The Dale Jr. Download - Speed Street - Conor Daly's Roller Coaster Daytona 500; Frankie Muniz Has Big NASCAR Plans

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

On this BONUS Speed Street drop, Conor Daly is back from his hectic weekend racing in the Daytona 500 and he joins Joey Mulinaro to break it down. They discuss why Conor missed qualifying, how driving his car was like riding a roller coaster in his duel, his comparisons between the Daytona 500 and Indy 500, and he shares his thoughts on what it was like drafting during the race.Then, the guys talk with actor and ARCA Series driver Frankie Muniz about his return to racing, how it felt to race at Daytona, why he thinks IndyCar is the most competitive series in the world and teases his big future racing plans.  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, Dale Jr. Download listeners, it's Mike Davis, president of Dirtymoe Media, co-host of this podcast. I hope you're all doing well today. Listen, I know Daytona was several weeks ago, but if you're like me, you like a good racing podcast. And boy, do I have one for you. This Daytona recap episode of Speed Street, episode 64, was one of my favorite podcast that I think Dirty Mo Media has produced. Certainly, um, in the short term, but it may be one of the all-timers. And the reason why is I like to hear the plight of all racers. Like I love the plight of the underfunded race teams and the underdogs and the people that are out there struggling. Listen, you know all about how Ricky Stenhouse won the Daytona 500. You know that Joey Lugano was right there. You know about those.

Those are well covered. But, you know, the Connor Daily story was remarkable. And maybe his shot, his car wasn't in the shot. all the time. And maybe when it was, you saw it bouncing off the pavement like a basketball. But the fact of the matter is that Connor Daly and Joey Mullenero in episode 64 of Speed Street really do a fantastic job of giving us an understanding of what it was like driving that car during Daytona Speed Week.

And I just, I thought it was fantastic. And I hope that you guys can appreciate that because they, the episode was one of the, best I think that we've produced. And the detail that Connor gives made us really understand what it was like. And so we're going to put it on the Dale Jr. Download feed today. We're actually going to put a couple Speed Street episodes today. We'll put one later because they also interviewed Jimmy Johnson on this week's episode 65. It's fantastic. I want to encourage you guys to listen to this. And also go to the Speed Street podcast feed and subscribe to it. It's an amazing show. Connor Daily has turned to me into a big Indy car fan. And you know why? Listen, he's not winning six championships like Scott Dixon. He's not, you know, winning Indy 500s. He's leading laps, but he's also in a, you know, not one of the top funded teams, right? He's not running for Penske or Chip Gannasi. His team, you know, it's an uphill climb. And yet he does well. And I appreciate what he brings to his racing career. I also appreciate how he's been doing some NASCAR races and some cup races and even with these, you know, a backmarker team. And I also appreciate what he pours into these podcasts.

So Speed Street is a fantastic show. Listen, NASCAR fans, nobody's trying to turn you into an IndyCar fan and alienating your NASCAR routes. Nobody wants that. But I do think that there's an appreciation we can have for both series. And Connor is a good portal into doing that. Like he's a really good, funny, charismatic guy, good race car driver. And on that note, I want to say when a lot of people looked at Conner's Daytona results and go, man, Conner sucks, Conner this, whatever, that's a very lazy take to have. I looked at Conner's performance in that car and I looked at one of the best driving performances of the week.

Frankly, nobody thought that that car was going to finish 500 miles. First of all, nobody thought, including his own family, that it was even going to make the Daytona race. And yes, he was lucky. He'll say that in this episode. But nobody thought that that car was capable of staying together for 500 miles. And yet he did. He's going to take us through that journey. And it is a fascinating journey.

It's a great episode. Enjoy it. Go follow the podcast. And then check it out. He has a good interview with Frankie Munez later in this episode. And then in episode 65, which we'll put out later today. day. Jimmy Johnson, can't wait for you to hear that. All right, everybody, enjoy it. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media.

Back again on another episode of Speedstreet Streets, presented by Dirty Mo Media, Joey Mollanero, Connor Bailey, and an absolute war zone is going on in my house right now. I have a crew of about six to eight people working on my kitchen. Hopefully you can't hear all that because I hear it, and it is quite mind-numbing. But you got head going on. and more importantly, we are less than two weeks away from the first IndyCar race of the 2023 season down in St. Pete. And even more important than that, we're speaking with a Daytona 500 driver on our daily. Hey, what did you get your thoughts on the past weekend on that? Thank you, yes.

We have a lot to talk about. A lot of a lot happened over the weekend. What an experience overall. I mean, our previous episode, we were, that was just before we were going to the racetrack, we were about to experience it all for the first time. It was quite a roller coaster ride of, emotions and luck-filled scenarios. It went from very bad to very good to then in the race. So pretty crazy, just crazy sequence of events. Met a lot of folks down there to listen to the podcast.

First of all, thanks to thank those folks for saying hello. Very cool to meet more listeners to the show. Be a friend, tell a friend as always. But we got, I didn't really talk a ton about the race afterwards because I wanted to get on this show and really dive into the weeds a little bit. Because there was a lot. I had a lot of people asking, you know, certain things because we had a lot of indie car fans. A lot of them honestly tweeting that they hadn't watched.

watched a NASCAR race in a while, but we're going to watch, you know, to support. And I appreciate that. But also, we know that the audience for the Daytona 500 is large anyway. So I happen to gain a lot of followers on the internet via the NASCAR experience, but I figure we just take it from day one, from when we left off the last show. Joey, well, first, Joey, what was your, I guess, What was your initial reaction to, I guess, us making the race? Because I say us because we're a team. The show made the team. The show made the race.

That was, yeah, no, I thought that was incredible. It was very exciting to wake up to you on Sunday morning and see the nice Speed Street sticker on the side of that 50 ride. And I was watching over at my buddy, Billy Max, who's a big supporter of us and you. And every time that you go by, we'd be like, Scandalism. Scandalistic because of scandalizing, you know,

trying to get that in there. But not, man. It was just super cool, super, super exciting. We're all super proud of you. And the fact that, you know,

you got out there and wheeled it and did what you did. And despite on Thursday night, having what looked like to me a low rider for a bit. Like I wanted to put that song. A lot of good memes. When you're pulling away

and that thing is just absolutely bouncing You know what I mean? It looked like you were in the Days of Confused or something like that Matt McConaughey was writing shotgun with you looking for some doobies Oh yeah But no man it was just very exciting to watch you

It really was just super cool Well let's start right out the gate with the media day Like they did Daytona 500 Media Day The Day of Qualifying Right because we call qualifying was at night And I'm not gonna lie The Daytona 500 Media Day it felt really cool because I had to get there early.

And NASCAR did it. I will give NASCAR a lot of credit. It was a very well-organized day. Lots of television stations, lots of media opportunities. And honestly, I feel like as a, I mean, I wouldn't necessarily classify myself as a stranger. Like I've been around motorsport a long time. But I'm sort of new to that world.

But every station that I got to seemed to be well informed about who I was or what I was about to do or where I came from. And like, that's pretty, like, that's cool. Like, I would say if you're going to a new area, you know, you'd expect people to be looking down at like some sort of stat sheet or some sort of quick Wikipedia thing that, like, we do for the random Indy 500 driver the week. I was the random Indy 500 driver to compete at the Daytona 500 type situation.

But everyone was, like, really prepared. We did a lot of really cool stuff there. You know, got to talk to a lot of the drivers. Kyle Larson was asking me about the Indy 500 right out the gate. I got a couple good photos there. He was at like Kyle, Kyle's already doing his research. Doing his research about the Indy 500. Thought that was very, very cool.

But yeah, what a cool experience to do the media day. They were very organized. I got a free Hurley backpack. That was very exciting. They were giving away free backpacks and sunglasses. Got to think that, I mean, I'll take free stuff anytime. time. And it was, I was trying to take in so much information because every driver had something different to say. Because I had obviously never driven a NASCAR Cup series car at Daytona. And every

driver, you know, some drivers said, oh yeah, it'll be fine, like qualifying, not, not too difficult there. Some drivers said, oh, yeah, yeah, this, you know, the, the duel will be crazy hard, you'll figure it out, it's just way different. And everyone, you know, some people said, oh, yeah, like these cars don't race well or like, oh, yeah, you'll be fine as long as you don't get dropped from the pack, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So I was just looking forward to my, you know, one lap of qualifying. I was like, hey, let's get out there. Two cars, obviously we know qualify on speed. We knew that was the case. Crazy to see in the garage area that Travis Pistrana and I were right next door to each other in the garage.

That was a very funny sight to see the fact that we started racing video game races on I racing a couple years ago, and now our competitors to the Daytona 500. Just a cool experience. And we had kind of drawn to, we were seventh in line to qualify. Cars getting ready. And then all of a sudden we're kind of getting closer to the whole qualifying time. I'm like, ooh, can't wait to get out there. Like, I sat in the car.

