Ep.328 – RE-HEATED: Rick Mears, Pt2

Hey, part two.

Ryan, what do you got?

The thing about Rick Mears is that he always wears flip flops.

And why does he always wear flip flops, Sean?

His feet have been so banged up to the years

that they're just more comfortable.

Right.

It's like literally out of necessity,

because he risked his life and limb literally

with his IndyCar career and has the injuries to show for it.

So yeah, he showed up wearing flip flops,

but still dressed to the nines like Penske Perfect.

And I just thought that was so funny.

It's like, ah, that's real.

Yeah, that's the thing.

But the other thing is that he waited for us to pack up

when we got done eating.

And he sat with us.

And then he offered to take the pelkin case

to our hotel with us.

He's like, oh, I'm walking that way.

I'll take it.

And we're like, no, it's OK.

He's like, no, I got it.

And it's like, OK, Mario and Dredi and Rick Mears,

both were like, I'm helping you with your case, man.

And it's like, Jesus, why?

It's just unreal.

It's so, so cool.

Some of those memories that we have and listening to these

reheated brings back a lot of them.

And yeah, because obviously when we made this in 2018,

we were still really eye-opened with some of these guests.

And it's not that we're not now, but I think we're just

so much more comfortable with knowing how the interview most

like will go.

And we're not as worried about people staring at us

in a restaurant.

It's all of it's just so much more normal.

But I remember sitting there in 2018, we did this one,

just being like, oh my god.

People are walking into the restaurant seeing him.

And they're like, starstruck because it's Indy

during the month of May.

And we're and we've got his attention.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, those are the things I'm going to remember forever.

So this, yeah, a lot of fun on this episode.

And one of these weird highlights that has happened

a few times for this is when we hear from the PR person,

in this case, Jeremy Treano, who like reached out to us

the day or two later saying, man, he came in the next morning.

He loved it.

And it was like, god damn, that's cool.

Yeah, it's a homerun for us.

But yeah, I'll never forget him offering to take the pelican

case.

Really?

And a thing that I thought was interesting listening back

to this is that this is before Helio wins his fourth to tie

Rick Mears.

And it's just a different time now.

We think back to it as like, oh, now it's like every year,

this time of year, they talk about the guys that have won

four of them.

And at the time of this, it was just him and Foy and Unser.

And Unser, exactly.

And so it's just neat that the history

has changed since this episode.

And it relates to him directly.

So just this time of year, I know you and I both get really

excited about the 500.

And we turn into little kids and sitting here a couple days

before the race.

I'm already Jones about this week and knowing

that we sat with one of the legends and talked about the other

ones.

And yeah, in this weekend, Helio could potentially

be a five-time winner.

And that's still so neat to me that we've

gotten to have all their attention.

Around this time of year, I get pretty stoked for it.

And there's no reason to think that Alex Blow couldn't win five

this weekend.

It's very possible he could win five in a row this weekend.

I just think it's possible.

All right, enjoy the 500 part two.

Rick Mears.

So we take a little dinner break.

And you said something that was like, oh, that's a tell.

So when we're talking about hotels,

you prefer convenience as long as the remote works.

So I need to know, for Rick Mears,

the mindless hotel TV show that you watch.

It's seven at night.

You're back from the track.

Let's just see what's on.

What's the show of choice?

Is it Jersey Shore?

No.

OK.

I really don't.

I don't have anything in particular like that.

Like an out of test with cops or housewives.

No.

I've never been, well, the old Dave called soaps.

Yeah.

I've never, you know, you leave it for six months

and come back and pick up where you left off.

Right.

But no, I'm more of a discovery.

OK, so you're the nature show guy.

You're a deadliest catch man.

A lot.

Deadliest catch, the crab fisher.

At times.

Yeah.

I jump around a lot.

Yeah.

And you know, some of the car shows, you know, the.

Like the crazy car build ones.

Yeah, the nice like Dave Kendrick and the bitchin' rides,

that kind of thing.

Just because that's your deal.

I build bikes for, you know, build bikes and play with those

for a while.

And then there's hot rods.

And as I got older, four wheels were better than two.

Sure.

Wind shield, air conditioning, you know.

Right, right.

So, you know, a couple of trucks and pick ups with hot rods

and that kind of thing.

So watching that kind of stuff.

You know, when the programs come out new and, you know,

they're showing how they do the work and everything is all

great until and they're good shows until they turn into the

family feud.

Yeah, right.

What about, say, but that's what's funny, because that's

the mandatory part of these shows.

Right.

And the further they get away from how they do things.

Yeah, right.

And more into the family dynamics and that thing.

OK, now let's see what's the next new one.

Yeah, right.

Right.

Yeah.

You would be a focus group nightmare.

No.

No, there's not a problem.

OK, this one guy said.

You're the one guy that agreed to the one guy.

It's like, we're fighting.

You're like, I kind of wanted to see the bill.

I was very interested in the procedure.

Yeah, exactly.

Oh, no.

What kind of toolbox was that?

I like how it's made.

Yeah, that's a great show.

It's a great show.

Would you watch a show where two guys.

I'm a Western Channel net, too.

Wait, there's a Western Channel?

Sure.

What's on the Western Channel?

Just old Western movies?

Just a Western movie.

Oh, OK.

Yeah, right.

I watch AMC a lot.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I throw a lot of good old stuff.

I like old movies.

AMC, TMC, or TCM, whichever it is.

You could say TMZ and make us very happy.

Yeah, yeah.

Anything Hollywood gossip.

That's what mirrors.

That's his go-to.

That's his go-to show.

Would you watch a show on one of those channels

that was two guys in an Acura MDX driving around the country

interviewing racing legends out over dinner?

Absolutely not.

Oh.

Oh, mirrors.

You screwed us.

We were trying to get some support there.

Well.

No, I was being facetious.

Or I'd do that in heartbeat.

There we go.

Somebody's back in.

Rick Mears approved, Dinner with Racers, the TV show.

That's right.

So Dinner with Racers is more about getting

to know the guest, the legend behind the sport.

And we don't usually do this, but we're

trying to keep current.

Politics is a really big deal these days.

I don't think Mr. Pensacola will be OK with politics.

But it's Rick Mears.

We got asked Rick Mears.

Are you OK if we get political?

Sure.

OK.

Well, we appreciate it.

Last election presidential, I'm assuming you voted?

Sure.

Yeah.

Who'd you vote for, if you don't mind me asking?

Johnny Rock Page.

Oh.

Didn't you?

Yeah.

I dare you.

Right.

How dare you, Rick Mears?

So we do a lot of research.

Our key to getting the good stuff

is the page five of Google search.

That's how we get the good stuff.

You tested an F1 car.

Twice.

How does that start?

You're obviously doing well in IndyCar.

You're an American hero.

Yeah, we won Indy in 1979.

I mean, the way it came about was they called me.

And Bernie.

And Bernie was still on it, right?

And wanted to know if I'd do a test.

Be interested in doing a test one.

And this was right when 79 when Carton and USAC.

Oh, when it was first going outside.

