WHOOP Podcast - NASCAR Driver Aric Almirola on life in the driver’s seat and the importance of recovery

Episode Date: September 1, 2021

Hot cars, high speeds, and hours of deep focus are required to excel in racecar driving. NASCAR driver Aric Almirola shares firsthand what it’s like to be in the driver’s seat and manage the physical and mental strains that come with being a professional driver. Aric discusses how his grandfather inspired him to start racing (3:08), the injuries he's dealt with and the toll racing takes on your body (5:12), driving a car in a 140 degree cockpit (9:45), the G-Load of racing (11:11), how he focuses while driving at 200 miles per hour (20:01), finding the flow state (21:18), the importance of hydration (22:28), overcoming adrenal fatigue (28:15), sleep and sleep consistency (33:42), his keys to success (35:19), and the NASCAR-WHOOP Live integration (41:41). Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

what's up folks welcome back to the whoop podcast where we sit down with top athletes researchers scientists and more to learn what the best in the world are doing to perform at their peak and what you can do to unlock your own best performance i'm your host will amid founder and ceo of whoop where we are on a mission to unlock human performance now we got a great guest for you this week, NASCAR driver Eric Almerola. But before I get to Eric, I want to talk a little bit about some WOOP news. We announced this week that WOOP raised $200 million in a new financing, valuing the business at $3.6 billion.

Woop is now the most valuable, wearables, business in the world, which is pretty amazing. And I want to thank all of our Woop members out there, especially the ones listening right now. Thank you so much for believing in our mission and wearing whoop and continuing to support the company. Okay, second announcement. We're excited to share that next week on September 8th at 12 p.m. Eastern Time,

I'll be hosting the first ever Woop Unlocked, a live virtual event you won't want to miss. You can tune in to hear from some of the best athletes and thought leaders in the world. You're going to hear about some of the groundbreaking research that we're doing. And I think what you'll all be most excited by is new WOOP. technology that we are rolling out this is going to be really exciting i don't want to spoil it but just trust me you're going to want to be there for this it's great great great new technology uh you can head over to unlock dot whoop dot com to rsvp for that and without further ado let's get back to eric almerolo so eric shares firsthand what it's like to be in the nascar driver's seat

and manage the physical and mental strains that come with being a professional driver and get we're bringing whoop live to NASCAR. So you can see the type of toll racing takes on the drivers. If you were watching last weekend, you would have seen heart rates during the Daytona. It was pretty amazing. Those heart rates get high. NASCAR drivers put an enormous amount of strain on their bodies.

Eric's regularly putting up 20 plus strains behind the wheel. The inside of the car can reach up to 140 degrees. And Eric says he loses 6 to 8 pounds during a race. It's pretty wild. We talked a lot about the extreme. focus that this requires and the overall intensity of the sport. So Eric's a big whoop guy. We talked about his whoop data. He's highly scientific and he's really focused on making those tiny adjustments, real growth mindset. I think this is a fascinating conversation.

And then don't forget, you can use the code Will Ahmed if you want to get 15% off a whoop membership. That's WI-L-H-M-E-D. Without further ado, here is Eric. Eric, welcome to the Wolf Podcast. Hey, what's going on, Will? Thanks for having me, buddy. So did you always know you were going to be a race car driver? I didn't always know I would be a race car driver, but I always wanted to be a race car driver. I grew up watching my grandfather race.

So, you know, I was a young boy going to the racetrack, watching him race. And he was my hero. He was, you know, he was so cool that he drove a race car, a dirt sprint car at 140 miles an hour. and he was successful. So I looked up to him very much. And I played all sorts of other sports. I played baseball, basketball, ran track. I even played volleyball.