Felt good. We decided, first of all, that we needed a bigger steering wheel because I had a 13-inch steering wheel in the car from the road course race, and Chase Briscoe told me I was crazy to not have a 15-inch steering wheel in the car. So we had to go hunting for steering wheels. So we eventually ended up with a 14-inch steering wheel

that the 62 car gave us, which is kind of awkward because we had to race them into the race. But then we decided to go by a 15-inch steering wheel because I trusted Chase Brisco. He said, hey, a friend of the show, Chase Brisco, he said, you cannot go out there without a 15-inch wheel. And that just basically, to give folks who don't know what that would do an idea, that basically calms the steering down. If you have a 13-inch steering wheel, it's a little bit more effective when you make inputs. Making the wheel bigger means you can be a little bit smoother with it,

and you'd have to use more wheel to do more with the front tires, essentially. So it makes it less sensitive if you're on the straight. So if you're trying to react to something quick, it doesn't jack up the car like crazy. So yes, the bigger steering wheel for Super Speedways is usually what drivers go with. So then we finally have to get a steering wheel, well, we see oil is pooling on the ground underneath the vehicle. and I think all of us on this show know that oil leaking from a car bad not a good not a good scenario at all and this is only about I would say in two hours I mean Mr. As we're trying to go roll the tech and we realized that an oil line has exploded and the reason that this has happened is like a one very rare I mean this is just stupid so we we plug in the car to an oil heater to get the engine ready for qualifying, right? We have to have everything heated up to a certain temperature for a qualifying room. We want to make the most power. We want to try to get that one lap

and see how fast we are. And the oil heater had shorted out like an electrical short and made it explode. So, bad. And this oil, we did not have a spare of this oil. I'd say, Oh, there was a lot of looking at it for a while, like, what do we do? And all these other cars are rolling in the tech. We have no floor on the car. This is a floor and everything that's been put together, you know, that's been tweaked for a week, they said to try to like make sure we're as fast as possible. And everyone, no one else had a spare one because all their spare oil lines were on their backup cars they have.

And obviously, we don't have a backup car. So we ended up in just a complete disaster of not being able to qualify because we couldn't get an oil. line on it. And I mean, that right there was a real blow to the week because I had to watch everyone else qualify. You know what I mean? That's a tough thing to do. There's 42 folks trying to qualify for this race and only 41 of them went out there and did laps. And it was a practice session. Like, we would not have made it on speed, obviously. But, It would have been a practice lap. It would have then helped us identify,

potentially the problem that we then identified that everyone was very aware of in the duel the next night. So when you start behind in motorsport, that's already very tough. It's something that I walked the grid in my street clothes and everyone's getting ready to qualify. I remember walking up to Travis Estrada because he was like, he just looked at me like,

What? What happened to you? I was like, what, what's going on? I was like, oh, my car's broken. And he's like, oh, no. And he just hugged me before he got in to qualify. And, you know, the perfect scenario happened. Like, I believe we called it on this show. A lot of people said Speed Street got it right.

Jimmy and Travis made it in on speed. That's exactly what we needed. Because those two guys were the guys that I would hope, you know, to have us, you know, that I wanted, you know, that I wanted to make the day 2500. with and hopefully they could help us get in there. So it was a very brutal night because I was like, well, I'm going straight into a race now. We're going straight into the duels with zero laps in the car, zero experience. And I mean, that, that, that, that was annoying because we, you try to work for weeks to prepare things, right? And again, the no practice thing, a lot of people have opinions on this.

the no practice thing, I'm getting more and more closer to, I'm new to NASCAR so I can't necessarily disagree with how they run their show. Yeah. Still no idea why there was no practice. I think that's absurd. That's what, you know, it was interesting to follow online and see just kind of the consensus reaction of, you know, yeah, that sucks for Connor, but also this highlights a bigger issue.

Yeah, highlights the why the hell aren't we allowing this to happen so that they, Things like this could be found, you know? It wasn't just like, you know, you didn't see a bunch of people like the, you know, the NASCAR big talking heads out there trying to like bash you or anything. They were kind of like, hey, that sucks. And it would be nice to be able to have these opportunities to get out there in the ride. Exactly. And I mean, it's something that, again, there's always a strategy behind it because, again,

it's keeping the costs in line. But the cars are already there, you know what I mean? even if it's a 10-minute session, a leak check session, like every time we show up to a race, we get an IndyCar, right? We get to the practice session and we do an install lap, right, to make sure everything's okay. We do one lap, go through all the gears, make sure everything's all right. Just having a five-minute session for the cars to leave the pit lane and come back in, that doesn't cost anything almost. You put a set of tires on that you probably use again in the race, whatever it is.

Or, you know, I don't know. Whatever it is, it doesn't cost you a lot. It gets the teams going and it potentially eliminates a problem. I will never understand how we don't do it. I mean, I complained about this when we were in the 2020 schedules with no practice because we were already there. You'd be at the track. You'd show up just to race with maybe one qualifying session.

I was like, we have the entire day. Run a session. Five minutes. Doesn't matter. Any track time is. more important than no track time. So that was tough. And then going into the duel, obviously, we're starting last. And the situation is that we have to beat the 62 car, Austin Hill. And I don't really know Austin at all. He was right in the garage right next to us, though, so that was kind of

awkward. But I also, and again, this was kind of funny because half the people I talked to weren't aware of this and half the people I talked to were aware of this. And I guess I still have not confirmed it, but I was supposed to make the race, I had to beat both Austin Hill and Travis Pastrana. Because people were like, oh no, but Travis was already in. Yes, he was in, but because I did not have any qualifying time, I had to be the highest finishing open car in the duel. but a lot of people, even my spotter was like, nope, you have to beat just the 62. And I was like, I promise you, Bob Pocker has tweeted it and Bob tweets only facts, right? And so, like, I looked at that and people still, before I even got in the car, was like,

I think you only have to beat the 602. I was like, no, I have to be the highest finishing open car. And I talked to Travis before that, too. I was like, bro, if we get to like one lap to go and I'm like behind you, like, let's talk about maybe a letting by type process. Like, how are we going to do this? You know what I mean? And so I had a challenge in front of me. And this is when we get into things that everyone started seeing on the internet.

When we got into that car for the duel, first of all, like we were in the second duel. So I got to watch the first one in Corey Lejoy's Motor Home with him because Corey. And again, it kind of all lined up perfectly because, like, the duel, I had a lot of friends in the duel. It was Chase Briscoe. It was Noah Gregson. It was Corey Lejoy, Travis Pastrano. So all these folks, like I was comfortable, you know, being in a race with. It kind of all worked out. But when I got in, first of all, the way the duels were set up, like we had to roll to the grid. And like we're kind of in a staging area. And I'm obviously last. And the way they line them up, it's not really far down the pit lane. And being last, it was a very difficult problem. process to get in the car. And Jimmy Johnson came up to me, which was really cool, trying to give me some advice. It was a very cool moment. I really appreciated that. Jimmy's been a great,

a great friend. And honestly, a lot of support. That was awesome. But I didn't know what to do with what he was saying to me because I had never done a lap yet. So I'm like, Jimmy, I appreciate this info. I have no idea what it means, to be honest. Because I've never even, yeah, it was a cool photograph to take. But this is how crazy it was already. We're getting in the car and I'm like trying to the whole getting in the car process is different for me in the

NASCAR. You're getting into it. I'm strapping myself in. They say, driver start your engines. I don't even have my helmet on yet. My helmet was not even on and the command was given. And I was like, are you kidding me? What is going on here? And I'm like, I'm putting my helmet on.

I'm connecting it. Like all the engines are going. I'm like, I have, what's, I don't, it was the most confused I've ever been before the start of a heat race, essentially, or a motor race. I mean, like our cool shirt wasn't connected. My helmet fan wasn't working. Nothing was on.

I mean, it was a complete and total disaster from before I even got in the car. Nothing like all that happening for one of the biggest opportunities of your life. It's great. Oh, yeah, it's only the biggest NASCAR race the year. Yeah, and we're trying to qualify, and I don't have my helmet on and everyone else's engine is fired. I'm like, man, can I have got some more prep time potentially, maybe even some time to just sit in there and tighten the belts a little bit? Thought the belts were a little loose for my liking, but it is what it is. And then obviously the first moment of yikes, this is going to be a rough night, happened really as soon as I left the pit lane.

because this car starts bouncing when I left when I left the pit like the tires were squares like the tires were made of rectangles like I was on the Daytona Supercross track through the whoop section very concerning right out the gate I mean I knew that I knew that I was new to this, right? And I knew that it was going to be bumpy because they run the cars very stiff

and low to the ground in the cup series to try to get as much speed as possible. So I'm like, okay, yeah, I know the springs are stiff. It's a very stiff spring package all around. You know, the everything is going to be low. I get it. The tire pressure is low, so I'm probably bottoming out a little bit. But when I say I couldn't even use the throttle to accelerate because it was bouncing so hard and my spinal cord, my spinal column felt the racetrack through my butt cheeks. Like, that's what it was, that's what was happening. And I kept reporting this to them. And obviously, in the pits, they don't really know what it feels like, right? So they're just probably like, oh, yeah, this guy's new to it. And I was like, I'm trying to be respectful of

the fact that I'm new to this, but this is wrong. Like, it is very, me and Riley, we were, We were laying down in bed and we were watching and we were following on Twitter, of course, and we were both cracking up about how you were just like trying to be so polite. And tried to like, hey guys, you know, so calm, so polite with all this craziness going on. You know, literally rocking around like you're on right of damn beast at Kings Island. Because that, it was the, yeah, the Kings Island. Yeah, the Wooden Roller. I mean, that's the thing, though.

You like, I try to be respectful because, again, it's a new world to me. So I don't know what's normal, right? Like, I don't want to be some guy who gets in complains about something. And everyone else is like, oh, yeah, it's just as bumpy for us too. Like, you dummy. And I'm like, well, okay. So I'm thinking to myself because I'm trying several different things, right? As a driver, you're like, okay, is this drive train, right?

Is it something that is very wrong with, you know, is a wheel loose? is it the drive train? Is there something in the transmission that's bent? And then I realize, okay, when I'm off the throttle, it's smooth, it's fine. That means the weight's going to the front. But if I'm on the throttle, weight going to the rear, very bumpy. But I knew I had to also accelerate very well to stay with the pack or I'd lose the draft right out the gate. So I was working on, okay, I'm going to get through the gears. But every time I accelerated, I couldn't even keep my foot down because it was bouncing so heavily. And I knew that I had promised both Alex and Hinch, Alex Rossi and James Hinchcliffe, that I would not lift on my first couple of apps in that cup card because I was like, nope, I'm not lifting. Like, we got to go into this and never lift off the throttle.

