Two-Time IndyCar Champion Josef Newgarden's Unconventional Motorsports Journey (FULL INTERVIEW)

[Music] oh look at that guy right here that's right yeah coffee's going to kick in make yourself at home hopefully it's right in time with my five hour energy i have i'm so ready oh you got a lot of people yeah well you know that's a few folks to to put this together so you like it yeah yeah so this is um we used to podcast in this little space right here okay this where we're sitting used to be a souvenir shop we still have a little souvenir shop over here but when i retired we sold half the souvenirs so we had we had this space to use we turned it into a uh we turned it into a nice cool studio we're glad you're here um and i'm glad you brought hovis me too hovis is one of my favorites so i've i have not we could do an entire podcast on hovis anything you said about well that's because it's all believable hey hovis is one of the original junior motorsports employees as a matter of fact so who is he really how long ago was that a lifetime so hovis uh yeah hovis uh it works with penske like you know kind of get you where you need to be and and he's the one to help us sort of uh set up this this uh this podcast but um i'm so nervous i feel like i'm i'm like talking to the president or something i don't know why mike's mike's just a normal guy you'll get used to it a few more minutes yeah you'll realize that's a very intimidating yeah well no this is uh we we've wanted you in here for a long time so i don't want to add pressure to you but uh this is exciting to have you here man we do you i don't know where y'all met i remember when we first saw joseph and that was at the kentucky derby yes that was the first time i think we met is that right yeah i think i we i got to interview you you did you interview yeah i don't it was kind of a blur the whole thing yeah right you were way busier than me so that day was bonkers i think i actually partied a little bit with my wife uh which i don't do very often but we had a blast yeah and um y'all looked like y'all had a great time it was so much fun you know it's like going to the you know like the daytona 500 to the indianapolis 500 it's one of those things you got to go see at some point so it was a really good excuse yeah so that was fun um and so ever since then i kind of been watching you and keep an eye on you but you're from nashville okay yes sir born and raised in nashville not really born and raised where is your family from um so my mother is danish a lot of people don't know that um because everyone just thinks i'm full american i'm actually half danish my dad's from new york mostly grew up in in miami though and then they my family migrated to nashville uh with the family business what is the family business so my grandfather he had a photography company um they used to take you know school photos of of kids all over the country and then they based out of nashville in the 80s and so that's when my parents went up to nashville and i was born in 1990 so i was born and raised there with my sisters and lived there until i was about 18 before i you know left the country to go racing in europe what did um so your what were your early memories of racing like why so everybody's going to want to know like how you didn't end up becoming a stock car driver you're in nashville from tennessee all those things seem to point you in that direction but you went overseas so go back even before that what was the first time you saw a race car of any kind and went that's neat oh it i mean probably when i was three years old so i grew up watching racing on tv that's how i was like that was it acclimated your family had no it's really my dad no no racing history it's really my dad um my grandfather was a big car guy too some cars were always big in my family uh mike my grandfather probably had a hundred cars at one point in his collection total you know big chevy guy had all sorts of corvettes um and just all sorts of cars but really i don't think he was the racing fan of the family it was really my dad my dad was the one that like pioneered liking racing um and he'd watch everything he watched nascar indycar especially growing up in miami you know when indycar was really big back in the early 80s he would watch street course races there he'd watch formula one on tv so when i was growing up it was really my dad that was watching racing and i i would watch and be like well that's pretty cool and i i always loved anything motorsports related anything that you know had an engine i wanted a go-kart since i was two years old and uh i wasn't able to get one my parents were really risk-averse which is kind of funny like they my dad didn't want me to get into racing or do anything dangerous so he was really he pushed me more to play stick and ball sports i played baseball basketball growing up but my love for racing came on tv that's that's where i kind of grew up liking it and i'd go with my dad to the track every now and then so there is racing love in my family but there's no you know there's no anchor where it was like hey we went to the tracks every weekend and i grew up at the tracks like that's that wasn't my history it was more watching it on tv so how did you get behind the wheel of your first race car like how did that happen i i have a really i have probably an unorthodox story with motorsports um so like i said when i was younger i always wanted a go-kart ever since i was you know probably three years old i wanted a go-kart my parents were super against anything risky i mean it was hard getting a bicycle growing up just because they didn't want me to get hurt um so you know if you i grew up in hendersonville tennessee which is you know not necessarily the racing capital of the world um it's hilarious actually because josh berry we went to school together wow literally josh was in my seventh eighth grade class are you serious and we weren't even i i can't say hey we were friends or anything but like i remember josh wow and i wasn't racing at this point i was probably 11 12 you know in seventh eighth grade and i just think it's hilarious now because i see what josh is doing i didn't even know josh was racing or that he was a race guy and it's probably four or five years ago i started noticing like i was like oh josh barry i know josh berry he was in my class oh my gosh and then i i learned about his story like i had no idea that he moved over here and like you know he started working in the shop here and got to know you or i think he got to know you on eye racing right then he moved over here like i know the story and i'm like that is the coolest damn thing ever yeah so i messaged him like four or five years ago and i was like hey like i know we weren't friends or anything but like i think it's so cool what you're doing and just to see he's got a way cooler story than me just because the way he had to work his way up right and now he's got the ride and everything and and you're doing so much to help him and he's worked for it uh i just love those stories so it's kind of a it's a weird world that we grew up together i think this sort of does make hendersonville the cap the racing capital because you guys are born two months apart you and josh berry two professional race car drivers out of hendersonville tennessee from the same class in middle school for the same class and middle what class was it uh i mean we probably i think we shared a bunch of classes i i remember i remember science class together for sure yeah probably neither one of y'all probably paying much attention no prob probably not i i just wish i could go back in time you know because i'm sure josh was probably watching racing and like drawing cars in his book or something like i had no idea that no that's what you were doing in science class i was definitely drawing cars every place so so keep going yeah you were in the middle of your story how did you how did how did you figure out how to get you know are you is there when when is the moment where you're sitting there going man i really want to try this here's how badly i wanted to do anything racing related was so hendersonville tennessee not a big racing place right i grew up playing baseball basketball since i was little like three four years old so i knew sports i loved competition i didn't realize how much i loved competition at that age but i knew i wanted to tinker with something engine related or just you know motorsport related i was like just give me something i can drive i want to do that so i used to get my hair cut in this like strip mall area by this you know old school barber his name was rudy um cut my dad's hair cut my grandfather's hair for like 30 years like you know it's the you know hometown barber and next to the barber shop um one year opens up a skate shop and they start selling skateboards and you know obviously i'm a young kid and i don't really i'm not doing much in hendersonville tennessee so i'm interested in a skateboard shop and then i see in the window they start selling these motorized scooters i'm like well you know my parents won't let me get a go-kart maybe uh maybe i can convince them to get me this motorized scooter that's got an engine on it like i could do something with that and so i think i i convinced my mom for my for my birthday i really want that motorized scooter can you please give that to me um and i got that for my birthday one year i think i was 12 years old i got this motorized scooter and i lived in a neighborhood in hendersonville tennessee and i literally convinced everyone in my neighborhood all my pals because that's what we did you know all summer long we'd hang out and terrorize the neighborhood i convinced all my friends to get motorized scooters too and so we had like six of these things and we would race around the neighborhood like totally annoying the heck out of the neighbors right and and i would go back i'd have it in the garage i'd take the engine apart a million times put it back together i i loved it and then i figured out i love this so much in this my this was my only like window into racing was this motorized scooter so i'm gonna race this motorized scooter i literally looked up online that back in 2001 there was sanctioned international scooter racing i swear this is a real story this is how i started motorsports is the weirdest thing ever and i convinced my dad to take me across the country to race scooters what does that conversation start like it's i mean he knew he's like man this kid really likes scooters and racing and he liked racing too so it's not like he didn't get it but it was almost so silly it was like dad if i i'm literally asking you to take me to go race scooters in las vegas like why can't we just get into go-karting but anyways we ended up doing that for like a year and i raced these scooters in like the world championships of scooter races you were that good and i won i won some events yeah yeah isn't that crazy that is crazy so it got so stupid that it was like what's scooter racing like tell us how tell us how what's the etiquette is there it's like a cross between bmx racing and motocross but on pavement like that they literally set up ramps they set up obstacle courses or not obstacle courses they set up um how many are you competing against at once yeah probably about 20 people in a class and there's multiple classes right it's just like racing you'll have just set up in a parking lot kind of like they do a lot of the heart stuff yeah yeah you go to a casino they set it up they cone it off how fast would they go i mean the the souped-up ones dude like 35-40 miles an hour on a scooter yeah you know it was like what are we doing insane yeah um but all these you know these these industries they form with just passion you know p like people were passionate about racing scooters and you'd have like you know the hot shoes coming in with trailers you know we could we'd roll up in the back of our truck with with our scooters um but you have people with like semi trucks just like racing you have like you want to beat these guys these are the best of the west yeah it's so silly um so we did that for like a year and i think my dad was like all right let's go figure out how to get into racing and i wanted to race go-karts that was what was interesting to me it's kind of what you know caught my eye um so eventually we got into that and that's kind of how the the story for racing starts and so your first go-kart what kind of go-kart was it um so you know um for most people that probably don't know about karting because a lot of people i think they think of um you know typically they'll think of like going on vacation and seeing like a rental