Breaking Down The Business of NASCAR with Chip Bowers

San Diego, stacking pennies here.

Man, I'll tell you those post-race flights back.

I say it every time.

It takes years off your life, but only one of us two here

on the show today had to do that, because you're staying out.

My trusted compadre, Ryan Flores, staying out,

going to Disney World, seeing all that the West Coast

has to offer.

How's it going this morning over there, buddy?

The only thing that took years off my life last night,

Corey, was that In-N-Out burger that I had after the race

on the way up here to Disneyland.

But yeah, it was a, what a weekend, man.

Holy, cool, we'll do, holy shit, what a cool race.

But also, Jesus Christmas, I walked a lot of miles

the last couple of days.

What was your step count?

What was the highest one?

I was like, I was, both days I was north of eight miles.

Yeah, that's about where.

23,000 steps, 23,500.

Let's look at the mileage count.

I knew it was going to be a big one yesterday.

But yeah, it was a cool weekend, man.

What a cool time in Coronado.

And you know, the schedule has always been so stale.

So, or it got stale, right?

Two Poconos, two Dovers, going everywhere twice.

It's really cool to be able to do these cool things

and be able to, the way they laid the schedule out,

be able to stay out here in California

and experience some of the stuff that we never get to see

when we're chasing race cars around the country.

I've never been to San Diego and I landed,

I'm like, this place is fake.

It's so nice.

It stayed 69 degrees the entire time we were there

from six AM.

It's a little cold for me.

It's a little cold?

That's what.

A little cold for me.

Well, it was perfect.

It was perfect for me.

And we stayed on Coronado Island,

which that place is special in and of itself.

Cause I didn't know anything about it.

The base is like, you know, not the whole thing.

I just went in there assuming that the base

was the entire island.

It's not, it's like a quarter of it.

And everything else is like a normal little beach town.

It's like a normal little beach town.

Like coffee shops, nice restaurants, awesome hotels.

And we got to taking all the sites.

Got Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney sharing a scooter

like Lloyd Christmas and who's the other guy, Harry?

I do listen.

It was really bad.

Jeff Gluck was, was getting hammered, I guess for a scooter.

And I think the scooter is cool,

but he needs to lose the helmet.

Dude, the helmet is a tough look.

I would rather get CTE than be seen with that helmet on

that he bought from Walmart for 3.99.

Oh my God.

It looked like it was four sizes too small,

two sitting up on top of his head.

Couldn't look more dorky.

Shout out, Jeff Gluck.

Geez, that was a tough, tough look.

Yeah, so the means of transportation

were interesting this week.

In addition to the vehicles, let's just,

we're gonna put a quick topper on this episode for you

because we talked to RFK president Chip Bowers

a couple weeks ago.

So we wanted to get you guys to hear that,

but we're gonna touch on San Diego first.

It was a legitimate racetrack.

It was gnarly, it was sketchy, it was fast, it was bumpy.

It was all the things we had talked about

over the course of the broadcast over the weekend.

But the track only got more and more gripped up

as the rubber got laid down and got cleaned up.

I'd say it was treacherous for truck practice.

And I thought we went in with just,

hey, let's just fairway drive.

I feel like my road course abilities

can get us the top six or seven.

I said yesterday or last week on the show

I was going in there to win, but those couple,

Lane Van Rigsberg and was solid,

swept both street courses this year.

And Jimmy up there.

Yo, that Tyler Rafe came.

Where did Tyler Rafe come from?

Well, I was gonna get to that.

That kid was gonna.

I was gonna get to that

because our plan all week,

which we didn't talk too much about it,

which kind of bit us is like,

do whatever you can to keep stage points

or not stage points, opposite.

Do whatever you can to keep track position.

Because street courses, one, the visibility is nothing.

You can't see when you're tucked up behind somebody

and it gets stretched out.

So your advantage of tires besides the cup race,

your advantage of tires and the O'Reilly's

in the truck race wasn't that big

and you couldn't drive back to the front.

So we go first segment.

I didn't even feel like I was pushing it more than 70%

just to keep the truck in one piece,

save some breaks, save some tire.

And we finished, I think 10th.

And everybody starts flipping it.

And I was like, hey, we flipping

and we just, we went through the stage.

So by the time it all cycled around

after the first stage, we were like 24th.

Back there, like Jimmy Johnson was talking about

where they show no respect, probably negative respect.

Get back in there and I'm racing side by side

with Tyler Reif.

We go into the last chicane, I'm on the driver's left.

We go through the left, little left hander.

That was the little Arby's cheesesteak chicane

wherever the hell they were calling it.

And little did I know that Conor Mosac

was sitting backwards offline, right in the line

if you were going too wide.

And by the time I saw him, I was about,

for me to you on the TV screen looking right in his eyes

and I tried to get the truck sideways

and hit him like nose to the door to not hit a wheel.

And his left front tire hit my left rear tire

and ripped the entire rear end housing out of it.

So yeah, I was pretty perturbed.

About that for multiple reasons

because I felt like we threw another good opportunity

to have another, it's been like the last six weeks

we've had top 10 runs, just throw them away

by something happened.

So that was frustrating.

Anything else on the truck race, do you think?

No, I didn't get this, I mean, I was paying attention

to it a little bit.

It was a lot shorter than the Arale Race.

The Arale Race just seemed like it would never end.

Large wrecks there.

It started off with that crazy kind of,

and if you've raced anywhere with sword drains before,

it's not new.

It has happened before where sword drains come off

and they don't always fly through and damage

the front end of a race car, but they do pop off

with how that happened before.

Unique situation with the 17 car

and then letting him fix it.

I thought that that was, hey, look, I'm part of Hendrick.

That was cool for them, but that was a unique situation

that I've never seen before.

And it really kind of slowed the whole,

it was like 45 minutes before we even got going

for that race and they just kept wrecking.

That was a large wreck in the 12 on that restart

with Sam Mayer.

Dude, the in-car camera, that was gnarly.

And there was just radiators and brake ducts rolling down

the track, I was like, oh my God.

Yeah, that was a massive crash.

Now that was the pinch port on resarts

because when you're in it, you know,

everybody's watching up top in their grandstands

or on the television, like, well, why'd the guy do that?

Well, when you're tucked in behind somebody,

they're particularly on the right side,

you have no reference where the wall is.

So you are going off of and you're trusting the guy

in front of you that he is where he needs

to be on the racetrack because you can't see

through that guy's cab or over that guy's roof

to a fence, to a cone, to nothing

because the wall is like door top height.

So when you whistle it off in there,

you have no reference of where you are

in the racetrack left or right.

You got one guy next to you.

So we saw the 41 took a little bit too much,

hit the right front fender and then back into the,

back into traffic, right into the fence.

And the other way was, was Austin Hill in the cup race.

He just missed the corner completely.

Oh, it was, I love when they're like,

and not the pilot on Austin Hill,

he did great job on Saturday,

but I love when people are like,

oh, I just locked the rears up.

I didn't miss the corner, I just locked the rears up.

No, no, no, that's missing the corner, my friend.

It's kind of a definition.

You need to be in control of your race car

and he lost control of his race car.

Man, I felt like it was way too early for that.

And it took out a lot of really good cars.

Did save us though, all, fortunately and unfortunately,

from being embarrassed by a Kiwi on an American Naval base.

So I felt like that was maybe one of the ways that.

I felt some type of way.

I mean, watch this.

I felt some type of way about that

because I like Shane a lot, consider him a friend.

I did not want him to win on the Naval base of Coronado.

Come in here, New Zealand guy.

I felt Shane win.

Coming on our turf.

I didn't feel like that.

In the World Cup.

Yeah, get out of here.

You can win Sonoma, buddy.

You can have Coda.

You can't have Coronado, my friend.

I'm gonna draw the line of the saying somewhere.

And I'm glad somebody took it.

I want to sell them wreck, that was like,

I hate that for the playoff chances,

but I love that for America.

That's right.

So how about speaking of international battles?

Who's that?

Kevin Maggison and Noah Gregson.

Now, and the best was Noah went up to him

and he was just like, fuck off.

Couple times.

But I went back and watched.

Noah drove him all over the racetrack.

All over the racetrack.

So like the only person Noah could be mad at is himself.

Of course, but Noah's never gonna be mad at anybody.

It's never his fault, right?

So yeah, yeah, you watching our camera of Kevin Maggison

and he's clearly faster when you're in a road course

and you look out of your windshield

and you can't see anybody and you look in your mirror

and you see about seven guys.

You're the problem.

You need to get out of the way or get going.

And that was Noah in that instance,

like Kevin's behind them, pressuring them,

getting held up, probably trying to cut them some breaks.

And then after he's like, okay,

what the hell is this guy doing?

And gave him the business.

And I, he said, you mess around and you find out.

He told him that two or three times.

Hey, Noah, Noah didn't want no piece of that.

He talked like he wanted to.

He wanted no piece.

He was looking at him like he was gonna punch him

like when he punched Ross.

I was like, oh, he might punch him here.

He was, I agree with that.

But he, I don't know if he got fine for that previously

or not.

I wonder if he was thinking the status

of what his bank account looked like

before he pulled the trigger on that one.

But I'm glad there was no fist to cuffs.

I hope Kevin Maxson comes back.

I hope they have some more beef

because I feel like that'd be great.

I love it.

They, well, speaking of beef, I had to go to Victor Elaine.

So I guess, what, did Carson and Corey Hyme get into it

in the truck series a couple of years ago?

Because when Corey got the, we, 77, right?

We start the race, just take you to the beginning.

Yeah, yeah.

It looks like when we start that race,

it looks like we're gonna be fitting

every seven laps the tires on.

That was kind of the plan.

Every seven, maybe 10 if you stretch it.

And then as a track rubber it up, everything changed.

And it, like you just kind of had to wait to see

how the race played out to figure out

what strategy you're on.

Well, we pitted for our last time,

when we pitted, the caution came out.

We ended up beating the five car to the yellow line

at the end of pit road.

You guys were, 77 was on the best track.

So we were the leader.

I'm like, holy shit, we're the leader on brand new tires.

Like let's go.

We got a shot at this and then fired off, got the lead.

And I was like, where did he,

wasn't Tyler Reddick spinning out by himself

like 20 laps ago, what's going on here?