I started to get worried about that little bet there for a second. And so, I mean, away we go. Like it was like, all right, well, we're lining up to go. and when we go green and I try to get through the gears, I mean, the thing is just bouncing. It's just bouncing like crazy. The rear, I mean, the rear tires were off the ground, essentially. And so I had already lost way too much ground before I even got to fifth gear.

But when I got to term one, and you could check any of those little data systems that they have, because we didn't have any data systems, we didn't have any SMTs or whatever they use. I didn't lift. And I didn't lift for those first two laps. And I realized turn one was the real problem area. Turn one, because the car was so stiff and it was so off that when I hit, there's two small bumps into Turn 1. When I hit those bumps, I was so loose.

The car stepped out multiple times. And this is a car that I've not driven on an oval yet, right? You see these cars snapping and spinning directly into the wall a lot in this new era of the Cup series car. But we held on to it. And so after a while, like turn three was a little bit better because it was slightly smoother, three, four. But I was really struggling holding on to this car.

And from, you know, divine intervention, there was a yellow. A few laps in, right? Some debris. I think that was the yellow. And I was like, oh, man, we got to make some change to this thing. Like, we got to get the pits. And we got to change everything but the color of this car. And so, thankfully, when we did come into the pits,

we were able to make some changes and as soon as I went back out there it was much better but I also realized at that point that oh no this car is pretty slow because I tried to restart with everyone that I needed to restart with and it just was not possible

and it was still bouncing over the bumps into term one like something fierce and when you're in the pack you're doing about 20 mile an hour more than when you're not in the pack. Like, people were qualifying at 178 miles an hour on the NASCAR Cup series. One of my laps in the race from Sunday was 192 miles an hour.

Like, that's a large jump in speed, like 10, 15 miles an hour more. So we're struggling. We're struggling, still struggling. I'm like hating life. In the middle of that duel, I'm running by myself, and I'm just thinking, I don't know why I did this.

This is, this is, I, A lot of thoughts because, like, look, when you're by yourself running at Daytona, even if the car is almost trying to kill you, it's kind of boring. I'm not going to lie. And I don't want anyone to take offense to that because I think any driver would tell you that running by yourself at Daytona in a cup car, not hard. It's not hard. When it's sorted. When you're not sorted, when you're almost dying all the time, that's a little bit harder. So you have a lot of time to think down that straight because you're just going.

And then I obviously get lapped. So I don't know what's, life is, everything's going chaotic. I'm thinking, man, I'm glad I booked that flight to LA earlier in the day. I'm thinking I'm going to go, you know, go see my lady in Los Angeles and completely, you know, basically pull the parachute, get out of Daytona as fast as possible. And then, honestly, then a yellow happens. And I'm like, oh, what's happening? And when I come to the crash area of this accident,

I see the two cars that I need to be in the grass. And I was like, hang on a second. And I was waiting. I was, I saw them in the grass not moving. And so I was like, well, Travis, I saw basically just pulling into the pits because his car looked like it was limping. And then I was just kind of waiting to come around the next time. And I was like, oh, please, Lord Jesus, please let that 62 car still not be moving.

And we obviously hope everyone's safe, but maybe, you know, maybe the right front wheel is broken. I don't know. Who knows? And so, and that's obviously, you hate to say that because, again, I would have much rather raced my way in. Of course. Any driver wants that. That's why even at the end of that duel, I was not even like that overjoyed because we made it, but I was like, that's not the way I want to make it,

but it's still, you know, we still made it. So seeing that car in the grass and then figuring out, okay, we can pit again to try to help this car. And so we did. And then I just ran with the 78 car, BJ McLeod, really, until the end of the race. And that I learned a lot in myself. But, you know, we got to the end of the race.

And the 62 car couldn't get back out there. And I beat Travis and we beat the cars that we needed to beat. And I mean, honestly, I got a little tear in my, down the back straight. I did because I was furious at the beginning. I felt it was awful. But then down the back straight,

I was like, man, I don't get lucky often. We know that. If you know Connor Daly, you know that luck has not really been in the bio. But I will completely admit to whenever a lucky moment does happen, we will be very thankful for it. And so we got lucky,

super lucky and again a lot of people on the I found the toxic side of NASCAR Twitter as well by the way that was something that I think I had not been involved in before definitely found that after the race let me tell you tough environment out there tough environment

because I just can't look man I do I dive into the weeds I get into the comments and I guess people did like that I started responding sometimes to people shutting people down because a lot of people are like oh you only made it because, you know, people crash.

And, like, I was like, I know. I literally said that in my interview. I was like, I am fully aware that I got lucky, but guess what? This happens in racing all the time. People get lucky. People don't. It's part of the sport. And I'm sorry that it made you upset.

Yeah. Right. Kyle Bush probably was going to win the Daytona 500. Exactly. Then, you know, I mean, like, but it happens, right? Yeah, dude, 62nd driver to race. Indy and Daytona. That's a pretty elite company there for you.

Yeah, very cool statistic. I mean, honestly, what was fascinating is that people actually cared about this. You know what I mean? Like, when I got out of the car after that duel, the media and the people there, I mean, it was unbelievable. The photographs, the interviews, the cameras. Like, we went into a press conference, and I was like, I just finished last in this duel of the cars that are running.

Like, you know, but we made the race. And it was special because it's the Daytona 500. You know what I mean? And it is a big deal to make that race. It is very special to make that race. It felt very good to make that race. And it was like a weight literally lifted off my shoulders that was 10,000 pounds because all week I was pretty much committed to not making that race.

And as soon as we got out there lap one, I was like, we're not going to make this race. And that's deflating because I've never not made a race. Like all my ND-500s, I've made them. You know, I've never not qualified. And so I don't know what that experience is like. And thankfully, I still don't. But it was cool to see the reaction. I mean, honestly, the amount of text messages I got for making that race were almost more than when I led the ND-500.

It was not more, but it was very cool to see how many people were paying attention, how many people cared. I mean, I look back at myself. I watch the duels all the time because I enjoy it. It's motor racing season, right? Like racing is coming back. We're getting going. And so going through the press conference, talking about how lucky we got, and, you know, the fact that the wreck happened, how it happened. I still haven't even seen the wreck, but I saw that just people were, I mean, it's NASCAR.

What I said in the press conference, I was like, it happened to work out luckily for me. Like both the cars that I needed to beat were running together in a pack. And what can happen in those packs? Crashes. I mean, the 62, if you really think about it, he probably could have just backed off right then and there as soon as I went a lap down and just kind of rammed with me the whole time and been fine. But they were in the pack. And honestly, I probably would have been in the pack too because I was going to try to learn. So if our day wasn't going as bad, then maybe we get involved in that record.

as well. So it's kind of a weird way to look at things. And Travis, you know, Travis being in that wreck too, Travis had never been in a cup series car in a pack really yet either. So he's learning a lot on the fly as well. So, you know, hated to see that. And I went up to the 62 crew after the race too. And I said, hey, man, not going to lie, you guys deserve to be in that race. I hate to see it for you. Because I was honest with him. I said, look, I did not deserve to me. make it with the performance in that race. But you know how these things work? I just want to say, you know, you guys deserve it.

I probably will see you next year, hopefully. And which I thought was respectful. I was like, hey, we, we, I know I'm, I'm pretty realistic about this sport. I get it. Austin Hill, obviously, he had a great weekend. He won the Xfinity race. So, you know, the guy is a talented driver. There's no doubt about that.

But sometimes these things happen in racing. You know what I mean? Hey, man, it's, you know, I grew up playing baseball. ball a whole lot. And the old saying always was, uh, it's a screaming liner in the books. And what they mean by that is that you could hit a little bloop, um, you know, just bloop freak show hit off the end of the bad that just goes over the shortstop's head enough out of a re, you know, out of his outstretched arms, but it's a base hit. And so when they put it in the books, it didn't say, hey, it was a little bloop flare single off the end of the bad that maybe

could, oh, they got lucky for getting the base hit. Now you got a single. It bumps up the on base percentage, right? Screaming liner in the boats. Exactly. You know what I mean? At the end of the day, I don't think five years from now, a lot of people are going to say, oh, yeah, you race the Daytona 500, but it was because of it, no, you race the Daytona 500. Yeah, no, I mean, you're exactly right.

And I tell you what, after that, like, I, thankfully the few days before I had booked a flight for my girlfriend already to come in on the next day. And so she was having, she was watching from L.A. And my mom was crying. and everyone was crying. My mom had already booked a flight. As I think we talked about it on the last show, she was already booked a flight to go home on the Friday.

And so she then changed her flight. And then my little brother was booking flight. Everyone was kind of booking flights to come down. And I mean, from then on, I enjoyed it so much more. I tried to take in the experience because, you know, we found the issues with the car and the duel. We know that the rear was, there was a lot that was offset in the rear.