cart track or something like that that's not the type of carting we're talking we're talking about real kart racing um what was your chassis man it was it was a american eagle i think is what it was called it was like a one-off chassis so mark dismore who's an ex-indy car driver um started this this uh this new go-kart track in indianapolis okay um you went you're still living in nashville still living in nashville you're deciding you're you're gonna race in andy so this was really my dad my dad goes all right you want to go racing let's figure out how we start this right you want to go go-karting and he did all this research he saw there was a new track being formed in newcastle uh indiana which is about 35 minutes east of the city and he said this is a new facility it's built by an ex-indycar driver they have the largest cart distribution center in in north america like they're literally the largest parts supplier for go-karts in north america their company was called comic cart sales and he's like let's go up here we're going to meet these guys they'll teach us how to race go-karts and we'll figure this out 300 miles to go to indianapolis from nashville just up there then 300 miles back home uh so my dad's a wild man he's like let's go do this we met mark we met all these people they they've sold us a go-kart it was literally a one-off cart i think it was called like an american eagle or something um sold us a yamaha chassis or sorry a yamaha engine and um and we bought the cart we took it back home and started tinkering with a little bit and then that that cart track officially opened they were still building the track when we first went up there officially open and we're like all right let's go race let's figure out how to race in their events your first cart race up there and how old are you 13 years old and how do you know how to work on carts to make them go fast you don't i mean you literally you show up scooter skills there's i mean yeah it's you still apply scooter logic to your cars today i mean you could to a go cart go kart engine in the scooter engine got to be pretty similar yeah there are some i mean it's the scooter engine is kind of funny they're like little weed whacker engines you know like it literally literally like from a lawnmower um but there is similar logic you know if you want to take the thing apart and like you know put a new piston in or like you know change the carburetors on it it's similar to karting i mean dale's right we're going straight to the scooter shop after this aren't we dale this is we're doing that this is going to be an influx in scooter racing after this i've not told this story very often but it's like the real story well why wouldn't you this is a fascinating story you know what the irony is the irony is that your parents won't let you get a bicycle because that's not safe but the next thing you're doing is you've got a hemi and a scooter basically and you're going hilarious yeah 40 miles an hour and winning i think they created more of a problem like you know you hold someone back and they're like they just want it so much more oh you're you're rebelling a little exactly yeah i hear you so you're uh you go up to in you go up to andy to race this new track is that i mean do you just race there for a while specifically at that tracker yes so when i started um kind of the easiest thing to do instead of trying to you know and go karting uh the big stuff is national racing right and people they'll travel you know all over the place right east coast west coast florida one weekend you know chicago the next north carolina that's a lot more expensive because you're traveling all over the place well this this new track newcastle motorsports park it it was going to create a destination for people of all the midwest to come to one location to race in this regional championship it was the kart racers of america championship so i to be economical about it it was like let's just race in this championship we'll only come here we can keep our go-karts here they had garages built it's much like gopro motor motor plex you know um very very similar but 15 20 years earlier um so it was like this is gonna be the most economical thing we'll just race in this one championship not trying to do this national stuff so i did that for about two and a half years before i got into car racing and that was really my that was my introduction into racing you know learning everything about racecraft you know how you work on a cart how you work with the team how you work with the mechanic um just you know how you be a race car driver that's that's the foundation right there so what are some of them i guess what are some of the what are some of the things that you would have done differently i guess you know because you uh let me this is a terrible analogy but it's the only one i can think of right now but like when i got into cycling right um you're getting into racing at 13 you know go-karting at 13 years old that's pretty normal i mean when i started racing go-karts i was 14-15 okay yeah i wasn't really like kids today is ridiculous it's nuts right it's ridiculous four five five years old it just doesn't make any sense at all but um when i got into biking which you probably ride bikes right road bikes a little bit i'm not a roadie like most guys well i do and i went headfirst made tons of mistakes right all kinds bought all kinds of unnecessary things that ended up having to turn around and sell on ebay um so give me some some i got you know we're gonna pretend we got a 13 year old standing right here what are you going to tell his dad on some of the advice missteps things you would have done differently you know what it's it's i'd like to say we'd do something different but i don't think we would yeah because that's how you learn right you know and that's that's been the story of my whole career and you really learn that in racing that if you don't make the mistakes it's hard to kind of figure out what you're supposed to do what was the hardest thing for you to realize in racing um you know that it's not fair it's not a fair sport and uh and that's okay yeah you know you keep going that's i i got so mad at certain points because i didn't think things were fair and that's in different ways right whether it's who's gets the opportunity or you know the way the the cars are built or the way they're set or the racing style of certain races oh that's not fair the way that they race because the fastest guy doesn't win there's a lot of things in racing that you might not think are are fair but it you've you got to work through them i think it's all it's racing is all problem solving okay and the more that you make that excuse that it's not fair etc it's you're not getting the point it's figuring out the problem whether that's figuring out the problem how you get the car or it's figuring out the problem how you win this race around you know the people that you're racing against so that's what i've had to probably learn that's what i've gotten better at is you know being calm and the way that i look at racing and knowing that yeah it's not a fair sport half the time but that's that's really the challenge of what motorsports is yeah so i think that's a that's a great point when i see um you know my sister got her little kids her little girls and her son into the the karting stuff going on around here dirt tracks and all that and there's a lot of young kids yeah braxton bush kyle's son and i think um it's a great platform like any any at any age probably was for you too at 13. but when you start out that's what it should be about i think is molding that person you know that you know that impressionable child mold helping them understand how to lose yeah how to accept getting beat man you got outrun today you know and we're not going to pitch a fit you know we're going to go over there and we're going to congratulate the winner and we're going to come back next week and we're going to have fun again you know and um i watch these parents today because i know i may go through that one day i might i don't know what my girls are going to want to do but uh and i'm trying to i guess learn uh through all through kelly's through all the kids that i go and watch them race and your experience trying to learn how to not turn into that sort of super competitive dad right and just and it be about wins and losses right it should be more about trying to help them turn into into you know good individuals like good people was your dad cognizant of that when he's taking you the racetrack was he a is was he super you know competitive about you know y'all's racing uh or was he helping you sort of um grow as an individual how is that going i mean my dad was my secret weapon like in my whole career my career would never happen or have happened without my father and for multiple reasons and that's a good example of it is that my dad he was the perfect temperament for you know how do you interact with your child at the track and how do you bring them up you know what kind of example do you lead explain explain that a little bit on some things he did he's a he's a pretty competitive person i'd say i'm probably more competitive now um but he's the eternal optimist and that's his strength is that you know there was no challenge that was too big for my father and he instilled that into me when i was young you know we're gonna we can figure out anything you can do anything um and it wasn't like this happy-go-lucky type of deal it was it was a determined optimism where it's like you know whatever challenges are in front of us like we can make it happen and he and he believed in me probably before i believed in myself that i could become a professional race car driver it's a little bit cheesy but he's just he had that right temperament where you know he would he was intense in some ways uh he wanted me to you know he really wanted me to learn he wanted me to have the best environment possible but he was also really hands-off a lot of the times he let me make my own mistakes and i was pretty you know clear with him in the beginning that that's how i wanted it i really did as a kid i wanted that i wanted to learn to make the mistakes myself you know i if there was a mechanic that i was working with i didn't want my dad to work with the mechanic let me work with the mechanic let me understand how we're supposed to interact and you know get a flow together um and those are little things that you don't really even think about when you're when you're young you know i think if you're a parent you just want just give my kid the best let me protect him let me let me be the hand that's over him making sure he's got everything right at the right moment and he did that to some degree but was also completely hands off and letting me you know take care of things so he was not this overbearing you know figure if i lost yeah of course you know it's disappointing for him but he didn't display it as in that sound acceptable or this is disappointing it was well let's let's you know focus on why we lost and and let's let's make it right and win the next race and that's how it was so he was the real he was the perfect temperament i think as as a parent and his optimism and his attitude not only helped shape me and who i am and how i interact at the track with the people around me but he he was also the person that just kept carrying the torch and like getting us up the road i mean i would never have made it up these steps you guys know how this is there's a lot of steps you got to work to get to the top of the mountain and then when you get to the top of the mountain it's like you start all over again right because it's a new mountain at the top but i would never have made it up those steps without without my dad and his determination so when you're trying to compete in the go-karts um i remember going to my first race and remember my first accident it was spectacular um and it was uh it was it was a wild experience um so you know and you mentioned how your parents were where uber you know worried about your you know your safety growing up as a kid and didn't want to try to protect you at all times um so you have your what's your first big crash what is that experience like with your dad and uh what was your thought process going through that because that's like the first test right um is how you react to not only getting outran or or being not being not being the best in that moment but that big moment where you crash and you get that real fear so for me it was really the first uh car race that i did it wasn't in go-karts you know go-karts was kind of its own category um and you know we had some wrecks in that