And I guess I hadn't paid much attention

to how fast Corey Heim was either all race

cause I'd kind of been focusing on my own stuff.

But man, when Heim got the host of our heat

and then you give him a chance,

it just cleaned him right out.

You live by the sword, you die by the sword.

I mean, that's a-

Yeah, it's a bummer for the team guys, right?

Because the team guys is the ones that pay the price

for driver beefs cause they did a great job all day

and prepared a great race car, I mean,

cars qualify by second.

But yeah, those are tough lessons to learn.

And it's really impressive.

So I was pumped for our, you know, that 77 team.

The whole mission was to stay,

go positive to the cut line,

stage points in both stages, ended up like P19.

It wasn't as great as it could have been,

but positive to the cut line to make the playoffs.

Corey Heim though, man, that's not even a full-time team.

That's like the shop guys, their backup.

Yeah.

They're backup pick crew guys.

And for them to come in, booty barkered.

So it's just super cool to see all their guys come in.

I mean, not really that cool

cause they kicked everybody's ass

and they've won damn every race this year.

But holy shit, how hard is it to win at this level?

And that team is just doing it with their backup guys.

Well, how hard to win this level, it's incredibly hard.

Hard to do it with a full-time team

that you work with each and every week,

let alone one-offs, right?

Trying to be inconsistent,

trying to do all the things that takes to do it

at a high level and consistently is challenging.

Yeah, shout out booty, he's my neighbor.

It was awesome.

He's literally one of the best guys in the garage, man.

So I was happy for him, happy for Corey Heim

because he showed he belonged.

He's showed multiple occasions that he does belong,

but and this, I think opens up a conversation of like

on another day, development, right?

Like he chose, you know, he alluded to it

and that's probably under the water on the bridge now,

but we can say he had a deal at Legacy two years ago

to run that cup car and he said, but you said no.

And he said, no, I'm gonna wait, right?

He goes and then has the best series

and truck series history, winning every single race.

Stock couldn't be higher and waits for his seat

that didn't even look likely to have at 2311.

Clearly hit that timing right because those guys

have an exceptional handle on this next gen car right now.

So it's all about timing, but he took a gamble on himself

because he could have taken on paper a solid cup seat,

but he would not be in the position

he is right now with the stock

and the career trajectory that he's currently on

because he's going to be a multiple time cup winner a year

and he's gonna be in the championship conversation

for the next 15 years.

Yeah, you look at, I mean, look at rather Herp yesterday.

He run top five in bubble Wallace all of a sudden looks like

Lewis Hamilton put up that tweet.

Bubble Hamilton.

Yeah.

And shout out to Bubba dude.

I was listening to that Bussin with the boys episode.

Did you see, did you hear that one with him and Blaney on it?

No.

Oh man, I saw him yesterday on the stage

because I did the poster as I said,

I appreciate you calling out Blaney for not getting us

any gifts when we won the championship.

They were hammering Blaney the whole time.

They're like, you didn't get your boys anything

when you won the championship.

They just kept going back to that.

Cause he was talking about like Marcus Mario

to get them boots and Russell Wilson by them stock in Google.

And it was, was a layer is as funny.

It's good to go listen to.

Speaking of, what was your favorite gifts and football, man?

It was, you know, I was, I was behind the scenes with prime

obviously all weekend.

And it was cool to hear how the whole Patrick Mahomes, Jason

and Travis Kelsey thing came together.

That, that's, that was on their own accord.

Like that's Travis Kelsey's bachelor party.

They just wanted to go to a NASCAR race.

And Jason obviously spent some time with you guys

over a Hendrick Motorsports went to Talladega on the year

and was like, you guys got to see this thing.

It's unbelievable.

So they reached out, Patrick did to Amy Pulchick from prime

and say, Hey, line it up.

We're coming out.

Get us on the carrier, get us on the base,

get us everything we need.

And they got NASCAR last minute,

got them fixed up with a suite.

And it was obviously in a location where under caution,

Connor Zillich noticed them.

Did you see that?

He's like under caution like, Hey, I saw, I see Patrick Mahomes

just like up on a suite.

That's pretty cool.

He was up in a five box taking videos.

So I sent him tweet out after the race, man NASCAR is so back.

People said, it didn't go anywhere.

And I could argue that the public sentiment

around the sport wasn't very good for 78 10 years.

But when it gets back into mainstream culture

and you get guys like Patrick Mahomes,

three times Super Bowl champ coming out

because they want to hang out

and want to take in what this event is, NASCAR's cool again.

So that's what we've been trying to do

for the last five years in the show

is to tell people why it's cool and to make it cool again.

So I think that we're making headway with that.

The prime certainly made some headway with that.

It's the last one, unfortunately.

So that was an incredible experience again this year.

The fans seem to love it.

I loved it.

That set location on the USS Carl Vinson was unbelievable.

Got to spend.

So Pete Hedzeth, Secretary of War, no big deal.

He got, you know, we're up there during the race

and his 20 Tahoe caravan pulls in.

What do they call that?

I don't know.

Kieran, what are they called?

Motorcade.

His motorcade rolls up, right?

And the big guns hop out.

And that's one of those deals where like the kids are

in one car, the wife's in another car, he hops out

and they've got guys with night vision goggles up

on their helmets, like 15 of those guys

and they go up the upscale to the top of the carrier.

It was cool to see all that unfold.

And he comes up to the deck

and you know, everybody's hanging out.

All the sailors are around.

It was an incredible scene.

And he kind of like, so I've known Pete now

five or six years and I would always do their Fox News

hits when he was on that show, Fox and Friends.

And he would always wear a seven hat, right?

Leanne has a good relationship with him.

And he like, like, yo, walked over, gave me a big old hug.

I'm like, oh, this is wild.

And we talked for 15, 20 minutes.

And he's like, for the record,

Corey LeJoy was my favorite driver.

I'm looking around like, does somebody have this on camera?

Please?

I don't think they did, but it can live right here.

And he brought me over, dude, and told me the story.

So that picture that we fired off on Instagram

of, I don't know, what they call it, the tower.

They call it something like where the bridge is,

where they captain steers the ship.

I don't know what the hell it's called.

So I shot a picture, they're called pad eyes,

like the things that they tie the F-18s

and all the helicopters and stuff too, chains and stuff.

They call them pad eyes that are sunk into the deck.

There's one red one.

So that was the picture that I posted.

You see that picture I posted?

It's painted red.

All the other ones are painted the same color as the deck.

And I was like, Pete, what's that one for?

He goes, oh, you don't know why that one's colored red?

So I was like, no, I'd love to hear.

So when the helicopter landed with Osama bin Laden,

and they kicked him out and landed there,

there was some remnants of him

before they dumped them off into the ocean.

So when they cleaned it all up,

they painted that particular spot red

to remind everybody who was there

and where he was before they dumped them off into the ocean.

And I never felt more American my entire life.

Yeah, fire me up.

That's crazy.

So yeah, people are taking pictures of that there.

He took a picture that I'm like, my man.

So get that story told me by the old secretary award was awesome.

Who else was there?

Celebrities will land this bird so we get in the chip,

but it was cool.

K Adams, she seemed to have it in front of her.

I mean, I was too busy working, man.

I saw the wheels on off that thing.

I'm serious.

I don't get my wife was asking me that.

She's like, who'd you see?

I'm like, I didn't see anybody.

I was working.

She's like, well, did you not go see this guy?

I'm like, I had to get my stuff ready

and change the tires on that thing.

I don't get to go Gallivan at the driver's meeting.

I got shit to do.

So I was, I mean, I don't know.

Even if there is like important people there,

I'm always just kind of focused on my deal.

As a tire changer, you have so much moving parts

that if you start worrying about the passenger,

but all you forget about your job and the wheels fall off,

then you get bitched out by the guys

to get you all the cool stuff.

So I'm in the trenches, brother.

I didn't get to see anything.

Yeah, you're not up there.

You're not a rubbing up with the generals.

No, no.

I'll tell you what I did see.

They're putting on the show, brother.

Somebody's got to.

I did see this.

I saw a lot of people happy to be there,

excited to be the wide-eyed and smiling faces.

I'm sure there were some challenges, right?

Nobody wants to give an ask car break

when it comes to food lines and drink lines

and ingress and egress.

Guys, this is first race.

It's something that's been unprecedented.

It's on an island.

There's one way in on a bridge.

Of course there's gonna be traffic.

Give them some, and I'll say, Sunday,

it was tight and right.

It was pretty good.

It was way better.

So they, one quick thing and we'll get the chip.

So we're sitting there talking to an ask car executive

on Sunday morning, and he was like,

we sold more merch on Friday.

We sold all the merch that we had on Friday.

We thought we had more than we needed for three days.

We sold all of it in one day before the day was done.

We sold about four times more water

than what we thought we were going to.

Four times more beer.

They had to open the Padre Stadium Sunday morning at 6 a.m.

NASCAR did send an 18-wheeler to the Padre Stadium

to load up on beer and water to get more into the base

to have enough water or beer for everybody.

So that was the demand level

that I don't think anybody anticipated.

And that was the excitement level too that showed.

So it was an incredible experience to be a part of.

I hate that our family.

Absolutely logistical nightmare.

I saw like Jeff Gluck was talking about

some people being frustrated for the,

the frustrations of it all.

There's going to be some people that have a tough experience.

I think Van Kennedy talked about that

and how they're going to make it right.

Look, man, I had a blast.

I walked a lot.

It was cool.

I met a lot of people that were having a good time.

There was a lot of new fans.

There was a lot of people from England

and other places that I got to talk to.

I like it.

I hope we do more stuff like this.

So I know it's going to be tough.

It's going to be really hard for NASCAR.

It shows that the teams, NASCAR, the fans,

everybody I like, can come together

and put on a cool event anywhere

that they want to have a start line and a finish line.

I want to come back.

I want to do it again.

I want to do it the same weekend

as much as I would love July 4th selfishly.

I want it in the prime broadcast window.

I don't want them to move it to July 4th and us not have it.

I think if they can chop off about three quarters of a mile

off that track, it would be dialed.

I'm sure all those things are up in the air

if they're talking about it.

I thought it made the sport look massive

and it showed the reverence and respect to the Navy

and the military services that we all hoped it would.

