one's tough. Yeah. That one's really tough, you know.

What about the driver? say you've got a young guy that you truly believe in but he's just not committed. How hard do you work on this guy to try to keep him, get him to buy in, I guess? Because I mean, they don't all come in going, I'm ready, I want to do it all. I can't wait. You know, they come in. Dude, I've rode with you guys. And I know some drivers that have went like, holy crap, this is too much.

Yeah. Because you do, you push them to be elite athletes. Yeah. So, I mean, how do you, what's the measure of, man, I want this, I think I can convince him to buy in. I think I convince them to, to, I need, you know, I think a couple weeks. And when do you finally say, I can't, I got to, my hands are tight, you know, I'm going to wash my hands of this and you're on your own. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think we, our system's built to build buy in because that's the most important part.

there's research on this right of you know if you it's a placebo effect like if you believe something's real or something is going to happen like it actually probably is like I can give you a pill of sugar and I can give you a pill of some pharmaceutical drug and if I tell you the sugar is the pharmaceutical like you actually will feel better that in a lot of cases you know it's wild yeah and so we have to build a belief we have like you said we have to build the buy-in and and so for us that kind of originates with awareness, building awareness of their limitations, right? And we do that in a lot of different ways, everything from in our facilities to at tracks, to, you know, we monitor everything at the races. And we have a lot of different ways of building real metrics against that,

you know, say, you know, one example would be perception of race performance versus real race performance, right we have we have some systems and and math and ways that we look at how they perform on a scale against the field and then we want them to rate themselves how they perform against the field on a scale and it's like hey like you think you're a little better at pit road than you are here right so maybe we need to put a little more emphasis on this area would be just one general example that is one area that um that i think i'd like you to it's hard for us to sort of articulate what you guys are doing during the week, during any given week to help these drivers. But one of the areas that I know that you put some focus on is pit road. When I raced, we saw the pit road speed line and we just ran up to it as fast as we felt like we could or should. Man, I don't want to mess it up. You know, get rid of pit road speed? Yeah, I'm going to run.

close to my lights. I might not run my lights perfectly, but I'll just do okay. And I get in my box and then I get out. I just tried to get on an off pit road without a mistake. Sure. Y'all are challenging drivers because it's necessary in this world to maximize perfection on pit road. And talk about that a little bit because I feel like that, you know, that's really where, that's an area where you're directly affecting performance on the racetrack and their success on the racetrack. Sure. There's certainly the areas where you're just like, hey, man, you're just going to get

better. I'm just going to get you in better shape. I'm going to get you feeling better, eating better. I'm going to get your mind better. But there are things that y'all do that directly affect their actual job and how they perform on pit road and so forth. And I always found, I wanted to learn more about that. I've never seen it.

I've never went to watch what y'all do. I'm not a clue. A lot of people listening wouldn't know what the room looks like. So tell me how you've developed some ways to help drivers directly affect their performance, particularly like pit road. Yeah. Oh, we break it apart as close to first principles as we can, you know? So, you know, I guess if you were to stay pit road without going too deep into our methods, right? but we break it apart in a sense.

So we want to see how well they decelerate in the box, how will they place the car in the box, how they're, you know, a lot of times you have a drive time. So starting with that, I guess, for educational purposes, right?

You have the drivers responsible for a drive time on pit road. Then you have a pit crew's responsibility for pitting the car. And so the driver time is measured from yellow line to yellow line on pit road. And that's that minus the pit stop. And so that was the way of looking at, at that for a long time. And yeah, we break it all apart. You know, we want to know what the drive time is on the pit entry part. We want to see what the drive time is for the deceleration part. I wonder how much distance they take on pit road because there's different ways to take angles on pit road. There's time off of the jack. So when the jack drops, you know, there's a window of two to four tenths of a second that different drivers take to just hit the gas and go. And so, you know, you take all these different aspects and it's like, okay, your drive time is, you know, 1.2 seconds off of the best guy. Well, you lost, you know,