but you know if you take go-karting out of it we did that two and a half years and then when i was 15 16 i started getting the car racing what kind of cars skip barber is where we went it was the most economical thing skip barber racing back in 2006 they still had the national championship regional championships and it just made a lot of sense from an economic standpoint that was the easiest transition it was the cheapest transition to getting to form the cars um so i went down i got taught how to drive an open world car you do a three-day school where and this was uh where where'd i go i think it was um daytona actually was actually daytona so it's funny you say that because um this sounds silly but the skip car skippy car is my favorite car on eye racing and i've often wondered really yeah i just love it it's so much fun moves around a lot it does move around a lot and i don't know how realistic that is very realistic yeah it seems just like a car is teach you so much and uh like you said it's pretty relatively easy as far as getting involved in and i remember being in daytona and watching the schools happen on the infield course they had like a small version of the infield course and they just had cars going and going and all these young guys getting in and out of them with their with their nice you know their new helmets and um so you were one of those guys yeah you were in there grinding away trying to get you so when you go to skip barber right and you show up for the street a school is it an automatic that you're going to get this uh you know you're going to get your application into the series or what is the school about what is that process for so you have like a mix of people coming to these schools right you got young kids coming out of go-karts that are supposed to be the new hot shoes and you've got 35 year olds that work their whole life just to save up enough money to come and do this school yeah right you know so you got you got a range of people that are there and you got like 20 something year olds that maybe you know they're they're probably a little too old to get into racing but they still believe they can do it um so there's a range of people but really it's just you know back then skip arbor was all about if you want to drive a race car and you want to be taught how to drive a race car that's where you go it's pretty economical i think it was you know 2 500 bucks maybe for a three-day school maybe 3 000 bucks so it's still expensive but in the grand scheme of everything like you know someone can can save up and afford that at maybe some point in their life so yeah you go to school and they teach you the three-day school it's all the basics and then if you you do well in that then you go to the two-day advance school and that's like the real race cars you know they put some wings on it they give you the sequential gearbox um you have to qualify or something for that i mean did anybody go to the two days i think you had to run the three-day school and show that you were proficient enough to go to the two-day they could turn you down they i think they could yeah if you were like man this guy's really not good maybe he needs to go three day again when we're done so yeah you run through the school and then at that time it was like you know if you if you got through the two schools then you go race their regional championship and there was a couple of those there was like a south championship uh what does the championship consist of um so it was like 10 races you'd go to daytona sebring moroso like all sorts of places in florida on the south championship now those companion races to major events like indycar and so forth um no it was they would stand alone really yeah you'd go there and they were they were standalone races you're the deal yeah we were skip barbara racing was happening right you know come check it out yeah are you continuing to have to fork over money though to continue to advance or are you still riding your 2 500 3 000 entry no so yeah i mean it was still if you wanted to run the whole south championship cars the cars were all prepared for you right yeah it's so they're running it that's why it was economical because it was a school you know this the scale of it was easier i think it was i mean it still probably cost 10 15 grand to run that whole championship did you feel like the cars were equally prepared no i i it's best they could be right you know these are older channels random which car you were going to get per race it's random yeah but then you know you start looking into well who are the mechanics you know and what mechanics are working on what and do you have a mechanic buddy and you know who tests the cars well who's the test driver you know can i talk to the test driver which one did you like the most what balance on the car did you like did you adjust anything on the car no other than brake bias i think brake bias was was manually adjustable um but they were i don't want to no no no they were pretty it was a great series yeah they did a good job i mean they were as equal as you could make you know so how did that go how did that experience go so my very first race to go back to your question on that big wreck yeah it's my first race i went through the schools all right i'm at i'm at sebring you know the full course oh my god pretty daunting course have you ever been to school very tough uh turned 17. i destroyed a corvette there yes i did what corner uh in the bridge like turn three yep hit the back into the bridge that'll happen testing yeah yeah it'll happen it's gonna invite you that place that's what makes it fun it's better tires what cars are slick driving there me and dad went to test the corvettes oh ready for daytona and they're like you know the tires are a little for a lap take it easy i mean i barely touch the throttle coming out of three and it goes when i feel like i'm going 30 mile an hour i feel like i'm crawling and the next thing i know i feel like i'm going 100 mile an hour backwards yeah and i hit that bridge and i thought okay i've jumped this thing and they put it back together in 15 minutes oh they're like here you go i'm like me again are you sure i get to stay yeah they're keeping me but anyhow turn 17 for you it's a very very difficult place very difficult very bumpy um very quick like turn 17 is super fast you know you're entering off the back straight and you know hauling the mail into the corner and then you go under a bridge there too there's a lot of bridges at sebring so it's my first race and in that first race i just lost the car into turn 17 and pancaked it into the wall and it was like my first really big wreck and i just thought you know what like in that moment it really made me think you know why am i doing this i don't know why but that was the one wreck that sticks in my mind where it knocked my confidence and i really thought like i don't know what i'm doing i don't know that i can do this for a living you know and that's when you're young you start to think about that at that point like is this something i want to pursue and am i good enough to do that and that wreck completely knocked that confidence out of me my dad was there we had dinner that night and i just remember him again the temperament you know he just really encouraged me to i had a race the next day too it was a two race weekend and this happened in that first race and he just encouraged me to go out and and you know try again tomorrow you know not to let this set me back and um i remember that i remember that night so vividly to me i mean we were at dinner and i was like i just wanted to go home i was like i don't want to do this anymore i don't think i can um i can't believe how to look at myself now and think back to that i can't believe how little confidence i had um but you know him being the right temperament and forcing me to go the next day was the right thing i ended up winning the next day wow i won the race all right and so the contrast between those two days was a real inflection point in my career because from from that point on when i won that race the next day it was it was never a lack of confidence again regardless of what happens so i think it was a really important lesson for me to learn defeat or give yourself humility that you know what you're going to make mistakes and and sometimes in racing that's half the battle is to have that confidence and humility that you know it's okay to wreck the car it's it's going to happen i mean it's just going to happen at some point professionals wreck all the time um so i think that was a really important lesson for me mentally to understand how to you know survive in racing yeah i think that um that was one of the things that unfortunately is um it doesn't change about racing is a you know the highs and lows and they will come one right after the other uh and fortunately for you the high was the second thing you know the the the disappointment of the day before um but that was one thing that never changed i don't care how you know even in the cup series you would win and then the next week could be one of the worst weekends where just nothing's going right and literally running in the back of the pack with no understanding of why how you could be so good and then so bad but you know what he says is is interesting because while he's talking about confidence i mean you guys i don't care what you're racing when you've lost your confidence you could tell just just normal people can tell that you're not as fast right i mean like you people don't they slow down when they lose their confidence how did you get your confidence back it's everything you're you said your dad it's because you're dead you got your confidence back right yeah 100 in that moment it was it was through my father channeling you know his energy um and just his demeanor that's what but you know from that moment on it kind of taught me how to how to self-regulate that because it is everything and i mean i'm a huge believer in that in sports in general too oh yeah i mean it's 100 i remember this is so critical and it's not a cockiness no i mean some people can be cocky about it but the the true belief in yourself the true belief yeah and the ability to work through multiple situations confidence is like at the cornerstone of anything when you're when you're peaking performance wise you know even if you're not a cocky person or individual inside you have that internal confidence that's driving it it's just it's so critical in so many different ways in racing and you can dive into the different ways confidence helps you but it's it is like the most important thing to i think kick button racing i remember early in dale's career he used to say you know i'm the best driver out there and and then he would say you got to think that if you're going to go out there and race you've got to think that you are the best one out there and he was you you were you were winning you know four five six races a year when we went through 2009 and 10 at hendrick you weren't saying that anymore and man i remember his confidence was so low that it i mean like it was almost uh like depression low right and man i was like that's when i saw the stark difference between man where's that i'm the best driver out here and now it's like i mean you're just you know i remember the race where they they kept you out uh and and uh let you you know you were leading laps at lance kept you out leading laps at charlotte but not pitting with everybody out and you're like what is this what it's come down to you know you're trying to try to keep me out here on old ass tires i'm not gonna hold them off and i'm like man what i'd give to have that confidence back because you know that right there is is everything right so it's critical yeah and i've had those moments too like you know in it does it come it comes and goes um i had it in the beginning of my my indycar career where you know it wasn't the confidence knock that i had in uh that very first skip barber race it wasn't like that it wasn't it was more just like a depression where you know it was my first year as my rookie year in indy car and nothing went right we were a small team just didn't have the budget the testing um i was just it was just me i had no teammates no real idea on how to drive the car or what to look at to drive the car well so i felt like on an island and i more so got depressed that was like the lack of confidence was just you know feeling defeated you know more than it wasn't that oh i don't i don't believe in myself anymore it's just you know why am i doing this i don't know that i can i don't know that i can make enough of a difference to to warrant being here