And it was a great event,

won by a budding star in Corey Hime.

So you guys are going to get a great conversation.

We had a couple of weeks ago with Chip Bowers.

We had this conversation probably a week

before they signed Chris Busher.

So happy that they got a deal done there.

He was a little coy about that

as he should have been sitting here on it,

but he gave us some great insight on chargers

and the sport and his experience in other sports.

So that's all we got buddy.

Have a great time this weekend out West.

You guys have a great time stacking pennies here.

Stick around for Mr. Chip Bowers,

president of RFK Racing coming up right after this.

All right friends, landed the late one last night in Michigan.

What time did you get in here?

It was a midnight.

Yeah, it was a midnight.

Not terrible.

There's no, listen, Michigan does a great job.

Went the racetrack of the facility

and the fans show out.

Getting there to and from and to the airport stinks.

Not the best logistics.

And the traffic flow getting in,

it's a lot like Poconos, one road in and out.

That's right.

Oh, please help us welcome.

I want to give this fella a proper introduction here.

I've got to spend a lot of time with him

as we were building out what that day 2500 looked like.

You got to be pretty good friends with him here.

And we want to chop it up with him on the podcast

because I think he is not necessarily a legacy NASCAR guy,

but he's bringing a lot of fresh ideas

from other sports to NASCAR and RFK.

Please help me welcome president of RFK Racing, Chip Bowers.

Staggin' em deep.

Sellin' em cheap.

That tastes like gasoline.

Rubber and victory.

Where's that here Stag's back?

Thank you, my friend.

Appreciate it.

Welcome, man.

Thanks for having me.

Welcome to the Nonsense Garage.

How's it going?

It's going well.

All things considered.

We've had a tough few weeks here of bad luck.

But we'll turn it around I'm confident that well, that's I mean it's feast or famine almost a little bit right everything's going good until it's not

That's right. That's right. Oh, were you Michigan history? I was time to get back got walked in the house at midnight. Oh

We're all the same plate. Yeah

It's amazing how much time you can pick up late at night heading down the 77. Oh, I was hammered down

There's RFK flying the Concorde

Staceville see and that always blew my mind because I worked at RFK when I first moved here and

RFK is located at the Concorde Airport. Yeah, but we didn't fly out of there

Yeah, we used to fly to Charlotte. I'm like this that this is so crazy

But has a lot to do with your charter service. Yeah, where they can land what size runway they need mex all that kind of stuff

But yeah, so give the fans they probably heard a little bit about you

But I feel like your story is super interesting because like I said, you're you're not a you weren't a

raised in the sport

All right, you you were a

Baseball guy then a basketball guy or it was about water. Yep baseball guy

Then basketball guy you worked alongside Steph Curry. You've worked alongside. I mean Padres you've worked with right?

So you got a standing any connection there? Okay, so give give the listeners a little bit of background on on chip

So born and raised in North Carolina, okay

Born in Raleigh and raised in Sanford, North Carolina

So had enough of the visibility to the sport growing up certainly during his heyday in the 80s and 90s and

Fancyed myself a basketball player when I was younger, but I never got to be you know

Have the size or run a 4340 or I have a 40 inch vertical leap to actually make anything of my basketball career

I was always a little guy playing college. Oh, no, no

I think my my best years were probably like seventh and eighth grade, right?

To repeat me too. Yeah, I was I was something else with a with a ball on my hands

But I will say that you know as you get older and you start thinking about what life is gonna look like my dad and mom were in

The banking industry my dad was a banker

My mom was a mortgage lending officer and came home and suit and tie and talked about rates all day

and that that did not sound like a good time to me wanted to be in sports and

Got an opportunity with the Olympic Committee in Atlanta while I was in school at Appalachian State and

Great internship there and was offered kind of a full-time job and PR for the Olympics

But got nervous that at the end of the Olympics everybody's out of a job

So was lucky enough to land another internship an opportunity with San Diego Padres kid from Sanford, North Carolina

Getting a chance to move to San Diego, California with the two best buddies from college. It's not like a bad thing

Never been to San Diego. What should I expect here next week? It's magical. Okay

I will tell you so it be I get asked a lot because I've lived in different markets

It depends on what point of life you're in I love San Diego in my early 20s single guy with my two best buddies

It's about as good as it gets right and then I think later in life, right when your kids get a little bit older

It's magical again. The weather's perfect all the time. It almost feels like Hawaii almost right June

You could get some June gloom so you could get the Marine layer rolls in off the coast, but

It's

Kind of a melting pot which I like it feels like Southern California without feeling like LA nothing against LA

It's just different good vibe. It's not right

Hit me up, I'll tell you where the best fish tacos are you gotta have fish tacos

You gotta go down the beach have a beer on the ocean is pretty good. Well, I don't want to dox it

I don't want everybody else lined up for the best fish tacos. I'll keep this between us there you go

I'm gonna read a quick list on where the markets you have been Golden State Orlando Seattle

You just mentioned San Diego and Miami and now back home in a sense at Charlotte

If you had to pick one place to live where you pick st. Is it San Diego?

Again, it depends on the point in my life, but I'd say San Diego

I would say Seattle at the time I was in Seattle early 2000s absolutely magical coming off grunge

Right so the music scene was really hot. Tech was booming

You know Amazon was just getting started really at that point

Totally different city than what it is now and I loved it and then I had my kids in Orlando, which was great

But they were kind of toddler elementary school years in the Bay Area and we were East Bay

So East of Oakland great community to raise kids and so that was that was fantastic and enjoyed that

But if if you said, you know, all bets are off money's no object. What do you live?

Probably La Jolla Del Mar north of San Diego. Okay

So RFK went through a bit of a transition Steve Newmark. Was he the AD now or what was he?

He's the athletic director of North Carolina North Carolina University

Stephen Mark was was a dear friend. I had a lot of respect for him

So it was a little bit of like a question mark like hey this guy was really influential with the charter agreements

He this guy was really in front and influential with just a business in general

He seemed to be kind of more of a business minded guy up against all the old racers, you know

trying to figure this whole whole landscape out and

At what point in time did

The opportunity or just like the conversations are happening that this might be a legitimate shot for you to run this

Yeah, it's a it's a very incestuous industry if you look at it kind of big picture

So, you know, I always say it's it's like the Kevin Bacon like six degrees of separation

It's like two degrees of separation everybody knows somebody who's close with a guy you need to know and so I

Was looking at various opportunities. I had been with an agency called elevate

We opened up our first office in Charlotte and really scaled that company from 40 people to 240 people and

Acquired some companies just a great experience

But I always been a team guy and I love that side of the business and so as I was looking for, you know, what do I want to do next?

Finway sports group the guys at Finway sports group

All I wouldn't say all a number of the executives worked with me in San Diego at the Padres

Which for context is the F in RFK, that's right. That's the Finway in RFK

You know going back when I was in this definitely dates me but when I joined the Padres in 1996

I was hired by a guy named Mike D

Who had literally sold paint in Baltimore and knew the CEO Larry Lucchino and run the Baltimore Orioles and

They had built Camden yards at the Orioles and Larry kind of

Oversaw that and he moved to San Diego brought Mike in and then I was kind of Mike's first hire as an intern

I was there three weeks and they made me a sales guy and then about two months after I got there Sam Kennedy was hired and Sam was

A friend of a guy named Theo Webstein

So if you know anything about baseball Theo was a general manager of the Red Sox

Helpful when their first world series and later went on to win one with the Cubs

Incredible baseball mind they grew up together outside of Boston. That's a money ball guy

Not the money ball guy, but similar sensibilities about you know theories about how the sport should be operated and and really

Fantastic executive and baseball mind and so we had this incredible group of people that kind of grew up in our early 20s together in San Diego

But some of those guys as I went to Seattle to work in the NBA big basketball guy

I wanted to understand what that was all about later went with Larry as he moved to Boston to be a minority owner and

President CEO of the Boston Red Sox. That's what in essence started Fenway Sports Group

So Sam Kennedy and Mike D later created Fenway Sports Group as they owned the Red Sox

The story is that you know, they went and met with John Henry

In South Florida and he got into his eye racing sim and told him how much he loved it

And they realized that racing is where they needed to be and approach Jack Rausher about investing in the team

I've heard that story. Have you heard this story? I lived it

I was there when it was Roush and then my third month there became RFK. Okay, interesting. Yeah, so John Henry

was

From what I understand like in the early days of simulator racing

He was like in he was just like a guy that was like jumping these rooms with Dale

Junior and TJ majors and these guys like who's this damn John Henry guy and he's like the billionaire guy that owns the Red Sox

Yeah, so that that's pretty cool that he had that interest early on

When when you said I don't want to skip over back to like and and we know this right

But NASCAR is a little bit incestuous and there is like the old guard

Yeah

So when you come in a fresh set of eyes into a sport that's been run by a lot of the same people for the

Especially the same family for the last 50 years

How challenging was that for you and then like how many guardrails do you hit of like man?

I think we could do this better, but there's always people that want to tell you different

Yeah, I think it starts with having a lot of self-awareness

You know again growing up in North Carolina. I knew the community that was NASCAR and his NASCAR

I

Never pretend to know something. I don't so I'm very quick to say don't know right help me understand this and I and I don't try to

Force my theories or my perspectives on people in terms of how we want to own an operating organization always think it's a very collaborative process

So I think I went into it a

Little concerned that I would not be embraced to be honest with you like you I'd hear

You know he's from stick and ball

He doesn't understand us and and actually quite the opposite, you know, someone is from North Carolina

I'm an extremely proud southerner in North Carolinian and NASCAR reflects that right just in terms of the roots and the DNA of the sport

And how it was brought up and anyone who knows me that I've had the pleasure of getting to know as I've lived in different markets around the

Country know that I always have a great sense of like appreciation and pride for all things North Carolina

And so NASCAR is front and center that and so I went into it like saying hey, how do I lean in?

You know, I've had lunch with different ownership grids

I had lunch this past week with the Wood Brothers just to hear their story Eddie wood

Eddie coolest guy on the ground. Oh, they're there first of all, they're the nicest guys

From day one Lynn and Eddie were walking up to me saying welcome here. So you should know it forward. How can we help you?