We bounced so hard that it bent the shock mounts in the car, which is very hard to do, I think, very not good. And, you know, we had practice the next day. We had practice on the Friday. We had practice on the Saturday. And that was fantastic. Now, I will say that practice was almost useless for me because no one must have run with me, which I get. And I want to kind of dive into that a little bit because the practice, was great, right? Like, yay, we get practice, but that practice is really only useful if you can run with other cars,

because running by yourself doesn't do anything for you. But guess who doesn't want to run with the car that looked like it was basically a lawnmower going over some dirt bike jumps the day before? Well, everyone. No one must have to roam me. And so I try to go out there on the Saturday, try to run with people, try to figure it out. Everyone pulls in the pits right when I'm there, or they all are two. fast for me to even keep up with. That was actually the most frustrating part, I would say, one of the most frustrating parts of the week is that at indie, you can go out by yourself and still get things done, right? We have so many practice days where, you know, you'd like to run in traffic, but if you're still running by yourself, you know, you can make some adjustments.

It's still difficult to drive, even by yourself. There's still some things that you can work on. If you're not in a pack of Daytona practice, you're not doing anything. I mean, there's nothing going on. You're not learning anything. You're just driving around flat out on the bottom. And honestly, that's not that hard. It really is not. And I hate to say that because it's very hard and very a difficult level, much higher level when you're in the pack.

And that was fascinating. And I learned a lot more about that in the race. But I was frustrated because, again, your practice and what you learn is purely based on what others will allow you to do around them. And that's tough to take. And I talked to AJ Elmanger after both the practices, and he was like, yeah, man, it took me six years for people to run with me in this series. And I was like, well, that sucks. I mean, I kind of get it. But so, yeah, that was really frustrating, honestly. But I get it because, again, I wouldn't want to run with me either. Like I said that many times. But I've also not an idiot. So, like, that whole week, did I ever do anything that could have affected anyone else's race or stupid or making stupid mistakes, even if the car was trying to kill me? No. So hopefully that means for any future races that we do, you know, there's a little bit more trust in that arena, but maybe not. I don't really know. So yeah, after honestly making the race,

it became a lot more fun. Like Friday night, you know, it's fun to kind of hang out. Saturday, you know, Travis and I were going around. We did like a crazy cart race in the infield after practice, you know, having a great time with all of his crew, you know, had a nice bud light. you know, we were just kind of having a nice little day out in the afternoon with the boys and showed my lady around Daytona. Saturday night we had a great dinner before the race with Travis and his whole crew, you know, nice restaurant Daytona Beach. His management team, everyone there was great. Honestly, getting to get into that race to Travis was one of the coolest things ever. The fact that he was in it was incredible. And I mean, honestly, the one thing that sucked

before the race is that we never got our qualifying photo. That was the only thing that that was a big debate. Everyone after their qualifying run, they got a photo with the car, which is something that we do at the N.E. 500. I never got that photograph. People were asking if I ever got it. You heard it here. We didn't get the qualifying photo.

But you also didn't get photos with a few other people, right? I mean, there was a loaded pre-race show with a bunch of people in there. Yes, yeah. I mean, honestly, now we can move on to race day. There wasn't what, you know, there was a lot of fun stuff that happened. I don't, you know, this show could go on for hours to talk about. I obviously talk a lot, but the race day, the Daytona 500 race day. Let's talk a little bit about how, I guess, it compares to the ND 500.

A lot of people wanted to, you know, get that kind of feeling from me. And I would say it's very different. I would say speed weeks. It used to be a long time, right? It used to be weeks long. But it definitely felt very condensed, certainly compared to the Indy 500, not as much track time,

not as much going on for me. And race morning, honestly, very cold. Like, I just drove to the track and I hung out for like four or five hours. Kind of just relaxed with the team, the family. And I would never take away anything from the Daytona 500, but it definitely, you know, there were so many people there.

The camping looked incredible, the amount of humans that were there. I mean, it's Daytona 500 Sunday. Everyone's pumped about it. And all the other drivers, you know, they're like, hey, man, this is it. You know, greatest day of the year. I'm like, yeah, no, I mean, this is it. But it for me was very relaxing. And I don't know what was, you know, all the stress had kind of gone out because I just wanted

to get out there and, you know, get in the pack and go racing. And so, you know, the Indy 500 has an earlier start time as well, right? So 1230, you know, your green flags flying, right? This is 2.30, you know, later. So much more time to, you know, take in the day, have some lunch, get ready for the 500 miles. And that I actually like. I do wish the Indy 500 started at like 1 o'clock or like 1.30, something like that. That's one thing, again, and it'll ever happen.

But I like that part of the Daytona 500, a little bit of the day. I don't know if I went a little bit later start time. But yeah, that race day, once we did get things going, like Joey, did you watch any of the pre-race stuff? Would it look like quite a fanfare band? Did you, like, was there a lot pre-race that looked like, you know, it was packed, it was pumping, it was going? I didn't.

I could only follow along the line. I didn't get to watch on Fox because I was at a father's son lunch with, oh, there you go. My son and my father, well, you know, church puts it on every year. And so we got together and took the three Joe's, two Joe's, one Frank there. And was enjoying that for a couple of hours. And that was up until about 2.2.30.

So I didn't get to see a whole bunch of it. I just, like I said, I saw all photos of celebrities and the videos on Twitter and different people out there, you know, comedians, actors, athletes, the whole shebang. So that's about all I saw. Ben, what did you think of the whole pre-race shenanigans? Yeah, I watched most of the, like, second part of it. I wish, maybe they show it in the first part. I wish they showed the pre-race concert,

because that's when you kind of flood everybody out on the infield. And I think Dirks was playing, which is like one of my favorite country artists. So I still probably wouldn't compare to the $5,00, just because it doesn't, I mean, they don't have the grandsons that are up around the track anymore, but, you know, still look pretty good. Yeah, I mean, it was cool to see for me

as someone who had never been there. Like, I'd never been to the H-1-500 before. So, you know, getting into the drivers meeting that they have is really cool. You know, the whole room with stuff with celebrities. Pete Davidson was there. Tiffany Addish, waving the green. I mean, a lot of really cool people in that room. I did not get to meet a single one of them because they didn't really have it in a very good set,

like, well-set-up way to where, like, it was like, hey, all these people are hanging out here if you want to meet them. They basically put the drivers on one side and some drivers on the other. And I sat behind Roger Penske for the, for the, for the, The driver's meeting, the public drivers meeting, and I said, hey man, how are we doing? And he's like, he turned around, who the heck's speaking to me? And he's like, oh, hey man, congrats on making it.

And I was like, thanks, Roger, I appreciate that. And also, this was a funny moment that I thought because from the clash, A.J. Alminger and Chase Briscoe got heavily into it. They started hitting each other during the race and the practice sessions. Well, Chase Briscoe sat to my right and A.J. Elmaninger sat to my left. So it's like, this is a great. I was like, are we all friends here?

going on. Did they kiss to make up? Are they all good? They didn't say a word to each other. So I assume that there's some still something going on there. I talked to both of them though. I was kind of the mediator. The great unifier, countered, the great unifier, yeah, because I didn't know what I was doing. And honestly, very cool kind of lead up to it. You know, walking out there for driver intros. I do like what they have there. I would say it's a little awkward because And I felt bad about this.

Lots of fans lining the fences for this red carpet, and everyone's wanting someone to sign something, but we have to get to the driver intro, so we don't have time. And so all these drivers I see just walking and completely ignoring people, which, again, not ignoring, but we have to go somewhere.

And as soon as you start signing, you can't stop, because then you get to like a five-year-old kid and you feel awful not signing for him. And there's another one, and they're like, oh, no. And so that was kind of a, I started sweating there. I was like, oh, this is, I feel awful, but I guess it is what it is. I was just a wild situation.

And we get to the little driver intros room, and Dirk's Bentley is there. I probably should have got a photograph with him. He was sitting there talking to, you know, famous people, famous drivers that are more famous than I. Should have got a photo with him. That would have been cool. But also, going out, like I wrote this down in my notes, Kyle Bush was announced right before me in driver intros, right? Like he's starting behind me, which is hysterical.

Hearing the booze for Kyle Bush before you go out on stage is very, it's an interesting experience. Like, man, these guys are, these folks are lethal out there. Like, it is an aggressive environment. But I got to go out next to Ty Gibbs. And I was like, oh, man, like, Ty Gibbs. Like, he's done a lot. I mean, rookie, but, like, he's won a lot.

And just a cool experience. What was the reception like for you? I thought there was more cheers than I expected. I'm not going to lie. There were a lot more people, and this was fascinating to me. A lot more people there were saying, hey, Conner, go, all this. I was blown away. So if you were one of those people, I appreciate you shouting my name, whatever it was.

A lot of nice folks, great reception, I would say. So that was pretty cool. And I'm kind of dragged this weekend out a little bit, but let's just get to the race. There's driver interest. That was cool. But okay, we're starting the race now. I get in the car, no rearview mirror. We turn the thing on.

We have great flyover, it's cool, kiss by lady, hugged by mom, all this stuff. Get in the car, a radio doesn't work. And there's no rearview mirror. And I'm like, all right, we have some problems. Like, this is not good at all. Try to flip the switch for the mirror. The radio doesn't work at all. I mean, I can hear the radio, but our antenna, there was an antenna issue or something like that.

I'm shouting at my mechanics I'm like, I can't hear anything, I can't hear anything? They're like, yeah, but can you hear it out? No. And then all the other driver's engines have started. And so now it's very loud. And then our engines have started, could not get the radio to work. No mirror, no radio, no mirror.