that was more what it what it felt like but you can go through those different moments it's you know it's it's really a team sport when you look at confidence especially at the top level you know everyone's got to buy into it and you you're feeding off every individual in that team and if there's like a broken link somewhere then it can it can affect the whole group um and when that starts to happen it's just nothing good comes out of that yeah so you mentioned earlier that you were overseas racing so how did you end up over there so uh so skip barber went through that whole process and then um throughout racing in skip barber i got selected for this scholarship it was called the team usa scholarship it was created by a guy named jeremy shaw he was a he was a writer he's actually english and he created this this usa scholarship and he wanted to bring young americans over to to europe mostly england to race in that environment and showcase american talent and this was started i think the very first year was 1990 or maybe it was 91 i probably don't have my years right um and they went over with jimmy vass for the very first year uh from yeah it was an indycar driver jimmy and um they've had you know multiple guys who almond dinger was a winner of it one year and it's a really good scholarship you know that's funded by individuals within racing and they send these you know they send a kid or two kids over and they they race in some premier racing championships over in europe for me it was the formula ford festival that they sent us to go race in that's like a huge deal in england if you're you were ironton senna michael schumacher back in the 70s 80s like that's where you went to go prove yourself in europe as a junior uh driver before you you know moved up the ranks to go to formula one so the formula ford festival was a big deal no american had ever won it um and when i went over that i won i won the festival i was the first american i'm still the only american that's ever won that race which is kind of shocking the brands hatch at brands hatch yep so cool one of the full course of the indie course indie course and i love the indie course do you so fun i like the full course really yeah i mean i run it and enjoy it but the indie course is so short track yeah i love short track racing right same and uh that to me is kind of such a short course it's it begs for you know you to be aggressive and i used to watch a lot of british touring car racing really yeah because they raced i would never they knocked they knocked the mirrors off right they run hard and bang and i got to be a big fan of like jason plato and matthiel you know those guys when plato was dominating probably yeah and matt was an independent back you know running with the big boys it was fun but um so i fell in love with uh brands hatch have you ever gone never been it looks like an awesome place yeah and i'm with you i love short shot racing's actually become probably my favorite form of racing so i respect that on the indie side but for brands the full gp course if you're a road course racer it's like one of the coolest circuits in the world so yeah i love that place it was uh but that was a big win and brands and and then it kept me over in europe so when i won that festival um did really well with the scholarship that was kind of my door into racing in england and you know potentially going to formula one which is which is what i wanted to do initially i was really captivated by formula one um and wanted to try and make it over there so what were you what you've talked about i can't even imagine like even thinking that i'd ever get a shot at anything like that and how are you able to you know everyone wants to be a 401 race car driver over in europe particularly you know the it's like musicians in nashville like and you know everybody in europe wants to race formula one all these guys are racing anything over there want to get to that opportunity right you really had a legit avenue you know totally with your success um what what did was there a moment where you were like um like can you could could you believe your reality that you were you were heading in that direction yeah definitely i mean i had to pinch myself at moments it's so cool what we were doing you know when we went over the for the festival it was like a three week journey it was probably the most fun i've ever had in racing was was going over there i went with another driver connor daly he was my teammate and we literally spent um we spent three weeks together we went we're in ireland england we lived with this irish family that um the dempsey family they were the ones that ran our form of the fords um and the formula fords are the coolest thing it's like putting a skip arbor car on steroids they move around a lot super fun to drive you know very good for car control and learning vehicle dynamics especially mechanical grip and um so yeah we lived with this irish family for three years in the in the truck and uh just had a blast just had a blast testing the car racing it and so yeah in those moments you think wow this is so cool like we got selected for this really neat scholarship maybe we can go to formula one one day you're you're you've been with your dad your whole life right and he's now probably not he's you know obviously not in europe with you right yeah pretty i mean they came over they came to watch the race but that was yeah that was probably the first moment where it was just you it was us it was me and it was whoever i'm with and we're trying to go racing and that's kind of how they jeremy wanted it too it's pretty cool about the scholarship yeah the whole idea was to put you out of your comfort zone i know where are you uncomfortable no not i mean we were having the time of our lives i was 17 you know conor was 16. how did you stay focused i i i loved racing for me it was easy the environment was was was a good safe environment and perfect nope no no distractions no i mean you know in in i was trying to imagine you know i couldn't imagine me at 17 in europe well you i would have torpedoed the hell out of that yeah the funniest the funniest thing people know connor daley now he was the complete opposite what oh yeah oh yeah well connor daley you see today i'm like he was the opposite when he was in europe he was like the most he was quiet he was he was he played video games he was nerdy um super cool guy one of my best friends i know what happened to him i i he well so we he went back to europe after that two years later and then he came back home to america and he was like i was like what happened man you're like you're like an international superstar now you're not the connor bailey i knew um but yeah we were you know we were just nerdy little kids that was 16 17. all we cared about was racing so you know any of the irish influence of let's go to the pub and get some pints that wasn't a problem how was the how are you able to get up to speed at all these unique tracks that you'd never seen in your life that i i think that was one of my skill sets so when i when i did the festival right up to speed right away connor was too connor was really on it as well um but that was one of our skill sets we could rock up and just be quick right away and a lot of people were like what the heck are they doing are they are they cheating with these american drivers because they hadn't really seen that before from a lot of others um but yeah it was part of the skill set and then i stayed over in europe after that in 2009 ran the full british formula ford championship coolest year of my life just traveling all over england and in ireland um and i had to learn all those tracks there was probably you know 20 different tracks that i went to i didn't know anything about them and that was the skill set was to like be on it right away and you know learn them super fast and be up to speed with the locals pretty much so what was it like racing um and being the only you know being pretty much the only american in the series like are you um did they so like when we see you know when you see guys out on the racetrack you treat them a little bit differently one of the one of the things that's unique about indycar now that it's multinational i never even thought about that until i went to the nd500 and i'm like oh my god the personalities it's like this smorgasbord it's surprising yes it's a little bit shocking because i'm so used to nascar man he's from indiana he's from california everybody's most people are from the united states and um and you kind of you kind of know what you're going to get from everybody yeah but um when you went to europe and did were was it tough getting that respect was it easy to get were they was everybody welcoming you with open arms come on in have some fun yeah i think for the most part it was really welcoming um so you can kind of think of that british from the ford was much like nascar it was mostly british people you're either english or irish or scottish you're british um and so i was really the only outsider there wasn't a lot of europeans there was i think there was like one dutch guy actually there was he was my teammate it was dutch um but i i liked it because you know people people were very friendly warm and opening and welcoming my team for the most part like i had the best sweetest team from england they had this you know really cool shop that was on their farm literally in a barn and they're fine old school oh it's so cool it's literally like you know short track racing in north america yeah but in england with formula fords that's how you know because they don't really do late models and stuff over there but formula ford racing is what they do um so it was so much fun but i i was for sure the underdog you know people don't want to see the american come in and race against all the british and kick their butt but i loved that i was like this is so cool everyone does not want to see me succeed probably and that makes me really want to succeed it just gives you extra motivation you know you're the you're the outsider in that whole group so your your your eyeball is on your eyes are on formula one um how do you end up getting back to the states so i think europe and the path to formula one is probably the most probably the most political environment i've ever seen i mean formula one is like just this goliath of political uh it's just politically difficult you know you've got like high high money people in that sport i mean you're talking two 300 million dollars for a team with these manufacturers mercedes ferrari i mean that's serious money you've got you know oil money from the middle east and you've got these large corporations in europe i've just never seen such a politically intrinsic sport where it was like you have to have the right connection you have to have the right manager you have to be on the right team you have to know exactly what engines you need to have for this series it's so cutthroat and difficult i don't even know how you explain that to a young racer now and it's only gotten worse it was even easier back when i was doing it now it's got even harder um so you start looking at this and and the british form of the ford was the easiest part because there was none of that it was just like short track racing in north america like if you have a good shop and a good team you guys can go compete with whoever right it didn't matter like you can do a good job um but then when you get through british formula four and you're like all right let me let's go up the rung in the ladder let's get to the next level in europe and then maybe get a shot to formula one that's where it gets tough you start really going to europe and you're like formula three or you know gp2 at the time now it's f2 those are really political and trying to get just the money and the right team and the right manager to even get an opportunity to maybe talk to a formula one team is like the most difficult thing ever so i ran out of funding for the most part i written i went and ran gp3 in 2010 which is the year after british will afford and i just we just got the opportunity to put together i was supposed to run formula 3 in england and i had an investor that was going to invest in me literally backed out at the last minute i was sitting in the car ready to test it for the first time check doesn't clear oh no that guy goes away and like disappears off the face of the planet which i really needed in order to run the car um so then i got this opportunity last moment run gp3 we ran all over europe following formula one worst year of my career um definitely out of money after that that was the end of 2010. i thought i was cr my career was