three tenths on the front end, you decelerated two tents slower, you lost two tents off the jack, you took too much distance here, and now you lost a second on pit road. You know, well, that's four spots. And so we have to,

we have to look at all that. We have to optimize it, and a lot of it comes back to that, like building awareness of where the opportunities are at, and then letting them, you know, working with them to find ways

to optimize those areas. How do you figure, how do you see a driver, the light bulb come on with a driver? When you're talking about some of those things, you know, some of these guys, especially the younger guys, I mean, you kind of mentioned it in the show. When you're young, a lot of this information is noisy. Yeah. You know, it's a bunch. And you've got, you're, I look at a, look at Carson Quaple, for example, a guy that is clinging.

to opportunities, right, to try to get himself into the next level, which would be Exfinity or truck. And he's got, he's got a, you know, he's got an opportunity to be in a program like yours. And he's got a million people talking to him every day about what he needs to be doing. And then he's going to go sit in a room with you guys and get even more information. So you've got drivers really very young trying to download probably more than they're capable of doing. So how do you work through that and help them, how do you turn them into better sponges where they absorb this information, retain the information? I mean, I just couldn't imagine it.

When I was in my early 20s, I just don't know how you would have been able to connect with me. I wasn't, I wasn't able to do that well. Yeah. You know, and I imagine a lot of drivers aren't, not a lot of guys are Larson, right? And so how do you get them to understand what's important? What's necessary for them to retain? Yeah. I mean, they can't retain at all.

Right. No way. So that's where we're really good at trying to identify what the key elements are for them. You know, it's individual based on. the guy. So, I think the most recent example would be like Corey Day ran an ARCA race at Salem. And Corey Day is a really good young sprint car racer right now, you know, battling Larson for wins and in the wing sprint car stuff. And, you know, the first thing we told him is everything he didn't need to worry about, you know, like, look, here's the things like, you know, you're going to

be on a bank track. You don't have to worry about Arrow much with this deal, you know, and just kind of went to the checklist of like, hey, people are going to come try to tell you these things to think about and worry about like, just go drive the car. And then these are a couple key elements that are probably going to be impactful, you know, restarts, right? Understanding positioning on restarts, understanding leverage in a stock car, we call it, right? Which is like where you're positioned against your opponent. And these are very different concepts and in a sprint car, right? You position a sprint car much differently to take leverage or to take a position. And so some core thinking, concepts and systems that can be impactful for that race. And we spend a lot of time on it,

you know, for those things individually for the drivers. You know, Scott and myself, we sit down and we look at what races are coming up, what the driver's strengths and weaknesses are in those tracks. We know a lot about the drivers. We know a lot about the tracks. And then we spend most of our time deciding what we're not going to talk about because we have so much we can talk about. You know, we want to see like, okay, what's going to be really important for a race performance for this driver at this track? Yeah. You mentioned Scott. So you're talking about Scott Speed.

Yeah. And you mentioned he's part of your staff. When did you determine, when did that happen? We all know Scott is, you know, a race car driver and I had raced in many forms and NASCAR as well. so when did his life and your when did y'all's careers sort of merge together because that's pretty interesting yeah we um we made some of our first arka starts together so he was coming back from europe racing the formula one stuff um obviously pretty tall really i think he's if not the most one of the most talented race car drivers i've ever battled with in any form or or watched or even watch

drive a race car. And I think most of the guys in our program will even tell you that. Like, he can get in a cart, he can get on a sim, he can go jump into Trans Am car a couple weeks ago, just qualify in the pole, cold turkey. Like, he's really, really good. And so, and I was kind of the dirt track guy, you know, coming into ARCA. And we were both at the top of our games, respectively. And we were both from California. So we just, I think we just kind of hit it off as friends. And, yeah, I think I started with all this when I started thinking about, okay, I need someone to help me technically, tactically with this group. It was just like Scott.