But I always had a passion for racing way more than anything else. And so I did it as a hobby and hoped that I could do it for a career one day, but never really thought that it would pan out. So you began racing go-carts when you were eight years old. old. That's right. Yeah. So my grandfather, like I said, he was, he was racing. And when he retired, he retired when he was about 50, 49, 50 years old, and bought me a go card. I was eight. And did he ever say to you like, oh, you seem like you're good at this? Or was it more just, you know, have fun out there? So it started out as fun. You know, like I said, I keep referring

back to my grandfather, but my grandfather had raced most of his life, most of his adult life. So he was at a point to where he was ready to retire. He had a business, an auto body business that he was running. So go-kart racing was just something for us to do together to go have fun and enjoy. And then as soon as I started having a little bit of success, my grandfather ramped it up to kind of his natural ways and took it very seriously. And we got super competitive at it when we started traveling all over the country. So by the time I was 10, 11 years old, we were traveling.

all over the country, go-kart racing, trying to go win national titles and stuff. So we took it very seriously once I showed a little bit of signs of success. Now, did you have any moments in that process where you got in like really bad accidents? And you're sort of asking yourself like, wow, is this the right path for me? No, I never questioned if it was the right path for me, but I had gotten plenty of accidents. Yeah, I've broken so many bones in my body. Yeah, I've, you know, my, yeah. tip fib, arms, wrist, scapulas, collarbones, ribs, you know, fingers, all sorts of stuff.

So, yeah, my body's been through the ringer and, you know, I continue to put it through a lot just on the weekly grind, really. You know, the race car just takes its toll on the body because you're in kind of a violent environment anyway, just the compression and the bouncing around and the shaking, and then the just constant g-load, like on your spine and on your neck. Yeah, I'm going to have plenty of arthritis when I get older. Well, injuries are a fascinating thing to me in professional sports. And some injuries, you know, make you more risk averse, but some injuries actually make you more fearless. And it feels to me, just listening to your story, that having been through a lot of these different crashes in a way has taught you that it's part of the sport and made you,

if anything, maybe less fearful of crashing. But you tell me. It's something that a race car driver recognizes as part of what we do. And you just know, like, we're taking a machine and pushing it to its very limit. And sometimes you don't know where the limit is until you cross over that line. And when you cross over that line, usually you wreck. So yeah, I think It's just part of what we do and you accept the risk and going into it, you try to do all the things you can to minimize the risk, right? So I wear all the proper safety gear I can. You know, I wear fireproof no-mex underwear, long sleeve from my neck all the way down to my toes. I have socks, long pants, and a long-sleeve shirt that go on under a three-layer no-mex fire suit.

suit. Wow. And then along with fireproof gloves, fireproof shoes, a helmet, you know, and all of those things. Then I wear a head and neck restraint that restrains my neck so that in an impact that I don't overextend my my cervix spine and snap my neck. And then the seats and the seat belts and all the things that we do, we do it to minimize risk and to be as safe as we possibly can, but still at the end of the day, we know that driving a race car is a pretty risky job. And we accept that risk. And it's what I love to do. And when I'm in the race car and I'm going fast and, you know, kind of on that adrenaline high, you don't really think about it. You're just thinking about going as fast as you can and beating, you know, all of the competitors

they're out on the racetrack with you. It's fascinating. Now, if I put on that suit right now, Would I just immediately start sweating? You would. Yeah, you would. It would be, so I tell people it would be like wearing long johns or like thermal underwear on with like two layers of flannel pajamas on over that. Wow. Yeah. So we wear that.

Not only do we wear that, we wear that inside of a race car that gets up to about 130 to 140 degrees depending on the time of year. This is a good segue to just how. intense race car driving is on your body. And I know you've been wearing whoop too. I think most people really underappreciate how athletic you have to be to compete in these races. Just talk about the stress that it puts on your body. Yeah. So we touched on just a little bit of the environment inside the race car. So that's the number one thing that I would say is an outlier from anything else that people, you know, can associate with, with athletes, you know, you, you look at all sticking ball sports or any other sort of sport. And the environment is really only as extreme as

the, you know, the outside environment. So if it's, you know, freezing cold, then it's going to be freezing cold. If it's 95 degree a day, then it's going to be a hot, humid 95 degree day. For race car drivers, it's different. Our environment is inside that race car. And, And if it's a cold, cool, crisp day, it's going to be 125 degrees inside the race car. If it's a hot, humid day, it's going to be humid and it's going to be 140 degrees inside the race car. Because no matter what the external temperatures are, we have an engine sitting in front of us that runs about 300 degrees. We have an oil tank sitting right behind our back that runs about 340, 360 degrees. We have brakes on the car that are operating at about 12 to 1,400 degrees.

