The Dale Jr. Download - 576 - Zak Brown: Larson's Double Return, Verstappen Debate & Potential Daytona 500 Plans

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

Dale Earnhardt Jr. sets out to learn more about the world of open wheel motorsports as he sits down with the CEO of McLaren Racing Zak Brown. Big news brought the open wheel executive to town as McLaren joined Hendrick Motorsports in announcing that Kyle Larson will return to the Indianapolis 500 in 2025 for another attempt at the Memorial Day double. Zak explains how the partnership with Rick Hendrick came together through an adoration for his race team, which he views as a North American equivalent of McLaren. He also credits Larson’s versatility with being reminiscent of yesteryear’s drivers like A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti. As McLaren continues to flourish open wheel racing, Zak says his sights are set on becoming a top-outfit in the sports car ranks, competing in both WEC and IMSA in the future.Zak’s background in racing can be traced to the 1981 Long Beach Grand Prix, which he attended with his parents and brother. A successful appearance on Wheel of Fortune when he was 13 and advice from Mario himself led to a door opening in go-kart racing, which Zak entered and never looked back. After finding a knack for securing sponsorship, Zak realized he was better fit on the marketing end of the sport and started his own company, Just Marketing, Inc., which quickly rose to being one of the top businesses in racing. Zak would sell the company and find himself at a professional crossroads before being faced with the ultimate career decision: be in line to one day run Formula One or help direct McLaren Racing. Thanks to his love of competition, Zak took the position at the legendary race team and helped it return to its former glory at the forefront of the racing world.Dale and Zak share one strong common thread, through Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s 1980s Nova, which currently resides in the JR Motorsports garage. Zak was a longtime owner of the vehicle before Dale Jr. was able to acquire it through auction, and he shares an incredible story of how he was able to confirm its authenticity. 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, it's Dillen Hart Jr. and we're back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. It's Wednesday. And our ally guest segment is, we've got a unique guest coming in today. It's Zach Brown with McLaren. They've just recently announced that Larson's going to run the double again. But it's an opportunity with him in town to see what he's all about. He's owned a couple of race cars over my dad's that he drove over the years. So he's got this appreciation for the history. And he's in a unique spot. And so I can't wait to learn all about him, all about McLaren,

and their plans going forward. So it should be a great show. Let's get going. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. Hey, everybody, Dale Jr., Dale Jr., back again, the ally guest segment today. Zach Brown, CEO of McLaren, he's owned a couple of race cars over my dad that he drove over the years.

Did you finish high school? Yes, but I never really. went to my graduation, nor have seen my certificate, so I hesitate because I've been told I've graduated. I don't have any confirmation. I don't actually have any proof. All right, so we're in the Dale Junior Download Studio for this Wednesday Allied guest segment, and our guest is just outside the door there and about to come in here any minute.

Zach Brown, 52 years old CEO of McLaren. and he actually owned, maybe still does own, 1984 Monte Carlo. My dad raced with Richard Childress. And he also owned a car that's on the other side of this glass wall in the shop here, the Nova that I restored. He owned that at one point. And so he has this appreciation for history, NASCAR history.

My dad, I want to learn about that. But I also want to learn about him. How do you become the CEO of McLaren? What's that route? look like. And what all does he have his involvement? What is his involvement with McLaren? What is he controlling?

What's their next steps? We also know they're focusing heavily on another N.500 run for Kyle Larson. What did he think about their first effort? And what does he expect from Kyle going into next year's run? Let's get that started. Let's bring him into the studio. Let's have some fun. I probably have had legit interaction with F1 guys.

Yeah. He's the only one. Daniel? Yeah. Only because he was an Earnhardt fan, right? A fan of my dad, so, which I mean, I look at F1, probably, I look at F1, I don't know how other NASCAR guys were, especially my dad's generation, but like I look at F1 as like, that's the palace, man. That's the Queens house, right?

And so, like, when I was, I guess when Schumacher was dominating, man, it was like, There was no question. This was the greatest driver in the world. Now, you know, we all argue who's the best. But, man, I have had a, so it was really cool that he was, of all the, you know, you just don't think the F1 fan, F1 drivers. And from Australia. Right, would have any kind of a NASCAR fandom.

Zach Brown here on the Dale Jr. download. And what a treat this is for us. Good to be here. I'm glad you're here. I know why you're here. And we want to talk about that quickly, man. but I just wanted to tee you up and tell you, I want to know about you. I want to know about where you came from.

I know that you've raced. I want to know how you, what was the path that got you to where you are today? And but we also want to talk about the news that you guys have just dropped that Larson's going to do the double again. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. So tell me why that's exciting for you. Because I love racing, first and foremost. I love all forms of race.

I love kind of how they did it back in the good old days, right? Mario And Dreddy raced everything. Jackie Stewart raised everything. AJ Foyt raced everything. And that doesn't happen that much anymore, except kind of Kyle. I mean, some guys do it, but everyone, you know, it's one of the things I really like about Fernando Alonzo, right? Even in Dakar and Lamont, the Indy 500. So you don't see that much of it. And I think that's when you can tell who the real superstar drivers are, the ones that are like versatile. Yeah. Um, love the Indy 500, love NASCAR, Rick Hendrick, you know, you've driven for them, uh, grew up watching his racing teams, Jeff Gordon. So it just all comes together and it's like, I consider myself to be like the number one fan in motorsports.

And, uh, so to be able to kind of bring together these various legends in these legendary racing series and legendary racetracks is just awesome. Yeah. I wonder what, um, you know, you struck up a partnership with, with Rick. Kyle had the interest as a driver, and I think the world has the curiosity to see Kyle go through that process. It's always really fascinating for me when there is any crossover, when the IndyCar guys would come and race with us

or when Juan would come from F1 and come race with us, you wanted them to succeed. You wanted them to find it challenging, right? You wanted them to go, damn, this is hard. But you also wanted to see them do well because it raised the profile of everything. Yeah. And so when I see Kyle race at Indy, of course, I'm pulling for him as a NASCAR fan, but I also want to see that raise the profile for IndyCar, right? And I think it does.

But what does this do for McLaren? I think, you know, McLaren kind of were racers. And so if you look at our history, Bruce McLaren, right, he was a driver, designer, a team owner, Canam, we went to LaMaw. We're the only team. team have won the Triple Crown. And so we like to go racing. And when I joined McLaren, one of the things I said was, look, you know, we've got to get our F1 team back on track. But I'd like to see us back in other forms of racing.

So we're kind of a crossover team if there's such a thing where we're racing in IndyCar now. We've got a, we're in Formal E, we're an extremie. We like to go racing. So I think to go racing with, you know, Rick Hendrick, who's kind of the most of the. McLaren of North America, if you'd like, just an icon in North American motorsports. I think that's kind of consistent with our brand. And ultimately, from a business standpoint, our sponsors want to see us in America,

as much as Formula One is taken off in America. I want to have a bigger piece of America, if you'd like. A majority of our sponsors, U.S. will be the most important market, if not the most important one of them. We sell a lot of road cars. it's our biggest market. So there's business reasons to be here in addition to just passion and wanting to go racing. Where is the limit to the diversity of your portfolio?

Like you mentioned all of the different things you're doing and where you'd want to grow. And I guess obviously there's places where it makes sense for you to be and places where it doesn't make sense. But you mentioned your racers. Where is what's next? Yeah, where do you want to go that you're not? I'd like to get us into the top level of sports car racing. Really? Yeah, I'd love to go back and, you know, we're back now in GT3. We ran well at Lamont this year. We were leading 20 hours in, and then unfortunately we had two cars let go within about half an hour of each other.

That's Lamont. I'd love to see us in, you know, Hypercar, Daytona prototypes, you know, LMDAH is I think the class we would join in Weck and IMSA. to me, then we'd be, I want to go back to, on a personal level, trying to win the Triple Crown, because we've done it. We're the only team who have done it, but we did it in different eras. And so if I had a dream, that's the dream. Yeah. And where, who is involved, who's at the table in these conversations at McLaren? Who is, I mean, this is a, you know, this is a massive brand. you have an incredible amount of expertise in motorsports to help steer the ship, so to speak. But who is all at the table during the conversations of what you're currently doing and where the next thing is?