So I wanted to return the favor and just take them to lunch John Kevin Eddie and Lynn and I went

I just wanted to ask questions. Tell me about Leonard. your dad. Tell me about all the stuff you guys have done

because to me that's like that's such a

Part of our sport that I never want to have go away, right?

And some of me and this has nothing to a NASCAR

This is just what I see across different sports in different markets

It's very easy for people to lose the legacy of what made that particular organization special

And even if I'm not in it, I have a responsibility to help carry it forward, right?

You got to go to stort to have you been the stort to their museum? I've not but they told me I got you got to get up there

I equate it, you know when I started and I've always been on the team side picker side

Mechanic side not really on the business side, but it's it's the same. It's the same concept

So when I started it was mechanics doing the pit stops

everybody

Like it was you you worked on a race car

Then you did the pit stops and then we started bringing in professional athletes from other sports and it really rubbed people the wrong way

It was no different on the crew chief side when they started bringing in engineers

but I found guys that really had a strong hold against that but then like what what I've

In my own experience. I started in the Roush fab shop

But the more D1 athletes I'm around the more I learned from them and they learn from my racing experience

So has it been a trade-off to where you know you listen to the racers

But you can also give them stuff from your professional sports experience 100% at the end of the day

We're in the people business. That's why I always try to get people to understand it

It doesn't matter where you came from it doesn't matter what you do

How you look at the world the reality is you're doing it with someone else

And if we're not leaning in and really understanding the value of teamwork

Then we're missing the point because I have a mentor

Peter Goober who was part owner of the Warriors who was the youngest executive in Sony Pictures history

Was up for 50 Academy Awards

I mean the number of movies he's involved when are endless and he told me this great story

It's like, you know we I was up for a number of Academy Awards

And I will tell you that during that process. I can't remember what the speech was like when you take the stage

I don't understand any of that like I don't I don't really

Get caught up in that he said but I can tell you what the editing process was like

I can tell you what post-production was like what casting was like

It's in the journey the magic is in the journey and so when you talk about different sports, you know from a business perspective

Fundamentally, there are some things that are pretty consistent across sports. It doesn't matter, right?

You're trying to drive revenue. You're trying to story tell you have a customer that you need to look after

That's the core issue. opportunity in front of you that said

It takes a village it takes a group of people to pull this off

And so you have to take a step back and say what is the journey we want to create together

And then how do we make sure that we're holding each other accountable to assure that we get the outcome?

We we were we're looking for and so to your point like what I what I love about the NASCAR garage is that it's

No different than say football or basketball or any other sport where a lot of the I would call it

The identity of the organization comes out of the locker room same thing in racing

It starts in the garage. It starts in the pit practices. It starts in the workouts

It starts in you know the engineering room all these people are just working together to solve problems

And when you get that done and that the reward of that is priceless and so I love that about NASCAR

I'll give you that too you are a team guy and I've seen it firsthand with

Your your season opening addresses of the team trying to galvanize the collective how many people work at RFK?

It's we need the current state is like 202. Okay

trying to

Get everybody to buy into the vision. It seems like you are exceptional at you you're articulate with where you

Inherently see everything you want to go to competitively, but also in the commercial side with partners and

Race cars aside how much do you how much are you involved with the competitive aspect?

I know you sat in all the competition meetings, but are you is it more of a commercial focus for you because that's where your lane is comfortable?

Yes, I would say it's 70 30 right. I spend most of my time on the business side

Because if the business isn't sound I can't provide the resources to the competition side to assure that they're able to meet their goals and objectives

So that that's where it starts right? How do we drive revenue? How do we manage expenses?

That said I I don't know that you can do any of that effectively if you don't have a great culture

And one of the things that I found in this sport more than any other because it just geographically

We're all so close and it's and to your point a lot of people have worked for different organizations

And there's been this I guess inherent fear that people take trade secrets and they move from one team to the next and that

Creates a competitive imbalance or whatever it is and and I get all that

But at the end of the day if you create a an atmosphere that people don't want to leave and they're excited about being a part of that

And they see the value and growth and innovation and they don't fear change right change is not for the sake of change

Sometimes change is just what happens when you evolve as a company and as an organization

And so you got to get comfortable with being malleable

And if we have those people on our team and they see the vision it's like we we never stop

Trying to reach for the stars for lack of a better term

Like you're always like saying what's next and that doesn't come with frustration

It comes with like enthusiasm it comes with excitement like nothing's boring and and that's what I want our team to understand

I noticed that in my brief time there when when Brad got hurt I filled in for the clash and we had the 500 effort like

From the I never really was attached to RFK or Roush in general

And I'll be honest it seemed like the the old sentiment

Wasn't very positive for the employees culture wasn't great for what I've heard right he works there

Stigma of the culture was right probably almost worse than it was because like people were like you worked at Roush

I'm like it was tough. We I was 19 years old and we started at 530 and we worked on 630 like and you weren't late

You know it was very

militant I

Needed that my point life, but like people people don't like that

Yeah, let me put a bow on that right quick of what I noticed like it wasn't that at all

And there was people from Stewart Haas most of a lot of people came from Stewart Haas when it dissolved

There was a lot of people coming from our CR and welcome because now

RFK was not just like where you had to work to get a job is like where you wanted to go work

Getting Brad in on the ownership side like getting Chris Bush or and these guys that and Ryan priests that like people

Want to go work for I noticed that they're like oh the culture around this team has certainly shifted

I think that was starting to probably shift a little bit with Brad

But it seemed it was really apparent to now with you there steering the ship

It's like oh people want to come work and be involved with what you guys are doing probably the biggest culture shift in racing in the last

510 years. I would say Jimmy's doing it. Well, it's Jimmy's doing it. Well, but I mean, I think it started with Roush, right? Yeah

I

Think Brad deserves a ton of credit for that. I mean Brad's been working on this for four or five years

He had a vision for what he wanted the competition and the shop to look like

he has a great appreciation and understanding of

What we need to be successful in terms of resources

Mindset tech all the things right, but he also has a business mind

So he gets how that plays into securing partners how that plays into securing talent, right?

So he did all that work predating me. My job was just not to screw it up

Right. So when I came in my my job was like, okay, how can I be additive?

And so some of that's personality, right? I am like like I said small town guy

first guy on my mom's side of the family to graduate from college

Like I'm always a hugger like I'm a bring it in like don't bring everybody in and I think sometimes in

Business in general, it's very easy to say if you get too personal

It's hard to manage the tough conversations

And I'm the exact opposite if I'm transparent and honest then those cuff conversations become a lot easier

We can agree to disagree on a topic

but the reality is you know that I ultimately have your and our company's best interests at heart and so

You know, I always lean with my heart, right? That's an important thing to me

The other thing another great Peter Goober is him

He said if you if you reach for someone's wallet, they're gonna kick you in the crotch

If you reach for their heart, they're gonna hand you their wallet, right?

And so that's that's more of like a fan sentiment or a customer sentiment

But the reality is it's also an employee sentiment

Like if if you just reach for someone's heart all the time

They're gonna give you whatever you need to be successful and it's not what I need is what we need

And so that's once I got people to understand that I meant it. I'm not here for any other reason

I think there was some concerns that I was there to sell the organization or that I was a Fenway sports group plant

All I'm saying is no actually the exact opposite all I want to do is talk about the DNA

If you don't own your history, you don't run anything

And so it's okay for us to say we've had great years and lean years and we've had great cultures

And we've had times where there were dark days and the culture suffered and so what do you take from all that?

That's the difference between being bad good and great

And if we can take all of that and apply it to what we do day in and out at the end of the day

We're gonna be very proud of what we're accomplishing. Where do you where do you think RFK is today? I?

Think I still feel like and and I can be you know my own worst critic on anything

I feel like we're hardly scratching the surface. I still think we're we're not the little engine that could I think we're

We're more like the guy that is right on the fringe looking in like you know

We're invited to the party, but we haven't gotten on the dance floor yet, right? We're still trying to figure out where our place is

and and I say that in a sense that

We started strong we went in the year very bullish

I think to a man we felt like we were gonna have you know three in the playoffs still feel like we can

That said we've had a rough stretch in the last four weeks. That's part of racing. I'm learning

That's the one thing that I'm starting to wrap my head around is all the things that you think you can control

It's always the ones that you can't that they make for a tough long day

I

Will tell you all that said in terms of where I think we are

I think we're close where do I expect us to be and this is what I preach to our team as much as I can the whole organization

I expect us to be the number one team and brand and motorsports

Worldwide no questions asked and I fully expect us to be when people ask what are the organizations and sports entertainment that I got to get to know

It's the Golden State Warriors. It could be the New York Yankees. It could be the Dallas Cowboys

It better be RFK racing and so if we don't think that way

We're not gonna get there and if we don't have people in our organization that see the value and a behaving and acting like that

We're not gonna get there

But we have to at this point and where we are in our in our I would call it our history, right?

We've gone through this transition Brad is here. We're set up for long-term sustainable success

We have the power of the global engine that's Fenway Sports Group and the history and DNA and legacy of Rouse racing

I think it's a magical combination

Now we have to capitalize on it and that's why I'm here

It's to help create a vision and a belief that is achievable and then do everything in our power to make it happen fire me up

What was and somebody else who thinks like you is Brad Brad's the same way, right?

But man, I've been in some meetings with Brad

What was your first conversation like with Brad because there's sometimes when you're in there

You're like where the hell is this going and then he lands the plane, but it's almost like a dr. Seuss book. You're like, I'm lost

I'm lost. Okay. Yeah, I get it now, but I gotta tell you it. We are incredibly aligned

That's probably what I've been most enthusiastic about like I I knew that I would have the support of the board from my early

Conversations with them and then when I went in met with Brad

The first thing out of both of our mouths was this has to be a partnership

Like we got to be a locked arm and arm on this and and yeah

There's gonna be some things that either what party is gonna want to try to accomplish

But we've got to have real like shared empathy for what we're both facing in the organization

We've got to have a shared vision of what we can accomplish and get done because we're not gonna get it done

Individually you can't operate in silos. So the only way for us to achieve it is to be in lockstep, right?