So there's just so much heat. There's so much heat in the race car that it all radiates through the cockpit into where we sit. So it is very, very hot inside the race car. Then on top of that, we're driving the race car. Like, we're not just, like, out on a Sunday drive. Like, we're driving and manhandling the car and we're trying to lock down all. of our muscles because you're trying to make very fine, like, micro movements. If you just stall on the steering wheel like this, the car will kind of be squirrely and out

of control. So you have all of your muscles, your trap, your lats, your core, everything is locked down, trying to make very just precise movements. And then on top of that, you have the car is bouncing around on the racetrack. And then you have the G load of going around the racetrack. So we're pulling two and a half to three Gs at some of these racetracks. So you do that for three and a half hours. It takes a toll on your body.

So, you know, as it relates to whoop, I've been wearing whoop for a little while now. And I've always just kind of known what my body goes through. And I've worn different heart rate straps in the race car before and stuff like that, just to have an idea of what's going on inside the race car. But it wasn't until I started wearing whoop that I really understand. understood, like, what the actual strain was throughout the entire day. So waking up in the morning, doing all of the meet and greets and appearances and all those things that I do, then hopping in the race car, then, you know, running the race,

then leaving the racetrack, getting on an airplane, going home, and then still having all that adrenaline built up in your body and getting a horrible night's sleep. Right. Wow. Yeah. The night after a race, because you can't go to sleep. Like, even if, no matter if you have a terrible race or you have an awesome race, like your adrenaline levels are so high, you just keep thinking about the race and kind of replaying the race through your head, like that night's sleep is terrible.

So the first weekend I ever wore whoop, I got a 20.6 on my day strain. Wow. So, yeah, it's pretty intense. You know, the first thing that's interesting that you called out is this idea that doing the meet and greets accumulate a fair amount of strain. I can't tell you how many athletes have told me that they totally underestimated just how media, even signing autographs for fans, like it puts just this additional load on your body

that, of course, you're not factoring in. You don't think you're doing anything during those periods of time. But it can actually just add an additional layer of load to your body that over time can create a feeling of overtraining or over stress. Absolutely. And I think physically like you're not really doing anything like of high exertion right like totally you're just smiling and carrying on like some casual conversation but i think what it is and something that i've recognized especially over the years is just that you're on right like when you're in the comfort of your own like friends or family or whatever like you can just feel more decompressed but when you're in front of people that you are unfamiliar with or that

your sponsors or whatever like you're on and when you're on you are just everything is more heightened and elevated and it does it does take more of a toll on your body and that is something that I have underestimated for sure now the race itself what preparation do you do from like a mental standpoint before a race how much of it have you visualized you know what are you thinking about from a nutritional standpoint. Yeah. So there's a lot that goes in, you know, pre-race to getting prepared. You know, obviously talking about the engineering of the car going to the race is something of important. So I normally spend the first part of the week when we get home from the races. I spend that first part of the week kind of going through what happened at the previous race.

and then what are we going to do going to this race coming up? So we kind of do post-event analysis and then pre-race planning. And through that pre-race planning is talking about the car setup. There's a lot of engineering and planning and stuff that goes into the setup of the car for what racetrack we're going to. So we go through that. And then I do a lot of film studies. So I watch a lot of the previous races and kind of study the track as the track evolves

throughout a race. It changes and the line of where the groove is changes. And so there's a lot of dynamics that play into a race that I'm constantly trying to evaluate from previous history. And then, you know, from a visualization standpoint, yeah, I watch some inquiries. car footage of not only myself, but of other drivers to try and pick up on, hey, if I was, if I was getting beat by somebody else at this particular event, what were they doing? What were they doing different than me?

You try and kind of study these small different techniques and things to try and figure out maybe what they're doing to gain an advantage at that particular track. What would be an example of that, like one of these little techniques? I would say one of the examples would be like, we're going to go to Michigan. this weekend and so i would say an example is okay i'm driving in there might be uh there might be a hump going across the back crossover gate getting into turn three at michigan and you've never been to michigan so you don't know this but there's a crossover gate where where uh safety vehicles and things can cross over the racetrack well because of that crossover gate and cars going across