So it starts with my leadership team because I won't take anything to the board that I don't have buy-in from, you know, for my team. I've got 10 people that report to me. I've got someone who runs the Formula One team, someone runs the IndyCar team, someone who runs what we call electric racing. and then, of course, my commercial department, CFO, et cetera, et cetera. And ultimately, if I've got a kind of a crazy idea, or any idea for that matter, I'll put it in front of them. What do you guys think? Think we should do it.

I think it'll be success. Once we, as a leadership team, get to a point where we want to do something new, I'll take it ultimately to my board. I've got the best board. They're sports people. They're racers. they love McLaren. They totally support us.

I don't think knock on wood. I've brought anything to the board that they haven't supported. And that's because I make sure I vetted out and I've got total support. So I kind of won't bring anything to the board that I don't already think they'll be supportive of. That's one thing my chairman said to me was don't ever bring anything to the board that you don't already kind of know the answer to you. So we get it all vetted out. All the racing activities need to stand on their own. two feet. We're in business. We don't get, I don't get money from McLaren group like a Mercedes or,

you know, a big OEM. So I've got to make sure the IndyCar team stands on its own two feet. Yep. So I've got to kind of make sure everything has a business to it. But they're great supporters. They love it. You know, the first time I kind of tested that was a pretty crazy idea when in my first year we were really struggling with Fernando and I said why don't we pull Fernando out of the indie out of Monaco and put him in the Indy 500 and everyone thought I was nuts and I even kind of thought I was a bit nuts and they totally supported it. Hey if you think that's good you know you're not really going to give away a result at Monaco because we were running 15 16 17th and it was huge news and it was funny the way that went down with Fernando I kind of threw it out as a

joke. And then we had dinner and I think it was in China. And then he started asking a lot of questions. And I'm like, I think I might caught myself in a little bit of trouble here. You might want to do this thing. And then we left dinner and his manager said to me, now he's going to sleep on. He's not going to want to do it. And then he came up the next morning and went, let's do it. I was like, oh man, now I've got to figure out how to put this together. But sometimes the best plans are, you know, you're race with instinct. So yeah. Yeah. So that's, it's great. that we have, you know, we're so competitive now and everything that we're doing. Yeah, it is.

I've been really impressed with a turnaround at F1, and I find that fascinating how the performance can ebb and flow like that. And it's not, it's easy, it's easy for it to, it's easy for the performance to disappear. And it's, it takes a ton of work to find it, to recapture it, especially at the most, you know, elite form of racing in, in the world. and I can't have you here and not ask you for McLaren for that business model and with everything happening in NASCAR with charters and the conversation around the charters finally getting signed and there being this sort of at least a plan in the future for a team owner or anybody wanted to invest in the series is there any interest in NASCAR I'm certain that you personally have interest in it because I know that you

follow the sport but what would that look like for McLaren? I think it probably doesn't work for us because it's a massive commitment, right? And it's multiple car teams and it's full time. I was funny, on the way over here, I was asked, where might your relationship with Rick Hendrick go long term? And I don't know the answer to that other than I'd like to have a relationship with his team forever because they're awesome. would we maybe one day put out a car at Daytona? Yeah.

With Rick Hendrick? Maybe I could see something like that, but I think a full-time effort is such a commitment. And it is hard. You know, when you see these Formula One drivers come over to NASCAR, I think they go, well, this isn't as easy as it looks, is it? And same thing with, you know, all these big forms of motor racing, you know, you've been at the top of it. It's damn tough. and I got a rude awakening in 2019 when we didn't qualify with Fernando at Indy,

which was both the best and worst thing that's ever happened. It was worse because it was horrifically embarrassing, but man, did I learn a lot of stuff? And that's don't underestimate how difficult all these racing series are, just because you're really good in Formula One, doesn't mean you're going to walk into NASCAR and kill it or vice versa. So I think it would probably be, take too big of a commitment relative to being based in England and things of that name.

For sure. To do it. But being Daytona 500 would be pretty cool. Yeah. I've got the same dream as you. You know, growing up in NASCAR, I mean, the idea of owning a car full-time is a hell of an idea. But I think for now, the one thing that I hope that happens for me one day is to be an owner, entered into the Daytona 500.

I just want that experience. If only that experience, that's the one I hope for. Because, you know, we all, I think that's kind of the main stage in NASCAR. And you want to experience it once, right? I've done it as a driver in a lot of different ways. But I think rolling a car out there as an owner saying, all right, we're here and we're ready to go. We're putting a car on the grid.

That'd be a great, great experience. You know, it's driving is one thing, as you know. but then being there, whether it's an owner or the leading the team, competitive juices are just the same. I think I'm probably more nervous outside the car than I was in the car. Because you don't have control. No, exactly. I mean, you're just worried about the starts and the pit stops and the, you know,

the crashes and you're going to get caught up in that. And it's pretty stressful. I have to agree. All right, man. So I want to learn about you. You know, I know that you have a lot of experience. as a driver, but, you know, where were you born and what was your first sort of connection to motorsports?

Born in Los Angeles. Family wasn't into racing. My first ever race, my mom and dad took my brother and I, too. 1981 Long Beach Grand Prix. I like you, I like to collect stuff. I still have the race program, including the timesheet from qualifying. The 1981, remember it like it was yesterday. It was a Williams 1-2, the sound.

I was 10 years old. I met Eddie Cheever. I think he'd finished fifth in the race, got a signature on the program. So that was my first race. Then it was just because it was kind of, you know, in the newspaper, the races in town.

Then I went to Riverside a lot. The NASCAR race. So it was the Warner Hodgden 400. Oh, wow, yeah. It was the Winston 500. I was there, so pretty cool. I have, I love collecting cars, We were admiring a number eight over there.

So I have your Pops car, which was 84, 85, which he won five, six races in, but it started off as Ricky Rudd's car, which was his first win at Riverside in 83, which I was at. So it was a Piedmont car. So I've obviously left it in your Pops Wrangler because that was the more iconic. So I did that. and then he used to go to Pomona for the drag races all the time because that was nearby. And then Tony Nancy's, I don't know if you remember Tony Nancy, a big famous drag racer, kind of right before the Don the Snake and the Mungoose, his drag racing team was walking distance from my house. So I used to walk to his house or his shop all the time.

So I just loved cars. Then in how I actually got started. So then that was my passion. so I just loved cars. And then in high school, well, prior to that, I was on teen week, Wheel of Fortune at 13 years old. How does that happen? Why did you? So, yeah, that was a strange one.

So Wheel of Fortune would go around to all the schools and you'd sign up. And I remember my buddy Ammani Smith was like, let's go try out to get on Wheel of Fortune. And I was like, yeah, okay. So there's like 200 people from all these different local schools. Then you would do effectively like a hangman type contest that you had to kind of get 10 seconds and just figure out can you actually play the game. Then they'd kick out about 150 people. They'd be down to 50 people. Then you'd have to stand up and talk so they could kind of get a sense for how you're going to do on TV.

Then they'd invite you back and it would kind of go from being in the local city to broader. So it was quite a hard thing. to get on and then eventually they called and they went, you're on. They call your house? They call the house and they say. And this is in 1984. How are you? I'm going to 13 at the time.

Your parents probably are helpful, supportive, excited, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, kind of like, they've got to get you there, right? Yep, exactly. So then get on and I win. Wait, wait, wait. So how, do you ride over to, you know, where they film this? The studio, yeah.

How far is that from where? It's actually in L.A. So it's not far away. And the whole get up. Yep. The whole thing. The old Pat Seajack, Van O'White. What was she like?

They were cool. I mean, they were kind of the rock stars. I mean, yeah, Van White was a big, big, big, big, big deal. 100%. Especially way back then. Yeah. And then when you go on, they shoot five effectively a week. So five shows, 15 people, but then they bring an extra person for each one of the shows

in case there's some rules. So if like my parents say something to me in the audience, to help me. Oh, right. Pick it A. Yeah. They kick you out. So there's a substitute for each show in case someone gets

trouble. Yeah. Cheating. And so I didn't cheat. And, um, so you're standing up there? Standing up there. How hard is it to spin that wheel? The wheel's pretty big.