And he is like that and every turn I mean even after the race yesterday we're texting about what we see and what we think

You know, I wish we could do it more

But we're also crazy busy both of us and in life and business and all the things

But it's it's a regular cadence and I'm like over the moon in terms of you know

My first 910 months here talking talking about Brad. I believe you and I were sitting there at Perkentile getting coffee talking about

Just life and sports when you got the colleague broke his leg. Yeah

That's never a good call. How do you like how did how then and at the moment, right? You're like, oh shit

My my thoroughbred just is injured now

Let me figure out how to fit just go on right because it was right before Christmas

I believe yeah, a couple days before Christmas. Yeah mid-December. So

It's like welcome to the season, you know, so like how did that whole

Rehab schedule not knowing when he's coming back not knowing if he's able to go

How do you nap navigate that as a leader and then the you know the story you're telling your employees?

Like we don't really know when he's coming back. We've got this guy plugging in if we need him

Yeah, that was that seemed to be a challenge for you and the whole company. Yeah

I just take a step back one thing I learned a long time ago in my career

You you have to have an unhealthy belief and trust and yourself and other people to be successful in this industry

Like unhealthy like it's very easy to question everything. It's very easy to go. Yeah, but

I don't operate that way and and so when Brad called me and he's like in an ambulance and his leg is broken and

The first thing he says, I mean, he's calling people from the ambulance. So let's just put that in perspective

That's Brad to a T and then he's like, I will be back by the Daytona 500. We've got bones sticking out of his leg

I'm gonna be there. ready at the time

He thought he had broken his hip

I think when he slipped on the ice because the pain had kind of moved up, right?

And then he he's like, I will be back and so my initial response is okay

He's gonna be back like this is not up for discussion if he says he's gonna do it

He's gonna do it and sure enough. He did it, right?

And so that that's a belief that you have to have in your teammates to to get to where you want to go

If you remember that same day was a day that the Biffle family passed away in the plane crash

So it was it was a wild, you know, literally two hours. Yeah, because I got that call and then I got another call

And that gets to

Organizationally all the things that we've gone through since my arrival

I this is why I'm so bullish about our future. Everybody

Managed it perfectly like the whole team bought in and that I have trust in people that I was just getting to know

I was four months into my job

But I had to believe that they knew what was in the best interest of the company the people involved and

Very proud of how that all played out because it really tough set of circumstances

So a lot of other things that went on in the offseason was the lawsuit with NASCAR and the teams and you know, I don't as a team guy

I've never fully understood charter systems

It's never really been my job, but you coming from the NBA and MLB

With the charter systems, do you see NASCAR teams becoming true sports franchises? I do

I think the path is there. I think the model is there. It's still a work in progress

I think the difference is and I think people know it

But maybe they don't and this is something that I've been trying to wrap my head around and the timing actually was quite good for me

A lot of people ask you're joining NASCAR in a very dark time

There's this lawsuit a lot of questions around the future of the sport and actually had the exact opposite approach

I think I'll be it unfortunate that you have to go through something like that as a sport

The reality is it forces everybody to take a step back and figure out. Okay, how do we collaborate to do a better job moving forward?

These are the dark days, right?

And you never see the light until the darkest hour and so that's kind of where we were as a sport

And so I came in thinking this is gonna be great because whatever happens

There's gonna be a shared sentiment that it's got to get better and so how do I bring value to that process in a way that is helpful?

Honest right I don't know what help me understand

But here's some things that maybe you don't know that maybe we should be thinking about and so when you look at the structure of the sports

Like the NBA

NFL Major League Baseball the leagues are owned by the teams right and so here that's not the case you have a

Family-owned operation in the league and then the teams operate independent of that

And so a lot of times when you have that that stick-and-ball structure your your your

your

Ideology your communication your philosophies your data your metrics all the things trickle down and they bubble up

So you meet in the middle on almost all the terms right and so that that creates value here

We don't have that and so we're

Manufacturing that and so that to me is where the secret sauce lies either

We're gonna get it right or we don't and I give Steve O'Donnell a ton of credit

Since he's taken on his role as CEO. He's really embraced the teams. He's going around met with a lot of people

He's asked very fair and honest questions about how do we get better?

I see an opportunity now where

Look the way that structured we get revenue from partnerships

So number one revenue stream every team has then you're gonna have shared revenue

From NASCAR which is growing thanks to the new Premier Charter, which is great

What that looks like yet early stage don't know right so that's a work in progress

But if we look at it we take a step back and we look at ourselves as entertainment brands, which is what we need to do

Now all of a sudden you're starting to think about okay, how do we do better with retail?

How do we figure out and solve the hospitality mix?

How do we invite more people into sport from a from a fan and experiential standpoint that that conversation and those

That strategy and whatever it is that we need to do to achieve those things

Cannot happen at one level. What has to happen at every level? How's the that they need to balance?

Okay, if we have a dollar come in the door

Do we spend a dollar to make our cars go faster because there's value in that do we spend 50 cents on building a?

Hospitality tent at the racetrack because it's gonna make our partners more excited

They can bring more people to the racetrack to then hopefully they might give us another dollar to go make our cars go faster

What is that like chemistry?

Little bit of this a little bit of this because of course you want fast cars that makes ever everything better

Yeah, when it comes to racing but you can't put it all into that because there's a lot of the times

That dollar goes into your engineering and your processes and all the things that fans don't see

Yeah, that doesn't necessarily add value to the team besides a car going faster in circles

How do you play around with that equation? That's a that's a million dollar question

And there's yeah, there's no easy answer. It's it's it's yes all of that all the time, right? And I think that's

Honestly, that's where I'm most comfortable

And and that probably makes some folks in our organization a little more nervous because I'm not risk averse

And I think I think you have to take risk in order to achieve great success

So there are things that we're gonna invest in that you're literally walking the plank

Like you better have a sound strategy your dad and your metrics need to back it up

You need to talk about how you can monetize it

But the reality is the more we monetize the business side the more money we can put back into the car

And so we always want to invest in the car to make it go faster

I get that question all the time now about the third charter. It's like, okay

So if you run a third charter open, what does that mean?

We're not participating in the NASCAR rev share on that charter the prize money looks a little bit different

Are we gonna have to cut?

spending and other parts of our organization the fast answer that's no

Now we're gonna have to continue to be like we should always be diligent around where that money goes if we're putting money against something that

Intention is that the intent is to go faster, but it's not helping us go faster than we don't spend the money on it

Right, you can't just do it to check the box

You go find another solve and you keep you keep innovating and you're doing that

But we're gonna have to find ways to drive red vanu as a company to put more money in the car so that we can achieve the success

on the track we're looking for

the the rule of of thumb had always been and you

since the charter agreement back in

17 purses weren't public right now the you know you brought that up third charter right you you're leasing one that now legacy owns

They're going three cars next year. So now you're in this you've got three exceptional drivers

You got two charter cars

You have three teams probably three and a half teams worth of equipment and people to be competitive

The rule of thumb that I always thought was let's just say a a floor of revenue for a charter cars

15-ish million bucks. You don't confirm or deny that 15 million bucks an open car is

Less than 30% of that is that close is it less than that is this the gap between doing a chartered revenue car and an open car

It makes zero financial sense

It's a tough financial decision to choose to go that path that said

We wouldn't do it if we didn't have an unhealthy confidence around our ability to do exactly what we want to do

I like that and I will tell you that it starts with I believe in the people we have three fantastic drivers

I'm a huge fan of all three as people and as drivers. I

Know we got the right people on the teams

We got the right talent what we need is continuity. We need a little bit better luck

We need to continue to work harder with our OEM to get board racing where it needs to be so that we're competing better on the track

All of those things I believe will be true and hold true

So I get asked so what's the risk of running a third car open?

I would say minimal because I'm not worried about the people we have great partners. We have incredible partner support

That some of that has to do thankfully because of our Fenway sports group

Relationship they help open doors. They expose RFK racing to a lot of folks that are global brands

We have a partner in Trimble that's doing a commercial with Chris and Ryan that will run during the World Cup

Which is gonna be awesome consumer sale. There runs national spots

people like our guys and so when I look at the third charter I go look

We want to buy a charter

Or Lisa charter those are our top two options

We will run open because I know in my heart of hearts that we're gonna do it better than anyone else has ever done it

And I get the luxury of doing it with three really good drivers

So when you think about can you qualify? I go, what do you mean? Can we I mean we will

That mean that's not even up for discussion

And then everybody's gonna be happy and no one's at risk and so that's how we have to look at is there in economies of scale

Two cars versus three cars like is it

Not a linear it costs X amount for one car X amount times two for two cars X amount times three for three cars

Does the third does it get slightly cheaper based off of just parts and people and shared responsibility? I

So I'll answer that by saying maybe I will also tell you very transparently we never considered it

so it was we've worked really hard under Brad's leadership to

Spin up a third team

Bring Ryan and everybody on board bring partners on board were sold out the year. That's cool. I go at a

Really good level right?

With really good brands and so we are not going backwards as a company

And that's the one thing I wanted our organization to understand and our partners to understand

I'm not kidding our organization our ownership is not kidding

We will be a top 1a tier racing team hard stop. You can't do that at two cars

You just can't they so we're not gonna unwind it. We're not gonna go backwards

We're gonna push forward and we're gonna do it harder faster more aggressively than we've ever done it, right?

I think the it seems like the whispers of like the elephant in the room

Every time I kind of poke around and like here what's moving what's kind of shaking are the is the four charters that are like

Kind of NASCAR has they have the ability to open up and there's some sort of dilution fee that would have to take place

Is that but is that I don't know well

I thought that too, but that was on serious today and is that just based on a new OEM coming in not necessarily

I think it I it's both so the way I understand it is there there are no other charters

Okay, so zero. Yeah, I think the idea has always been there's 36 charters you run on average 40 cars in a race

There's obvious value for NASCAR to allow the young the little guy to come in and run open if they want to race by race

Whatever for half a season part of the season whatever the case may be

Ultimately if it's in the best interest of the sport, which I think everyone would agree and I would hope even the current OEM see value in competition

That if by bringing a new OEM into the sport, it's good for the sport

Then you have to have a conversation with the charter owners to say are you okay in diluting your prize money?

Because now you're gonna have 37 38 39 40 charters participating in prize money

Not 36 and so that's a conversation you have when you get there

It's not one that you necessarily have to have today

so I would say as the governing body and

You know the leader of the NASCAR, you know

Business model NASCAR reserves the right to bring more charters into the sport if it helps the sport get better

And I would assume that is because we're bringing in new OEMs

And so is there one for us to buy from NASCAR? No, no not not current state, right?