I'm like, well, this is the biggest race of the year. And I can't hear or see anything. So that's great. It'd be good. Yeah. It's going to be awesome. Come on. We finally put in a radio that doesn't, like usually in the radio systems

with these cars, they have another antenna that's kind of connected at the top of the car that gets a better reception for the spotter and the crew chief so they can hear you all the way around the track. So, they basically just threw in a radio without that antenna, and it had one of those little mini antennas that you use, like, just when you're

talking to your friends in a tree house. Sure. But that's all we had time to do. And so I can hear my spotter, thankfully, which is all I needed, and drove down the pit lane with no rear view mirror. And so I'm like, well, this is going to suck

because you have to use that mirror and after the race I saw this and my dad told me he's like Austin Sindrick said he spent 70% of the race looking at his rearview mirror and I was like well looks like I'm doing 30% of the race like that was

it was absurd because you have to use that so aggressively and people that don't know NASCAR cup cars have rearview cameras so when I say the rearview mirror didn't work it's the rearview camera you know a lot of modern cars now have these great rearview cameras where you can see everything. That's what they have in the NASCAR Cup series now.

There's a physical mirror. There's a physical mirror still hanging at the top of the car, but you can't see anything out of it because of a giant spoiler. And the rear window has a bunch of things and lines. You can't see anything with a physical mirror. All you could see is I could see colors at random points. Like you could see maybe the roof of Ryan Blaney's yellow car. Like, that was it.

So the rearview mirror did absolutely know. nothing. And the rearview camera didn't work. So away we go. Green flag felt great. Honestly, the first 20 laps were my favorite part of the race. It was fun, enjoyed it because cars were forced to stay behind me. I started up top and the top lane got moving. And I did not feel uncomfortable up there at all. I felt great, just kind of rolling. We were moving around. And the funniest part is, is the cars that we were around most of the time was the 47 car who won the race. And I was like, I was like, oh, hey, Ricky, we're going to, me and Ricky are going to ride here for a little bit. Sure.

And it was, it was great because I could finally feel the way the air moved around the car, the way the air moves and the way you create this bubble in front of you to push the other car. Fascinating to learn at the highest level. And, and I, Chase Briscoe was one car in front of me as well for the most, for the most, for the most, part of that first 20 laps. And I text him after the race because it looked like he was struggling with his car. He looked, because he kind of dropped off from the guys in front of us. And I said, hey, man, were you struggling with your car to be? And he said, no, I was going half throttle the whole time. And I was like, what? I was at full throttle trying to keep up you guys. I was like, what the heck is happening here? But it was really cool to learn. I basically killed my race,

though, and I will admit this mistake, because when I was on the high line, we were making progress, but I had not been to the low line yet. And I thought when you have 15 laps or however many laps of decent speed and you think that you can maybe slide, kind of maybe move around a little bit and not get left behind, I tried to go to the bottom. So I had a great run on the 78 car in front of me, went down to the bottom with a great run. And then as soon as I left the top, everyone else went to the top.

Kyle Bush went past me, Travis went past me, all the people that were on the bottom apparently shifted up. So everyone was waiting for me to make that dumb rookie move to go to the bottom so they could take my spot at the top. And I understood that completely. As soon as I did it, I was like, I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot. But I tried it. And our car was just so much dragier on the bottom and we had no support on the bottom. And I just went backwards, backwards, backwards.

But I did get back to the top, slid back to the top eventually and did not get left yet. But there were too many cars that had gone by. So we were going, we were going. I was still in the pack, still in the pack, felt good. You know, we did, apparently someone said that we did like one of the fastest laps of the race. And the first 20 laps was like that, which is hilarious. Because again, when you have that energy behind you, our car was slow, very slow. But if you have that energy behind you and for me, I had to use so much throttle to stay in the pack that like, of course I was going to have a fast lap because I'm getting the me.

I'm getting the max suck from the car in front of me and the max push from everyone behind me. So I'm losing the cars a little bit in front of me, but I'm getting pushed back towards him. So it was fascinating. But then I think Chastain was the last car behind me because he was struggling with his car, and he realized that I was slow as molasses.

And so as soon as everyone else could get a run on me, past me, and then slide back in. and I could never, ever do anything about it. Like, my car would always fall from others, and I had to have some support. And so as soon as Ross got behind me, and as soon as there were no cars behind me again, the race was over. Like, from then on, lap 25 on, I knew the race was over. Nothing was going to happen.

We pitted, and the 15 cars spawned on pit lane, which again, I was hoping was going to be a yellow. Because if that was a yellow, that would have saved me. I would have learned a lot more. We wouldn't have gone a lap down. It would have been fine. and we probably could have been lasted, you know, a long time in that race without getting dropped. But from then on, honestly, it was it was just endless frustration in that race because we could never stay with any cars. No one would work with us because obviously we were a lap down and many laps down and we got lapped so easily.

You know, getting lapped by the other cars was very fascinating because I tried to, I stayed up top, three wide of several folks. and having no rearview mirror is complete a terrifying situation when everyone is passing me like that because you can't see anything. And the radio communication with my spotter was okay, it could have been clear with a better antenna, but I had to have full faith in him because there was so much going on. And even with the cars going past us at, you know, 195 miles an hour, it was making my car accelerated a lot,

but even if I pulled in right behind them, still would get dropped. So it was a tough first half of the race. I learned a lot, but our car was basically a boat anchor from lap 25 on, and it was sinking. And sadly, that was the hand that we were dealt, but the goal from then on just became trying to finish the race. And, I mean, I assumed it didn't look that exciting for you guys from the race itself. I don't know how exciting it was, but it didn't see my. like it was that exciting for a very long time. Was that, was that, I guess, the general thought?

Yeah, the first 25 laps were super weird, kind of like you were saying with the pack. Nobody was moving. I mean, they were two by two for so long. Like, runs weren't being created, which was, I don't know if that was a weather thing or if it was just everybody being careful, which I don't think that was the case. But it took until, like, halfway to stage two for something, like, really kind of start building. So, yeah, it was, I mean, drawing.

comma wise, it really didn't get like super, super crash heavy until like towards the end of the race, which it always does. So I thought the finish was not ideal just because that was, they didn't have a single race this past weekend that finished under green. Like they took the checkered flag. So because the truck race got rained out, Xfinity and Cup had that same thing of like they like the yellow came out on the white. The funny thing is is I threw your onboard camera on for a part of stage one. And then when Chastain passed you, like you were kind of lagging back from the group, but all of a sudden he just goes, one, he flies by you. And I was like, oh, okay.

Well, that just happened. And the funny part about that is, too, is like any other car, like, this is how we knew we struggled. Any other car that was last, whether it was the one car, the 47 car, whatever it was, they could say there easily. And they were running half throttle. When you're so close to the other cars, you can hear when they're using the throttle. You can hear when they get out of the throttle. And I got a little bit of my own.

I would love to see my onboard video, actually. NASCAR, please help me out. but I thought what was fascinating about wrecks, right? Like I always saw these races and I'd be like, these wrecks must be wild. And so Alex Bowman, the 48 cart, he spun, it was one of the yellows. He spun on the inside and I am literally right to his outside essentially. And I'm watching him spin the whole time. And I'm like, oh no, this is one of those scenarios where he corrects it and shoots up to the top directly in front of me.

and I have to give Alex Bowman a lot of credit for saving this car because he saved it and also saved my life at the same time. So I appreciate him saving that spin. That was wild to see. But other than that, there wasn't a ton. We got a pit lane penalty for guys jumping over the wall a little bit too early. That was kind of crazy. But I didn't really get to see much of the race.

And I wanted to talk about a little bit about the physical side real quick because everyone asked me physically how difficult is it compared to the Indy 500. And honestly, it is not even, close to the physical difficulty that the Indy 500 is because it's it the power steering and everything makes it simple but honestly the cool shirt and the air conditioning in that in that car actually the air that blew to the helmet and not air conditioning but it's like air it actually felt great for me and obviously it wasn't that hot of a day um but i felt great in that car but when i look at my heart rate right i wear the whoops of my heart rate is on there when i'm with when i'm in the pack

my heart rate's at maximum. So like, it's still hard. It gets your heart going because you're around all these other cars and when the air is going, things are crazy. But when you're by yourself, physically, it's not, it's not as, it's not comparable to the Indy car at all. But still, if you're with the pack the whole day, your heart rate's, my IRA would have been, you know, through the roof. So physically it's not comparable. You know, it just is what it is. But still, It was four and a half hours of a race, and I'm like, man, that was, that's a long day in the car. So I wanted to get that physical kind of report out of there. I thought it was interesting that my, if I look at my heart rate, it spiked every single time I was with other cars.

And it was, it was very, very interesting. So I, we got to the end of that race. Obviously, we were in no place to, you know, to compete for anything. But we started to get to see all the crashes. Everything was kind of crazy. It started popping off. If it was a night race, I had a Tend advisor on, didn't expect that at all. And, you know, seeing some of the cars that were wrecked and seeing all the craziness that was happening, I could finally keep up with cars because they were all broken.

I remember it was a train of Kevin Harvick, Martin Truick, Jr., Coylejoy, and me, and none of them had front ends on their car. So it was all, I was like, hey, I could finally keep up with people, but I was like, their cars are literally falling apart in front of me. And honestly, to see the cars at the end, too, like, when I went by, like on the last checker, like the last lap, you know, cars were mangled. I saw Denny driving his car with no right side. It looked like the thing had been through an exorcism. After the checker flag, the 10 cars just in the middle of the back stray. It looks like it had been abandoned. Oh, yeah, well, Blaney, too. But Blaney, I actually, huge shout out to Ryan Blaney because. I think I helped him get his lap back and get back in there because I was the only car that we could run together. Blaney pushed me for like 30 laps. I remember texting him after the race.

I said, hey, man, I appreciate you ride with me because I was so bored. And he was like, yeah, man, I stared so long at Bitnile.com. I had to check it out afterwards at the night. And I was like, I appreciate that, brother. Thank you so much. But he had no right front on his car, so that means he could follow me, which is great.