Yeah.

When Carton just started.

Right.

So there's a couple of things on my mind.

First of all, I want to see what a Formula 1 car was like.

Sure.

Of course.

I mean, I'm.

Sensible question.

Yeah, I just want to see if they put their pants on one

leg at a time like I do.

Or not.

Yeah.

And then you're like, in 16 years,

this could be very bad for open wheel.

So you year.

Right.

And then on the other hand, it was, you know,

Cart was so new, we're at 100% sure what was going on there.

So in the back of my mind, I'm thinking,

I can get my foot in the door somewhere just in case.

You know?

And I went to Roger.

I went to Roger and told him, you know,

that they'd contact me.

I don't know if I did a test.

And typical Roger, I said, well, sure.

You know what I mean?

He said, you know, that's something you've got to decide.

Right.

So he was totally open.

He was like, no, you can't.

I'm not going to keep you from driving that thing.

It's not a sprint car.

You're fine.

Yeah, right.

Right.

And he says, you know, that's a decision you're

going to have to make.

And he was just great about it.

You know, typical.

He's always been on everything.

And I said, OK, well, I want to go drive it, you know,

just for my own curiosity, if not now.

So he said, no problem.

So we flew to Paul Ricard and did the first test there.

And I realized that they put their pass on one leg at a time

too.

Yeah.

You know?

But like in any sport, some of them probably

don't think they do.

Well, yeah.

I'm not just saying in Formula One.

I'm thinking in any sport.

Right.

Yeah, for sure.

But when you went to that test, was that

a test where there's a lot of drivers?

Because we sat down with Willie T. Ribs

and he told us about his Brabham test.

And he said there was a handful of guys there.

Oh, and the same thing?

Yeah.

The same like a tryout?

Sure.

Yeah.

This wasn't that.

No.

That was a separate deal.

OK, cool.

Yeah.

It's just me.

And by the end of the test, I think

I was saying like a half a second of Nelson.

And that's PK.

The NLZPK, the triple world champion.

Half or three quarters, maybe at the most.

But I knew I was making sure.

Yeah.

No mistakes.

Yeah.

No mistakes.

I was making sure of that.

So I knew once I, you know, with some more laps

and just with time.

Track, you probably didn't know.

I knew he'd get quicker.

Yeah.

And I mean, I had quite a few laps.

You know, it wasn't like I just had a handful.

But they give me some good running time.

But I knew I could run quicker.

Yeah.

Just with a little seat time.

That's normal.

Yeah.

You're right.

So I was pretty pleased with it.

And it was fun.

First time I went down into it, went out and warmed a thing up.

This is where?

In PolarCard.

PolarCard.

Side, side, OK.

Start picking it up.

So I came down to try it straight.

I went down and smoked it down into turn one, right hander.

Stood on the brakes, dropped some gears.

Damn.

Had to get off the brakes, drop another gear.

Get on the throttle, get to the corner.

Wow, this thing stops.

Right.

And, you know, a lot less weight, more tire.

Yeah.

And built to stop.

Our cars at that point in time, they were Indy cars

that we turned into a road course car.

Sure.

Right.

You know?

It was a compromise.

And anytime, you know, weight source power.

You know?

Yeah.

Weight is weight weight, you know, in racing.

And so, OK.

I'll just move that point up.

And basically, I just did same thing I did anything else

I ever got into.

Right.

You go into the corner, you turn in,

you listen to what the car tells you at once,

and that's what you do.

It's really not brain surgery.

Yeah.

And pretty soon, you know, move them marks,

go up through the corner, and it's all about as deep as you

can, get through the middle as fast as you can,

and get off as quick as you can.

You know, it's the same in any corner.

And all cars are different.

They talk different.

You listen to what they're saying,

and figure out what they want, and that's what you do.

Yeah.

Period.

I like how easy you make it sound.

I kind of.

Because I get a lot of the stuff you're saying, though.

You just figure out the limits of the grip,

and what you can do, and then you just go.

The whole thing is the limit.

Yeah.

That's it.

It's got nothing to with speed.

It's got nothing to with.

Everybody's always said, oh, you've got to be a speed freak.

You must love to go fast.

No, I don't care.

What's fast is the limit.

If it's a 50 mile-o-corner, 1551 is fast and 48 slow.

Yeah, exactly.

You live on the edge of too fast or sliding off.

If it's a 220 mile-o-corner, or 222 is fast and 218 slow.

Right.

That's like any car being smooth,

which speedways always fit.

I didn't have to work as much at that.

Fit my natural driving style, for some reason.

Faster the corner, the faster the track, the more it suited me.

Slower the tighter, the more I had to learn it.

Street circuits I had to work on, learn.

And it's all because I don't like being real animated in the car.

Which is funny coming from off-road.

True.

Yeah, it is.

It really is.

Because you're very animated.

Yeah, I would have always assumed the street courses would

suit you best, and yet it's the opposite.

Yeah, no.

And it's even the Viennese Super V.

Yeah, right.

Although I only did a season, a season and a half of that.

Right.

But still, for some reason, my natural style,

it was just being smooth.

Move it precisely.

You know, it's like what I call it.

I like driving my fingertips, not my hands.

Yeah.

You know, and speedways around here.

Especially if you're going to, I love to qualify around here.

I mean, qualifying, it's your, to me, when the car,

these guys talk about the car being up on top of the track

or down in the track.

I can't drive.

To me, if it was down in the track,

I had too much downforce.

Sure.

It had to be up on top of the track.

If it wasn't up on top of the track,

then I had too much drag.

Right.

There's only one way to go faster with X horsepower.

When you're wide open, that's shed drag.

That's the only way.

And get it on the right rear more.

So it's around the speedway here.

You drive, when it was really trimmed out,

you're driving it like you're in the gray.

When you get up and somebody forces you up in the gray,

you can't give it gas or you can't let off or you can't turn it.

That's qualifying.

And that's what I've always said.

And that seemed to suit me naturally more.

But I don't know, where was I?

Brabham.

Yeah, yeah.

You did a test like, tested power car.

Did Bernie try to pull anything?

Like an exclusive contract or any of that kind of stuff?

You're going to?

We came to terms on everything.

Oh, OK.

Before you ever showed up.

Yeah.

No, I think after a while, I think it was on the way

over there after the test.

But it was an acknowledgement.

It wasn't like a surprise.

I met even London in a hotel.

OK.

Went up to this room.

We sit down and went over things.

And we basically came to terms on everything.

And we did the second test at Riverside.

Because they were over here for the Long Beach Grand Prix.

Right.

And then went to Riverside.

They had a Weissman gearbox.

And they were wanting to do a Weissman gearbox test.

At Riverside.

So they had me come out to help out with that.

Sure.

Put miles on a car.

And PK was there for that too, right?

Yeah.

And now I get a track that I know.

Except I didn't.

Because I put three chicanes in it.

Throughout the track.

Just to kind of sit around the door trying to do it.

Yeah, run it down the box.

Just put miles on the gears.

Sure.

And so it wasn't totally.