Scott's it, you know. And so, I mean, I worked on him for a year, year and a half. Hey, man, come. What did he say? Let's go do this. Like, let's, you know, come. What was he doing? Still racing.

He was a three or four-time rally cross champion. You know, he's won three games, gold medals. He's racing formula. He's, yeah. Did he have to decide to not be? full time to come commit to what you were doing? So it was interesting because, yeah, I think he saw the love and my passion for what I was doing. And I don't know, he could answer this, but, you know, there was something that happened

in him where he was like, I want to do this with you. Like it sounds, I want to do it. And so, you know, actually made him a partner in my business, you know. And so he came over, came with, you know, to do it with me. And he's trickled back his driving a lot at this point. You know, he's doing some stuff with Red Bull and still does some driving with Subaru, some events and things with them. But, yeah, it's just been a huge, huge component to what, yeah, the resources that our drivers have.

You know, there's just, there's no one better than I can imagine doing that with them. When does Chevrolet come to you and say that we want to make this sort of a, initiative for all of our drivers underneath the Chevy Banner. When does that relationship start? It happened gradually, I think, you know. It started just with, after a few years, you know, Alex Bowman asked, you know, hey, can you do, can I work? Can I be in the program?

And so, and then Junior Moor Sports with Noah, I think Tyler had come over here and kept talking about how, you know, he needs help. and then ended up helping Noah, you know, after Tyler had left. But it just kind of happened gradually, you know, guys wanting the help, you know, and then us just trying to continually solve those problems. And for me, it was just about finding the right people, you know, to solve the problems. Yeah.

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And you can always get your diecast directly from our friends at Lionel by visiting Lionel Racing.com. Lionel Racing is easy to find on social too. Check them out at Facebook, X, Instagram, and TikTok to see the latest die cast releases. I'm curious. I have a question for you, though, you know. Yeah, how has the way that you think about what a race car driver is changed for you, you know, maybe from early in your career?

I think you won in like your 10th or you run early in your cup career, right? and you just went out there and went after it, I'm assuming, right? How has that changed for you over the years? Well, I want to be clear, like the first half of my rookie year was insane, and then the second half was as bad as it could be. And I think that, and with like seven races left in the season, I was ready for it to be over. Here I am in my rookie year living this cup life that I'd won at all of my life,

and I was exhausted. because there's a big difference between Xfinity and Cup and the responsibilities off the track and the physical commitment inside the car as well. So mentally I was just like smoked. And I realized then that it was a, I needed to find a different pace because I was giving it everything I had every single day

and overworking myself, trying to do too much and be too much. much, even outside of the car during the Monday through Friday. And I had to find, I had to find, like a natural pace. I had to learn to say no. I had to learn to rest. And, you know, I think that that was a, that was something that didn't happen overnight either. I had to kind of find where that was at. And I think over, you know, 2004, I felt like I was in a really good place. and but as I was also heavily influenced by Jimmy you know I'm racing in the 2000s and I look around

and the other people I'm competing against are just they look like the guy next door you know there's no nobody was if people were riding bikes and working out they weren't posting online, they weren't sharing what they were doing. So you didn't assume anybody was really doing anything unique. And there were certain people that loved to be physically fit, and that's fine. But then you had Tony Stewart over here eating McDonald's every day and bragging about it, right? And kicking our ass. And so, you know, then I went to Hendrick, and one of the employees there, one of the guys high up said,

you're out of shape. He's like, look at Jimmy. Look at what Jimmy can do. Look what he's doing during the week. And if I asked you to run around this building right now, you probably couldn't do it. And so I really took that to heart. And Jimmy and I,

Jimmy got me on a bike. And I was amazed at what that did to me more so mentally than I was physically. Obviously, it helped. me physically. I love being able to eat whatever I wanted to eat. And I loved getting back on the bike. I loved going to new places and climbing new hills and observing the country, you know, from a unique perspective. It was a blast. But the mental, what it did for me mentally, how it was almost like a bath. It was almost.