over my dad had to come back over to england help me pack up bring me back to america and i literally thought i was like we're out of money probably all done my my dreams of going to formula one have just crashed and died so you know this is over so we came back to america and then the story continues after that what's the rest of it so okay so so when i come back to america so all right are you i mean i'm you're framing this up you're you feel like that you've so i've had i think a lot of drivers can relate to that feeling of i think this is it yeah that was that was it i'm done what am i gonna do next i gotta i gotta do a normal thing right i gotta what job am i gonna do right yeah you got a family business to to maybe uh go get involved in well the family business was now you know they had sold it oh in 2008 so it wasn't around anymore oh and i mean i really would at that time i was thinking you know maybe i go to college you know maybe i get a degree in something um oh lord i don't know what degree i want to get you know i i it's like you get so focused on not that that's a bad thing no no no no but if you're if that's your starting point at 18 to now okay so i have to go get a degree where do you start i'm i'm just i'm almost 20 i'm 19. you're 20. yeah that usually you've started thinking about that before then so yeah it would be a rough transition to have to uh uh start considering it's a hard pill to swallow right right right you kind of go your whole career um which you know for me at that point was like three four years i think the only the part that would be most difficult for me is and i think this listeners should contemplate this a second is when when people when if you're a aspiring race car driver running short tracks around here or whatever you run into these obstacles you run into these dead ends but it's here and in in your is is you know people people that lose their rides or or when their opportunities drop they they showed it up at the track they keep their helmet and they they they keep persevering out of sight out of mind right but you can always you know be at the next race and make yourself available yeah right and it's it but when you're in europe right and you're in your your deal ends or you've ran into that roadblock you you don't you don't bring that resume back like nobody no one over here knows really what you've been doing over there maybe some of the important people do and that's probably the rest of your story but i'm just i can't imagine how fearful you must have been of your future because if you have those roadblocks stumbling blocks at 20 years old here you you kind of can recover right but when it ends there overseas and you've got to come all the way back to the states you have you're not coming back to a foundation you're not coming back to anything right yeah it's a good point you put all that sweat equity there over there and when that's when you leave that continent right you come back here you've got to really start from scratch right yeah yeah no 100 it's that was really the case but exactly to what you alluded to some of the important people that you know pay attention to kind of the overall picture they still keep tabs and they see what's going on um and they know of some of these guys that maybe went and did those these forays so that's what led to 2011 i got an amazing opportunity the i mean indy lights was so expensive so i'm indy lights the feeder series the indy car this is like running at xfinity cup it's so expensive to go run any lights i mean it was nearly a million bucks to run that championship um and you know i mean we didn't have enough money to run the year before we didn't have any money so i don't know i don't know how you're gonna go conjure up a million bucks you know in a couple months to go run indie lights so i got basically given a lifeline by sam schmidt who owned one of the most successful indie lights teams they were the cream of the crop at the time they'd call you up and they called me up and they he basically did a deal for me he invested in my career too what did he say he said you know what was it that you had done that they were so interested well they had been keeping an eye on it and you know we had some other people around us and keeping them in the loop and basically sam was like you know what we'll take a flyer on you and he was he was pretty savvy in indy lights like he actually had legitimate sponsorship on some of his cars one of his car was fully funded so he could pick and choose the driver he could pick and choose a driver that car was taken the funded car but then he had this other car that was like maybe gonna be funded and so he he basically invested into my career and said you know i want some you know future of you um and i'll put you in the car and we still had to pay a little bit of money but we found the money it was like all right we can put up some no way we can get all this but we can we can get some of it and we didn't run with we didn't even pay for for crash damage insurance which is a big no-no in indy lights you wreck a car in indy lights it's like 150 000 hit just like that and so you took that chance we took that we had to it was that we couldn't do anything else so i got in the car we raced that championship i won the very first race out and i went up winning the championship and then i get an opportunity to indycar from so when you go out and you win the first race um how did the conversations or the how did the how did the like all the crash the currents you know you do you carry the concern with the crash damage into that first race are you thinking your dad's thinking about that right now yeah not you yeah um and so you go out and you win sam uh is what's the conversation like then at that point like hey let's you know no it's on i think you know for those guys they didn't expect you know they wanted to give me the opportunity if they didn't feel i was going to be a contributor and be good for their ecosystem but i didn't i don't think they expected me to be sort of the the leader of the team that was supposed to be the other car the full car it was esteban gary super great driver he came from europe too but he was a lot closer to formula one that made i mean he was like yeah he's literally just under it and could have been hired to go to formula one like the next year so he's like fully up the ladder unlike still at the bottom of the ladder so they're expecting this guy to probably lead the charge for the team and i win the first race out been the quickest in testing like i'm ready to rock so i think that dynamic uh shifted very quickly and they were probably surprised by that um but yeah the burden of the you know the year and the potential of what could go wrong went away it no it didn't necessarily i mean it wasn't there in the beginning that's how my dad operated though and he instilled that into me he's like look if something goes wrong and sideways we'll figure it out yeah and that's what you have to do right if it does go sideways you just figure out a plan to to work it out so we went into that year just with you know just an open mind trying to make it happen and and the good thing for me was i knew i was stepping into the best seat on the grid i mean it was literally it was this was the championship winning team i might have the best teammates around me to learn from and to to observe every weekend like i it was like a cat bird seat opportunity was that your first year on the oval yeah first year in overwatch what did you think about overrated i just loved it i mean so y'all ran i know you run indy so we ran iowa iowa i would or i should say indy was my first one for the freedom 100 yeah which was so cool pretty much wide open right yeah you're in any lights car at that time always one of them you were wide open what about at iowa no i was lifting you're wearing the tires out i mean so your first experience in oval is it's such a crazy discipline you know we see it all the time when uh indycar guys come to nascar nascar like with jimmy yeah i mean the disciplines don't even compare i don't think um totally different watching how you know each one each one kind of struggles to understand uh the two uh so you go to oval i know the other guys are also experiencing this same challenge of racing at an oval but tires wearing out your lifting what was your thoughts like so indy was like one part of the equation you know it's pretty flat out you know as the tires wear out that gets a little bit harder you know much probably like daytona or something you know it's flat out but it's not easy to keep it stuck right and that's how it was you start learning it was all about learning drafting you know positioning the car where you want to be two laps to go where do you want to be one lap to go where you want to be so that was the whole indie game super cool but then you go to a place like iowa totally different i mean this is like oval racing you're lifting you're trying to understand and conserve the tires you know how does a car feel into the corner middle exit off um and i just i fell in love with it and short track racing now is my favorite form of racing i wish we could race 10 short tracks with indy cars and it's not really possible because our cars can't go to every short trip we can't go to bristol unfortunately i wish we could yeah um i don't even know how they go around in richmond and places like that so richmond places like yeah iowa richmond is super fast but um with the old surfaces it works a lot better because we still will drop you know we'll probably drop two three seconds almost four seconds at richmond about four second drop so it's a lot of performance loss as the tires wear out and you're really you're starting to break even with an indy car which is crazy um but yeah it's it's the most fun i've ever had i fell in love with it it's a completely different art to race in a road course i'd never experienced that in my life and i didn't realize how much i was going to love it until until i did it yeah i know you've been able to get to know jimmy a little bit let's touch on him for a second i know you've been able to get to know him super awesome dude he is such a great guy explain to people why it's so difficult for him yeah i mean i just want to start by saying i'm a huge jimmy johnson fan he was one of my guys growing up i'm someone that loves watching dominance so when jimmy was crushing everybody in cup when he had that run i was like the biggest jimmy johnson fan i would tune in to watch jimmy crush people so i've got a huge respect for for uh for mr seven time um what he's doing is it's so difficult to describe to people how how challenging it is i mean jimmy has no background in open world racing whatsoever i mean he's completely you know dirt track racer to to cup racing stock car racing that is that i mean it'd be like taking me with no stock car racing background and literally putting me in a cup car tomorrow and saying go run daytona go run richman go run atlanta it would be so difficult for me to understand how to figure that out and he's not had a lot of testing you know it's it's difficult nowadays to get up to speed um but yeah it's all about him trying to understand downforce is probably the biggest thing that he's got to learn what is the problem with that so you know with an indy car we're producing around five thousand pounds of downforce at 200 miles an hour just from a load standpoint and you know i bet a stock car is at 200 you know fully loaded up on a road course it's probably 2 200 pounds maybe 2 500 at most so it's half of what an indy car produces and also the indy cars have to wait so dynamically the way the car feels the you know how aggressive you need to be on the brake pedal how aggressive you need to turn the car in how quickly the car reacts jimmy's just not used to that he's used to a car that reacts a lot slower the the way you talk to it the way it talks to you is like night and day difference to how the indy car talks and so he's i think jimmy's had to like completely speed up his process whereas like an indycar guy going to a stock car they got to slow it down they got to go okay let me let me let things happen and talk to the car differently and and let it all happen whereas in indy cars it's just happening it's literally happening and you've just got to react so it's not that one's harder than the other it's not even it's not even trying to start that conversation they're just totally different yeah so that's the challenge he's working through and i just he's getting it did you see these moments of of of brilliance or do you see that talent in him shine through in these little spaces in the races