But we ended up being, I think, two to three seconds

a lot quicker than Nelson there.

Right.

And I remember Murray.

Murray Lane.

And I says.

Murray Walker.

That's our Gordon Murray.

Gordon Murray.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, designing.

He says, you know where you're getting him at, don't you?

I said, no.

He said turn nine.

He hates that corner.

It's so fast.

Really, I love that corner.

Yeah.

My favorite corner on the track.

And for those that are at nine, was a giant sweeping corner.

Right.

Yeah.

But that's awesome.

He said, that's where I was making the time up.

And I'm sure he, you know.

To me, that's what makes it fun is leaning on it.

And if he didn't like the corner,

he probably just wasn't leaning on it.

Obviously, he could go faster than that.

Right.

And you were seeing this on the data tracing.

I guess they were.

I wasn't looking at it.

Oh, you really did have data tracing.

Probably.

Yeah, that's right.

OK.

I don't know if they did back then or not.

Yeah, I was assuming they did.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, exactly.

Sorry about that.

Over my head.

What I read was you then felt that you didn't have to prove

anything to yourself on a level,

because you just went up against one of the best

to ever do it in his car back to back twice.

It came down to, you know, and nothing to do with him

or whether, you know, we're quicker or slower or any of that.

It was basically, I found out that they are Superman.

Right.

Nobody, you know.

Well, to be fair, a few are Superman.

A few are Superman.

Yeah.

You are Rick Mears, so OK.

You've been very muted, but we haven't mentioned the cake.

Yeah, I just want to make sure that you know you're Rick Mears

real quick here.

Because, yeah, you guys are Superman.

Hey, I don't feel I've ever done anything

anybody else couldn't do.

But I don't think I can get in any car and just win four times.

Well, no, I agree with that.

Yeah.

That's very humble, but we appreciate what you're saying.

I mean, because I really, but that's part of that

is what's helped me over the years, feeling like that.

Yeah.

I could go out win 10 races on the same track

against the same guys.

And the level three side looked down

on the starting line, like I was riding TT or something.

I could look down at the other one.

These guys are going to kick my ass.

That's just always the feeling I had.

That's so interesting how different the personalities are.

Because somebody like you, what motivates you,

it seems like, is you look at everybody and like,

I don't know if I can beat these guys in that uncertainty.

It kind of pushes you.

And then you get a guy.

We'll just come up with a name, Johnny O'Connell, who

sat down with us and told us he was a second faster

than everybody every time.

And there's no shortage of confidence with him.

But yet, the results both speak for themselves

in their own right.

That just everybody has their own sort of way

of getting to it already.

I mean, we always looked at it.

When I got confident, it was going to bite me.

Right.

It was going to show me who's boss.

Right.

If I get very confident.

Probably.

That's how I could do a wheel stand around the block out

here on a motorcycle all day long.

As soon as somebody asked me to do one, I go, oh.

Hey, watch this.

Yeah.

Right.

I'm going to bust my tail here.

That's just the way I've always felt about it.

But that, I think, always kept me digging.

Yeah.

That kind of feeling.

And I always felt like I was going to get blown off.

You know?

A solid.

The confidence.

No.

Because I used to say that.

See guys get out of the car.

And you know what?

I'm going to win this race.

You know, I'm going to do this.

I'm going to do that.

I'm thinking, wait a minute.

Do you know who made the rod bolts?

Do you know what material they used?

Was it a Friday bolt or a Monday bolt?

Or what the pistons of the material?

How can you be confident?

Right.

There are so many variables.

Right.

Yeah.

It's not just you.

To me, it's more of a common sense than it is anything else.

It's not, again, brain surgery.

Way too logical for a race driver.

Right.

But you have to know that you're capable.

Yeah.

But also know that all cars have to fall right.

Exactly right.

Yeah.

You know?

I mean, it's, you know, my first win at Indy.

Car comes out of the pit and loses

the right rear coming off a two down to the back straightaway.

And it rolls right across in front of me.

A split second one way or the other.

My day was done.

Yeah.

Right.

You know?

And I mean, Lady Luck's got to be with you also.

I don't care how confident you are.

Right.

You know?

It takes everything to make it happen.

And now, you know, to me, the deal with Parnelli,

that was just, it just felt good.

Yeah.

Right.

That's just, yeah.

I didn't really use it for, you know,

whether I could do this or I could do that.

Right.

It just felt good.

It made me smile.

I mean, it's like, you know, passing somebody on the track

when you suck them into a corner too deep and slide them wide

and turn under and go on, you know?

Right.

Yeah.

Got you.

When you turned down Bernie Eccleston to stay with Roger

and IndyCard, did anything change with Roger in terms

of like knowing how loyal you were?

Like, was he even more excited to have Rick Mears on his team?

Not that I noticed.

Sure.

I mean, he's, you know, he's just been great since day one

period.

Yeah.

Right.

You know?

And no.

And I never, now some guys might try to use that.

You know, I just never have been that way.

It's kind of like leverage.

Like, hey, I'm doing you a money.

Yeah.

Right.

So Bernie's going to pay me.

I could be enough one guy.

I mean, that's, you know, the dollars were good.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, but the thing was is once I got to drive

the car, I could do this.

Yeah.

You know, I think if I really decide to do it,

I think I could be competitive.

Right.

Now, I'm not saying I could go out and win everything,

but I know I could be in the ballpark.

Yeah.

Right.

And with time, you know, whatever.

That's all I needed to do.

Yeah.

Prove it to me.

OK.

Now, now that Boyle's done, do I want to travel that much more?

Sure.

Right.

You know?

I like a 7-Eleven on every corner.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

And you just became our guy so much more than you know.

You want ice cream when it's all over here?

We're going to get ice cream after this.

Yeah.

Get a slurpee.

Oh, don't get me started on ice cream.

But you know, so I just, it's like,

I didn't need to prove to the world.

Yeah.

Right.

You know, I satisfied my ego.

Yeah.

Which is probably the most important.

And so now, now, so what am I going to make the decision?

I'm going to make a decision on it.

Why do I do this?

Because it's fun.

Yeah.

You like doing it.

I love it.

I love to drive.

Right.

OK.

This series, I get road course, street track, short track,

oval, flat, bank, speedway.

Yeah.

We get it all.

Biggest race in the world.

Yeah.

We get it all.

Instead of just road course.

Yeah.

Right.

In the same decision would be, it was kind of in cup cars.

Right.

It was stock cars.

Same thing.

Stole.

Sure.

Maybe a road course too.

Right.

Back then, not a lot.

And I loved the team I was with.

Oh, we can't get it well.

You know, the people.

I mean, if I have to.

Yeah, I guess I'll stay with the Yankees.

I wasn't ready to give that up.

I was still fairly new with it at that time.

And I didn't know that it would go anywhere near like this.

Right.

You know, for any length.

As far as I knew, it could have been over at the end

of the contract, the next contract.

Right.

But I just wasn't ready to give all that up.

And I just I enjoyed driving.

And that's what we get to do in our series.