there it's created a little dip in the racetrack well that dip is a reference point so I might say let off the gas right before that dip getting into the corner in turn three at Michigan, but I might watch a competitor and see that on his data or on his in-car camera, he's actually driving across the bump still wide open throttle and then letting off the gas. Now, letting off earlier could allow me to get back to the gas earlier in the corner so that I carry more exit speed off the corner, or I could get into the corner harder and it could make my car kind of plant in the corner harder and give my car more grip. I don't know until I try that, but that's a different technique on like how you let off the gas, where you let off the gas, how much brake pressure

do you use? Do you really desel the car by using more brake pressure? Or do you use light brake pressure and let the car kind of free roll and coast? There's a lot of different things that the driver can do. In the process of training, will you practice a very specific technique? Like, will you say, okay, I'm going to do a bunch of reps, so to speak, that are, I'm going to be open throttle into the corner, hope the corner holds the car and then accelerate or, you know, like the opposite what you were describing where, like, I'm going to hit the break and then I'm going to go into the corner and then I'm going to, like, will you try to do those over and over again? Yes. And to add to that, one of the things that is, you know, constantly moving is the fact that as we run, the tires get worse and worse. We wear the tires out, right? So eventually the tires get really worn out and we have to pit for new tires. So not only will different techniques make more or less speed on the racetrack, you might have a technique that makes your car go a little bit faster. And by a little bit faster, I

I mean, at Michigan, we'll run lap times of about 39 seconds. You're talking about a tenth of a second. We're looking for a tenth of a second, you know, and at 200 miles an hour, we're covering a football field a second. So when you talk about a tenth of a second, it is a small, small margin that we're looking for. But you might go faster. You might go a tenth of a second, maybe two-tenths of a second,

doing one technique, but you could be putting way more load on the car and asking more out of the car throughout the duration of the run. So you could wear your tires out or wear your brakes out faster. And so later in that run, you'll actually go slower than if you were to be more conservative at the beginning of the run. So it's not always about just going fast for one lap either. You know, that's the balance is like, do you go fast for a couple of laps or can you go fast for a 40 lap run before you need to pit for tires again? So fascinating.

Now, have there been times during races where you felt more alert or less alert? I mean, in other sports athletes talk about a flow state when they like execute their very best. is there is there an analogy for that in your profession um i would say yeah of course um the one thing i would i would add to that is that i feel like we as race car drivers you kind of always have to be in that like hyper focused state that's what i would figure the adrenaline almost forces you do yeah we're on the ragged edge like literally we're on the ragged edge of the limit of the the machine the vehicle. And so if you are not hyper-focused and you make a mistake, you crash at 200 miles an hour and it hurts really, really bad. So, you know, that's one thing that I know for a fact

about, you know, a race car driver is that we live in in a constant state inside the race car of, you know, fighter flight, right? So like, yeah, adrenaline levels and cortisol levels and stuff are just really, really high. You know, we're thrill-seeking for three and a half hours. And we're doing it. And it's not like we're just doing it by ourselves on this, like, open racetrack. We're doing it with 39 other drivers who are unpredictable. You don't know exactly where they're going to place their car in the corner.

You're racing side by side with them at 200 miles an hour. So there's a chance not only that you could lose control of your car, but that they could lose control of their car racing next to you. You know, it reminds me a little bit of an interview I did with Alex Honnold, who's the famous climber from Free Solo, you know, Alex. And he was talking about why he loves free soloing so much because it almost, to your point, immediately puts him in the flow state because he has to be so insanely focused.

And he's executing at such a perfectionist level. because of course if he doesn't he dies right yeah exactly so i would say i would say that we're not you know we're not in that i'm not in that you know situation to where if i make a mistake i die but if i make a mistake i crash a 750 000 race car and i and the potential for injury is there for sure yeah no it's uh it's pretty fascinating so from it from a nutritional standpoint or supplement standpoint What are you putting in your body before a race like this? Well, it's really all week. You know, it's not just the race day meal.

It's all week. And I would say the most important thing for me that I've learned over the years is hydration. Because we've talked about the extreme environment inside the car and how hot it is, I lose six to eight pounds on average every race. Right. And so getting the hydration dialed in is key. And so that has been something that I worked on really, really hard over the years. Electrolites, high quality electrolytes. And the last couple of years, I've partnered up with Honeystinger and they've, you know, they've helped dial all that in for me and with me. But, you know, just making sure that I have, you know, the electrolytes topped off. My hydration levels are, you know, topped off going into a race, and then as soon as the race is over, immediately trying to get that replenished and trying to get that hydration back, trying to get my weight back. And so, yeah, I think hydration is number one.