it's happening in the races um and i think he's just he's got more reps you know as soon as he hits the racing part of the weekend and he's in a rhythm you can see yeah he can drive that car pretty much at the limit but it's the short spurts it's you know getting out of practice doing two laps or going into qualifying having nail one lap like he doesn't have the confidence yet to just go do it yeah but in the race when he's like hey we got a bunch of time let's run 70 laps you can see he's like pretty much on the limit yeah you know and he knows how to drive the car to that limit so i think once he gets you know his head around it once he gets more confidence he's he's gonna very much be in in the pack running with it you know not as egregious as uh jumping in a new car but you guys are about to go do a new track right i mean in nashville yeah like so okay so apply the same type of learning curve how long will it take you guys to adapt to a completely new place first off okay that's a great i saw um i don't remember who did somebody went on an old papyrus indycar game yes that was you know 20 years old and did a they made a track out of a program called sandbox of what the the track's going to look like and um but anyhow i'm sure you've seen a better rendition than that um what is this track going to look like what's it going to remind you of uh everybody's talking about driving over the bridge yeah um what kind of what kind of area what kind of aero issues does that present uh our you know when you arch over you know going over hills i know there's probably a breaking zone really shortly after the bridge so you're not gonna be like you know you're not gonna i don't know what speed you'll be getting to the middle as you crest that bridge but what what is that track gonna remind people of so the tough thing about nashville is typically on street courses you have the thing fully loaded up with downforce right you got the wings cranked up they're maxed i mean it's the most downforce the car will produce um because that's typically the quickest you know you're only probably doing 170 miles 175 miles an hour on the straight on a street course just because it's short you know you don't have long straights it's faster to get through the corners nashville will propose the question of do we trim the cars out which is not typical on a street course for us because those straightaways that you're talking about with the bridge they're super long so it actually looks like maybe we should trim the cars out um just because the the trade-off speed wise seems like it may be worth it you know how long you're on the straights versus in the corners is starting to propose that question um so i think that's going to be interesting about nashville the bridge is by far the coolest part of it i mean it's so cool that we're racing over korean vets um which is what the bridge is called it's going to be the perfect backdrop for nashville nashville also has one of the coolest skylines yeah i know it very well grown up and that if they get the helicopter shot right which they they better do uh you're gonna see the cars you know flying over that bridge literally right in front of the the skyline of the city it's going to it's going to look aesthetically probably cooler than anything have you been down there to the track and as they're putting it together yeah yeah i've been i've been there working with the track designer tony cotman and indycar i just want to make sure we're thinking through everything yeah and what are some of the obstacles well you know it's a new circuit so you got to look at runoffs you got to look at how the pit lanes configured uh i think just even things that people don't think of is like how does the pit lane exit onto the race track and how how are the cars coming off pit lane interacting with the cars on the track and in indy car it's kind of a big deal um you know on an oval track in nascar it's not it's not as much of a you know it's not as much of something to think about because it's coming off the apron there's a lot of room on the back stretch it's kind of simple normally an indycar racing when you come off pit road the way that it interacts with the car on the track can a lot of times be really tight and really awkward so you don't want to create problems between that so there's little things that we just want to make sure you know the event has the best opportunity to showcase well off off the jump there's going to be problems it's inevitable it's a new street circuit there's going to be things we just couldn't forecast that we got to fix but i think if we can reduce the amount of issues we have it's going to help the longevity of the event you know and the health of it are how are the all the other drivers involved uh not everybody but you know i think as long as you've got a couple key people in there that are you know giving good advice um you know certainly anyone's advice is welcome sure everyone's running it on the simulator whether you're a honda or a chevy guy so anyone that runs it on the sim and feels the track and goes hey i gotta just just think about this i have one point i'd like to say they're going to take all that into consideration but it was really important for me the i wanted to sit down with them make sure they got some of the details correct it's wide enough where you can make it wide you know thinking about where we could have a traffic jam situation or you know where they need safety trucks just to make sure if there's a track blockage that you can recover those cars quickly because on a street course if you have a track blockage you don't want to be sitting there 25 minutes trying to recover the track it's not good for the fans it's not good for the driver so little stuff like that just needs to be tightened up and made sure so when you drive over the bridge um is there anything challenging about that from a aero standpoint or not typically it kind of crests that heel i'm sure you all have all those have met multiple scenarios like that in in the series that are similar but i keep uh popping into my mind the long straight away at le mans and the car going the car lift yeah lifting up um no it shouldn't be too bad we're making enough downforce that it should stay stuck but the one uh the the one section of bridge going over the bridge initially into the downtown area it's very bumpy off the transition of the bridge and that leads right into a brake zone so i think the stability of the car is going to be really tough there figuring out how to get the car you know because you're going to want you want the car as low as possible and it's just dynamically the best but i think you're going to have to raise the cars up a bit more in nashville because it's so bumpy and the bridge section is very bumpy so you're going to get some porpoising with the car so trying to figure out how to how to you know keep that car as low as possible um while also not crashing the bumps off of the bridge into the brake zone that's that's going to be a challenge what will they physically need to do to the bridge to be able to race across it um so they've they've done a really good job of the the transition from the bridge to the asphalt road they've repaved all those sections i heard that the track itself took upon that um expense to repave and patch you know i know you're part of the ownership group here i just watched my twitter feed man i'm just going to say this though i think what's been most impressive is there's not really been a lot of the expense spared when it comes to i'm sorry there's not been a lot of expense spared in making sure the track's right yeah and it's really really important on a street course that you get those details right so paving that section you know some places may not do that they may be like well whatever the car will get used to it yeah deal with it but when you what i was wondering is like the bridge is not a race track right but now to make it a racetrack what needs to happen to the bridge is there barriers all the way across those sides right there's already rails and things yep so not enough is there is there fencing on both sides i mean to keep you guys you know from going off into the yeah the good thing is like there's a raised up sidewalk right on on the bridge okay so the barrier sits on top of that so the height of the barrier is tall yeah it's pretty tall it's probably five foot and then you have the catch fencing all the way up so the catch finishing all the way across the bridge yeah all the way across and it's the number one question i've got is you know yeah you're going over a bridge like what happens if someone uh you know hits another car and they go into the water yeah and i just tell people i'm like well there's divers i said that to my wife she hated that yeah she did not like that response she's she's right by the way like monaco back in the 70s exactly yeah i was like look if we go into the water they'll come rescue yes don't worry about it it's fine oh god that's making me nervous right now i'm just hearing you say that absolutely uh you know not a probable outcome but the fact that there's this the bridge chance i mean yeah it shouldn't be discussed it should be the same yeah it's entered the chat let's at least acknowledge it right yeah hey you uh okay so you've got six races left yes season all right you are uh you got some momentum you've been you've been running good you got your win your fourth in points is nashville is is it considered like i mean i would assume it's a wild card a bit because you've never been there is that a good thing do you all want us to clean this up real quick i just figured for him he didn't want to sorry yeah he's talking with his hands and i can see him right he avoid the water hey you were talking about the bridge in the water so you're trying to make it realistic man you know so dale's here this is now dale we're going to go rescue damn okay it's cool that looks like driven the movie yeah exactly that's what people have said oh my god wow never thought we would use that movie as an analogy to something that we're talking about here uh okay so you uh you've got six races left alright so is this a is this a benefit to you to have a wild card race or is it a bit of a of a of a mind a mind olympic for you to have to i mean you're having to cut you have to make up ground you've got scott dick's in front of you you got alex you got pedo um is it you know is this a good thing to be going to a brand new course i love it because i i feel like i can get on top of a new new track quicker than others and that's a skill set some guys have right some guys you know they may take a little while to find their footing but very good other guys are just on it right away i love a new course i always feel like i can learn it goes back to racing in england you know i had to learn 20 new courses you know right off the jump and so i love a new track i think it provides a good opportunity for us to be ahead of everyone quicker especially with limited practice time so that will help us i think but look you're never guaranteed you can always have a good weekend going in an indy car and it can be sure you know taken away at the last moment in the race what oh go ahead the hometown like does that matter does that is that still a real thing are you going to have like tons of family in it at the event will will it be unique in any way because it's in nashville it's new for me i've never had a the pressure of a hometown event will that be there i think it will i think it will i mean i'm already feeling that now because i'm you know trying to represent the event as best as i can right because i want the event to succeed not just for nashville but for indycar um but there's already that hometown pressure of hey you're you know you're our guy you're supposed to come in here and do good right you're gonna you're gonna be just fine right so that's gonna be present um but you know the way i always thought of it was every event's important this one's no different so i just you know i think of it like any other race that's what i'm going to try to do we talked about you being an american overseas but and and i mentioned how multinational indycar is and i think um you know it's a it's that's an amazing attribute to that series what is it like being an american in that series you know yeah you're racing in the united states you're racing in nashville at your home track but you're there are your the series uh has been dominated by by you know guys that are that are not american right yeah um oops sorry siri somebody disagrees with that siri said no so i think that you know an american star in indycar is a great thing