And yeah, the money was good.

You know, but it was good.

You were going.

But the money I was making was a lot more than I ever

dreamed of in my life.

Right.

You were going for a poor driving for Penske and E-cars.

Yeah.

Exactly.

With your career, we can't say all the good things

on some of the bad things that have happened as well.

We had dinner with Terry Tramblieler night.

And we talked about the crash you had at Centaur,

Raceway, where basically your feet, the first thing I

thought to do was amputate.

Right.

And Dr. Terry put you back together.

Terabare as I call him.

You did not appreciate that.

You did not approve.

But Rick Mears likes it.

I can't wait till I see you.

Yes.

Do it.

Yes.

Or let's Google very bad.

Right.

But we talked about how he came in to the Roger Flume up.

You call him Roger like that.

No, I'm going to hear about that.

Mr. Penske flew him to Canada to take a look at you.

Then they flew you back to take care of you

and rebuild you and everything.

To this day, you don't wear shoes often because of the pain

your feet have.

And you had other crashes that caused other injuries

to your feet.

And your last Indy 500 that you won

was super difficult for you because from what we understand,

you couldn't hold your foot down on the gas pedal

because the pain was so bad.

So you were using your left foot on your right foot

to hold it down while passing Michael Andrew.

It really wasn't bad either.

Just both feet on one pedal.

No, because it kept me from lifting too soon.

Right.

Sure.

This is the fastest going in the world.

No worry about it.

So passing Michael was just a mistake.

On the outside.

I can't lift.

Too much.

My left foot out of there.

I'd have never made it by.

No, actually the truth be that by the time

when I got to that point, I went back to right foot only.

OK.

For that.

Just like deal with the pain.

From the shoot out.

Yeah.

From the shoot.

But the whole rest of the race, I drove.

Because tin laps into it, somebody's

sticking a knife in my foot.

Right.

And I'm twisting and I'm turning and I'm moving.

So this is 91.

And yes, you'd had pretty big injuries in 82.

84.

Excuse me.

But you had another pretty big wreck.

Yeah.

I had, I think it was.

Yeah, the first time I'd ever touched a wall.

Yeah, right.

That was the famous thing.

It was the right rear.

For my Mr. Indy, you'd never hit the wall up until that point.

And the right rear in turn one, and I fractured.

Refractured some bones in my foot.

Right.

Which we didn't tell anybody.

Yeah.

So after that, we got back in the car and practiced.

And with the backup car, I came back from the hospital.

And Roger says, you want to get in the backup car?

You want to try it?

I said, yeah.

I said, I don't know if I'm going to be able to or not,

but let's try it.

Right.

And I said, maybe we can get this throttle

loosened and throttle up a little bit.

So I got in the car and I couldn't push the thing down.

And I said, we got a lightness thing up.

So they started taking throttle's return springs off.

Right.

Finally got it to where I could move it.

And I think it was almost no springs.

Probably a good thing I had a tow strap.

Yeah.

But I said, OK, I think I can make this work a little bit.

And I wanted to get back on the horse myself.

So I got in the thing, went out and ran.

And this was a testament to the team.

You know, to get the backup car out and have it thing ready

to go and be in the ballpark.

And I went out.

I think I just shook the thing down,

made sure it don't leak something.

I went out and ran it.

And after about three corners, three or four corners,

I could tell the car was there.

And it was hurting like hell to lift it every corner.

So I said, it'll make it flat.

And because it didn't hurt as much to do that,

it gave it over with quicker.

And we ended up running the quickest lap of the month

at that time.

D1 on the day after having a crash earlier.

And that's good for my confidence.

I wanted to do that for myself, back on the horse.

And for the team to let them know that, hey,

we're going to keep going here.

Is it hard to walk with basketballs for balls?

I mean, how the hell?

It hurts more if I lift.

I'll just flat this thing.

Well, but I knew the car would make it.

Yeah, right.

That's a big part of it.

I wouldn't go into unknown territory.

Sure.

You know, I mean, you weren't trying to be a hero.

No, it told me.

It told me.

And to me, it was like, those guys are great.

They got the thing in here.

They nailed it.

Good Lord.

So we just didn't got it done.

Yeah.

The following year is the year with the big crash.

Upside down.

Yeah.

So the radiator has a problem.

It's leaking water.

You go into two, loop it.

And then the impact is massive.

The direction change for a car like that,

it doesn't look like a survivable crash.

Oh, yeah.

Unfortunately, you did.

And legend has it, that's when you were like, OK,

I got to think about what I'm doing around here.

Well, yes and no.

I mean, a lot of people think that was the reason for retirement.

Sure.

But it wasn't.

Now, did it bring it on sooner?

Maybe.

OK.

But I was already thinking about retirement before that.

Right.

Because the legend has it, you're literally

scooting on your head.

Well, now there was a thought that went through my head

during that slide.

Right.

On your head.

That I remembered later down the road when I was contemplating

retirement.

OK.

When I'd gotten to a point, I'd been kicking it around

and thinking about it.

I'd done it a couple of times.

I'd kicked around.

So what was wearing on you by this point?

Desire.

OK.

Desire.

Yeah.

It's just you weren't hungry.

Yeah.

And I knew, and I've always known,

once the desire starts tapering off, performance goes with it.

You don't dig as deep as something you don't love doing.

You're putting huge risks out there.

Yeah.

But it wasn't the risk part.

It was the fact that we're not going to be competitive.

Right.

Why do I want to do it?

You're wasting people's time.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

It's embarrassing.

Right.

He just did all this great stuff.

It's embarrassing.

I don't want to get embarrassed.

But I guess I'm ego.

But during that slide, I remember,

and this was the thought that dawned on me,

because I'd forgotten all about it

until I was sitting down one night

and contemplating retirement.

And all I did was add things up.

The first time that I realized the desire was starting

to go away, that it dawned on me, was I think at Indy.

And I was always, I loved working with a car.

I've been basically lazy all my life.

The better that thing works, the less I'm going to have to.

And I've enjoyed working on the car.

It's fine.

The suspension is set up.

I've always enjoyed it.

So how do I build a better mousetrap?

So I always, I was one of the last ones in the garage

working with the guys.

And I always took it to the room with me,

and I'm always kicking things around.

And come back next morning.

Guys, last time I was thinking about it,

we need to try and this, this, this, or this.

And that was the norm.

And I remember coming back into the track one day at Indy.

I walked in the garage.

All right, guys, where are we at?

I didn't take it home last night.

You didn't think about it.

You just went to the room and went to dinner and whatever.

Yeah, yeah.

Big tell, right?

I didn't take it home last night.

That was like the first time in your career.

It was the first time it dawned on me.

Right, right, right.

I probably had at some point, but it didn't strike me like that.

Yeah.

You know, I'm going to start keeping track, keep tabs here.

And desire is starting because I'd always swore.

I mean, my brother and I talked about growing up.

And if we were, once we got into it,

if we were getting to a place like we'd see other athletes

doing other sports or whatever, no way.

And we told each other, if you ever see one of us

get away, slap me.