Do I believe that we have a good argument for why that should be the case? I would say 100%

Because I don't know that many teams have the financial wherewithal

Or the existing infrastructure to run a third car open for a long time and we do

I'm not sure in the long-term best interest of the sport that we need people running

Full seasons third charter open, right? You want to create more value in the charters the value of the charter

Don't get me wrong is higher than it's ever been and it's much more valuable with the premier charter

What does that mean? I don't think anybody knows yet. I mean the last charter was sold at 46 48 million dollars

To Jimmy from Rickwell Racing. That was the last one sold. So that's that's the floor

That's the market now the business model has to reflect the price of the charter

And so is it heading in the right direction?

100% are we there today of where someone says because I hear this number thrown around all the time a 100000000 dollars

Absolutely not right. It does not pencil and I can walk you through the math pretty quickly, right? Yeah

Based off of other sports teams valuation. No, not not even that. So so here's the question

I get so somebody may say okay look at in WSL women's major league soccer

So they're selling I think the latest transaction was a 150000000 dollars for the North Carolina courage and carry

Okay, that number's right 150000000 dollar valuation. And so they buy that team

I believe it was Avenue capital that actually is investor in track house. I think that's who actually did it

Yeah, so anyway

The difference there is you've got they own and operate the facility and the land souvenirs souvenirs

Concessions parking you name it, right women's sports on an uptick, right?

We need more women's sports content on television

So the media rights of that is going to see an uptick from current state to the next deal, right?

So there is a pathway for for that team to realize that valuation over time

Yeah, if you look at where we are in Nascar at a 100000000 dollar valuation, let's just say

You're a new team who's trying to get in and you want to buy a charter run a one-car team

I'll use that example and then I'll use a multi-car example

Let's just say it's a 100000000 dollars you put 20 percent down

You got 20 million dollars in you got an 80 million dollar note at six percent

You're paying four point 8000000 dollars a year just to borrow the money you're paying the interest

Then you're going to go out and say, okay, I got a hired driver

pit crew

Crew chief and car chief. Yeah engineers the whole night. I got to get a building. I got to do I got that that that okay

you're probably

low number 12 million

And expenses let's say you sell out your car unlikely as a one-car team for 36 races

At whatever rate let's say you pick up 5000000 dollars. You're still 7000000 dollars in the red

Okay, some people can stomach that no one likes losing money for call it five years

Right. Yeah, that would be hard to freedom private equity to stomach. Okay now

Let's let's change that and say it's a two-car team that wants to go to three cars

Say math same model you're losing 12 million dollars

Let's say for five years you lose 12 million dollars say 7000000 dollars a year over five years

You're now 35 million dollars in the hole

Okay, and you're looking great and not now you think I'm going to flip the whole company

Right now. I'm not going to sell off the charters individually now the NASCAR is at a place where I can sell the whole kit and cabalo all three charters

So you got in at 100

But now you spent 35 million you're at 135 million is what you got to sell that charter for to break even

So if I got two other charters, well one's not worth more than the other so they're all worth 135 million dollars

Now you're saying that's in quick math. That's three. That's 405 million dollars. I get that number, right?

405 million dollars for three charters plus you own the building plus all the staff

Let's say that's another 20 million dollars conservatively. You're at 425 million dollars

That's a really big nut for someone to take on five years from now to buy into NASCAR

I actually think the opposite and I've shared this with steve

My concern is that it actually might prohibit from people from getting in the sport

I think we're better served showing the growth of the charter

Continuing to get people to spend money on charters at a higher rate than they've ever been

But do so in a way that shows a stair step model to get more great people into the sport

Who see the value in the long term upside and that way you're inviting people in which ultimately links the sport stronger

So isn't kind of what we're seeing that a little bit too with with avenue

You just mentioned investors in track house. You've got a lot of PE

A lot of private equity groups. Jimmy was in here talking about his private equity group

Yeah, and and the the model is like you have the foundation be at roush

Roush's legacy, right? You got

Richard petty jimmy johnson's legacy. You got hendrick hendrick motion. He doesn't need any sort of private equity money, right? But like

the

The core nucleus of what a team's identity is can take on smaller

percentage equity partners to go

whether it be

Grow their commercial

footprint to grow to get more people and get faster cars

so

And you're talking about global like if I wanted to go buy the house

What is that indian island down there in miami? We're all you know tom brady and jeff bezos like there's only 36 houses

On this star island. Is that what it's called? Yeah? Yeah one of the select there's only 36 houses

And the more people that are interested in these houses

The value goes up because you have to make somebody move off that particular house

and that's kind of the conundrum

that

That the sport in a good way has made

Because if you're on the outside wanting to get in or wanting to go lease or find a charter you have to find somebody willing to

part with that

I don't know and the sign for a question. I'm just presenting laying it out. Here's my question is

with

sponsorship and partnership and bringing in private equity groups like what does

You talk about

Activations at the racetrack hospitality like what does a sponsor want because forever? I mean there's

A thousand race car kids will be like hey man, I'll put your name on my quarter panel, right? But that's that's not its partnership

It's working together and I see it at the racetrack now like last week

I was walking through the tunnel at nashville and legacy's got a big deal set up and each team has their own hospitality now

and it seems like we're

We've done things the same way where all the trailers been parked together and like

Reimagining how the garage is laid out. So like what does that look like for you?

What can you bring from golden state from these places you've been?

And really show true value

To our partners that are coming in and then want them to to invest more into racing. That's a great question

I'll start by saying by the way

I gave a lot of credit to ben kennedy and his team have really leaned in on this topic

Jimmy and I have talked a lot about it. Uh, jimmy is really pounded the drum on if we if we want to get the infield experience, right?

We got to get the holistic fan experience, right?

And so that's probably where I think I hope I can bring a lot of value because everywhere I've been we've owned and operated our facilities

So, you know, I hear when the hot dog's cold, right?

I hear when it took me four hours to get in and out of a parking lot, right?

That that's stuff that fans

Don't want to come back if we can't get those things right and so I look at all the tracks that we pull up to and I'm like

There's opportunity. There's opportunity around signage

How do you put together a first class experience when you pull up?

You know, it used to be the door-to-door experience of sports like when I'm leaving my house and I'm listening to the game on the radio

What is that like and then when I pull into the parking lot and then when I walk in

What's the ticket taker say to me and then when I get my beer or my hot dog?

What is that like and then when I get my seat all the things now it's wake to sleep

It's like people are on their phone. They get up in the morning. They're like, I'm going to go to the race

What's the weather look like? How do I get there? What is my parking going to look like?

Do I take a cooler or not? Where do I buy my merch? You do that all race day?

videos podcast whatever before you go to bed at night you go back and like what are the standings like?

I want to see the highlights of the things I might have missed like it is wake to sleep

We got to own that and so that that can't be just the teams

But we have to be very like I would say have a lot of inward perspective around

What do we need individually as organizations to be successful? How do we operate our organizations at the highest level?

That's the first question has to be answered. Look in the mirror

Second is how do we do it together across the garage?

Like how do we talk openly about shared challenges and opportunities and how do we get that done?

And then how do we collectively go to the league and say here's where we're at to make this as an efficient process as possible?

These are the things that I think we can do better as a sport. Can you lean in and help me?

So ryan answer your question like that's where

the way you do it is

Nothing's off the table

If we go into this with like legacy mindset and go not legacy racing legacy mindset holistically like

How do we say?

It's always worked this way or this is the way we've done it that that's not a suitable response

And i'm not saying that about nascar i'm saying that about the teams too

Like that's something that even like even when I got rfk racing is like well

We've kind of done it like this. It's like I understand and we may continue to do it that way

But we have to take a step back and go is it the right thing to do today?

Because the world's different than it's ever been we have to do that as a sport talking 100 years down the road

I've always thought that this was this would be awesome if like

each team had

The facility their rate like chicago land was rfk, right?

Our michigan was penske like each team owned a facility and then you know, there was a couple

I don't know how they get there and it's never probably gonna happen our lifetime home like a home team of drainage

Yeah, I mean, I think that's sometimes what we miss right because like people love the dallas cowboys for what they are

Or where it's hard to build that like

Like there's a question here that they wrote down like how do you make the shop experience better?

But it's still not the racetrack and like there's only a certain amount of fans

They're gonna come to the shop to an rfk for end day and it's cool when you invest in that

We've seen

2311 and what they just built and then like the facility that hendrick's been building and what you guys have done to your facility

But man, I've always thought

Like my pipe dream would be like each race team has its own racetrack like home field advantage

And then the city and the area can buy into that

I ryan, I love that and and by the way the thing that I think we we face sometimes is it's

Again in second ball sports you live this when you own and operate your venue

The only way you can accomplish a lot of the things you've want to accomplish is you've got to reach out to the community

And you can't do that when the mothership is you know in Daytona or charlotte

It's really hard for them. I have empathy for that

Like I like it's really difficult even with track presidents if you're with isc or smi

To do that and lift that heavy weight because they're they just don't have the the support behind them

The wind at their sails to get a lot of that accomplished

So I was talking to to walt with pinsky yesterday and he was giving me great historical perspective about when they owned the

Track in michigan and and mis and all the things and he was talking about just you know

From a from a local government perspective how hard it is because you have one big event a year to get the road

Infrastructure improved and all the things but to your point if the team owned and operated the track and they're there all the time

Then you're building those relationships with city council members the mayor the state governor

All the people that can help facilitate that in a way that ultimately benefits the community the fans all involved

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so

I'm gonna zoom out a little bit outside of just

Racing business to stag and pennies. That's what we're what's what we're talking about

Terrently boils down to I don't know if I told you the story about stacking pennies, but starters are rookie in the cup series

bottom of the barrel team started to just

Overdrive get down

had to start meeting with a sports psychologist to get me

refocused on trying to be the best that I could be without

All the tools it might take to be able to accomplish that so we essentially boiled it down to

What are the things that I have complete control over to ultimately get me?

more

Involved more excited to go to the racetrack knowing that the outcome might be out of my control

You strike me as a very confident guy and it takes that confidence to then go

pour that into your people as well

In a per was there any seasons in life?