Pretty heavy. It looks like it. Pretty heavy. Yeah. And then you have, um, they put all the letters up and then they flip the letters up as you call them. So you can kind of start to do a kind of a process of elimination. And then it looked like you look at this.

carousel of gifts. You actually look at a whiteboard, and they've got all the prizes lined up in order of price, and when you win, they cross out what you can't afford. So it was a 13-year-old. I just went straight to the, like, what's the most expensive thing I can afford? Yeah. And it was a Cartier watch, which would be nice today, but like 13 years old, it's like, what do you want a bunch of Cartier watches for?

You don't want that? I don't want that. Yeah. But too late, because that's what I got. Yeah. And so I won the first two rounds. Wild Bill Hickok, who I still don't really kind of know who he is, and the Smurfs.

So I won the first two rounds. That was the answers? Those are the answers. How did you get that? Well, Wild Bill Hickok I got because the lady before me, I think she might have thought it was Wild Bill Hickory, because she had like Wild Bill, but she didn't have the K's. Okay.

And when I spun, I kind of looked, it's like you kind of process of elimination. She's like, Kay looks like a popular letter, and it popped up, and it was like, and then they always say to you, you got to make sure you pronounce it right. So when I did it, I was like, Wild Bill Hickok. And then the Smurfs, I think was fictional characters. That one was easier to figure out. And then I went and sold the watches at a pawn shop. Then my buddy at high school raced. We went back to the Long Beach Grand Prix.

What did you get for the watches? Do you remember? A couple grand. A couple grand. So I did all right. I'm not sure like pawn shops were supposed to be buying for. I'm kids at 15 years old, but probably a little different today. And then I met Mario Andretti at the Long Beach Grand Prix.

I was terrified to say anything to him. So the only thing I said to him was how do you get started in racing? And he said, go carts. And there was an ad for Jim Hall cart racing school in the program. So I saw that, sold the watches, went to the carding school, and then won in carding and then kind of stopped. You gave them your two grand? Gave my two grand. What did that get you?

That got me the regular course, the advanced course, then I bought my first go-kart. Okay. And then I would stick it in the back of a Volkswagen jetta. You'd have to take the wheels off and kind of cramming it a certain way. And then got pretty good. Where did you race? Oxnard, Riverside, Bakersfield, all like Richie Hearn. Remember Richie Hearn?

I don't remember the name. And Scott Pruitt. Scott was before my time, but he was kind of the California legend. How are you having success? Your family's not involved in it? How are you, who is helping you with this general knowledge? The, so Pitt's performance, who's no longer around, that was the cart shop. And so I was never great at school.

I mean, maybe I would have been good, but I didn't go. So, because I couldn't sit still, like history and all this stuff from, it's like, I want to go racing. So I kind of did a deal with the cart shop that I'd work at the cart shop and then I'd get all my stuff. and that's how I started racing carts and had a lot of success in carts. And then my mom's a travel agent. I wanted to go race in Europe. I wanted to be a Formula One driver. And did nothing about sponsorship.

But she being a travel agent, found someone at TWA Airlines that liked racing. They gave me a bunch of airline tickets. I would then go to companies and say, give me 50 grand, 100 grand to go racing. And I'll also give you 50 grand in value of TWA airline tickets. And that's how I got going in the sponsorship business. Holy moly. Yeah. Stumbled across it. Right. And how old were you at this point? I would have been 17, 18. So what did you finish high school? Yes, but I never went to my graduation, nor have seen my certificate, so I hesitate because I've been told I've graduated. But you don't have any

confirmation. I don't actually have any proof. What about your college education? No. None. It doesn't exist. None. And so what you've done with yourself was all out of common sense. Most of the time. Yeah. And just, you know, just general passion and want to. Pretty impressive.

So you would get involved and so you wanted to race and you figured out how to make it work. You found these partnerships and found the way to be able to afford to race your go carts. And how did that progress from there?

So then got a deal to race in Europe. My mom gave me her salary for the year, which was about 40 grand. So it doesn't get you very far. What's her name? Yeah, Lisa. And it doesn't get you very far in racing.

And then I started doing my own sponsorship. And I was able to grab a sponsor from Jackie Stewart. And everyone was like, Jackie's the best at sponsorship. How did you do that? And I actually met the CEO at a driving event. So I was doing this kind of ride and drive stuff. And I just lived and breathed, I just 24-7, and just figured out, if I'm going to go racing, I need sponsorship. So I just became a student of what do I need to do for you, the company, to give me money to go racing.

So it was kind of, I just at a very early age, just tried to understand what do I need to do for TWA and your business to justify giving me sponsorship so I can go racing. and then that ultimately turned into a big business called JMI, which one who stopped racing. And the first deal I did that wasn't for myself was when I got a deal to race back in the States because I lived in Europe from 91 to 94, was with Nigel Mansell's team. It was kind of a funny story.

TWA, I said, look, I got a deal to race back in the States. And they said, well, the sponsorship's going really well. Can't you place it with someone else? And I went, yeah, I can do that. I knew who the good guys and bad guys are and what you should pay. So I went to Nigel Mansell's formal 3,000 team, and I remember meeting the great Nigel Mansell has now become a good friend, and we were like down to one personal appearance.

And I was like, Nigel, I need one more personal appearance. And it was like a few hundred grand, and he had just won the world championship. And he goes, no, not enough money for another appearance. And I went, yeah, like, How much for another appearance? Like a hundred grand. I'm like, man, you must not get many of those because don't need many of those. And I was like, all right, well, fair enough.

And got it done. And then ultimately went back to, you know, when you're racing, you get to meet a lot of people. And because I was constantly networking, I went back to those people and went, what if we forget about Zach Brown for a second? Because I realize I'm trying to climb a ladder, but I'm not as famous as they'll learn. or Jeff Gordon. And so I went back to these people and said, what if I could kind of take you anywhere in motorsports? And then all of a sudden, business took off.

How hard was it, though, to set aside your own enjoyment? That was difficult. It was difficult because I had a lot of people telling me, Zach, you're a better sales and marketing guy than driver. And as a driver, that's the last thing you want to hear. So I started hearing that kind of halfway through my, career in racing and then then I got burned out because in 99, 2000 I wasn't having fun. I was kind of doing IndyCar sponsorship and I remember the first NASCAR deal I did. You know, you work really

hard to get some IndyCar sponsorships and they're all B2B and NASCAR was just doing this and it was Columbia House Records and I remember going into the CMO sharing and had a meeting and made like the biggest pitch I'd ever made. The biggest deal I'd done at that point was a million bucks. And this was like a $4 million pitch. And they called me back the next day. And they're like, we'll do it. And I'm like, huh? Like, really? And yeah, and it was with Jason Keller. Yeah. It was in Bush. What the hell. And David, David Green. Yes. And then I got into NASCAR and it was just NASCAR was so hot. And you did this with the Just Marketing Incorporated. Yep.

So just marketing started in 1995. It's a motorsports marketing agency. And I had no clue that you had done all of these deals in NASCAR. I thought it was, I thought you were only doing all this stuff on IndyCar. Yeah, no. A lot of NASCAR. Really? A lot of NASCAR.

And so, like, you're very familiar. Oh, yeah. With the NASCAR garage and the industry and how it's worked and with the progress, how it's changed, evolved. I've probably been to 100 NASCAR races. I've done deals with Roush, Hendrick, Childress, Gibbs, and some of the biggies. We were responsible for, which is actually my favorite deal I've ever done, we were the ones responsible for bringing spirits into the NASCAR, Crown Royal.

Yeah. which was a fascinating. That was with Brett Yoramark, George Pine, Brian France. So I know the France is extremely well. Yeah, no, we did a lot of big deals. What happens to just marketing? I sell it. In 2008, I sell 70% of it, continue to run it, then sold 20%, which was 10 of my 30 and 10 of their 70 to WPP, which was the world's largest ad agency in 2012. Then we sold the whole thing in 2013 to Chime Communications in London. And then by then I was ready to do something new.