Straighten me out.

But to me, it was about being competitive.

That was the fun part.

Driving was fun.

But it was also driving and being competitive.

It made me more fun.

So it's starting to slip.

And then just little things here or there once in a while,

not a problem.

But I just catch myself not being

quite as on top of things.

I might get a little closer to something

that I normally would have.

I might have picked it up a fraction sooner, maybe.

Not that it was a problem.

And there was plenty of room or whatever.

But it just wasn't quite, you know?

And I just started keeping tabs and things like that.

Popping up, there were telltale signs

that the desire was going away.

And one of the telltale signs was when I was upside down.

And I hit the ball.

And I remember everything all the way through that day.

I remember the car stepping out.

And I thought, damn, that's pretty good gust of wind.

I caught it.

Pin the nose.

And then it comes back.

And it starts this.

I go, oh, man, that's not wind.

Jumped out again.

I caught it again.

And oh, man, I don't want to wind anymore in it.

If I wind anymore in it, and it hooks,

I'm not going to get it out quickly.

Oh, yeah, go in the right way.

It's going and keep feeding

a little more and more.

Finally, it's, nah.

That's it.

Lock it down.

Because I knew it wasn't just a slide.

It was something else going wrong.

Yeah.

And I just locked it up.

And the first thought was, oh, it's going to hurt.

And so the next thought was, I hope I get to the fence quickly.

Yeah.

Or slowly, because my feet.

So you hit it on the side.

Oh, right.

Right.

Yeah.

That's where you're from.

Fragile.

Right.

And so as it's coming around, I'm looking.

I look over my shoulder to try to see where the wall is at,

so I can tell where, if and when I'm going to hit and what angle.

I look and I can't see anything because the tire smoked.

So I go, OK, give it a quick beat now.

Pull my feet up.

And that's about the time it hit.

And when it hit, I felt the thing do something odd.

But about the time I thought that the pain was so bad

in my feet and legs, it took my mind off of whatever that was.

For sure.

And my feet and legs were killing me just from the slap.

You know?

Right.

So that's what was going through my mind.

And all of a sudden, I felt a jolt like that.

And I saw something.

I looked up and sparks were flying.

So, bitch, I'm upside down.

And so now I get to look it around.

And the sparks are going in.

And I see the infield and the wall and then the infield and the wall.

And it's doing this down a straightaway.

And I'm still trying to get my breath back.

And this was right along in there

somewhere where that thought went through my mind.

I don't need this.

I mean, that thought went right between trying to get my breath

back, my feet, my legs killing me.

I don't need this.

So now all of a sudden, fluid starts running in.

And I'm thinking, oh, yeah.

I've already had a bit of fire.

I didn't like that.

Right.

And not being able to breathe was the problem, not the fire.

Yeah, because it came up in your mouth and held it.

Yeah, so I thought, OK.

I didn't have a breath when it ignited the last time.

So this time I started breathing real shallow.

Tried to get a breath and keep it there in case it ignited

because I couldn't unbuckle yet until it comes to a stop.

And it's not going to slow down very fast with no tires on the ground.

Fortunately, I'm going down straightaway.

I can tell that it's not going to be another impact.

And I hear the other cars slow down and go by.

And I'm still going like this.

And I'm hand on the belt, breathing shallow.

And I'm going to be ready because if it ignites,

I'm still going to have to hold my breath and wait till it stops.

Yeah.

And then unbuckle.

So I'm ready.

Well, finally it comes to a stop and it never ignited.

OK, got to be water.

Right.

So then I started breathing relaxed

because I knew it had to be water.

And I just waited until I see tires come up

and he's upside down feet, get up, run up to me.

Here's your right.

You know, get me out of this thing.

But but that and and that was the last time

I thought of that thought when it happened.

Right. Yeah, I forgot all about it.

And in some months or however long it was down the road

that I was kicking around retirement, I was just weighing all the facts,

you know, things that popped up.

And then all of a sudden that I remembered that thought going to me.

And you idiot, you know, right.

How many times have you had the fence?

That thought's never gone through your mind before.

Right.

You know, so that was just another indicator.

Sure.

And and that's what I did.

I just kept weighing up all these little indicators like that.

And finally, it just, you know, I finally woke up one morning.

I thought, again, you idiot, you know, if you're thinking about it,

it's past time.

And that's what I just made the decision.

And I didn't talk to anybody else about it.

I mean, it's my wife and I think my brother.

Because I.

I didn't want anybody influencing the decision.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it had to be something I had to make.

And because I know I can talk myself in and out anything and whatever.

But so.

So basically, nobody knew about it until, you know,

finally mentioned it to Roger.

Not just racing, but I mean, any athlete giving this is what they spend

their whole life wanting to do.

And I would argue for most good athletes, it's terrifying to start

thinking that, especially if you don't really have much of an exit strategy,

you know, either financially or not where you want to be, or you simply

don't have another thing you're going to move on to, whatever that be.

What was that for you?

Well, that that was hard.

I mean, really the hardest part of the decision.

That I fought with the most was the fact I felt like I was letting the team down.

Right.

Because all four wins had been with this team.

Right.

And I know how much they wanted the fifth one also.

Yeah.

You know.

And so that was a big part of the struggle when I was kicking it around,

kicking it around, kicking it around.

It was feeling like I was letting them down.

And then again, I woke up one morning and thought, you dummy, you know,

if your heart's not in it, you're not going to win the fifth one anyway.

Yeah.

And that's not fair to the team.

It's not fair to the sponsors.

Right. You know, nothing else.

So, you know, that was that was one of the biggest parts of the struggles.

Now, back to the point that you said your exit strategy was that did you have like

where you're like, I could just sit on it for the next 10 years.

No, I didn't. I mean, I, you know, I tried to be sensible of my money

because I knew I'd wake. I know me.

You know, I knew I'd wake up one day.

So, you know what, I think I've had enough.

Right. Yeah.

And I mean, I didn't know that.

But I, you know, you wanted to not.

So I just wanted to make sure if that if that time came

I could do it and not have to keep driving to make ends meet.

Yeah. You know, so I tried to be, you know, halfway sensible, not

by the airplane I wanted and the size boat I wanted.

Right. The chart of this that I wanted.

The size motor that I wanted.

308. Appreciate it in value.

I'm pretty sure. So that's probably worth millions now.

Yeah. More than $30,000.

But that wasn't quite as much as the size boat that I'd really wanted.

Can you borrow Rogers?

Yeah. Yeah. See, you don't need a boat.

You just need a friend with a boat.

But so what really the the other part, the hard part was what you're talking about.

And again, OK, I thought, OK, you know, I.

I think I'm I think I have other stuff that you were into.

Businesses you were running.

No, not really. Yeah. Not really.

And. But.

Roger really.

Settled it for me, you know, because as soon as I'm when I mentioned it to him.

And you talk about a weight off my shoulders.

And for that very reason you're talking about, you know, when I said,

you know, I'm kicking on, getting out.

And he says, well, you know, you want to maybe just run the five hundreds or something like that.