i'm sure you feel the same way um how do you feel being that guy you know it's funny for me what i what i like about indycar racing is that we have the best of the best from around the world um i think that's what makes it special i think it's also what makes it special being an american in the sport is that you know we've got guys from new zealand australia england uh europe japan everywhere you know they're the best of the best brazil um and i i'm you know i'm part of that group that's representing all the countries and my country happens to be america i take a lot of pride in that but it's also what i like about the championship is that you you have these guys from different backgrounds that are all coming together to try and you know showcase the best from around the world yeah so when i went to i taught we talked about this for mike but when i so i'm watching any car my whole life right and i just you know i don't know why i didn't i'd never really been to a race before and i go to the indy 500 and met a lot of the drivers uh fortunate for me i got a chance to really get a good glimpse at what that series is like and i was just shocked by the by the dynamic personalities you know nascar is a great series great sport we've got great personalities um but mo indycar they're from all corners of the world and while that's an amazing thing for a fan uh what what kind of challenges does that present for you because and i've talked to some other racers about this like blocking for example you got a different opinion than the guy from maybe brazil and the guy from australia on what that is what's a good block what's a bad block all those etiquette all that driving etiquette i'm sure in road and you know and road racing and and it it all kind of blends together but there's got to be a time when those opinions sort of clash and become difficult because you're you think it was an uh you think this was a fair decision on the track and this other guy thinks that that's not a good move right when do these things sort of come to a head yeah i think it's really the cultural differences right like you know what's normal in one culture is different in america and so i think the you know like someone from france is going to feel differently than someone from america on some type of move and what's the right etiquette or not um i think for the most part you know everyone kind of you know we kind of have this international code of you know what's how should professional open racing be conducted right and in indycar we have a certain way of doing that so everyone that comes over here we all kind of get on board that same page because the established drivers are going to set that tone and that's what it's going to be you know someone someone coming in may feel differently about that in the beginning but eventually you know you're you're around the you know the the predominant players long enough that's you're going to have to get used to that um so when you get all of these guys and you have that international code that's understanding and you take all of you to an oval and a lot of guys maybe aren't having a lot of experience are the expectations the same as do you use that same code does it change a little bit that's that's actually where it's probably the most different is you know the road and street court stuff i feel like everyone kind of understands that especially if you're from you know europe or wherever like you kind of get how how it should work and how we should drive together when it comes to oval racing much like me most of these guys they don't know anything about oval racing when they come over um and it's not indy lights it's not a junior car this is like the real deal full-blown indy car indy 500 33 cars around you it's serious stuff and they just i think what happens a lot of times is they don't understand the respect that's needed at those speeds and that style of racing you know it really takes both parties to interact whether you're being aggressive or not like it takes both parties to cooperate in order for it to go okay you can't just muscle your way through something especially on an oval so that's probably the most difficult thing for anyone new coming into the sport is trying to trying to understand that etiquette and the risk factor there is on on an oval versus a rotor street course yeah what's the international etiquette code for settling disagreements after a race that's the cul that's where the cultures are different you know you have a little different opinion on how we handle this um yeah i mean if you're will power you may fight someone you know i mean he scraps he doesn't want to fight he doesn't it's just really it's part of his history it's his history it's he he's a lover i'm glad you said willpower because you know where we really may i won't speak for you i'll speak for me when you were in that i racing car race oh god that was so much fun right and we all raced in michigan or something and will power's in it and i and we're listening to the radio and i was like wow willpower's a little whiney isn't he yeah he gets a little chill he's my favorite person on the planet he's got to be i don't even know how to explain that guy to people like he's just so different we loved him when he was on our show we just had and boy but he likes to scrap and man he doesn't really i don't know if he thinks he's stealthy with his feelings but he isn't at all and i find australians very hard to explain explain but also some of my favorite people yeah they're they're they're my favorite i have another australian teammate scotty mclaughlin yeah he's another one of my favorite people now he's from australia well no he's actually a kiwi but a lot of people think he's australian she's from new zealand yeah that's delicate um but he's lived in australia most of his life so i just think he's australian he's gonna kill me after he is uh but will you know what a lot of people don't know about will is he's like probably the most kind-hearted person i've ever met yeah he has such a big heart but he's so emotional and he's so passionate yeah so we've we've even had our run-ins a couple times where he's like i mean we've gotten in like yelling matches and i'm like i think this guy's gonna punch me for and i don't know why i don't know and then literally 20 minutes later he'll come back and be like man i'm so sorry like you know and we're like best friends again it's totally fine yeah um so there's different cultures for sure and the way you interact but at the end of the day we all we all find a way to get along yeah which is good you know one of the telling things i remember like watching the indy 500 this year when elio won like the first people that i saw and he hugged a lot of people but the first people like will power was right there and i like all of elio's you know penske teammates were the first to congratulate him and that really to me spoke a lot to the culture of not just your you know your driver you know fraternity but also you know the captain has built within the company and everything else and everybody was so generally happy for elio as is you know you know indy car fans because he's just a likable guy right yeah i think it's the most surprising thing for drivers and i don't have the experience on the nascar side so i don't know what that camaraderie is like but you know we're look we're all uber competitive people right i mean i wanna same thing with my teammates i tell this to scott i'm like look i wanna i'm gonna do everything i can to beat you on the track even though we're you know friendly off of it but what what drivers notice when they come to indycar is they're really surprised by the camaraderie off the track yeah and they they actually they don't understand how it exists they're like i don't know how we can all be so cordial and friendly we don't have to be best friends but we're all friendly enough where we can hang out in the bus lot or you know have a barbecue together or whatever it is and still be as fierce as we are on the track and i don't know if that's just unique to indycar but we're all we're really good with each other like there's a great camaraderie from from everybody so when elio won the fourth like everyone was genuinely happy to see elio do that it was a big deal for for the series and for him and you know yeah i wanted to win the race but it was it was cool to see elio do that yeah yeah that is an interesting thing about what um and i don't know that any car was always that way i think it's just it's kind of like a it's what it's a trend uh and it had all the moons have to align uh and right now you guys do have that sort of camaraderie you can see it in social media where you guys are you know genuinely enjoy being around each other away from the racetrack um and i think that's a good thing you know we we talked about it in nascar for years that it was maybe a bad thing that all of us were in the bus lot together yeah and we you know when we would get into in a disagreement on the track we would we would text each other and be you know and that would be that right there weren't any more scraps and fighting at the hotel room or the hotel lobby or it was just you know the the bus a lot and us being together all the time sort of normalized us and and and took away a lot of that really yeah it took away some of those rough edges but made made us less likely to you know draw out these feuds you know into week and month long deals um how is it now because it's it honestly seems like from the outside that that's gotten better too more like the indycar world where everyone you know you see this friendships like a chase in a ryan or whatever i mean everyone seems more friendly nowadays i think so um and i don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing that are because that you can see those guys also erase each other harder than anyone else on the racetrack you know you race your friend your buddy is harder harder than anyone else and you actually put him in more compromising situations than you would anyone else right because he's your buddy he's going to get over it right um and so at least that's the way i raise some of my friends i don't know i think nascar drivers if you really if they took a lie detector test i don't think any of them really like each other i don't know that that yeah i don't know that you're wrong there and i like that i like it that way i don't i don't i think that's important but i don't know that the feuds last the way they used to yeah because everybody's in this bus lot together and they they can't afford to just you know be at each other's throats for for months on end it's a hard thing to do you know at the end of the day i think will has said this and i do agree with it because i'm one of these people that i can be friends with everybody it's no problem like i'm going to tell you straight up from the beginning i'm going to do everything i can to beat you on the track i'm not going to treat you any differently if we're friends um but some people they just can't do that when when stuff happens on the track they they can't get over it and it just changes their dynamic off the track with each other i i definitely know a lot of people that struggle with that so i could see that in the nascar world it seems more likely there yes that they really struggle with certain things that happen they they won't get over it um but indycar yeah i don't know it's just uh maybe it is the moon's aligning it's a weird dynamic everyone's at least cordial which is kind of cool and that'll go away and come back again and go away i think i believe in cycles um your wife was a disney princess yeah so um well you know i got two little girls getting ready to take them to disney uh they're gonna meet the princesses in in the in the castle um but what does what of her like what are you what was her life like as a princess before you met her i don't you know is she still a princess when y'all met well she's my princess for sure of course yes but a disney obviously uh yeah disney it's a weird story it's kind of like the scooter story it's like well you know how do you meet a disney princess and i didn't meet her away from disney and just happened to learn that she was a princess like i met her at disney when she was a princess oh my gosh yeah that's how i met my wife like she was literally ariel dude i was like i'm like who is this ariel like joseph was looking for mermaids what are you doing at disneyland when i was there with my family okay you know your family how old are you in this moment 2021 all right and you see you see uh you see the princess right i see the princess and you know there's a lot of princesses around