And when Chime bought us, they put me in to be the group CEO. And so I was working across all sports. And I'm a racing guy, baseball, hockey. golf and some tennis, but rugby, soccer, Olympics, cricket. Yeah. No, thank you. And then all of a sudden I went from like my whole life being my passion to like,

I got a job. And that wasn't fun. You're working now. I'm working. I'm working. I'm going to sports. I don't love. I don't know the players.

I don't know the history. And so then I got, so I had to stick around for four years. as a earn out, as I say, I got out after three years on good behavior. Because I said to them, guys, I've got an opportunity to go to Formula One or McLaren and I want to get back to racing and then joined. I actually thought I was going to go to Formula One. I had an offer from Formula One and then things happened at McLaren. It was always my favorite racing team.

Wait, wait. You had a what offer? To go to Formula One with Chase Carey when Liberty bought it. Right? To go. Work for Formula One. for Formula One. What would you have...

I would have been number two to Chase Carey, and then, you know, Chase was going to be only sticking around for so long, so I think the path was ultimately to run Formula One if I had done a good job, but then when the window opened up to go to McLaren... That was better? It was better because I like the race.

I like the race part. I want the race part. Yeah. It'd be, I guess, yes, like me, owning Junior Motorsports or any kind of race team or working for NASCAR, that's a tough... I mean, it's a luxury problem to have, which one are you going to do? But I like the competing.

I like competing. Yes. I like competing. Gosh, I'm going to tell you right now, I've kind of got, and you probably have too, I've seen what it's like a little bit on that side of the organization, the organizing body. I don't know if I want any of that, right? Right? It's all headache.

It's all headache. You don't win. Yeah, no. No one. Even when you do everything right. Yeah. It's crickets. It's quiet.

Yeah. Nobody says anything when the day goes well. Yeah. It's really. It's brutal. It is rough. I don't want to discount your driving career, man. You know, you want some races. 22 races, 286 and 1990, you won 22 races. You finished second in class in GT2 at Daytona and the 24 race. I mean, in 24-hour race at Daytona and 97. Second at 12 hours of Seabree. Yeah, that was a good race. I mean. No, I had some good results. I was never in great equipment. So I always kind of felt, and that was what kept me going was, I was, I

I never felt I was in the same equipment Dario Fran Kiti was in. And so you always kind of go like, how good am I? But until you're in the best equipment, you don't. Do you remember who are your favorite teammates? I mean, in those races, the 12 hours, the 24 hours, you're working with co-drivers. I always found that fascinating. Yeah, yeah. I think probably my favorite one is we finished fourth overall at Daytona in either 12 or 13.

So I was kind of done. We did a little bit of a comeback with Martin Brundle, Mark Blundell and Mark Patterson. That was cool because Martin Brundle, in particular, was someone I grew up watching and going like, this guy's Formula One driver and he's a world champion and sports cars. And so actually to be like in debriefs with him, that was cool. So I enjoyed more of my races at the end when I kind of didn't have anything left to prove

than when I was in the heat of the battle. And then the guys that I raced against, and they were just in a different league Juan Pablo Montoya Dario Franquite Helio Castor Neves Kenny Brake I mean you could see him on the track

and be like I don't think I can do what he did and then that's I think you'd see it enough and then you eventually go yeah I just don't have one problem Montoya's talent Yeah I don't think many people in the world do He was pretty awesome

Yeah he was I got to ask you though How was the idea of going to when you got the opportunity or got introduced to the idea of working with McLaren, what was the specific position?

So they brought me, so you had Ron Dennis, who's, you know, a legend of the sport and the team who, there was a big falling out with all the shareholders, and so ultimately they bought him out. They brought me in his, initially as executive director.

It's kind of the boss, but kind of the boss, but let's the racing team kind of race a little bit. So it wasn't totally clear they had big financial issues. So I think they first and foremost thought, here's a guy who can fix our financial issues and run a business. But does he actually really know how to run a racing team? I still don't know how to run a racing team.

What I know how to do is hire people that know how to run racing teams. But then I started bringing in the sponsorship, but the team wasn't performing. And so ultimately shake. Sheikh Mohammed, our chairman at the time. Is it only an F1 team at this point? At this point, it's only an F1 team. And then so our chairman said, you know what,

let's just give the keys to Zach. So we have total clarity. So even though the guy that was running the formal one team reported to me, I kind of let him do his thing. Then once they made me CEO, which was a year later, then it was like, all right, the buck stops with you. And then that gave me the confidence to kind of really lean in. But it was intimidating.

I was just going to, that was my question. So how daunting was this idea? Listen, I mean, you appear at this point to be in total confidence and control, right? And you've got a great understanding. Eight years later. A great vision, right? You've got this great vision and you've charted all these new paths for McLaren, but in the moment when you're being brought on board,

how intimidating and daunting was the task? not only that you would be put in a position to try to succeed, but where they were as a brand and the performance and how are you going to be the guy to fix it? Yeah, so we were ninth in the championship, the worst year in the history of McLaren. We had about 35 million in sponsorship. What did you need?

A couple hundred. Now we're up over 300 just in Formula One. So I mean, it's been awesome. We've got the best brands in the world on our race car and not much real estate left. I was comfortable leading a group of 1,300 people because I had come from that. What I wasn't comfortable was standing in front of a racing team and they all get around. I think it helped that I raced. So I had some street credibility because you know what racers are like, especially racing teams.

If you show up and you're in a suit and tie, they're like, who is this guy? So I had some street credibility. A lot of people at McLaren knew me or of me because I'd been doing a lot of business, but they knew me as a commercial guy. And then there'd been a revolving door of team bosses there. They've been five and seven years. So I think there was a big like, well, let's see how long this guy lasts. So I knew the best impact, the quickest impact I could have would be on the sponsorship side to start getting the team, the resources it needed to get the best drivers, get new wind tunnels.

of that nature. I changed the leadership team. Some I promoted from within. Others were some people that I'd worked with before. Others were just new hires because you know, you can't do this stuff by yourself. And I think I've got the best leadership team in Formula One. I think they do a wonderful job. And Dreyer, our team principal, likes to use the phrase world championship material. And I think my CFO is awesome. My head of HR is awesome. My comms, et cetera. So I needed to get kind of build out the leadership team. And then we just stayed the course. And it wasn't easy. I wasn't used to the kind of social media abuse. You know, here's a McLaren. And, you know, people are expecting us to be what I grew up watching, the team winning, and we're running around in 15th, 16th place.

So that was, you know, you got to kind of ignore that. So it was pretty tough. But I felt like, I think things in business and life are about momentum. So I knew if I could get some positive momentum. And then once I got the snowball rolling the right way, it just started gathering pace. And now all of a sudden sitting here, my eighth season, feels like it's gone pretty quick. The first two years felt like eight years. But eight years now kind of feels like two years now that things are going well. So I understand NASCAR. I understand, if you ask me, a team's history and their performance and the ebb and flow of their performance,

I could tell you why I think they had the seasons they had in success and failure. When I look at F1, I don't understand how a team like McLaren can evolve into something that struggled because it was this incredible entity at one point, right? So what are some of the missteps? What are some of the things that something that is so incredibly good at that level? What are some of the challenges that the team started to face? I think it was a lack of leadership and not just from the number one guy. I think because there was boardroom issues going on, plus they were building a roadcar company,

so they weren't investing in the right areas. So an example of that is we let our wind tunnel kind of lapse. And so we started renting a wind tunnel in Germany. The wind tunnel wasn't totally current. It's in Germany. That's not very efficient use of time. So I think they kind of took their eye off the ball. Then any sports team, if you're not having success, keeping that morale up and keeping people up.

And because it had been gone on for a while, right, we were very successful in 2012, but we hadn't won a race since 2012. And then when I entered was our worst year yet. So morale was terrible. Sponsors were gone. Results were gone. Fans were pissed off. like it was bad even worse than I thought it was and I also knew like wait a minute we've won 20

world championships and so there's got to be a lot of talent in this place they must know how to win but you know they need a good leader I think it's just like any racing team or sports team it's like it's all culture so I tried to get people to kind of buy in and believe rebuild trust because there was a lot of finger pointing going on, a lot of lack of trust, at the same time, then bringing money so we now have a new wind tunnel, a new simulator, a new manufacturing unit. So we were technically behind, and then the team wasn't cohesive. And it started with just a lack of leadership.