You know, kind of taper out and run the speedways.

I said, no, I said because the desires go, you know, that's what's missing.

And and I've never believed in just coming.

I never could understand my heart would never take like some of these guys

that come around once a year. Yeah.

My heart couldn't take that. Right.

Yeah. It scared me to death.

You got to stay current.

And so I said, no, you know,

he says, well, he says that's the case.

And that's just the decision again.

It's the decision you're going to have to make.

You know, he was just great about it.

Says, but if if that's what you decide you want to do,

he said, I like to stay involved with the team.

Thank you. I have a thing I can do now.

Yeah, you talk exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. That was a big relief.

Yeah. Yeah.

And here you are.

Yeah.

I've overstayed my welcome.

The other day, I can't remember what the topic or what the actual circumstance was,

but the conversation about fear came up on social media that I was involved in.

And one of these, you know, armchair racers that knows everything was explaining to me

and right here and others.

OK, Sean was explaining that fear, if you're scared, you shouldn't be out there.

And we were doing just different research over the last couple of weeks.

And I came across an A.J. Foyt quote where he said, if you're not scared,

you haven't gone fast enough or you haven't gotten hurt.

And that doesn't mean you're driving around terrified,

but you know the risks and the consequences.

Is that something you had to deal with with the feet injury?

Because after that, it's like, I'm not invincible.

I can get hurt. No, see, that never really as soon as I looked down

and saw both feet were still there, I knew I was going to be back in car.

Yeah. It's all about loving what you're doing.

If you didn't love what you're doing, you're saying, I'm not doing that again.

Yeah, right.

You know, if you really enjoy what you're doing,

which is why you dig deeper than the other guy.

It's how much you love doing it.

Or you try to dig deeper. Sure.

So we. But OK, I'm going to.

We do a pass on question.

She probably gets out of the way.

Every guest gets a question from the previous guest.

And so earlier today, we had lunch with Joey Saldana,

the world about laws, long time world about laws racer,

his dad, little Joe Saldana, race to speedway and everything.

And he wanted to know how cool was it being the Indy 500

co rookie of the year with Larry Rice?

That was very cool. Yeah. That was very cool.

I had a lot of admiration for for Larry and in that's.

Of everything I've been able to do, that's one thing I've missed.

Sprint cars. You're right. Yeah.

You know, still time.

And, you know, I admire those guys

and the driving they do.

And it's I always wanted to do that

and just never really got the shot at it.

But that was really cool.

Tomorrow morning, we're going to have coffee and donuts

or something with Alex Rossi at the track.

If you could ask Alex Rossi any question, you ever had the chance to.

What could you think to ask?

God, I'm terrible at this.

I kind of like.

What? What? How? How much?

What kind of difference do you see in how?

People, friends and family look at you since you've won Indy.

Interesting. Is that a how was that for you?

Yeah, I was going to say that that seems like a projection. Right.

I don't know. I hadn't thought about it.

Did it change after 79? Oh, sure. Yeah. Sure.

Hey, what I've realized was that, you know.

I guess it depends on the individual.

But I don't I don't like the pedestal feel.

Sure. You know, and I just I don't like stage.

I don't know. Is it a public thing?

Is it a trust thing like you want to know that people around you are sincere?

Yeah, I think that's part of it. But I just don't like it.

It's like a.

I I'm not comfortable on stage.

Never have been. Right. And then I end up getting a job.

I had to spend a lot of time on stage.

I mean, my my public speaking is

I I've got a couple of stories about that and the public speaking part of it.

And then and.

People didn't believe, you know, people don't know

only believe how much it bothers you. Yeah.

And I say, man, I really have avoided this all my life.

I always turned everything into a Q&A.

Yeah, because you answer. Q&A.

It's I can do that. Right.

But my knees get weak. I'm not anything else.

And I said, no, wait, man, it really bothers me.

Oh, yeah, we know, we know.

That's that's our biggest fear.

That's number one biggest fear.

No, wait a minute.

You'll get used to it.

No, wait a minute.

It's been 20, 30 years now.

I'm not used to it yet. Right.

I'm not going to get used to it. Right.

I don't like it.

I'm telling you, it bothers me. Here's how much it bothers me.

It's Andy.

It's our Super Bowl.

I'm leading.

I mean, it's qualifying time. Yeah.

Head down. No mistakes.

Hitch marks.

Bring it home.

I've got five laps to go.

And I'm I'm I mean, my focus is.

Where is it?

Oh, man, if I win this thing again,

I'm gonna have to get an acceptance speech.

You're not worried about stuffing it.

You're thinking about the.

You're not worried about throwing it around.

I'm not worried about Michael chasing me or anything.

You know, the banquet.

Which year was this?

OK, so you knew like this was the big number four.

Yeah, your feet are killing you.

Yeah. And you're thinking,

I'm going to have to get that speech later.

Well, see, I could lift.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

I think it's.

Man, that's not happening.

Yeah. But that's amazing.

I mean, that just that's how much you don't like it.

It's you're thinking about it.

Five to go at the five.

Works on my mind.

You know, it's just come a four time winner.

Yeah. You have to speak even more.

Right. But it was.

So that and, you know,

you talk about the pedestal thing.

It's like I hated being late for school.

You know, being the last one to walk through the door.

You open the door and everybody looks at you.

Oh, that's the worst.

I hate that.

Yeah. That's all I do.

My my first my first time I had to get in front of the class.

You know, great to go over there with.

And we had to do an oral report.

So teachers going down the list.

Finally comes my turn.

Teachers, OK, Mirs, you're up.

I stood up and said, give me an F.

I sat down. That was my oral report.

Wow.

You were not going to drag me to the front of that room.

You never broke that.

I just I've always.

But that's that pedestal thing.

And people tend to, you know, back to the original deal.

You know,

tend to put you on a pedestal more than you do yourself.

Yeah. Right.

And I just never been real comfortable with it.

If you don't want to mind us asking, so the sin air crash in 84,

you know, it's it's available on YouTube.

It's a it's a rough one.

How much of that do you remember?

Everything up to up to the guardrail coming at me.

Yeah.

And then bits and pieces a little bit after that.

Right.

I mean, the next thing I remember is is somebody said,

hey, you know who I am.

Do you know who I am?

And when I came to where I could see it was Roger,

you know, leaning over me and it's on the stretcher.

You know who I am?

And then it was just kind of bits of pieces after that.

And then another deal in the hospital there where they had ice bags on my feet

and it was killing me and I was yelling at him to get the ice bags off.

I remember some older, older gentlemen on a table across the room,

patient, he's sitting there for some reason.

It's like he's doing a half set up.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I remember my feet were killing me.

But I remember looking at him thinking, how can he do that?

That long?

How can he hold that position?

That long?

That's kind of weird.

Yeah.

Anyways, my feet.

I don't know why I remember that.

But then I remember being on a stretcher on a gurney on the outside of the helicopter.

Yeah.

Like a mash.

Oh, right.

Like the old military.

Get me out of one area to get me to another to get to an ambulance

or to get me to Roger's plane.