Was there any situations in life where you got down and you had to like recenter a little bit?

Or is it you were always a big thinker always motivated always confident with what you're we're trying to achieve?

Um, probably a little bit of both right like anybody is very easy to think that you can't stack up, right?

And pun intended. Yeah pun intended

Yeah, I think we've all gone through points in our career where we've been successful less successful

Um, you know

Transparenly when I was in Miami with the marlins. I left the golden state warriors. I mean we

We were winning a title that year had already won two titles with the team. We'd had tremendous amount of

of

Success it was a rocket ship organization, right bay area tech boom all the right things staff curry

Glade Thompson and train mongrel. You name it, right? It was a rocket ship. Steve Kerr. Yes, and people are like

Why do you leave? Yeah, and part of it was

I

I like

The work I like the build back to my earlier point

I love the journey and if you're not willing to bet on yourself who's gonna bet on you

And so I went to Miami. I think everybody involved in that scenario has very good intentions

You know, Derek Jeter was you know the chairman and ceo

I worked with Derek closely. We had a board of investors

I think everybody wanted to build something sustainable and good long term very tough market to do so

I think once we got into it and a number of moves were made on the player side

The fans were concerned that it was the same ownership different name meaning they trade away their best players yadda yadda yadda

So when that opportunity kind of like fizzled out and didn't work out the way anyone wanted it to and it was obvious that

You know, we needed to part ways

you question

did I do the right thing and

You know, you get I have great support my parents and other people in my life and especially in our industry that would

Be quick to tell me they're like

back to the michael jordan scenario or

Comment that he made one time you miss a thousand shots that you don't take right you miss every shot

they say miss every shot you don't take

And that's true. And so I learned as much from that

I won't call it a failure

From that not working out because there's a lot of positives that came out of that experience for us in the organization

I learned as much from that as the things that went well and every other stuff, right? And so

You know, do I question myself and what we're doing?

Yeah, because if I don't then I'm not gonna see the forest of the trees

You got you got to take a step back and question

Are we doing the right thing is this all, you know, the way we needed to go and uh

You know, I think ultimately if I if I don't shake it off

Then I can't be the best version of myself or my family and my wife

Um, I got two daughters two girls two girls and high school

Which if you're not on your game

Need some need some advice before you leave

Do you're not on your game? You get humbled real quick. I think you you've given me

A lot of very sound advice. He's got a daughter

788 harper and and cruise

six

Cory just keeps having kids. I don't know how many he's gonna have he just keeps having

We're done four

I don't know who knows

Never say never what uh, we're saying never those we have a lot of

Fans here listening to the show that have kids. What what sort of advice would you give to them?

Wow, that's a great question Cory. I you know, it's it's interesting. Um

I think I always fancied myself to be the

A particular type of parent and then you get into it and it's like everything's out the window

Like, you know, I I thought I'd be the cool dad that I would be very like even kill go with the flow

Um, I because it was girls. I think I always wrongfully assumed that you know

My wife would be the one who could like manage all the things that happen in a young girl's life, right?

Their maturity and how that works because she was closer to it

I didn't grow up with girls in my household other than my mom

It just wasn't prepared for it and then you end up becoming the disciplinarian and sometimes like dad is like the tough guy

right and you look back and you go

Some of that's justified and some of it you go. Why?

Like I didn't have to be that guy. I don't have to be that guy like don't take life so seriously

I think as a father of young girls. I actually

Wrongfully because they're really good kids and they can take care of themselves

I worry about what life's going to be like when they go out in the real world

And if I don't have them prepared for that like I always say I don't need to be your friend

I just need to be someone who's going to prepare you for life. I'm I'm making adults here. I'm not managing kids

And my wife has tremendous perspective on this. She goes. Yes and no

You actually need to enjoy your kids. You need to like embrace them

They're going through a hard time too life as a kid today is harder than it was when we were kids

We had a tremendous amount of independence. They've got a lot of pressures in life

Sometimes it's better for you just to keep your mouth shut and lean in and listen

And that's where I've always struggled with my kids. I do it great in business like it's so funny like it and work

I'm I'm a listener. I'm a collaborator at home. I'm like you can't be that guy

I don't feel like I can be that guy and I'm and I'm wrong

I can't be that guy and I've got to do a better job of it

Um, and you know now I'm at that point where my oldest is becoming like

A little adult right? She's going to go to college any year the conversations we're having are much more mature

Um, and then my youngest is like way too smart for her own good like wicked smart

Going to dominate life as a CEO

But you know you've got a 15 year old CEO of the household

And so that's where you know, you've got to just embrace that strength and like try to feed it

Versus try to like manage it. Hmm. Yeah, do they make you do tiktok dances?

No, so my thankfully I think it's more because they're afraid I've embarrassed them and being embarrassed on tiktok is not the look

I'm gonna give Jeff. So Jeff Gordon. He was in here a couple weeks ago, but he's on our prime broadcast

I think for san diego

I saw tiktok of him the other day doing it with us like no Jeff

No, listen you in 83. So you can do as many tiktok dances you want or however many he's yeah

Yeah, yeah, I there there's certain things as a dad that I kind of draw the line at

I would not like one when the kids were little I told my wife nothing against this and I have no problem with the guys who do it

I couldn't wear their baby Bjorn. I was just not my thing. I couldn't do it

I'm not going to get on ice skates with my kids and then I'm not going to do tiktok

Oh, brother, you gotta go to burk down try to ice skate it's oh and I fight for your life

Fighting for your life. There's nothing nobody prepares you for having an eight and a six year old on ice skates with

Half other people in a little rink. I'm a firm believer that if you're 62 or above you stay off rollerblades and ice skates keep brad off the ice

For sure

So I have two questions with the racing stuff that I want to hit before we go the first one

Yesterday christopher bell. Yeah, totally chunked the car. I mean biggest rick. Oh scary

You have your budgets and everything that you have for the race team

How much like that car throw it away? There's nothing good. It's nothing left. How much does that?

Shake your business plan when you throw a car away like that

I mean it stings, right? But you bake that in I mean, you know, there's some losses because of the

The nature of the sport, right? Um, you know, it's interesting one of the things that last year

Um, going back to the legacy roush. I think there had always been the sentiment

Before the next gen car we're building these cars. It costs us a lot of money. It's time energy resources

Can't wreck the car

Right, like there's a fear like it's gonna cost us a lot of money. It takes you a lot to rebuild yada yada

Now that's not as much the case, but I looked at chris, um before race last year and I just said, hey

I

I got your back go out there and win for yourself and your family and we'll take care of ourselves

And I want you to know if there are four to five laps to go in the race

I don't care if you wreck the car as long as you're going to win go win

Like we're about winning go win if you wreck the car. We'll deal with it

I think because he's such a great driver

I don't worry that he's like a torpedo out there just bumping into stuff all the time

So I know that's not who he is so I'm like, but don't let that get between your ears when I need you focused on

How aggressive do I need to be to win this race and knowing chris? He's like the gentleman driver

He's going to do it the right way. So I don't fear that there's going to be a lot of blowback on that

That leads perfectly into my next question because

When you come from stickin ball, you have a 50 chance of winning. Yeah, it's you versus another team

In nascar unless you're denny hamlin, you have about a 5 chance of winning or less

Any, you know, like you lose way more than you win and when you're trying to change a culture of rfk who

Has not won as much as they used to in the last 10 years. How important is winning to business growth?

So

I would say everything only because I'm so competitive. I think winning matters all the time

And if we don't have that mentality, then what are we shooting for right? Uh, winning matters

Uh, I love the new point system. I think it's a better reflection of the sport and the and the talent on the track

But again, you get more points when you win and so and partners like it more when you win and we like it more when we win

So everybody's a winner when you win

That said I'm learning to find the victories the little victories along the way stack and penny stack and pennies

And that's that to your point is new to me like either you win or you lose. It's very black or white, right?

Here it's not like that and and there's so much value. I'm learning in that it's like a it's really

A statement about life, right? Like it's like you're gonna have good days. You're gonna have bad days

But what at the end of the day do you go back and reflect on and say? Hey, this is I'm stacking pennies

I feel really good about my day now. How do I take that into the next day and expand upon that and and I think

Racing is the perfect reflection of life

Um, because it is hard

It just is so hard and there's so many things outside of your control that that can make or break your day

But if you're not doing it with the people you care and you love about and if you're not doing it with a commitment to excellence day

excellence day in the day out

You're missing the purpose of life. I think what about the moving parts that you like

You got to be drinking out of a fire hose coming here from basketball team because like you do everything right

and then you speed on pit road or

You have a loose wheel or you have a tough pit stop or you get a penalty or you know, you wreck on a restart. It's got to be like

So frustrating

It is I mean it's I'm a little nervous for the closest trashcan in an upcoming race if things don't go our way

Like I it's like, you know, I it's just I I'm just uber competitive like like we all are but you

Like I have to remind myself that I'm also a reflection of our organization

So if I'm preaching calm and I'm preaching like a it's going to be okay

Believe that I have to emulate that. Please. Nobody's see me puking in this trash can everything's great

I'll see like in my radio my wife when we um when we met we met in seattle and then

We'd go on the play also. I think once or twice in all the seattle, but then my first year in Orlando

we went to the NBA finals and

um

My wife is like sitting next to me during the game and she's like asking me a million questions

And I'm trying not to be rude, but I'm so hyper focused on the game

I am so worked up like I think I'm playing

Because I so badly want to win for not just the organization

But the fans the community and everything right like you just you just own it you have to own that that mentality

And she learned then and then moving forward. We had a lot of success and future playoff rounds with different teams

Like she'll send me a text after a race and go

I'll see when you get home

Like yeah, like it's like I'm not gonna like poke the bear on this one

And usually she's asleep and we talk about it over coffee the next morning and debrief

But at that point I've had a chance to like decompress a little bit on the plane and all the things that was yeah

I had to make a self-induced

Rule that was as soon as I touched tarmac

I leave it there

But inherently you can't because then you're in there in your competition meeting and you're rehashing and you're pulling the

Scab off again

And that's the that's the

That's the gift in the curse of what how long the cup series schedule is because like when it's going well

It's like yes, let's go to another one. Yeah, when you get a couple bad ones like

Right and I don't mind like

What I it's such a fine line and a balance, but it's okay to be pissed

It's okay to be mad that you're not winning. It's okay to just

want to like

Have that drive you but you got a channel. It's a fine line

Yeah, you can you gotta use that bring the energy down

You can that's right the discontentment of who you are the situation that you're in

But to channel that to be productive is the hard part. That's right

You got to get pissed in a way that it drives you

To be better not in a way that undermines your process like you don't point fingers

You don't question people on your team you look at each other and go are you as mad about this as I am?