A great way to say it then. Like I'd get out on a bike and ride, and it just, a lot of the shit that I was just consumed with that wasn't really necessarily important and worrisome would just wash away. And I'd be done my ride. I'd feel great about myself. I'd worry less about this petty stuff that was bothering me and triggering me. And I could go about what I was supposed to do the rest of the day. Like I said earlier in the show, you're climbing a car and you either can do it or you can't. and I am good enough to know when the car is part of the problem,

but I'm also good enough to look at that and go, all right, man, this guy knows how to roll the corner. He knows how to set up this pass. He's thinking and he's moving his car and positioning his car, and he's not making dumb decisions. He's not rushing into problems on the racetrack. The racecraft is really, really high. But they also,

have to have you know the what I've learned and I think your programs kind of helped be a great way to show that and showcase that is they have to have the motivation and that motivation needs to be there Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, not just on race day. For me when I was racing,

I was motivated on race day. The rest of the time was play, fun, goofing off, video games, whatever. I just needed to be there on race day. And even practice, I mean, I am so almost embarrassed to admit how flippant and ridiculous I was about practice. And I've talked about it on here. Like, you can ask McMurray.

I practice, like, I can't even believe I did this. 2004, 2005, 2006. Practice starts, let's say practice is going to start at noon. on Friday. Drivers, and I would learn this, right? I would end up developing this simple, freaking task of, all right, man, I'm going to be in the hauler an hour before practice. I'm going to have a suit on half hour before practice,

and I'm going to be over at the car 15 minutes before practice. I'm going to climb in, 10 minutes to go. I'm going to be buckled and ready five minutes before practice starts for them to give us the sign to roll off. I'm pulling out with everyone else. Mm-hmm. 2003, 2004, 2005 me is walking in the garage

as all the cars were firing up and pulling out. How ridiculous is that? Yeah. And so, you know, I think my expectations today in terms of what a great

race car driver is, performance is important. The pure ability and talent has to be there, of course. But I got no time for somebody who doesn't live it on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. When you're not determined and serious and trying to figure out how to get better during that part of the week, it's just there's too many that are willing to do it. Yeah. There's a lot of the guy, there's, your, your system is developing those drivers seeking and

finding those drivers. And so the ones that even have all this reliability, but just, just don't give the work in, are getting challenged now. Yeah. And it's disappointing. I want it. That's why I asked you about how you, you know, you'll find these guys and damn, they're just not willing to do the work. But you really like this guy. Yeah.

And you really can see what he's capable of if he pull it together. And so it's heartbreaking sometimes. But, yeah, it's, I used to think, man, it just needed to be good enough. You need to have this, you've got to have the it thing, be raw, raw ability, what Larson has, and that was enough. But now it's like you've got to be a media mind, you've got to be smart about how to work your media, you've got to know what a brand is, you've got to know what that means and how to build it and develop it. Yeah. And you've got to be preparing in a program similar to yours every single day of the week. Yeah.

What do you think that is? what do you think like, you know, because I, I still, we see this, you know, you watch a driver and they just, Kyle is a great example, right? But, and Kyle's farther down his career path, but he's refined, but you watch a driver and they know, it's like they can see into the future. Yeah. They know where to put the car. They have a feel for a tire and can go through a corner fast at different angles and in different forms of traffic. What is that? Where does that come from? Um, man, that's, uh, I always felt like that you were bored with that. Mm. I don't know if that's, I mean, I'm sure it's like a Corey Day is going to get in a stock car just like Larson did. And he's going to learn how that car does those things, what the car can do, what the tire can do. Mm-hmm. He's, all the things that he magically does in a sprint car, he will develop, right, those traits and abilities.

So to say you're born with it, you know, what I mean is you're born with that ability to recognize, that ability to identify moments and the laws of physics as they're happening and processing around you. Sure. I think, you know, a lot of guys, a lot of guys just aren't. that self-aware. And two, and, like, when you would get in a car and feel like that there's a point when the car in you are one, it's almost like an extension or an arm or a leg. Sure.