Sure.

And then just again, you know,

sort of remember more and more throughout.

And when I got back to here, the Indian Surgery is not.

Do you remember your initial reaction to just the starting?

Because like, if there's one thing I know about drivers

is that they're never at fault for anything.

And so as you kind of basically get turned towards the guardrail,

was your first like, what the fuck was that guy doing?

Or was it like, did I just grew up?

Well, no, that all happens so quick.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, I think what I thought initially was going to hurt.

The gap wasn't there.

Yeah. Right.

Right.

You know, basically this is practice.

It's a very tight little oval.

I mean, it was.

And you thread a needle that wasn't there.

It was you idiot.

Again.

To you.

To yourself.

For you.

Yeah.

It was my fault.

Yeah.

Right.

And now in a race, I'd do the same thing again,

but there wouldn't be a guy warming up.

Sure.

There would be somebody on the inside.

Right.

Yeah.

And what caught me on that is really timing wise,

it would have worked.

Right.

But back then, you know, which I hadn't thought about.

A lot of times when you warm cars up,

you ran them up and down through the throttle.

Yeah.

Oh.

You gas it and then back off.

Then you get off.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

And it just so happened, I'm gauging everything off

what I'm looking at.

So you're seeing a guy slowing down.

I've got a key off rails left rear, you know,

with my right front.

And I knew it was going to be tight,

so I've got to stay on him as close as I can.

And so I'm trying to watch both as I get there

and see what the gap is going to be.

And I thought, OK, this is going to be good.

We're going to make it.

And I was already committed.

So I went ahead and then bang.

Well, what had happened, I found out,

just as we were going by is when he let it off.

Yeah.

And that slowed the gap down.

And that's in a turn based on it.

It was all my.

And it was impatience, you know, because.

Because this is practice.

It's practice.

But what had happened is we just went one here.

It was 84.

It was after winning here.

I think we'd just taken the point lead.

Or I was tied with Mario for the point lead, something like that.

And it was the first year at Sand Air.

Nobody had run there, but we'd had to test.

And so you got a little advantage

that you want to try to keep.

And I've got to see a number on the watch.

You know, it's I can't go out there and say, OK,

I know what I've got here.

But I've got to I got just my own ego or something.

I got to send them.

Right.

So I was trying to get a clean lap.

And that little bull ring was hard to get clean.

Yeah.

And I came up behind both them and I could see ahead of them.

It's clear.

And I had to run at them and I thought, OK, if I can get this done.

Now I can lay a lap down and see where we're at.

And so I just impatient.

You know.

So in 2018, you very famously wear flip flops.

What even today?

What are some of the kind of pains with your feet?

Symptoms of injuries.

It just, you know, they just depends on how how long I'm on them.

They you know, they ache.

And that's all from that.

Yeah.

And sometimes the ankles, you know, get knife pains and stuff,

you know, depending on if I stress it or something or step on something

uneven and it tries to twist because I don't have a lot of movement.

OK.

But usually like regular shoes, the main thing is.

The sides, you know, there's got some sensitive parts on the side.

It's decambered or decambered, I guess.

So the weights always go into the outside.

All right.

And then these bones that stick out here run on the side of the shoe.

Right. All the time.

And it gets real sensitive and on the heels.

So just a little thing.

Flip flops have been I've had.

I've.

Custom shoes I've made castings in my feet and our own insert.

Made our own foam pads.

And yeah, they feel good for a little bit.

Tell pads break down.

You do it all over again.

Flip flops, the best thing going.

I'm with you.

So you can do shoes for short term, like if you have to go to an event.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

I was going to get some patent leather flip flop.

So to use like a.

The back with style.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

With the here in 2018, safety is probably the thanks a lot.

Probably the best it's ever been for open wheel racing in North America.

The current thing that they're working on is the cockpit screen, the wind screen.

And what we've seen on social media and certain forums that a wind screen

wouldn't be pure, it should be open top.

The head should be out in the air.

All these things.

We asked James Hinchcliffe what he thought about purity versus safety

and things like that.

And he had a pretty interesting answer.

Where does Rick Mears stand on?

Having a safety innovation like this wind screen that Penske's already run

with Joseph and seem to seek the benefits of it.

Where do you stand on something like that?

I don't know.

I mean, I'm a little old school, too, you know, as far as the purity of it.

But but also, you know, why not if it'll help?

Right.

You know, and.

To me,

there's not so much a question of whether you should or shouldn't do it

as long as it's the right thing.

There's too many times there's decisions and things made that end up

unknowingly create.

Yes, I guess.

As a first thing when they came and asked me about the halo,

what I thought about the halo.

I said, you know, I said, one thing I can tell you is I've had stuff go over

my head, you know, from a car.

And it's on an upward trajectory more often than not.

Because it comes from usually the guy right in front of you.

Right. So it's doing this.

I said, there's a center line on that.

And if it hits below center line of the leading edge, it's coming in at me.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, which would have missed me.

Right, sure.

So you just got to be careful, you know, on, you know.

I guess one of the odds or one of the, you know, the odds of things that happen

most often, you know, you guys start weighing it out.

I guess. But.

But, you know, if if anything can help, I'm really for it.

And the same thing with the screen.

My first comments on it.

Well, I said, it's going to depend on how thick it has to be.

Sure. What angle has to be run in.

I said, you know, you guys think about thickness and you think, oh,

it's only going to be this thick.

Well, it's only that thick.

If it's like this, you put it like this.

Now you're looking through eight inches.

That would be if it's got more angle.

It's got a right.

So distortion.

Yeah. You know, the.

The the sandblasting, you know, the cost, the weight, the, you know,

the weight's not effective.

It's the same for everybody.

So it doesn't matter. Right.

But.

The getting in and out if needed, you know, impact.

What's it going to do on a second impact?

If you have a second impact, sure.

You know, if there's a way.

But I mean, so it's going to be attachment, whatever.

But if it can be done in in help, then then I'm for it.

Yeah. And I don't think it looks bad.

No, it's cool.

I think it's cool. Yeah.

Yeah. What do you think of the Haylor?

Look pretty good.

I kind of like the look of the halo.

The only one car.

I really don't mind.

I didn't like the look of it, but I do.

I will admit that after like 10 laps,

I kind of didn't even notice it.

Right. You know, I was like, I guess not.

It's like anything.

Right. You get used to everything.

Yeah.

The only thing that Bob is on the halo thing

on a 41 car is the first thing that where I think they screwed up

is they they allowed him to start doing arrow stuff on you.

Right. Right. Right away. Right away.

That's how the guys, you know, I'm watching the guy get out

of the car and now he's got to grab it like this and traffic.

You know, we're normally it would have been able to just go like whatever.

It's all over it. Yeah.

Nice. Guys, why don't you leave that off?

That's the point. Yeah. Exactly.

You drove in a very different era from today in the sense

that every year, every couple of years, brand new car, brand new combinations,

you know, everybody was running different stuff.

You know, every team is different this in the modern era,

but the cars are very, very similar to him.