And it wasn't the leader's fault. The leader was changing all the time. They literally had five different ones. I think any business, if you've kind of like, who's the boss this week, how do you get any of that, you know, momentum? So that's what we have now. We've caught up on all our technology. We've got two awesome drivers where it's a happy environment,

and we've unlocked the potential of the people, which we're all sitting there. And I think the difference between Formula One and maybe IndyCar and NASCAR and some of those other forms of racing is once you've built a good car or a bad car, you're kind of stuck with that. And you can modify it along the way where an indie car, we can be first one weekend and just get the setup wrong and be 15th the following weekend, but then fix it.

Formula One, once you've got a bad car, you've got to live with that car all year and trying to prove it. And that becomes frustrating because you show up every weekend going, we've got a chance to win. And that's pretty demoralizing. And I'm glad we're not in that zone at the moment. But we need to stay on it because we see how quickly the sport moves. Yeah, it can fall apart in a day. It takes eight years to build it. It sure does.

You sign an extension or you're currently under contract through 2030. They're stuck with me for a while. That must feel good. I love it. Right? I love it. That they've got this belief and commitment. Yeah.

Yeah. I've said to them it's not my last contract. It's my next contract. If they would have said 2040, you know, I did JMI, just marketing for 20 years prior to that. As far as I'm concerned, I'm sticking at McLaren until the lights go off or until they kick me out. And you talked about being able to build the team back and being a competitive team. You're sitting second points with Lando.

Yep. You got a shot at it. We do. What needs to happen? So there's two, right? So you've got the Constructors Championship. We're eight points behind Red Bull. Ferrari's not far behind 31 points and they're looking strong.

So I think you got a three-way fight for the Constructors Championship. The last time we won that was 1998. So that's pretty awesome. And then our drivers are second and fourth. Max is a pretty awesome racing driver. We'll let the debate continue between Kyle and Max. I've got it on my list, right? You'll let it continue.

You won't weigh in. And so, you know, we've got eight races to go plus three sprints, which is the equivalent of nine races. He's 60 plus points behind. It's a pretty tall order. There's only three drivers that have come from this far back this time of the year to do it. but we're going to give it everything we've got. Oscar's going to do everything he can to help.

Oscar is, you know, I'm fortunate. I've got two number one drivers. They're both awesome. But Landau's now in a position where, you know, he can mathematically see it, smell it. So we're going to work as a team to see what we can do to help put Landau. And we're going to kind of do it a race or a time. You know, if in two races we've closed the gap, we'll keep working as a team.

if in a couple races Max has won a couple, Lando's got a DNF and it's kind of mathematically out, then we'll go back to let them go. Because we let them go in Monza. That didn't work out great for us as a team. We entered turn four, first and second. We came out first and third. That's not what you want as a team in the constructors.

So, you know, it's one of these things where you've got people on the couch with the beer telling us how to run the team. Oh, yeah. And it's not quite that easy, especially when you've got two drivers that are number one drivers. And so, you know, we're racers. So we're like, hey, let the boys race. You know, they didn't touch each other. That's the rule. Don't take each other out. But they race each other hard. But then you've got to look at the driver's championship now that we're getting closer down. So it's, you know, it's pretty tricky because you want to do right by both drivers. No driver wants to play a supporting role. But, you know, Oscar's going to have a long career,

in a lot of races. He's a future world champion and he knows just the way the points are at the moment that Landau could, you know, might need some help and he's prepared to help because both those guys are sticking around at McLaren for a long time. This may be my favorite time of the NASCAR season. It's when the on-track drama starts to ramp up and each driver fights harder and harder because each win might mean survival and a shot at the championship. And hard fought battles on the track mean that this is also the time of the year when raced wind die casts from Lionel racing really tell a story. These authentic replicas capture a particular moment in NASCAR history like no other collectible does from each piece of confetti on the car, the tire marks, the tire marks, the

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There was a moment, there was a long period of time where it seemed like Max was untouchable. And then one weekend, you guys came to the racetrack with equal pace. What I want to know, I guess, after all these years, when that moment happened, what was, how was, I guess, set the tone of relief that you might have had. I know you were probably expecting, as the updates are coming. and the team's improving, you're expecting to see it. But when it goes to the racetrack, it actually happens is a different thing. And it's, and it was, a lot of people wondered if it was a one-time deal, right? Me too.

Right? And it's not, right? You come back and every week, you're like, you know. So talk about that relief and, and how thankful you were for that performance to finally start playing out. So it was, it was a little bit of disbelief at first. For a lot of people. Yeah, because it was, you do get into the, okay, is it track specific,

or the driver's just good around here, does it suit, you know, so you kind of need to see it happen for, especially when you were as bruised as we were, right? Because we weren't just off the pace. We were bad. We were ninth in the championship. So that scars you for a while. It's pretty deep. So when we started our upgrade program, the first race was Austria.

This was in 23 because we had a terrible start to. to 23 and made a lot of changes. And then the, you know, the good news was the data told us we were going to be bad at the start of 23. So at least we kind of knew it versus sometimes, you know, you go to the track and you scratch your head and it's like, I don't know why we're off. At least we knew. So we could see the development curve going on behind the scenes in the wind tunnel and CFT and simulation that these developments were going to work. But you still don't believe it until it goes on the car. Then it goes on the car. Landau happens to be good around that track. We're good around there. So you're like, it looks like it worked, but what if

it just happens to be good at this track? So then we put the updates on both cars at Silverstone. Landau takes the lead. We finish, what was it, second and fourth, Oscar got caught out by the safety car. Otherwise, he would have been third. And it was like, okay, that's a different track. And then all the upgrades have just worked. All the men and women of McLaren have just done an unbelievable job. And now we're showing up the race weekends, you know, Baku's this weekend. I'll be in Nashville at the IndyCar race, but like our expectation is we got a shot up winning this thing. And it took a while to get there, but also I think having been scarred from being so poor, we're so far away from being cocky or arrogant because like I, you know, look at Aston

last year. They were the challenging team and they've dropped back quite a bit. Look where Red Bull was and even the start of this year. It's like, well, Max is going to win every race. Now, He doesn't want to race in five, six races. I mean, they're not far off, but they are compared to where they are. So I think we've got to keep our feet on the ground and keep pushing because, you know, it could swerve on us. We've got eight races to go. It's like, you know, everyone's like, we've got the momentum. Oh, this is a done deal.

It's like, ah. Yeah. Eight races is a lot of racing, a lot of racing. So talk about Lando. He's a fascinating guy, a lot of young guy, a sim racer, which I love. but he's uh everybody knew his talent and everybody expected him to to realize that talent at some point uh but talk about him and and um i guess his maturity at such a young age he's uh he's great he's just what you see on tv is exactly what you get he's uh shy in many ways uh he's also funny but

that it doesn't try and be funny, which I think is what makes him funny. He's a very nice guy. He's unbelievably fast and naturally talented when you see him in the car, just kind of how quick he is in the wet, how quickly he learns a new track. I think he's a little too hard on himself. You know, if he's not happy with his performance, I think he's too critical of himself. He needs to like, well, I could have done better move on, but he'll, He'll kind of wear his heart on his sleeve, which is great because he's a genuine guy,

but the things he thinks he made a mistake on, I think, aren't that big compared to what he thinks they are. So I think that will come with some more maturity. As a racing driver, he's always been very quick, but his racecraft now and him getting his elbows out is much improved over when he was a rookie. He sticks it in there. He's not afraid. team loves him very loyal it's been with us now six uh six years and he's only i think he's 25 years old uh so it doesn't seem like he's you know it's been that long no no it's amazing and uh we found him i've been working with lando before i joined uh McLaren before he joined McLaren so i've been

around Orlando since he's 14 so almost uh 10 10 years now how does Oscar um compliment or balance out uh the the team so he's um deadly serious but he's um deadly serious but not serious and like he's uptight. You know, he's not, he's just totally calm. I've never seen him not be calm. He has an engineering type background, so he's extremely technical. He's very brave. When you look at his speed traces, his big corners, you know, it's a few times I've seen

Lando go like, how do he's, and you don't see it out of his, you know, he is not one of these guys who walks around talking about I took that corner. flat, but he took that corner flat. So very technical, unbelievably quick, very aggressive. Where I'm seeing him mature is Landau's tire management is awesome. Oscar, because he's kind of big and brave, you can take too much out of the tires. And it's such a tire game now in Formula One because we're usually just doing one stop. And if you kind of bring the tires in too quickly, you can ruin your race and unlike in indi car or nascar we have a lot of pit stops where it's like if you use your tires up you can kind of get a reset if you get your tire strategy wrong in formal one you can

ruin your race so as a as a rookie he didn't have the same level of finesse as lando just due to lack of experience and now i'm seeing his race pace and his tire management is on par with lando so i got two drivers now that um second part of the season have been equal in in points so it's pretty pretty awesome, but also causes some stress because you got two drivers don't want to be number one. Right. Someone's got to beat someone, but they're behaving really well. We see that, and I watch that from my position in the United States, and I watch the F1. The relationship between the two drivers has always been interesting to me because it can get contentious.