And then second is food and in what I'm putting in my body for food. Clean eating is key. I don't follow any sort of specific diet per se other than I just try and eat things that are from the earth. You know, I try and eat animals that roam the earth. I try and eat, you know, plants and fruits and vegetables and all those things. I just try to eat super clean. But I've got two kids, too.

I've got a son who's almost nine. He'll be nine next week and then, or two weeks. And then I've got a daughter who's almost eight. So I certainly will indulge in, you know, a cookie or a bowl of ice cream with them. I can't let them eat that right in. front of me and not have a bite or two. So it's just about moderation and, you know, trying to, I live more of a 90-10 life to where I'm 90%, you know, pretty strict and really clean. And then, you know, I have cheap meals and I have pizza every once in a while and I'll eat ice cream

with my kids and, yeah, just try to not be overly strict to where I, to where I, you know, fall off the bandwagon and start binge eat. do you drink caffeine coffee or anything like that yeah i do i do drink caffeine um i'm i'm a one cup a day kind of guy uh every once in a while on a monday morning or something like that i might have a second cup and then i drink uh caffeine through my uh electrolyte you know mix so uh honey stinger has an electrolyte mix that has caffeine added in it i think it's 50 milligrams um of caffeine in it so I'll add that into my like pre-race drink and then I'll have one of those throughout the course of the race about halfway through the race. Yeah, it's interesting to think about across the whole profession what people might be consuming or not consuming.

I think the most common thing among professional race car drivers is just trying to figure out the electrolyte intake and what source you use and, you know, because cramping with the with the high heat and all the sweat loss. and all those things, you know, you can, it's pretty easy to cramp. And when I was early on in my career, that was something that happened to me kind of regularly, to be honest. And then once I got my hydration and nutrition dialed in, I haven't cramped, knock on wood, I haven't cramped in years, but I can tell you that it is very unpleasant to be in the middle of a race, strapped into a seat that, perfectly fits you. So like you are completely like surrounded by a headrest seat that comes

around your shoulders and then seat belts. Like you cannot move without except just your arms and your feet to move the pedals. The rest of your body can't move. So when you get a Charlie horse in your hamstring or you start in your cab or whatever, it is painful. It is. It's scary, but also it takes your focus away from driving the race car like we talked about being hyper focused you can't focus on driving the race car when you're starting to cramp up and you know you can't fix it like you can't stretch it out you can't move um it's it's not a good situation so yeah i would say electrolytes is is the one thing that race car drivers probably have in common on trying to trying to dial that in. You've talked in the past about overcoming adrenal fatigue. What have been

ways that you've fought that? I fought adrenal fatigue back 2015, 2014, 2015. I love to cycle. And cycling is the one thing that I feel like I can do that most closely relates the physical kind of heart rate, at least, strain that I see in the race. car for the same duration. Like I can go on a three-hour bike ride to train my heart rate for being in the race car for three hours. Like I can see that zone three, zone four heart rate for three hours on a bike and train for the race car. So back in 2014, 2015, I had like a two-year-old and a one-year-old, you know, and I was cycling all the time and putting, you know, going through the demands of flying here, flying there for sponsor appearances and

meet and greets, going through all the travel to the races and racing and just not resting. I had the mentality like I'll sleep when I die. Like that was literally my mentality. Like I've got the opportunity of a lifetime in front of me. I'm not going to squander it away. I'm going to train as hard as I can possibly train. I'm going to travel as much as I need.