And you just, you don't even have to think about it. You know, you're moving that car like it's part of your body. Yeah. Those are incredible moments behind the wheel of a race car. And I have that when I race the late mall stock car. I just, because I get in the car and it feels so far and I'm so, I haven't drove in months, you know, and I get in the car and I'm so disconnected from the car and I'm trying to make the car do things

and it's like driving a bulldozer, right? And you don't feel connected at all. You feel like you're on top of this thing that's almost out of your control. And then it just sort of morphs over time. Sure. You'll get a handful of laps into the race and then you're not even thinking anymore.

You're just doing and the car is you. Yeah. It's a weird deal. Yeah. We use that analogy a lot in a sense that, you know, you start thinking about race car drivers as athletes, you know. And, yeah, they're very unique athletes because, you know, I can go, I can go swim as many laps in a pool as I want, right?

I can go get the best coaches. I can put the time in. I can eat, right? I can do it all. I'm not going to go as fast as Michael Phelps. Yeah. He's got bigger hands. He's got longer.

He's just going to beat me. Yeah. Right? A race car driver is not in that position. You know, the car is their body. So they're the brain. Like you said, that ends our connectedness of that. It's a beautiful opportunity for someone because you're not limited by a physical body.

You know, these cars, especially in the Cup Series right now. I mean, the cars are within such tight margins of each other that the driver has a massive responsibility and the direction of how that body is tuned for that race. you know, and then executing, maneuvering that body through space to be successful in a race. So, yeah, it's a unique opportunity that they have in a sense for, yeah, being elite in a sport. But also there is, like you said, you know, I don't believe in being born with it, but there's unique aspects of maybe people's, you know, Kyle Larson was at a sprint car track when he was like, six days old or something. You know what I mean? Or it's something crazy. And his family took him to

80 sprint car races a year for the first year of his life. And like I know it doesn't seem like a baby's paying attention, but I guarantee they're hearing noises, they're hearing conversations. They're seeing little things, right? And, you know, Corey Day's dad, Ronnie, was a really good midget driver, right? So he grew up in this environment, right? Like you grew up in an environment. That was, was, special, right? And nurtured your perspective, but also your craft, your skill. And so it's just a unique blend, you know, of all of that. I think that somehow creates this magical thing that we see as a great race car driver. But the beauty, too, is that I think it can be shaped, you know, as you move through the process as well. I definitely feel like that you guys are shaping a lot of

the young talent. And I know you got a heart out and I want to get you on the road so you can get to wherever you're going on time and you're a busy man. I'm thankful that you came here today. I've been curious about this program for quite some time and I know we've, at Junior Motor Sports, you've taken advantage of it being part of the Chevy family. And I've realized also how important it has become not only to, you know, our veterans and our regulars and our regulars and our Xfinity cars in the cup garage as well that use the program, but even more so now as it's introduced to these younger drivers like Tristan and so forth. So I'm thankful for you, Josh. I'm glad that you have found your calling. I'm glad that you are happy and enjoying what

you do. And you have to love making a difference in so many people's lives. And we're definitely thankful that you're part of the Chevy family because we'd hate to be racing against this. I'll tell you that. Thank you. Yeah. Likewise for you, I've always admired who you are, you know, on and off the track and what you do for people to give them opportunity and grow and the things that you're building.

So I really appreciate you having me on. All right, bud. Well, hopefully I can catch a ride. I've been on the bike a little bit here lately. Yeah, we need to do it. I'm not doing it as much as I should or want to. But I don't never know when y'all are riding. The last time I rode with Josh, it was terrifying.

we're riding probably we went about 15 miles and I'm like this is good this is good was that with Noah yes and we I'm like you know I know we got about five miles ago I've got I feel like I've got what I need in the tank to get to the end of this ride and we stop on this hill and he goes all we're racing to that that pole up there I'm like what and Noah looks at me and he goes yeah man we're going to race this pole I'm like the hell And so he's like, we're going to do a series of three races. And so I intentionally, like, sucked on the first two races, so I would have enough energy to be reasonable in the final race.