But yeah, Blaney, we helped get him back into the free pass. position. He helped me stay with the pack there. I mean, it was, it was just a crazy one. It was, I learned so much. And honestly, super happy for Ricky Stenhouse, too. Great guy. I like Ricky. Great to see him win like a new winner. I thought that was really cool. And, you know, got to experience it all. You know, the longest Daytona 500 in history, I guess, however many labs it was. Crazy that we made it. And you know what? I was very sad after the race because I wanted to do better, but we finished 29, but we're in the 20s. So that's great, I guess.

A lot of people were congratulating me for some reason. I have no idea why I thought it was awful because I'm a competitor. But we made it through. We didn't hit anything or anyone. And, you know, Travis finished 11th. That was awesome for Travis. His car was flying. Was super happy for him.

He was super great to me all week long. All the drivers were pretty cool about everything. and, you know, it was cool to say that we've added that to the list. So I thought it was something that could have gone way better, but also we could have not made the race and we wouldn't be having this conversation today. We'd be a little bit more depressed. Or you could have not finished and, you know,

racked in a disastrous way, but you didn't do those things. You mentioned you gained, you know, a good amount of following afterwards, some new audiences was turned on to you and that's probably because, well, the Daytona 500 did well on television as you can assume. Fox said they earned 8.1-8 million viewers for Sunday's Daytona 500. This is from Adam Stern.

It's down 8% from last year. But still, with that being said, Ohio State, Penn State got 8.2 million in 2020 for college football. Oh, yeah. That's from Austin Carp reporting that. And then unfortunately, you had to make the point that that number at 8.1,

8,000 million is two times the 8,500 audience, but at least it's four times what the best F1 races have ever gotten in the United States. So still quite a large audience taking in, you riding in the Daytona 500. No, very cool. And some social statistics. I would say on Instagram, I probably gained close to 900 followers on Instagram, which is, which is your 800, I would say, is great. That's a big bump. On Twitter, Twitter seemed to be a little bit more, maybe close to, close to a thousand, close to maybe just under, which is, which is interesting. Because again, these events are kind of like research things for us. Like, hey, these are new folks that we're getting exposed to, which is really cool. And, I mean, eight, oh, eight million people is a lot of

people. I mean, I honestly want to predict this year for the Indy 500. I would like us to get over five million. I would like us to get over maybe close to six million. That would be awesome. I think that's a possibility because a lot of people are watching racing. So love to see that. And, you know, it was just cool to be part of the NASCAR family that weekend and see what was going on. And we also, you know, we do have a great guest for this show as well that we didn't mention at the beginning of the show because we just dove right into it. But we do have an incredible guest coming up. Frankie Munes, he is, well,

I mean, Malcolm in the middle. We know him for his television accolades, a legendary. Big fat liar. I mean, honestly, the guy's a legend for anyone who is my age or your age, probably Joey growing up. Yep. But also a NASCAR driver now. He was in the Arka race over the weekend at Daytona. We want to get his thoughts on that.

What he thought about is Daytona experience. He was with me after we made the race. He was super excited. We got some great, hilarious photographs together. But that'll be a really cool interview. you as well for everyone to hear. But yeah, that was kind of Daytona for a bit of a wrap-up. I mean, there's a hundred things you could talk about more of. I thought it was cool to, you know, just to have those conversations with folks after the race, to be a part of it. And I mean,

yeah, we did it. So I think that was pretty cool. You guys got anything else from that? Any other questions or random things that popped up? No, I'd say it's just a great way to start, 2023, you know, as a whole, with IndyCar coming up, you know, St. Pete, less than two weeks. I know it's, you know, NASCAR to IndyCar, but hey, when you can start off your, your 2023 motor racing season

by making it into the Daytona 500, finishing the race with all the troubles and struggles that, you know, was presented to you over the whole entire weekend. I say, that just looks like a good omen for 2023 to me. Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I'm super thankful to have done it. I mean, bitnial.com is our incredible partner. Their new websites launching real soon here.

If you haven't signed up for it, please do. It's a pretty cool. It's going to be a really, really cool experience. And, I mean, they're making, you know, they're making this dream happen. And they're, you know, the money team, we appreciate them doing all the work and getting through all the problems. And I appreciate the NASCAR fans.

And Daytona, you know, to do that is very special to me. Let's not, let's not compare all these things to the ND500 all the time. Let's not do that. Let's just take them all in. for the triple crown. I kept saying by the end of that, that all I need to do now is the La Malle 24-hour race. That's next on my list to complete the Triple Crown of motorsport, or at least participating in all of them. So yeah, very thankful for that experience. And yeah, let's get to Frankie. What do you think? Let's do it. Never thought I'd say this, but let's have our conversation with Frankie Mudes.

All right, as mentioned, we have an incredible guest, a man who has been on the television. television more times than I, a man who has been in films more times than I, a professional race car driver, a person who has really almost done more with his life than I think most other humans have. Frankie Munez, thank you for being here. We appreciate this. Your first NASCAR weekend has been accomplished. How are we feeling you look great?

The beach is back there. I mean, this is NASCAR life, huh? It is. I mean, if this is NASCAR live, it's a pretty nice life. I'm mad I waited so long to get into this. No, as soon as my race ended, I'd apply to Cancun for my sister's wedding. And it's the reason why I didn't win, because I was like, I can't win because I'm going to want to stay on Sunday. You know, like, you know, I can't pass up a wedding.

So, but no, it was honestly one of the most incredible experiences of my entire life. I mean, you've been, you've raced in massive races. You know, you does, I mean, obviously the Daytona 500, you know, this weekend. But like there was something about being at Daytona, starting the race, being in that pack, you can't put into words what it felt like to race that way. You know, I come from a background similar to you with more open wheel stuff, which, you know, you get some wheel-to-wheel contact, but not like in the stock cars where like, that's kind of the name of the game.

You've got to hit each other a little bit, you know what I mean, to be quick. And it was wild. I'm still thinking about it and I almost feel like it didn't happen to me because it felt like an adified of experience. For sure. Frankie, you mentioned your background, right? We met many years ago. Like, you, for those, like there's a lot of people who listen to our podcast, Open Wheel fans, right? And we appreciate every time you mentioned IndyCar when you kind of first announced that you were going to this NASCAR adventure.

And a lot of people will remember you from the Atlantic Championship Series days. because like you were racing that when I just got into cars as well, and I thought that was so cool, obviously. And that was a very competitive series when you were doing that. Like very good teams, very good drivers. And obviously it's a completely different atmosphere. But was there anything that you think that you could take to this arc of debut? And then look, I'm an open wheel guy.

I did the Daytona 500. Completely different. But you're still a race car driver, right? you still get it. There's still certain things. What do you think was the, like, the biggest thing that you learned and what was the thing where you were like, okay, I'm used to this. This is race day. I get it. So I was honestly like, I was a wreck the whole week, the whole of Daytona week. Even watching you guys in the Doles standing in the head lane, I felt sick to my stomach watching you guys go by because I'm like, shoot, that's what I'm about to do.

like I wanted to do I want this but like am I sure you know what I mean but I compared the two like IndyCar or open wheel stuff and saw car racing to like saying Olympic swimming and Olympic diving are the same sports because they both in by involve fools sure I got to read car driver's mentality so I understand like what I got to do and you know how to go fast but like the racing style is different everything about it is different even like I've never strapped myself in the car yeah you know yeah I'm like Like, you're going to strap me in? Like, I've been strapped in every time I've ever got in a car, you know. So very, very different.

But, you know, it is hard for me to say I could take anything from my paths because it's also been 14 years since I've been in a race car. You know what I mean? I mean, I think my racing hiatus is older than some of the Arka drivers. Make sense. Frankie, sorry. I was late. Great to meet you, Joy, Molyneiro. I was actually changing the diaper of my son,

who is his name actually is Frankie. Really? I don't know funny. Nice. We got that going on, right? First off, one, two, thank you for creating the masterpiece that is Big Fat Liar. It's one of my all-time favorites. It's a classic.

Gotta love it. But to your point and what you guys were talking about with the different styles of IndyCar, different styles of racing, I know you were on part of my take last year. And you had that quote that we actually capitalized. on where you're saying like IndyCar is probably the most competitive. I know that kind of spread like wildfire out there. People are probably coming at you. But, you know, do you still stand by that?

You know, is there a way that you want to kind of relay it to people to where it's, hey, I'm not bashing on another racing guy. I'm just saying how many car is. Yeah. So, I mean, I said that because when I think of, you know, Formula One, you think of even NASCAR, right? NASCAR is a little closer to IndyCar in the sense that you don't really know who's going to win,

but you know there's some powerhouse teams. You know, there's some guys who are used to charge the front. When I watch an IndyCar race, I think that like there's 24 guys start in the race. 22 of them can win. And, you know, with the pitch strategy, all that kind of stuff, I think it's a really, really ultra-competitive series. You know, obviously racing in the NASCAR world now,

you know, I have, now that I've done, I have one race under my belt, one NASCAR race under my belt. But like, you know, Daytona is a little different than obviously other places that we're going to go. You know what I mean? You got to have a bass car. You know, you're packed together. The restrictor play. The racing is so tight. You're really, for the first 75% of the race, just trying to avoid being involved in someone else's best.