need to travel to, you know, appease all of our sponsors and everybody. And so I was running and gunning all over the country, racing, training like crazy, and getting next to no sleep, like with, you know, two toddlers at home that were struggling to sleep through the night. So, I mean, it was, it was crazy. And I just, I would wake up feeling horrible and just go get after it again the next day and just train like crazy and travel like crazy and i finally got to a point to where my body was like no more like i went through bouts of insomnia and bouts of just like i'd get on my bike and i couldn't i couldn't do what i knew i was capable of like i couldn't put out the power that i used to be able to i couldn't ride for the duration that i used to without just feeling like

complete garbage um so yeah i just i got to a point to where i got to a breaking point and i started researching things and talking with my trainer and my cycling coach at the time and nutritionist at the time and and was like man i don't know like i'm following everything i'm following your workouts and doing you know everything right i'm eating right like all these things. And, you know, everybody was like, dude, you're just burn out. Like, you're going way too much. You're going way too hard. You're not, you're underestimating like how much all the traveling all over the country is taking a toll on your body. You're underestimating the stress of having, you know, two little toddlers at home. Um, and somebody, I don't even remember

who it was. Somebody said, you're, you're struggling with a common case of adrenal fatigue. And so I started researching adrenal fatigue and I kind of self-diagnosed, yeah, that's exactly what's going on. So got my rest back in order, started actually taking recovery days on Mondays after race weekends, started riding my bike, but riding at like low heart rates for, you know, longer durations and not just pushing myself to the edge all the time. And, yeah, I've gotten it to where now I'm in a really good place. What are you doing for sleep? Do you have a bedtime routine? If you find you have that adrenaline like you described after a race, you know, what are sort of things that you're able to do

to help unwind and help have high quality sleep? Sleep is tough on a race night. The night before a race, I sleep fine. Like years ago, there was nerves and you're just kind of excited and the anticipation and everything. But that was when I was kind of newer in the sport. And I think when I look at sports and I look at different things, I think that's one of the advantages that a veteran has over an athlete. Like you, you look at like the Super Bowl, right? Like Tom Brady's been to the Super Bowl, how many times? I bet you the night before a Super Bowl now he probably gets pretty good sleep because nobody's going to, you know, he's not nervous or doesn't know what to expect and all those things. And,

I guarantee you that a first-time quarterback to a Super Bowl is tossing and turning all night long and just amped up, excited, nervous, all these different things. And so, you know, the night before a race, for me now, I sleep like a baby. Like, I know what to expect. I know what's coming even before the big races. Like, I'm just in tune with it. And it's, I've kind of been there, done that. And so I sleep great.

The night after a race, I sleep horrible because, you know, we race. Our races start at 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon on Sundays, usually. And by the time the race is over at 6 or 7 o'clock, I hustled to the airport. I get home at 11 o'clock midnight. And finally, like, I get out of the shower and it's like, but my adrenaline levels are still sky high. and I'm evaluating the race through my head of what did I do good? What did I do bad? What should I have done?

What could I have done better? And so that night is usually a bad night of sleep. But then the rest of the week is very dialed in. Like I'm in bed, you know, 930, 10 o'clock almost every night without fail. And, you know, we get up around 6.6.30 every day to start our day. that's a lot of time in bed good for you right you're spending eight to nine hours in bed something like that yeah yeah i like i said i i used to uh have the mentality of i'll sleep when i die um i'm just gonna go hard and grind and just you know take full advantage of this opportunity of a lifetime to

be a professional race car driver and i realized that i was going to fail not only as a race car driver but as a human being um if i didn't take rest and sleep properly so yeah now I'm very regimented, very routine. And I would say as a family, we are as well. My wife is on board. My wife likes to go to bed early. She likes to get up early and start her day. So, yeah, we are, we're good sleepers. That makes a big difference, too, when you get the whole family in lockstep. So what does your recovery typically look like, you know, the days leading up to a race? And then what does it look like the day after a race? Is it like green, green red? Is that what we're talking about? Yeah, usually. Yeah. So it's usually green. I'm usually in the 80 to 90 percent recovery range days leading into an event. And then usually Sunday night. So when I wake up Monday, usually that recovery is in the red. Sometimes it could be yellow, but usually it's in the red. And then Tuesday is usually a green day. I'm usually right back that very next day. Let's talk a little bit about, you know, just motivation and how you think about your career and setting goals. You know, you just recently broke a 98 race winless streak. So congratulations. But at the same time, that's also, you know, that's a period of time where you're probably at various points saying, hey, what's it going to take for me to get back on that podium? You know, what do I need to do to win again? How did you work through that and ultimately, you know, now you're back at the top?