It can get difficult, very competitive. But they're, you know, maybe, you know, not for every team. But in, you know, over the past several decades, it appeared there was an A driver and a B driver, right? And it was very difficult for the B driver to accept his position. And we never really necessarily dealt with that in NASCAR, right? The teams had a little more, I don't know, the teams just seemed to have a little more freedom to, like, be in control of how they approached a race weekend. And it was just so different for my vantage point. so that I've always felt that fascinating.

I think with having raced, that helps me in the garage with the drivers. Because you know what it's like. There's a time and a place. And I'm a believer if you can't fix it immediately, you maybe don't need to deal with it. Right? The driver takes the helmet off. A lot of adrenaline going on, a lot of emotion going on. Don't say anything to them unless you have to at that.

But like, and so our guys get along great, but we got to kind of stay on top of that because they want to beat you. I remember my teammates. I hated my teammates. Yeah. I wanted to beat them more than anyone else. So I know that killer instinct is in there. And we just need to make sure that they know what's best for each other is a harmonious team.

And that's what we've got. And I think we're fortunate. we've got two characters like we do because I think we can we can manage both of them. Talk about the IndyCar program because you mentioned when you came into IndyCar, there was some big disappointments early on, but the teams progressed and it's a contender now. You know, you're all you're you're you went from entering a couple of events a year and struggling to come and show up and have the pace to having a full car team, multiple drivers, and now doing the double with one of NASCAR's best drivers in Kyle Larson.

In a very short period of time, talk about the progression of that team, how you built that out. So we acquired Schmidt Peterson, which we felt had the good kind of bones of a race team, good people, but a small operation, two cars. And then we were able to bring our brand by the team. And we've now been in a few years. We won three races this year. Indy. We were leading the last lap. We've finished second, you know, so I'm kind of really proud of the fact that, you know, some people said to me after we didn't qualify with Fernando, are you like, you're going to quit?

Right. Are you coming back? Of course I'm coming back. I remember that. And we've come back and we've finished second twice and led, you know, 78 laps last year and Kyle Larson. So we don't quit. We go, we get angry and we come come back. And I love IndyCar racing. That's kind of what I grew up around. So even though it was kind of going to NASCAR races and drag races, Indy car was kind of the racing I followed most that I wanted to be in. So I've always loved IndyCar, love the Indy 500. We've got great drivers. We had some drama this year with Alex and him not honoring his contract,

and that created a domino effect. So the six cars has been a challenge, but we're now on top of that. And we bought a new shop, Michael Andretti's shop, so we'll then redecorate that and make that state of the art. It's a great, great shop, but we'll put some investments. that we're in IndyCar for the long term. We love North America. I love what we're doing with Kyle and the goals to win the Indy 500 and win the IndyCar Championship. And we got some great drivers, Christian Lungards coming over from Ray Hall's team to join us. So we're, yeah, ready to go.

We got our own, you know, challenges there. You know, you talked about the charter system. We, you know, I think IndyCar has a way to go to really be a viable business. And I think there's some things that we could be doing a lot better. I think we're going. in the right direction. The new TV deal is great. You know, Eric Shanks from Fox, who's done a wonderful job in NASCAR and loves racing. I think he's going to work wonders for IndyCar racing, but we have some catching up to do in IndyCar. What are some of the lessons, I guess, you could, you, you know, you've experienced an F1 or any other form of motorsports that you've been involved in in your life that you think IndyCar could apply. Where are some of the areas where they're, you know,

they need to take advantage of? I think, you know, the drivers are the stars. So I think we need to do a better job. of showing the driver even you know it's not little things things like podiums like in Detroit they upgraded the podium this year you look at some of the races the podiums are what I was standing on in go-car races I hate to say it and so you know kind of and I the optics the optics I think the television which I think Fox will do I think we can do a better job with predictive analytics data tire so you know you watch the broadcasts like they're on red they're on black And it was like, unless you're really dialed in, like, well, what's that mean? Yeah.

You know, and it should be like when you see the Formula One broadcast, you know, if he keeps going on this pace on this tire because it's 10th a lap quicker, he's going to catch him in six laps. So like let people understand how the strategy's playing out some of the technical aspects. So I think we can improve the broadcast and show the data because I think everyone loves data these days. I think the race schedule has room for improvement. We're not in the Northeast anymore. I think we need to focus on the big metro markets. Can we get back into Denver? We need something on the Northeast.

I think some of the tracks need some upgrading. Long Beach needs some investment. I think the charter system that they're coming out with doesn't really move the needle. I know in NASCAR there's a charter agreement, and they're arguing over how much everyone should get. But fundamentally, there's good revenue distribution. I know the team's saying not enough. Yeah, they want more.

They want more. But in IndyCar, we don't really have anything like that. And I think to get everyone working more together, I'd love to see a more true franchise system. I think we need new cars. NASCAR has new cars. Zimsa has new cars. Formula One new cars every year.

our car is 12 years old. It's great we've introduced the hybrid. I think that's from a marketing standpoint, very relevant and was needed, but I think we need some new equipment. And generally, I think we need to try and raise the bar to the highest common denominator instead of the lowest common denominator. And I know that might be a bit hard on teams that are 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26. but reality is the fans are showing up for the top 15 cars. So I think what's best for the health of the sport? And so I don't think we need a 27 car field.

I think we need a really strong 22, 24 car field. Same thing with NASCAR, right? You know, there's just kind of magical. You had to have 43 cars. But reality, everyone's paying attention to the top 10. Yeah. Well, I will have to say I want to compliment Indy car. and I've said this before, but I had a chance to, and it goes along with your opinions on it,

I had a chance to, I've been able to go to Indy and work with the broadcast team there through that experience and also when we were going through the pandemic and we were all racing on eye racing. Yep. I got to join the IndyCar guys for some of their events, one in particular at Michigan, that we did online. What I learned through that experience and going to the IndyCar guys for some of their events, one in particular, the Indy 500 as a broadcaster or part of the broadcast team was that the personalities in IndyCar were they're so colorful and diverse. In NASCAR, yes, we have colorful drivers. We have opinionated drivers, but most of them growing up and driving stock cars, there's a, the driver code and

what the driver etiquette on the racetrack is in terms of a block, what's a good block. what's a bad block, what's acceptable, unacceptable is pretty well known, right? There's not a lot of disagreement in terms of just things that happen on the track, not the case in any car. In any car, and I'm preached to the choir here, but for people listening, the drivers come from all over the world, and they've gotten there through so many unique paths, and the culture and etiquette on the racetrack is different all over the world. Yep.

Right. And that, the clashing of what's acceptable and what's a, what's a clean and clear move, what's a dangerous move. We see it time and time again, when the drivers are bickering back and forth in IndyCar over some guy that they, you know, everybody deems this guy's too aggressive. Yep. You know, and so I love it. And, and I think that that, any car could bake on the colorfulness of the personalities. You know, Will Power could, you know, he keeps it churned up all the time. The dude is awesome. The racing is second to none. It's all there. It's all there. It's all there.