You know what I mean? And then you go racing. but no, I don't want people to think the NASCAR world to think that I'm bashing NASCAR at all. I just am a fan of motorsport completely 100%. I love watching anything that has wheels racing I watch. And, you know, I do stand by the fact that I think that

from a competitive standpoint of the unknown of who's really going to lead a race or win a race in IndyCar, it's pretty crazy. You know, that's also coming, you know, formal ones having such a huge, you know, popularity, spike right now. And I kind of want people who have learned or found Formula One in the past year or two, you know, maybe drive to survive to understand that like if you get into IndyCar, I promise you you'll love it more because you're really, you don't know who's going to win each

race. You know what I mean? Like where Formula One, it's, you know, it's going to be probably two teams, you know what I mean, at the front. And people say the best Formula One races are the ones that they crash out or it rains and you get a random guy to win. So like, you know, that's, why I like Indy car in comparison to form. I love the one as well, but in comparison, I just think it's, it's more fun with the guys having the same car, same, well, I guess there's Honda and Chevy, but you know what I mean, same package and makes the racing really tight. It's honestly really cool that you say that because a lot of what you just said, we have said for many times on this podcast, like, we appreciate all forms of motorsport, right? Like, I love watching every type of

racing I can watch on the weekend, I'm going to be watching it, right? And if you're a professional at the top level of both NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula One, you're one of the best drivers in the world. It doesn't matter what area you're in, right? So it's cool that you respect that, you understand that because you're a race car driver. You get it. And you're just a professional human. Well, that said, I could also maybe make some of the IndyCar guys mad at me. Because I'll say this, having now raced stock cars, right, can I did a bunch of late model stuff? this past year to get, you know, kind of get up to speed up. I've never been on ovals. You know, I've never been in stock car. And then doing this Daytona race, I'm not bad of what I did in the

past. I'm mad that I didn't do stock car stuff sooner. Because the racing, you know, I don't know from like a fan perspective, but inside the car, there is nothing more intense that I've ever been a part of than being, well, even in, not even just in the Daytona race, but even in the late bottle stuff because, you know, being able to kind of bang wheel to wheel, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know. You know, I never race indie cars on an oval or open wheel stuff on an oval. So maybe it's as similar in that sense. But I don't know. Like it's the most intense thing ever done. And like I'm, uh, I don't know. I don't think I could ever race anything else now. I'm obsessed with that car stuff. Yeah. And I mean, speaking about that, right? Like I spent the

beginning of that race, your arc race in your pit box, I was, I was tuning in checking it out. and I want to know what that's like because for me it was very new as well just on the Sunday, right? And it's running in that pack. The Arca races are crazy. Like for those who don't watch Arca, you know, there's a lot of inexperienced drivers

in that series. Like, let's be honest, a lot of people trying to make their way, a lot of youthful folks. But it can be some of the best racing of the weekend because there's crazy stuff happening. People, cars are exploding and catching on fire, there's wild stuff that's happening. What was the moment in that rate?

Because you were like running in the top 15, top 10, a lot of that race. I was paying attention, see what was going on. You even got involved in one of the incidents at some point. They were cleaning stuff off the car. There was something happening. What was there? How many things happened in that race where you were like, didn't expect that? And then like, what was the most fun part of it?

Was it trying to get to that finish line, trying to get through all the chaos? Well, we made a plan, you know, going into the race. obviously it's really hard to make a plan for day tall them. Because you've got to be, you can't lose a draft, you got to stay in that draft, got to stay close. But you know, you get one guy to mess up in the front and it could take out 20 cars. And you're just a, you're just a victim. You know what I mean?

So our plan was like, look, we're going to get to the bottom, stay on the inside, and stay there for until at least halfway. We don't want to try to make any moves, you know. And, you know, my head I'm going, okay, I'm going to listen to what you guys said. You know, especially by spotter. You know, his name is Branky Campbell. he spots for Daniel Suarez and the cup car like everyone who I say is my spotter

like oh he's the best spotter like listen to what he said so I'm like I'm going to do whatever he tells me to do and I did that we move forward a little bit I think we were in the top 10 for a little bit we moved back to like 17 move back to the top 10 but once that halfway point came across we were like okay we're going to the front and within two

or three laps I think we went from 17 the third and a caution came out and maybe I shouldn't have said this but like you know it just felt so good, but I'd go, I came on the radio, I'd go, we can win this fucking race. Sorry, you, excuse me. Yeah.

You know what I mean? We have the car to do it. I was best in practice. You know what I mean? I was right there, getting the battles. I was doing what I needed to do. I felt comfortable. I felt confident once I was in the car.

Our thing was like, we want to be where we needed to be at the end of the race. We got up there. And with a thing about 10 to go, I was in third and someone hit me from behind pretty hard, would send us up the track into like two or three other cars. And on film, it looks like nothing. but it caused a lot of damage and caution came out and they go we got a pit and I'm like

oh like I'm in third like I'm here are you sure like there's nothing worse than like you know having a tire go out or right front go out you know what I mean at Daytona so yes you need to come in so we pit I think I came out in like 35th and with two laps to go I was in 24th

and I ended up finishing 11 so I was pretty ecstatic with that comeback you know mean, the fact that I battled, I kept my foot in it, I did everything they asked to be, and I felt really comfortable doing it. That said, sorry, talk a lot. That said, I get out of the car and I go, that was the craziest thing I've ever done in my life. I love that. I think back and I'm like, I can't believe that was me. You know what I mean? So I'm thrilled, but really looking forward to the rest of the season and, you know, happy to show that hopefully people think that we belong, you know what I mean? I know I've got to prove a lot on the smaller track,

the short old was all half by all was those are going to be the tough ones for not for me, but like, you know, just get 30 minutes of practice and then you go into the race. You know, you don't get a lot. So I got a lot to learn, but I'm excited. Where was the last time you're at the Indianapolis 500, Frankie? That I was at it?

Yeah. To be honest, I only have ever made it to Saturday, like, you know, what is that, Carb Day? Or Friday's Carb Day, yeah. Yep. So I've only ever made it to Carb Day. and always had to leave. I've actually never witnessed the Indy 500 in person.

Oh, we're going to have to change that one. Well, we race at Charlotte on Friday, you know, of the 500 weekend. Yes. And we're like, we're done Friday night. We should come up for the race on Sunday. Yes, you should. You're welcome anytime. You can be against the Speed Street. He won't be there. It'll be great. You could go from Charlotte to Indie and then from Indy back to Charlotte after the 500. you can do the Cocoa Sixth of it. Yeah.

True. Do it all. And trying to get executive platinum status. So, you know, the more flag I do the better. There you go. So Frankie, what you mentioned other tracks. There's a very diverse schedule in the ARCA series, I would say. What tracks do you think you're looking forward to most? Because as you said, short tracks might be tough. That's a very different style. A lot of, you know, maybe moving people out of the way with the bumper type stuff.

the super speedways are kind of, you know, hey, it's a bit of a roll of a dice. We get that. But what tracks do you think you're looking forward to most this year on the schedule? I mean, obviously, we do 10 races with NASCAR, with Cuff. Those are the big 10, right? So we got Daytona, Talladega, Phoenix, which is our next race, which is my hometown, Charlotte, Pocono, Michigan, Kansas. So obviously, all those tracks, I'm excited to just because as a race fan to get to race, Solomon is going to be fun. They're going to be really high speed, crazy, crazy racing.

But then the cool thing about ARCA is like, you know, we're in, you know, at Pocono one week, and then that Sunday, I think, or at Watkins Glen on Friday. And on Sunday, we're at the Illinois State Fairgrounds, you know, racing on dirt. You know what I mean? I'm, I've never been on dirt, yeah, on anything. I tried it in eye racing once, just this last week. And I was like, if this is how it's going to be, I should probably start at Park. But no, you know, obviously races I'm most excited for our day. Taledega now that I know that we've got a great super speedway car. Now that I have the Daytona under my belt, I'm really excited for that. And then the two road courses, you know, that's my background. I hope I could capitalize on those, you know, with the championship, you know, as long as I kind of stay close, you know, hopefully I could capitalize on some of these tracks that I know that I should excel at and still be in the hunt, you know, for the championship at the end of the year. You know, anything can happen to anybody, right?

during the season. You know, the championship contender could have a few, you know, wrecks in a row or be taken out two times in a row, and it tightens the field up pretty, pretty close. So,

you know, it's hard for me to say, I've never been anywhere on the schedule except for Mid-Ohio, like literally that's the only way as I've been. And, but I'm, I'm excited for the challenge that it's going to be

because it is going to be a challenge, and I know that. I know they've got a very steep learning curve, but I'm putting in every amount of effort than I can to make this, make this year, successful as possible as possible because who knows, this might be my last year on racing, right, unless this one goes well. You know what I mean? So I've learned to be able to look back

at the things I've done and it's taught me to be more appreciative and to take advantage of opportunity when it's put in front of me. And it's here in front of me right now and I want to, I don't want to look back and go, man, I wish I tried harder, you know, so I'm, I'm working real hard. Yeah. So I mean, obviously you're looking at right in front of you right now, but I got to know just like an ideal where like your dream scenario I guess like it would be end of the road here and racing what is that for you well you know obviously I would like I did take a long break I'm I don't want to call myself old for the sport but I'm 37 years old you know I know if I want to make it to cut I've got to progress pretty quickly like I've got to show that I belong

really quick to move with the trucks or expediting and kind of work my way up you know but The end goal obviously would be to race as long as I can as a driver, but I really want to be involved in the sport in some capacity. And I think the best way for that is for me to be a team owner. So we're kind of looking at that, like, you know, even though it's in the distance, you know, my priority is race is driving. But looking at it with the perspective of like, how do we get to that end goal and be involved in the sport for a long time and maybe have more respect in the sport because I was maybe a successful driver and not just, you know, an actor slash driver who wants to be a team owner. So is that, how do you want to do that NASCAR or what, any kind of

series? I mean, yeah, I really, look, like I said, I love racing. You know, I'm a, I'm a big Indy car fan. I'm a bit, I watch everything. But I really do like the NASCAR world now that I've kind of gone into it too. You know what I mean? It's a little great. crazier with like the schedules because you know you get what they do 36 race the year um you know not many off days but i mean even like a lot of the the races are one day or two day events you know what i mean like they they really kind of compact the schedule which is both good and bad bad for someone like me who needs track time i need friday practice i need saturday me too qualify but at the same time like you know, you kind of, you show up and you do it.