hard work, perseverance, and faith, really, just faith to know, like, that if I, if I just keep doing what I'm doing, like, it'll come. And we ran good. Like, through that 98 race, winless streak, like, I had so many podium finishes and top fives and top tens. And with our sport, it really is hard to judge, like, success. Because, you know, in team sports, there's a winner and a loser every game like you either get you either get a w or an l right like that's it there's there's no in between with individual sports much like golf and and other sports as well um you know that's that's not the case like there's you know making it to the quarter finals or the semi finals or the final match or whatever it is right or to make the cut or to make the top five like there's a lot of

different goals and so you know for a race car drive it's the same like there's one winner and there's 39 losers every single race and so if you have a phenomenal year like a breakout season and you just crush it you win three or four races that year like that's a great year just then out of this world year is winning six races maybe maybe seven right and and so to win a race a year or two races a year is a really solid year like that's a great year um to run top five is is hard to do and so there's there's 25 to 30 teams and drivers that can win on any given weekend um and you know for example i'm i'm 24th in points right now, but we won at New Hampshire. And, you know, we, we, we had the fastest car.

I was, we were the best that day. And we kind of dominated the race at the, at the end. And and we won the race. So that kind of goes to show you like how deep the field is and how talented the teams and the drivers and everybody are. We're at the very top level of stock car racing in the world. And so, yeah, it's, it's hard to measure success in our sport just by W's. It really, you know, is, is about, you know, consistency, running up front. And yeah, you want to win. Everybody wants to win. That's the reason we all do this. I am a extremely competitive person, like very type A, very, you know, I want to win or I don't want to do it. Like I'm the same way if I play a board game, right? Like, I don't want to play games. I don't want to play any game, a video game, a board

game, anything that I think I might not win at. So, yeah. Do you think of yourself as competing against the track or competing against, you know, the field? And I asked that because a lot of what you described is similar to golf. And I got to know that community very well in the last two years, professional golf, because whoops, the official wearable there. And a lot of the guys wear it. And I was surprised by how collaborative the players were with each other about what they were doing to improve performance, what they were doing to be healthy, even just literally sharing their loop data with one another. And I was asking, I think it was Roy McElroy about this. And he said that, you know, he really thinks he's competing against the golf course and less so against

each individual player. Sure, at the end of the, you know, at the end of the tournament, if you're close to winning it, you're probably thinking about two or three people you have to beat. But like, for the most part, the way they're assessing their performance is against the course. And I'm curious how much, how similar or different is that to your profession? I would say it's a little tiny, tiny bit similar and drastically different all at the same time. I would say that we are racing the racetrack because that's, you know, first in order to be able to win the race, you've got to be able to get around the racetrack faster than your competitors, right? so the racetrack is is the first thing that you have to conquer but in golf right like if you're

in a foursome or if they're in a threesome or whatever like whoever they're playing with they're not affecting each other's shots they're not affecting each other's shots right right the guy the guy is standing behind them very respectfully on the t-box like he's not he's not taunting him he's not heckling him yeah he's not in the middle of his back swing going to go tackle him right like they're not going to run into each other when when they're hovering over a put or they go to you know put from 60 feet away if it looks like it's going to go in like his competitor's not going to go kick his golf ball right like so so very much you know they are on every shot just really trying to conquer the course where for us when we're going around the racetrack

we are trying to conquer the track but we have 39 other drivers that are directly competing against us in trying to inhibit me from going faster, right? Like they're blocking, right? So if I'm running the top lane at Michigan this weekend and I'm catching a guy for fifth place, when I get closer to him, his spotter is going to tell him that I'm going faster in the top lane. He's going to pull up in the top lane and pull in front of me and try and block me. He's going to try and block me from passing him. So, In a sense, yeah, we're trying to go faster around the racetrack and beat the racetrack, but ultimately we have to beat the competitors. And we're going to make it really hard and really difficult to pass us because we don't want to get past because if I get passed, not only am I another position behind, but I get paid less money, right?

Like I get paid by performance. So the better I finish, the more money I make, the lower down the grid I finish, the less money I finish. the less money I make. So every spot on the racetrack is not only pride for finishing better, but it's, you know, financial implications as well. What are your thoughts on Woop Live? So the ability to bring, you know, heart rate and other physiological metrics to the broadcast and engage with fans.