So otherwise, we wouldn't be in it. But, you know, kind of like racing teams, I'm kind of never satisfied. You know, I kind of like, we can do better next to me. We can do better. And I just think there's a lot of areas that we can do better. And I think we will do better. I think the new TV deal is awesome. But the racing's great.

Indianapolis 500. I mean, the brand is huge right around. the world even if someone doesn't necessarily know what's going on in today's indy car if you you know i've always kind of done the you know flip into the tv channel it's like what's that i can't tell what that sport in it like when you see indy car no one goes like what is that right everybody knows indicaar everybody knows nascar um which is a great place to be as a starting point and then you got this great history of the indy 500 and the racing's awesome i just think there's a lot of kind of marketing that we can do collaboration and then really focus on quality over quantity.

You know, some of the tracks, you know, Detroit this year, you know, there was a lot of passes, but half the race was under yellow. And that's not, you know, we want quality passes, quality racing, not just quantity. Yeah. So NASCAR is going to Mexico next year. Yep. There's going to be something that's pretty unique or exciting for you guys. Pado Award's going to run some practice.

He certainly is, yeah. But he's going to be driving one of the McLaren F1 cars. Yep. He's going to do free practice one in Mexico in end of October. Yeah. He did for us last year. So he's one of our reserve drivers. We wanted to get through the Indy car season.

So he's tested our Formula One car a bunch. He's a huge talent. and I mean it'll be massive news in Mexico, which is great. I mean, obviously there was the whole fiasco a week or two ago, and I'm going to be wearing my Patto-Hoo hat this weekend for some fun. But he's huge. I mean, when I go to Mexico, Formula E races there, Formula One, I got people shouting at me, bring Pato, bring Patto.

So it'll be great to put him out in Free Practice One. That'll be big news. And, you know, if we can get him in the Xfinity race, I heard about that. That would be cool. You know, I love that stuff. So I'd love to see Patto do that. Right now it conflicts.

So I don't know what the schedule will look like in 26, but maybe that, you know, kind of talking through what else can we do with Hendrick Motorsport? Maybe there's something, you know, Patto at the Daytona 500. How cool would that be? That would be cool. I'm sure Rick would do anything you wanted. Oh, yeah. I want to ask you also the Netflix show Drive to Survive with Smasa,

for F1, still feeling the residual effects of that. NASCAR now has a similar effort. We had to season last year. We thought it went well. What have you learned from that experience through the F1? And what is some advice, I guess, you could put on the NASCAR industry, people like myself or the fans, as we go

through that same process? Yeah, it's been unbelievable for our sport. shocking how huge it has been. You know, at the first year, Mercedes and Ferrari didn't participate, and I think they got a lot of grief over that because of the amount of exposure. Gunter became a legend in Formula One. I think what it showed was how people consume our sport for different reasons. They love the drivers, the gladiatorial nature, they love the global, they love the technology, they love the racing, they love the politics. So I think Netflix almost, it's almost what happens on track is almost secondary.

So I think getting these personalities out and what do they do? And then controversy, lots of controversy in Formula One. So I think I guess my recommendation would be everyone just needs to be themselves and let their guard down. Netflix kind of never let us down. They weren't trying to kind of catch us out, but they did a great job. blending in, they're in team gear. They use these huge long booms and we'll kind of forget they're there. So there's really no kind of acting that goes on.

A few of the guys you can see when the camera comes around, they change your behavior a little bit. But just kind of be yourself and let the, you know, the fans want to see the talking and then the punch ups and the politics. And I think that's what they did a great job of capturing and kind of embrace it and let them see. And this was a big problem in formal. the one, which is, you know, when Liberty came in and bought it, changed the mindset, let

them see behind the scenes. That's what, you know, if you just turn it into a kind of infomercial, I think the fans will see through that. So it's kind of like, let them see what's going on in the locker room. I'm a NASCAR driver. I'm reluctant to go on this show. Why should I do it? It's going to create so much exposure for the sport, for you, your sponsors, and really,

the sport first and foremost, right? I mean, you know, I've always recognized that our number one customer is the fan. It all starts with the fan. And so I get frustrated when I see, and you see this a lot in F1, drivers kind of like, well, that's a hassle. It's like without fans, you don't have countries that want to hold races, you don't have television contracts, you don't have sponsors, guess what? The fan is who pays you directly or indirectly. And so the fans want to see it. And so I think anything we can do to enhance our fans' experience of the sport we all love,

that's the start of the ecosystem. And I think too many people forget that at times. So I think NASCAR has always been the best, right? I've never seen a NASCAR driver not stop signing an autograph. I mean, I think, you know, Richard Petty carried around his Sharpie pen. And so I think just taking care of the fans. And the fans want to see our sport. and they want to see it beyond just the racing.

So I think we have an obligation to show them. And by the way, that's kind of what feeds all of us. Yeah, I agree. I know that, you know, you might not, as a driver, you might not find a monetary value on the front end, right? You're going to do this Netflix series for nothing, right? But the payment comes down the line. The investment you made in the series creates value for you on down the road.

I wanted to say, I know you came into town to be a part of this announcement with Kyle Larson doing the double again. We're all very excited about that. We're very thankful that you are a part of providing that effort. I'm thankful for your time to come here today and just chat. I've loved being able to learn about your own path and how you got to where you are today. we see you and hear about you over the last several years as the CEO of this big brand but had no idea really what got you to that point. I do know you mentioned owning the Blue Goose or the 1984-85 Monte Carlo that dad.

Is that what you called it, Blue Goose? I think it was named the Blue Goose because of the paint scheme. I might be incorrect, so I don't know if you want to pick that up. But they had a nickname for that design. that paint scheme that he ran in that specific 1984 season. You also owned at one point for, I don't know how long, the Nova. Yeah. So this car that sits here next to the table on the other side of the glass in the shop

is the Xfinity or Bush Series car that my dad raced in the 80s. It ran. We have really cool documentary, right? So it won a lot of races throughout the 1984, 5, 6. six and maybe seven season. And I want to Charlotte, Atlanta, Daytona, did all these great things, right? And I want to tell you this story. And you may have heard it, but I need to tell it to you and I want to share with you.

So you had the car. I knew you had the car and I would see it pop up every once in a while. And I was just amazed that it even existed. And I was in somewhat disbelief that it was really the car, right? And so apparently right before I purchased it, it had been sold at a couple, it had been sold at an auction. And man, it had, it had been to Goodwood. You had taken it to all these amazing places that had these stickers all over it from all these places that had traveled to. And finally it was coming up for sale at another auction.

I had heard that this thing sold for around 60 grand at this one place and now it's going to this other auction. and Rick was going to be there. And I'm like, hey Rick, I need you to buy this car for me. I've never really asked Rick to do that, but I thought he could do it. And so I'm like, it sold for this. He asked me, he's like, what do you want me to buy it for? I said, well, it's sold for this, so I don't know if it gets to 80, 90, whatever, we'll get it. But I didn't know if it was really the car.

I couldn't put my hands on it. I couldn't look at it. I had all these photos from the auction site. my uncle Robert G that still works here at Junior Merge Sports hung the original body on that car obviously I have access to Tony Erie Senior that built the car

and worked on it many times so I'm showing them all these pictures and both of them are going yeah yeah it looks like it it looks like it and I'm not like I need a 100% right I'm going to spend 80 grand on this thing and how in the hell

can I come you know fine for sure now I had this homemade drive shaft hoop the car went to the racetrack without a drive shaft hoop in it and NASCAR said don't bring it back unless it has the drive shaft hoop and I remember being at the shop in Mamaw's garage out behind Mamaw's house when the car was there and watching Dad hammer this drive shaft hoop out of a stick of steel right

and he heated it up and bends this hoop and puts the hoop in there and says all right we're good and so it still had that cool hoop written on it and it had it was unpainted it was original. It had these writings on there and all this. So they were like, well, it does have that drive shaft hoop your dad made. That is in there.

So that's kind of an official. But I had no idea how to really truly know, all right. And coincidentally, my mother was fighting cancer. We were at her home. We were spending a ton of time with her around this period of time. And I was sitting in her kitchen with my brother-in-law, LW. And I am, Rick has bought the car. The car is now at my house.