I remember this. At the end of that third race, I'm like, I don't know if I got enough in the tank to get home. Oh, man, it was a tough ride. But I love it, man. I love the way you guys challenge these drivers. And I love that your program is always evolving and getting more and more in depth and better suited to continue to help you. these drivers excel and, you know, just like I think the fact that Larson was one of the first

people that you worked with and is now continuing to champion what you do all these years later speaks volumes to the impact that you're having in our sport. So thank you again. Yeah, thank you so much. Josh Wise on the Dale Junior Download. All right, so a great conversation with Josh Wise, and I hate that we did not get to talk about his racing career. We'll have to get him back in here one day to discuss that. But I wanted to, introduce everybody to what he's doing as a massive asset to the Chevrolet teams and drivers. And this is a program that has developed out of nothing over the last decade and a half. And, you know, it's just really impressive how it's became an idea and sort of a little extra credit that some drivers could do.

and now it's really kind of turned into something that almost all the teams expect you to be a part of. If you come drive here at Junior Motors Sports, it's encouraged that you're in this program. You don't have to do it. You can do your own program. Some drivers do. But it's almost encouraged because we get this feedback.

Josh downplays it a little bit, but we do get some feedback, particularly about our younger drivers, of where they are mentally. He mentioned Noah Graxon. Noah, you know, we were kind of, having a lot of challenges with Noah at certain points when he was driving here at junior motor sports and putting him in that program and the relationship that he developed I think with

Josh was a massive help to Noah personally and professionally and so you know I think that it's necessary to highlight the good work that Josh and his team is doing and again you know encouraged by one of the best that's doing it right now, and that's Kyle Larson. Kyle's like, hey, I want you to have him on. Kyle will be disappointed. We didn't talk about his racing career, I'm sure. But he had a hard out, needed. He's on demand, probably off to train with some drivers, and we want to respect that time,

and we're thankful that Josh came through the day. I want to thank Ally for everything they do here, bringing the guest segment to us every week. They brought us another ally in Josh Wise. And we're thankful for that. No matter what you're saving for, whether it's race tickets to the next race at Michigan, maybe you're wanting a new car or a used car. We sell a lot of used cars over at Delohert Jr. Chevrolet. Maybe there's a new home you're looking at or you're trying to rent.

Whatever it is you're saving for, we're all better off with an ally. All right, it's time for the white flag. Don't forget last Sunday, the tear-down drop with Jeff Gluck and Jordan Mionki. They were going crazy over the reaction to the finish that they had just seen. at Richmond. Some great conversations, some great opinions, and they both differently had different opinions about what went down.

Monday actions detrimental with Denny Hamlin is must listen to podcasting because obviously Denny's involvement in the controversy at Richmond. Then door bumper clear. The spotters came on to give their take and opinions on what went down, and they're always colorful. Our show, Dirty Air, dropped yesterday where we talked in length about the race itself

and had Austin come on the show and answer a few questions about what went down. And then Speed Street with Connor Daly and Chase Holden, as usual, will drop today, along with this podcast that you're listening to. And then tomorrow, DJD Reloaded and Dirty Mo Doe both come out on Thursday.

And then Dirty Mo Summer Games is still going on. The latest episode to drop is the beerball competition that happened at the Western Town on the property. Andrew and Dalton both are competing in the game. So if you want to continue to follow along with that, a lot of craziness happening. And then a five-star Apple review. Connor Zillich is so well-spoken beyond his years. I hope to see great things from him in the future. Man, that reads like a fortune cookie.

All right. Thank you guys for that. We appreciate the reviews on Apple. We really do. And we appreciate everybody that supports the show. And I hope you have a great week. We'll see you soon. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, tick. and Instagram.