right so why are you picking this one out i mean she was the one i'm like look i've seen cinderella i've seen jasmine i'm like but i don't know who this aerial person is it's not like i had a thing for redheads or something it wasn't that it was just like who is this person is this uh common for her to have people uh coming up to her and going hey uh you'd be interested in going on a date i mean it is a weird story did you i'll tell you i'll tell you the story wait you didn't hit on her while she was in uniform i mean i did oh my god creep so let me let me tell you the story it's a weird story um so we're at disney we're at literally cinderella's castle you can have dinner there yes you can we were having dinner you'll probably have dinner there with your little girl i've already you got it scheduled so at this dinner all the princesses are there yep you know and uh so we're eating dinner and before this dinner happened we had you like meet cinderella and i'm like oh this and i was kind of giving her a hard time just you know just playing around like just you're trying to get them off off balance a little bit because they're they're in character yes like they are performing all the time when you see them so you know maybe it wasn't the nice thing i was just trying to get her off balance a little bit she's not appreciated that never happens to them yeah all the time they're like i'm like one in a million that's like giving them a hard time well how many 21 year old single guys are going to dinner at disney's you know uh castle a lot more than you think really a lot more than you think it's like the guy that goes for that reason yeah i'm not there alone i'm literally there with seven other family members okay that's my mom my dad my sister i had this visualized completely wrong it's not like hey table for one cinderella that would be really awkward hey ariel what you doing later yeah like what if that would be creepy um so anyways this this cinderella did not appreciate this she put me in my place like super witty and i'm like yeah i deserve that probably um so anyways then we go up to our table we're sitting down we're having dinner and apparently like the cinderella told all the other princesses they're like look out for this guy he's you know he's a tough one or whatever am i so ashley comes over she's she's the ariel and she starts you know giving me giving me a hard time too and so i just give it right back to her and i'm like trying to i'm asking her where prince is i'm like where's eric you know he must be on a long long journey journey far far away and uh she's like just struggling she she tells the story differently i think she was struggling to stay in character um but i was trying i was trying to catch her off balance too but she absolutely captivated me i was like out all that i was like who i don't care that you're a princess right now i'm like who is this girl so i had to figure out who she was and where she was and that's an impossible task yes you're not just going to leave disney and go you know i like that one let me let me let me see how i can find out her where her contact is and maybe i can take her out on a date like it's impossible they have security for these reasons um so i went back to my hotel and i'm like man i wonder i really want to find that girl like i just got to find her details and you know see if i can message her or send her a letter you know something cheesy and couldn't find her literally at midnight two hours later i get an email in my inbox it's from ariel shut up i swear to you i swear to you she emails me as like this really cute message how did she get your email that's what i said i was like i was like whoa first off i got an email from her i already know her name now now i know who she is her name is ashley all right and so i found her online found out yeah i was like sweet i don't have to call her ariel super creepy of me um but yeah she emails me and i'm like she must have gotten my email because i made the reservation i made the reservation for our family and i'm like she must have wanted to figure out who i was i'm like this is a done deal she was she was curious who i was when i was curious who she was mutual mutual i'm like this is a done deal this is easy now i got her information anyway send her an email back she's kind of kind of coy with each other it's like literally taking a day for each email to go it's like sending letters you know we're all trying to be cool i don't want to email too quick oh yeah you know yeah it was like two weeks you don't want to get give her the wrong impression or anything no no no no no no no no no i already hit on her interesting but you know let me take a couple days before i email you back we're both doing this right trying to be cool with each other oh yeah we literally do it for two weeks and after the two weeks i'm like this is like this is the woman of my dreams i'm like who is this lady and so i i was like i have to come down please let me come down and take you out on a date and so i convinced her to let me do that i come back down to orlando take her out on a date and then i literally learn on that date that she's moving to japan oh my like in 30 days it's already done she's got a contract she's gonna go work for disney in japan i'm like what the heck i was like you're the woman of my dreams i like want to marry you and you're gonna leave the country so yeah then i had to go to japan for the next year and then the rest is history so she went and goes to japan she goes to japan i had to travel that whole year how many times did you go to japan three times yeah yeah it's the best time of my life i love japan i wish i could we were gonna go to tokyo for the olympics weren't you yeah i was going to try and weasel my way over there because i i'd love to go back to japan it's one of my favorite countries in the world anyways we dated while she was in japan for 14 months and then the rest is history after that that's pretty incredible it is incredible you want to know the kicker on that story so it wasn't that she got my email off the reservation and i didn't learn this until like three weeks afterwards right it was my father my father paid the bill all right for the dinner and he put my he put my email address down on the bill and gave it to the the waitress and said can you please give this to the area the princess he saw it he oh yeah no everyone at the table knew everyone was like i'm so infatuated by who this ariel is he gave it to the waitress the waitress gave it to to ashley i think this is probably illegal at disney so it's gotta be this waitress doesn't get you know fired one day but yeah so my dad ended up being my wingman i mean what a guy you know he gave me my career he met he helped me meet my wife like now i know why he gives you so much confidence i hate it but i have to give him credit because he did make it happen unbelievable man he's like he's my guy there you go gosh well that's pretty incredible that's a good way to enter this conversation at the time i don't know where do we go from next i mean i don't know don't just not even try well joseph we um we had we got a ton of notes on them we did not and that's the great thing about this podcast is that you don't just come on here once dale what are you coming in asheville i just went like a couple days ago no but when you go are you coming for the race weekend or no i don't know i have to work that weekend you got to work that way you're at watkins glen or something i got to work to broadcast it i sent you an email i'll be doing it i got a ping pong tournament thursday night that's right delaney's coming i'm just saying if you're over this is your celebrity charity yeah you're a charity oh come i'm not i'm not gonna play you can you can hang out you can get a ringer you can hire an olympian yes you can be your teammate i'll just i'll just hang out that's right you know you don't want to play i gotta come you play you guys play and i'll i'll could be a designated hitter i'll be mingled i'm gonna go amongst the crowd and say you know see say hey to everybody all right what is the date of that it's uh august 5th so it's thursday it's the only way it's a thursday the only way for us to do it because you know friday saturday sunday all the drivers are busy so we're doing it thursday night at 6pm yeah okay we're gonna have tickets for it too we got 100 tickets it's at pins mechanical downtown nashville it's for serious fun children's network so people can buy tickets people can buy we've never done this before it's 100 tickets on sale trying to raise an extra ten thousand dollars serious fun children's network it's part of victory junction is actually in that network so it's paul newman's charity that he started in the 80s really cool group they do great great things for all these kids so if you go to my social media there's a link to this ticket um site where you can you can purchase a ticket and there's only a hundred so i don't know how many are left but okay if there's still some left you can buy a tick and come to the event maybe dale will be there he's i'm guessing you're probably not but you may be there i if i i mean if i come to the race that weekend it's definitely gonna be thursday or maybe friday but i got to be in at the glenn to do the broadcast for the xfinity race on saturday and sunday i get it i get it i'll be standing you're a busy man i'll be down in the i call it the inner loop yeah or the bus stop but that's where i'll be radio style oh yeah yeah that's different but uh man hovis uh he left [Laughter] he had to go tt he had to go ct um he he said i mean i've met you before and i know i know you're a pretty incredible person man but he he said you'd be an amazing interview and you certainly were people are going to love to hear this podcast it's been a blast talking to you and getting to know you and i'm excited about your future thanks for sharing everything with us and being so transparent um people are going to be thrilled to hear it man so i hope you had a good time man it's been a total honor i was so nervous to come in here you know you guys are like royalties what nervous well we're nervous too but uh i appreciate it though this is a complete honor to be here uh such a big fan of of you guys and especially you dale i appreciate that thank you for everything you do for motorsports and and you know we're a huge fan of yours uh we'll be cheering you on going forward and uh yeah i we your grandfather ping pong hall of fame we didn't even get him and get to that we didn't get to it there's a lot we could have dug into joseph newgarden we've got to get him back on the podcast folks because he's got a lot more to his story and hopefully we'll be talking about some more success in your motorsports career uh maybe you'll win in nashville for the first race so um good luck going forward man thanks guys all right thank you joseph newgarden on the dale jr download hey where did hovis go did he leave leave that was awesome that was such a great interview no i'm like i'm going to tell some embarrassing stories well it's the best time to do it yeah life is best lived in motion and that's why tire pros gets you ready for all your driving adventures whether it's along corners across city and state lines because we're more than just tires we're auto care too tire pros so you can focus on the road ahead [Music] you

Channel: Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Dirty Mo Media

Views: 178,448

Keywords: Dale Jr. Download, Dale Jr., Josef Newgarden, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Dale Jr. podcast

Id: 26uM2J5poaA

Length: 92min 8sec (5528 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 30 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/aurules]

Dang, Dale doesn’t usually upload his podcast to his youtube channel so this is definitely about to get some views. Great exposure for Indycar

[u/fragilityv3]

It was a great interview, didn't know the stuff about the scooters, Josh Berry, or how he met his wife. Hopefully this gets a few more people to check out him and the series.

I was wondering if he crossed paths with Josh Berry, but didn't expect them to be ex middle school classmates.

Funny how they had totally different careers paths, but the one thing they have in common is Ferrucci making them mad lol.

[u/csbsju-20]

Josef was awesome. A really charismatic, thoughtful person. Why does Penske have to have so many likable drivers?!

[u/ilikemarblestoo]

Good Interview!

Now I am imagining the skooters to be like Razor scooters. But part of me is thinking they were like those small sitdown ones you would see in the window of a store at like a mall in the 2000s.