Rick bought the car for $180,000. Like twice what I thought we were going to pay for it. He even called me and said, I got the car. And I was like, awesome. He goes, I had to pay a lot for it. I was like, how much when he told me I hit the floor? Because now I'm really nervous. Is it the car car?

Is it the car? I'm freaking out. because if it's not the car, oh my God, I've really... Payed a lot. Yes, I've paid a hell of. For not the car. I'm sitting there in my mom's house, and I'm looking at all these pictures.

I've got a million pictures of this car from its inception when it was built up until you... Until it was sold at this auction. I mean, just decades of photos. Trying to figure out if I can find a fingerprint to know. And there's a picture of me taken when I was 12 years old, sitting in the car, in the garage at a racetrack, and the photographer took the photo from the passenger side,

and I'm just in the car pretending to drive it, right? It's a little kid. Yeah. And I was just staring at that photo, and it dawned on me that the radio box was mounted in that car on the A post and riveted to a sheet of steel that went from the top door bar to the top of the sheet metal door on the car, the doortop. And so I'm thinking to myself,

if, holy shit, if this is the car, those holes should still be there. Now, maybe that 10's been replaced on the doortop, but this door bar, this A post, would still be original, and those holes would be there. And so I ran down to my shop about a half a mile, and I walk into that shop and walk over to that car, and my heart was pounding, and I peeked in there, and the sheet metal is original.

The two holes are sitting there, and the two holes are on that A post. And it was cocked. It was cocked in an odd manner of somebody hurriedly mounted this thing. So it was in a unique sort of imperfect way. And I'm like, it's the car. Unbelievable. So there were a lot of markings that we learned also that you may already know,

because I know you probably did your own homework. Dad would get in his cars and he had this, you know, he had that old style seat that we talked about. He would take a dolly hammer, just a ballpene dolly hammer, and hammer the shit out of the floor. board, didn't care what it looked like. He beat the floorboard down as far as it could go before it would contact the trailing arm

to get the seat as low as possible. He cut the bottom corner out of the right side of the seat and literally not patch it. So he would set the freaking cushion of the seat literally on the bottom of the race car, trying to get as low as he possibly could. All of the floorboard in that car is beat the shit with a ball peen hammer.

Cool. And so there's a couple other things, you know, that we noticed about that car to really truly 110% feel confident that it's the car. And so I know you probably never guessed it, never second guessed it. I, being the son of the guy who owned it, I needed like this really, 110% proof. But man, what a great relief that was for me. And the last thing I want you to know is I said this when you first walked in.

That car means the world to me. We spent a ton of time and effort in my uncle Robert G who hung the original body, help me restore it and hang this body that's on it. Looks awesome. And it wouldn't be here had you not shepherded it and taken care of it all of those years. Those cars don't exist anymore. They don't survive, right? And so I'm so appreciative.

If you do anything else for me in my life, it'll never mean more than what you did for this car so that I now have it. It wouldn't be here today. That's awesome. And so I'm thankful for you and your passion and your love for racing. I'm thankful that you invested in that and took care of that while you had it. Now I got my Rangler car. Yeah, and now you have the Rangler car.

But, man, I appreciate you. Thanks for coming today. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me on. It's been a pleasure. Love talking racing. I do too, man. And I hope you'll come back and join us again after you win your F1 championship.

That's the plan. Come join us in an F1 race. That is something that I badly, badly want to do. I've never been to an F1. I've got to do it. You'll love it. You'll love it. I have to do it.

So maybe we can find one on the calendar that works out. I'd love to come. Come to any. Yeah, it would make my day to be there. Sounds good. All right, bud. Awesome. Thank you.

Cheers. Zach Brown on the Dale Jr. Download. All right, so that's the Zach Brown interview. I really enjoyed that. I think that was a good, I'll just go ahead and say. I think it was a good listen. You let us know. But, you know, we sit here and we talked to NASCAR.

guys. I could do it all day, every day. But it's fun every once in a while to kind of learn something new and see the world from a different point of view. And hey man, Zach had a little more NASCAR eating than I thought. I was a little surprised to learn that he had been involved in putting together some partnerships and deals and had some experience in and around the NASCAR garage and industry. So I found that fascinating. man the Formula One deal I know that things are a little different these days

but back when McLaren and Ferrari were really going at it and Mika Hockinen and all of that I was watching in all of the battle that they were having with Michael Schumacher and in those days it was like those two teams were just head and shoulders above everybody else and so I've sort of always had this I've always kind of held F1 at a certain level and

up on this sort of pedestal and it's hard for me to admit that as a big fan of NASCAR because in my mind I just think NASCAR and stock car racing and cars with fenders and going to this local track in Florence, South Carolina and racing my late mall stock car is the greatest thing on earth to me it is But F1, I'm trying to think of a good analogy, but I've always looked at F1 as sort of this mythical almost thing that maybe I'd never actually experience or see, right, even as a fan and an observer. So it was really cool to sit down with somebody who's so connected to that world and really learn about it and see if I can't get myself to an F1 race at some point, man. But just really cool, really cool to see how he grew up in, you know, and how he grew up in motorsports, how he came to terms with his own driving career and how his passion and ambition really drove him to where he is the day running McLaren.

I mean, the guy, you know, maybe it's not too strong of word, barely graduated high school. Yeah, one of those guys that just kind of, he made it work off of intuition, common sense. You know, I think getting yourself a great education is always important. Certainly, you know, but there are those outliers like, I'll go to dad, right? Quit high school in eighth grade. Shouldn't have amounted to nothing. But over, you know, having intuition and common sense and being able to, able to, you know, to reason and charm and manage a, not only a conversation one-on-one,

but in a group setting, a boardroom, and dad could do it. And the room changed when he walked in it. And our room changed today, I think, when Zach walked in here. You could, you know, and just sitting here talking to him, man. I mean, I asked him everything I did, and not once did he chill or or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, take any kind of an awkward stance or he was open to discussing anything. It was great. So I appreciate that.

We're thankful for Ally bringing us these guest segments every single week and they brought us another ally in Zach Brown. We are better friends now than we were before the conversation happened. And me and him had been pretty connected. We were, because of the cars that he has owned and owns currently that my dad race, the Nova and now the Monte Carlo from 1984, we have text back and forth a few times. And so we've communicated before in the past, but never had met. And man, just a cool dude. So I'm thankful that we're able to get him here. We have to thank Ally for providing us that

opportunity. Whether you're saving for, you know, that next vacation, maybe you're saving to throw your kid birthday party or you're saving for that honeymoon that you're going to go on after your wedding whatever it may be we're all better off with an ally. All right, it's time for the white flag here

and great show today, great week here at Dale Jr. Download, but also a lot of the shows that have come out over the past couple of days. Sunday, the tear down with Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi. They covered the racing in Atlanta and all the things happening in the sport with the charter agreement, some team signing, some not.

We hear their opinions and what they think happens going forward. Action is detrimental with Denny Hamlin and Doorbup, or Clear, both dropped Monday. Two great shows. Yesterday we dropped dirty air where we covered our reactions to the Atlanta race and everything else going on in the sport. We had Joey Legano race winter call in. Dropping today's Speed Street with Connor Daly and Chase Holden.

Connor Daly is going to help us go through the final few weeks. of the IndyCar season. It is here. The championship weekend is upon us. Connor Daly is now back in the series as a driver, so that Speed Street episode should set us up perfectly for what to expect this coming weekend. Tomorrow, DJD reloaded with Asch Jr. and Moore and Dirty Mo Doe, all the great bets coming up for the Watkins Glen weekend from Steve LaTart and the gang. We've got a five-star Apple review from Lance Made Me Do It. I've been listening to DJD for years, having spent a few summers with my grandfather in Kentucky,

hearing the older southern accents from the guest takes me back to those days. Dale has ascended his post-driving career to a content-producing pillar of the NASCAR community. I really appreciate that, Lance. I'm glad you're enjoying what we're doing here. We have as much fun putting all this together as you do consuming it. So we'll keep doing what we're doing and keep bringing us those reviews. Good and bad. We can take the criticism.

it's helpful and hopefully everybody has a great week. We'll see you later. Check out Dirtymo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.