And if the answer is yes, then I go let's go effin fix it. Like that's what we're doing, right?

My I don't need to reaction this but I just want to air this to the nascar land

We need to work on the metric system. I think it's a little antiquated from covid because if you get buried you're buried

I mean, we're seeing it with

Zill it's right now. Well, oh my goodness here. Here's how here's how it stays because the biggest mount the biggest megaphones of the sport

Are are rightfully earned

Yet it's the opinions aren't listened to equally right?

It's the guys on the front side of the garage that are winning races that are up high in points that don't want a random draw

So, I don't think you can do a random draw. I think what do you do?

I mean, I think you run practice all together for an hour

Everybody and then you can do it first order of practice

Okay, like something will be more fair than being buried each week by having a bad week because if you look at

I mean bubba it took them three weeks to dig out of it and you look at zillis right now

And it's like I don't know how he gets out of it. You don't so we've got it

We got a little bit of time. I think like steve o'Donnell said this and I and I applaud it like

It's the perfect sentiment that we need as a sport right now

We've got to start figuring out how to reinvest

and stop cutting expenses and and if if the answer is we don't practice enough because the expense to the team

Well, then back to my point about self reflection then as a team we all need to look at ourselves in the mirror and go

Well, if that makes us better

We need to figure out how we're going to pay for it. Like that may mean it costs us something else

That's less valuable to us than practice time

May mean that we need to drive more revenue, but to say we're just flat out not going to do it

I don't know if that's to solve right well in that practice add value to your partners

That's right like how do you make it interesting? How is that more and I would love to say it's always going to be televised

But if our media partners, then I don't know the answer to this. I'm purely speculating. I don't know if they said it's not a value

Well, then don't televised Coral get you on prime

I'll tell you man. They're gonna change the game because they can fire that sucker up anytime they want to

I think by the way, you know this because I've got to know alex the producer or another

I think they do an exceptional job. I think I told you this you guys I think as a booth do a great job

I think I think everybody across the sport does a good job

But being new to the game and being a streaming network the way they've embraced it

I think back to my point about competition. It raises the bar

Yeah, right like that now it's like, okay

What what what is tnt gonna do and what is mbc usa gonna do and like that's good for the sport

Like we should all be looking at how each other performing. We should all be competitive

It's competitive market man

That's right

And we should all be trying to find the way to create at the end of the day the best

Product for our fans and that's the number one. That's right focus

Uh question number two. What's the most embarrassed you've been?

on the job

This job no just in life

Most embarrassed. It's usually what's the most embarrassed you've been at the racetrack for people

But yes, you've been the driver drive long you can pick whatever you want something

doing something

Um, I would say and and this is incredibly embarrassing to say out loud, but thankfully no one saw it

So it's it's easy for me to like comment on it

Twice when I lived in Seattle, I split my suit pants right down the middle

at a game

Out of game twice like how does that even happen? Like I think I just didn't have any money and I bought

I bought a suit suits, but I I literally squat day or maybe loosen the inseam up

I don't know but I squatted down and it was like split all the way up

I had to take my sport coat off wrap it around my waist and has straight to the car and that happened twice

Right. Thankfully. I wasn't walking through the stands when it happened

Um, other than that, there's embarrassing stuff that you do young in your career because you're an idiot

You don't realize that it's inappropriate

And so you learn over time that that's not how you operate in like a professional setting. And so

Um, you know, you learned the hard way there, but you know for the most part I would say that's probably it

Uh, last question is uh, you're you're a minute you've met a black guy. You watched men in black will smith all that

I've never seen that. Well, there's I mean by the way, I love movies. I can't believe I'm saying that a lot

I've never watched that movie beginning then which favorite movie

Oh

Good gracious, um

Godfather to let's go godfather twos up mob movies are all about I mean given my age

You can't not say star wars, right when I was young and star wars came out in 1976

I was like, holy you don't have like princess leia tattoos like whanney do you on your league? No, does he have a princess?

Lay it down. He's got a lot of stuff going on there. Yeah, darth vader leg sleeve

Oh, my brother-in-law has a bunch of tasks. He's actually got mr. Peanut on his arm

But he's got a lot of like throwback war war one war two tasks, which are pretty cool. Yeah

Um, you know a lot of bomber like that's the thing nowadays just random

I'm sure you see a lot of picker guys just random

Yeah, one other one of our picker guys had a teddy bear on his leg

Yeah laying down and no reason. I was like, what's that? He's like, oh, it's just funny. There's a teddy bear laying as I tell my kids

I'm a proud owner of zero tattoos. Yeah, I'm out. I'm now like the non conformist

Dude, that's the that's the last thing my grandmother told me before she passed away was don't get a tattoo. So

Uh, I'll I'll stick to my gun. Rami says you do back to the question

If I have there's a pen in men in black that's called a

Neuralizer and they zap it like if you see something you're not supposed to use zap it and they you lose all your short-term memory

But if you lost all of your memories in your sports career and you only got to keep one, what do you keep?

Wow in my sports career it I I would say

It's definitely when we won the title in 2015

And it's not one thing golden state golden state. It's not one thing. It was everything and that's what makes that organization so

special

Just a couple of quick stories

we won in cleveland

And we're standing we're sitting in like the morton steakhouse afterwards for like the post party with the staff and whoever was there

families that kind of thing and

I'm standing with a group of executives and clake thompson walked over he put his arm around me

And he was like, can you believe we won the title and I looked at clay and I said clay

I'm so proud of you and the guys in the locker room and so happy for you

Like what an incredible feat you guys earned this and he looked at me dead seriously dead in the eyes and goes no

we did this

We did this we won the title for oakland for our fans all that

so I'm like

Boy, not much do you see that in sticking ball sports where someone has that level of like awareness

Then fast forward

We land on the tarmac after being up all night as you might imagine back in oakland. There's

a few thousand people there

celebrating our arrival

And my car is on the tarmac and staff's car is on the tarmac and again staff being mostly drunk

This guy but it was guy. It was always trying to measure it. So no earlier in his career then that that's early

Steph Curry shoe money and and all that so I think rave for it was probably nice of rand rover or short ever

probably he's got to probably ten of those now

but

He turns around calls my name and stuff walks over and gives me a hug with like tears in his eyes

And he's like, can you believe two boys from north caron? I just won a world championship in the nba

And I'm like, you know those moments I got to tell people this all the time

It's one thing to win a title and do the parade and the whole thing million people in the bay area

And you get to experience that with your family pretty magical, right?

And Steph's bustles behind ours

I get to look at Steph celebrating with his family and all the fans and yet the adulation all that kind of stuff

It's different when you do it with people who get it

Right and these guys got it and that and that's something I took away from

these young guys in their 20s winning titles and I'm more of like an

Or senior executive and I'm learning from them about the value and teamwork and the the value of

appreciating others and the the roles that they play and that's something that our organization has taught

built

Like it's a non-negotiable and that's why they're always in the mix to do big things, right?

And so those moments for me are more special

Because of the people involved as much as the action, right as much as the winning

It was about how we won and who we did it with well chip

I appreciate the time and I hope that you can relive some of those things as well

It's your new venture at rfk because I think that you guys are trending that direction and I wish you guys nothing but the best

Thanks, man. Appreciate you. Have a great day. We're gonna lay in this bird here after chip rolls out

We'll do we'll cover some michigan's thoughts and some meme reactions coming up right after this

Take house afterwards for like the post party with the staff and whoever was there families that kind of thing

and uh

I'm standing with a group of executives and clakes that tomsen walked over he put his arm around me

And he was like, can you believe we won the title and I looked at clay and I said clay

I'm so proud of you and the guys in the locker room and so happy for you

Like what an incredible feat you guys earned this and he looked at me dead seriously dead in the eyes and goes

No, we did this

We did this we won the title for oakland for our fans all that

so I'm like

Boy, not much. Do you see that in sticking ball sports where someone has that level of like awareness

Then fast forward

We land on the tarmac after being up all night as you might imagine back in oakland. There's

a few thousand people there

celebrating our arrival

And my car is on the tarmac and Steph's car is on the tarmac and again Steph being mostly drunk

It's got it. But it was guys. It was always trying to measure it

So no earlier in his career then that that's early Steph Curry shoe money and and all that so I think I'm sure

It was probably nice of range rover or short ever probably he's got it probably 10 of those now

but

He turns around calls my name and Steph walks over and gives me a hug with like tears in his eyes

And he's like, can you believe two boys from north kyan? I just won a world championship in the NBA

And I'm like, you know those moments I got to tell people this all the time

It's one thing to win a title and do the parade and the whole thing million people in the bay area

And you get to experience that with your family pretty magical

Right and Steph's bustles behind ours. I get to look at Steph celebrating with his family and all the fans and yet

the isolation all that kind of stuff

It's different when you do it with people who get it

Right and these guys got it and that and that's something I took away from these young guys in their 20s winning titles

And I'm more of like an

Or senior executive and I'm learning from them about the value and teamwork and the the value of

Appreciating others and the the roles that they play and that's something that our organization has taught

built

Like it's a non-negotiable and that's why they're always in the mix to do big things

Right and so those moments for me are more special

Because of the people involved as much as the action right as much as the winning

It was about how we won and who we did it with well chip

I appreciate the time and I hope that you can relive some of those things as well

It's your new venture at rfk because I think that you guys are trending that direction and I wish you guys nothing but the best

Thanks, man. Appreciate you. Have a great day. We're gonna lay in this bird here after chip rolls out

We'll do we'll cover some michigan's thoughts and some meme reactions coming up right after this

gripped up

rubber got laid down

truck practice

fairway drive

road course abilities

stage points

track position

street courses

tucked up behind somebody

tires

cup race

O'Reilly's

70%

save some breaks

flipping it

grandstands

right front fender

fence

Land Rover Range Rover

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