And I don't know, you hope for the best. But I kind of like that. I don't know. I mean, my plan right now is to say, yeah, I'm going to be involved in the NASCAR world, long term. That would be awesome. I can expand to an IndyCar team later on. I don't know. You know, when it's major success, yeah, you'll be fine.

Frankie, I know, like, you're obviously a dad now. And this is, is this something that with your son, you feel like that that's got to be a cool experience. Joey just had a kid as well, and, you know, that's got to be something that you and your wife, I mean, bringing your kid to the racetrack and him getting to watch his dad drive race cars, I mean, that's got to be a cool thing. I never really got to see my dad race because I was too young, right? But like your son, I feel like is definitely old enough to start, hey, we're starting to realize what's going on here. And that's got to, that's got to be cool for you guys, right?

Well, he loves cars. Like, any, oh my, like, he's obsessed. When he was at the track, like, he was just flipping out at every single, you know, race car he saw. He sees him on TV. I was watching some European Le Mans race, you know, before he went to sleep. And he's like, oh, well, he just loves it. You know, I think he's a little too young to understand that daddy's getting in there. You know what I mean?

And doing it, but, you know, pretty soon, I think he'll think it's pretty badass. And I think, I don't to say that's why I did it. I just wanted to give him something to look up to, you know what I mean? But like everything was in my past. Like I kind of felt like I could tell him stories. Oh, Daddy used to do this. I used to do that. You know, look at me back then.

And I'm like, no, I want him to see me growing up. I want him to see me while growing up reaching for a goal, like working really, really hard for something. And I love the racing world. And I've always felt like I had unfinished business in the racing world. And, you know, I just, I thought it would be a lot of fun for him in that sense. I hope he appreciates it, you know, because I was pretty nervous getting in the car the other day, man. I'm not going to lock. Like, it hit me.

I'm like, wait, I'm doing this for my son, but like, I don't want to get hurt for him. Right. Yeah. Connor mentioned it with my little guy. I kind of joke. I've joked about it on this show when different people in our life of like, yeah, you know, we're getting him ready to race C-Ny-5-100 in 2050, right? Like, he's going to be a little race car driver, right?

Is that something, you mentioned with wanting to potentially. gave him to ownership someday. Is that kind of in the back of your mind as well saying, hey, I get my own teams. My little guy can be a race car driver, like kind of said, I'm up with that. Well, you know, someone's got to keep the Munez racing logo, you know, a lot, right? Someone's got to teach the color. You know, it's funny. I always say like, always going to be a driver.

Oh, for sure. But I'll say this. He's two. When he falls and scrapes his knee, it is like life, like it kills me. You know what I mean? So I think about like, I don't know how I'd feel like seeing him like getting a car or cart or a whenever, right? Knowing, obviously there's a danger aspect. But like, you know, I don't want to hold him back.

So if he wants the race, I'll try to make that happen as best as possible. You know, but I don't know. It's weird once you become a dad, like your father. Like me, I always go like, oh, he's going to be a race car driver. He's going to be a race car driver. He's going to be a race car driver. Now that he's like, too, I'm like, I don't know. Maybe he'll just be a scientist.

You know what I mean? Maybe golf. Yeah, maybe golf. You know, something like that. But, you know, we'll see. We'll see what he wants to do. Man, Frankie, I don't want to take up too much your time because it looks like there's great things to be done down there. But I appreciate you being there for the duel with me after the race, too.

It was great to have you there and your boys. That was a wild night in itself. It was all. Honestly, that was one of the cool. experience is my life. Like, just being a friend of you. I don't know if it was for me. Yeah. I know, I know, but like just, look, you know, you made it. And like running down to LA to like congratulate you. It was just cool. Like, and that's what I mean. Like, that's like the world I want my son to grow up in. Like, there is that like carottery and like your room for

people. It's like a little tight-knit family, you know, and I was just happy to that I could be there for that moment for you because it was just, it was cool as a friend and a fan. You know what I mean, so I can't about to how you felt. Well, man, I mean, I mean, racing is a family, right? Like, I appreciate your friendship over the years. Like, even no matter what you've done, we've always kept in touch, which is cool. And to see you get to do this now, I honestly think it's a great, it's a great thing to do. I think it's an adventure that you could have a lot of fun with and a lot of success with. I think it's, and you're respecting the whole ladder system too, like, hey, we're going to start an arc. We're going to get, we're going to get

our feet underneath us here and see what happens. happen. And we also love that you're still an IndyCar fan as well. Like we appreciate that. And before we let you go, I want to get a quick speculation on who you think will be the two best

in the IndyCar Championship this year. Who's going to be the two best drivers in the IndyCar Championship, putting you on the spot. No big deal. This is an IndyCar show. Let's hear it. Let me appreciate that. But anyone else? I don't know.

Is there anyone, I don't, I haven't, I'm not saying I haven't been a good enough band to where, like, I know there's some new guys coming into some seats, right? Oh, yeah. You have a couple young rookies. But that's the tough thing with IndyCar. It's really hard to, like, pick someone who's going to run away with the championship, right? Because that's why I'm so competitive, right? You know, I don't think anyone, I'm not saying no one expected, allow to, you know, hello, out of, to win the championship. but like in my head he came out of nowhere

but he had a great year, you know what I mean? Agreed. You know who is going to be strong because they're always strong, you know what I mean? Someone has to do with luck too. Oh yeah. With someone, the oval race that you guys have, but I don't know, I'm not really answering.

All right, that's fine. You can say Joseph Newgarden, it's fine, I get it. He's going to be good. Yeah. I don't necessarily root four people. I usually root against. people. I just don't want to see people win. And I'm not saying New Garden is one

other people will win, but he wins a lot. So you know, you can hand him to someone else, then you know, I'll be happy for that. Well, man, we appreciate you coming on the show. Great to hear about your first experience, honestly. I'm excited to see how the rest of the year goes. They almost had 900,000 people watching

that first archer race. I mean, great ratings. Everything is exciting. You got a great partner with Hair Club. Met that guy to CEO. He's a great guy. So Frankie, thank you so much. We have very much enjoyed having you a part of this Speed Street show, and good luck on the rest of the season. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you guys, and let's keep it going this year, both of us.

Let's have good years, all of us, all three of us. Oh, yeah, brother. We know we're all. We'll teach you to Andy for the five-five years. Someday. Yeah, for sure. It would be awesome. All right, buddy.

All right, guys. Famous actor, both the television. vision and on the big screen, Frankie Munez, who is now turned over to the professional motorsport world. Love to see it. Great conversation with them. Thanks for setting that up, Connor. What a cool relationship that is to have. Absolutely. Well, we both have the same manager now, so thankfully we do have a good access there. And great guy overall, known him since I was a young lad in the racing world. But as always, we're going to finish our show with the Ricky Treadway Random Indy 500 Driver the week.

I thought about doing a random Daytona 500 driver the week, but no. It's IndyCar season now. We're coming back. There are plenty of random in Daytona 500 drivers we can look up at some point. But I decided to go with the 1962 Indy 500, won by Roger Ward. I went down to the 32nd place finisher in 1962. Chuck Rody. Chuck Rody is the 32nd place finisher.

Chuck Rody, which is very interesting. American race car driver, but he died while attempting to qualify for the 1966 Indy 500. So that's very sad. But again, that was a dangerous era of IndyCar racing. I mean, he did two Indy 500s, 1962 and 65, and obviously passed away while trying to qualify for the 66 Indy 500. Looks like the best finish was 27. But yeah, Chuck Rody, new, let's see, where is he from? Well, he won the Fort Wayne Indoor Midget car title in 1955,

Fort Wayne, Indiana, there we go. And then 1956 second in the USAC National Midget points. So yeah, that's wild. Chuck Rody passed away trying to qualify for the Indy 500. He put it all on the line. So we got to give him some credit for putting it all in the line at the ending up starter speedway. He did.

Rest and peace to Chuck. Appreciate that. Put it on the line just like you did over the weekend, bro. Wow. You put all the line, battle up against it. You know, the odds were against you and he came through. So again, congrats. And I know we're all super proud of you.

Looking forward to the 2023 with IndyCar or the other NASCAR races that you're going to do. It's going to be great. So yeah, Frankie Munez, appreciate him. Hope you enjoyed that conversation. we are full on folks. Next time that we talk to you, it'll be officially a race week

in the 2023 IndyCar series season. So can't wait for that. Be sure to follow us at Speed Street Pod, Twitter, and Instagram. Share the show with a friend. Catch us on wherever you get your podcast. Download, follow, subscribe, leave us a rating,

leave us a review. And we're going to be fully into this thing. We love hearing from you. Can't wait to hear from you in the paddock. I know I'm going to be down in St. Pete. Obviously, counter's going to be down in St. Pete. I actually got the invite to the Arab McLaren a little, what do they call it?

A little hospitality party place on Saturday night. Oh, wow. Yeah, so I'm going to go head over there. Bing McLaren guy. Check out what they got to offer. Probably get the cold shoulder from Alex Rossi, but it's all good. Alex and Rossi, remember, yeah. Yeah, exactly.

All right. For Counter Daily, Ben Baldwin, 31 Media, Speed Street. We'll talk to you next time. It's Race Week on Speed Street.