I'm excited about it. So I talked with your team in Loudoun, New Hampshire, before the race, and then we went on to go win the race. So that was cool. Hopefully. By the way, the more we interact. the better you do. So you've got to keep hanging out with the Woop team. That's right.

That's right. So, yeah, I think, you know, after that discussion in New Hampshire and kind of learning more about it and talking about it, like, I think it's going to be awesome. I think it's going to be a compelling story for the fans to really understand. Like, it's going to tell such a great story about race car drivers and really what our bodies are going through in the race car. Because a lot of people just don't understand. right like you can see most athletes on the field whatever the field is if it's a court or a field

or whatever it is you can see physically see the athlete and you can see them performing their job right and you can see their athleticism or you can see like their explosiveness or whatever it is when the fan is watching the race they see a car and the drivers you know kind of hidden away inside the car so you don't see the athlete. And so it's hard for the fans to recognize really what the driver is going through in the race car. So I think this is going to be awesome to have Wook Live and to really kind of show what the athletes going through, especially in the race car. I know you guys do it in other sports and I think it's awesome. Like I've seen the Woop Live stuff on golfers where they make a put or like as the ball is going closer to the

whole like the heart rate's going up like all that stuff is super cool and then to see like in high pressure situations to see like some athletes being able to control their breathing and keep their you know keep their emotions in check and keep their heart rate really low in like what you would think to be like really nerve-wracking or high pressure situations it just goes to kind of show the audience like hey this is a this is a really well-trained athlete they've got their mental clarity in check like they're you know they're doing something that you couldn't do like if I was hovering over a put to win you know a tournament I could promise you that being you know a horrible golfer like I am and being inexperienced like my heart rate will be through the roof like

my heart rate is way high and I usually choke on a $20 put when I'm with a golf course yeah much less to like win a tournament in front of a live audience on national television, like it just tells a great story. I think that sports broadcasting needs to innovate, and I think this is one pretty exciting solution, which pulls the fans in. It shows just how hard what you do really is.

In the case of NASCAR, I think it really helps people appreciate how hard what you're doing is, but also to your point creates this feeling of intimacy, like more of a feeling like you're actually seeing and feeling the driver. Because just seeing the car is a little abstract. And even when you get put in the car from a film standpoint, you know, you guys have some, you've got the whole suit and the whole contraption. So it's hard to see you.

Like you were talking about, okay, if you're watching basketball, you're watching some on the field, you can see some body language. Yeah. You know when LeBron's a little tired. You know when LeBron's angry or you know, you know what I mean like it creates a feeling of intimacy and and so hopefully who can help with that the other thing that i think is interesting about the heart rate data is there are times when even the best athletes in the world are very nervous like

justin thomas's heart rate was like 140 beats 150 beats as he's hitting his drive on the 18th hole to win the players championship right rory mackleroy who's won i don't know how many tournaments was standing over a three-foot put to win the tournament. And this heart was at like 130 beats for a minute, you know? Right. That's pretty fucking high, actually. Yeah. So, you know, what I think is so fascinating about professional athletes is it's not that

they don't get nervous, it's that they can handle the nerves, you know? And so most people can't operate when they feel their heart beating out of their chest, but you're able to control your mind even when your body is uncomfortable. Totally agree. And yeah, I think that, like I said, it is a very compelling story and certainly supplements the TV broadcast in a very, very nice way. Thrilled to have you on Whoop and excited to do some more Whoop Live with you and other drivers. And this has been a real pleasure, man.

Thanks for coming on. Yeah, likewise, I appreciate you guys having me, and I'm pumped to see the reaction in the correspondence after we do some WOOP live stuff with NASCAR and the TV broadcast through these races. So it'll be fun. I'm glad to team up with you guys, and I've enjoyed learning more about myself in my recovery through WERN WOOP. Thanks to Eric for coming on the WooP podcast. Reminder, you can use the code Will Ahmed, W-I-L-L-A-H-M-E-D to get 15% off of Woof Membership. You can follow us on social at Whoop at Will Ahmed. If you like the Whoop podcast, please leave us a review or comment. Don't forget to subscribe.

Helps more people find the podcast. And don't forget, Whoop Unlocked, September 8th, 12 p.m. Eastern. I'm going to be hosting. It's going to be awesome. Please come check it out. Stay healthy, folks. Stay in the green.