I'm not sure if you're a model.

But yet you're also on the management side of a team.

So you know, some of the financial reasons to do that.

Do you, does it bug you to see how spec everything kind of is right now?

Or are you fine with it?

I'm fine with it. Yeah.

And, you know, there's a lot of things that have taken place here

that people don't don't stop to figure in, you know, and it.

The harping on numbers of cars.

You know, for a starter, right?

You know, those went away with with composite materials.

Yeah. So in other words, the cars took a dramatic jump in expense.

Right. Well, I can weld in my garage.

Yeah, you can make your own. I can bend some sheet metal. Exactly.

I don't have an autoclave.

We have an autoclave, let's say.

And I wouldn't know how to use it if I had it. Right.

But so that ended that into the thinking outside the box.

I want to try something here at home and put it in line next year.

Right. You know, so that that started taking some of the numbers out.

Then, you know, when we went to the carbon chases

and you want more than one manufacturer, you know, they had a load of Lola

and March and ours and the Pinsky and, you know,

it's all self-weeding.

The American way is jump on the whichever one's best.

Yeah, right. Right.

Lola's best. Everybody buys a Lola.

Yeah.

The next year, March is best. Everybody buys March.

Right. OK.

Well, OK, the next year, March is best again.

Lola just did a year's development for cost.

Yeah, right. Yeah.

And didn't sell anything. Right.

Now they've got to continue another year's development and cost.

Yeah, right. Right. And hope they sell something.

Yeah. And if they miss it again.

So that can't go on. Yeah, right.

Right. You know, it's impossible.

It just.

We don't need.

Twenty extra cars at every event that don't make the show.

Mm hmm. Right.

And besides that, it won't happen.

Let's say you've got 10 extra cars that show up.

For 20 events. Yeah. OK.

At the end of the 20 events.

Six or eight of those cars that didn't of the 10 that didn't make it.

Might have been the same ones at every event.

Mm hmm. Right.

Are they going to have anything to sell at the end of the year?

Right.

You know, for sponsorship. Right.

Right. You know, it's self-weeding.

In today's market. Yeah.

And so we don't need to worry about that.

Let's get the best.

Today, the depth of this field and equipment and talent is as big as

and deep as it's ever been. Yeah.

Yeah. Absolutely.

In the history of racing. Yeah.

And, you know, that's like these these changes now.

One of the arguments over making changes on rules and aerodynamics and everything else has been,

well, we'll separate the teams.

We'll separate the talent. show.

And have runaways. We'll have this one.

And that.

And I kept saying, you know,

back when, yes.

Possibly. You know, it was much bigger disparity between them.

I said, today, we're all stacking the same blocks.

Right. Right.

You know, back then you made a change.

Well, there was three engine manufacturers, two different chassis, two different tire companies,

and different combinations all the above.

Right now we've all got the same blocks to stack.

It's just how we stack.

You're right.

You know, I got to figure out how to stack mine better than you.

Yeah. Yeah.

You can't get as far off.

But the thing is, if you're going to have the car like this,

and it's what I've argued with the downforce,

you know, I need my tools

to make a difference.

Now, you know, it's,

I don't mind equal equipment.

I've dealt with equal equipment my whole career.

I had a lot of teammates.

Team mates.

Yeah.

You know, and they're the ones I got to beat.

Yeah.

That's job security.

Yeah.

So, and they all had the same equipment.

So it's up to me.

If they beat me, I'm leaving something on the table somewhere.

And that keeps you digging.

So I don't mind equal equipment.

What I do mind is, is equipment that equals the drivers.

I don't agree.

Right.

Trash controls.

Exactly.

You've got, you've got to have difficulty.

Difficulty is the best tool you've got.

Yeah.

And it's the tool we do our dam just to get away from.

Sure.

So you're fine with them all,

as long as there's a setup window

and more importantly, a difficult car.

Yeah.

As long as, as long as you've got the tools to do a better job

than somebody else.

Right.

You know, it's equal equipment is one thing.

Equalizing everything is another.

Right.

You know, it's, this sport is not for the masses.

It's not made for the masses.

Right.

You try to make it for the masses

and you know, nobody's going to watch it.

Right.

You know, and that's where the difficulty comes in.

You make a great kind of embracing comment

that the sport is not made for the masses.

And I wholeheartedly agree with it.

It's something that I think people are a little too obsessed with.

Yeah.

Are you involved in the commercial side at all within Penske?

No.

Sponsors and whatnot.

I'm just curious how challenging do you think the market is right now

to get proper funding?

Well, yeah, yeah, that end of it.

I've never been involved with that.

Yeah.

I mean, that's, nah, I just never have.

I don't know how difficult it is.

But I tell you, you know, it's, it's just,

that's how it's conversation.

Just the other day with somebody about, you know,

the, the getting the money and everything.

And I said, well, the first lessons I learned

at the very first indie I went to, you know,

it was always, you know, when I signed up with Roger,

it was always, oh, if we had his money, we could do that too.

We had this, we could do that too.

Huh.

You know?

It seems like we have a running joke about that with this show.

Yeah.

Because we've had very good success.

Yeah.

And we have some sponsorship, but we went out and got it.

Yeah.

And also like, we're not, we're not getting,

we're not making money on it.

We're not making it a dime.

But here's, here's the lesson that I learned.

And it's, you know, we were starting, you know,

a little team, no money, and we'd been blowing motors.

Right.

It's just 77, the first year I tried to make a show.

And I'm thinking, and I'd never, I'd never brought a dime

to a car, right?

Yeah.

That was, that was before the driver bringing the money started.

And I remember thinking, if I could just help somehow,

you know, and I knew some people in Caterpillar that,

you know, because of the construction.

Sure.

If I could talk to somebody, if I got an opportunity,

maybe I could help a little bit here.

And I was walking back in the garage,

and I walked by Rogers' garage to get the money.

And I looked in his garage and I thought, you know what?

If I had somebody on my arm right now trying to sell them,

and we walked by that garage to get the money,

gone, where are they going to stop?

Yep.

Right.

Yep.

Right.

And when you looked in the garage, that wasn't money.

Yeah.

That was elbow grease.

Yeah.

A little thought.

Yeah.

Color, place for things.

Tension of detail.

You know?

Yeah.

And that's got nothing to do with money.

That's got to do with work.

Right.

You know?

And I learned that early on with him.

You know?

Now, when we went down to my garage, it was bad.

Right.

But it didn't look like that.

It's not bad.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Not that it couldn't if we had the time,

took the time to do it.

Sure.

You know?

And had somebody that had the eye and said,

hey, we got to do this.

Right.

And we had some funded teams that didn't have

wherewithal, you know, to think like that.

And I've heard over the years, you know, times and

as far as dollars.

And there's been years that there's been other teams that

had a lot more sponsor dollars coming in than Roger.

Yeah.

And he wasn't always coming out of his pocket to make up a

difference.

You know?

So it's not, you know, when it's needed and asked to, you

know, you got to do what you got to do.

But I mean, it's the main saying.

Effort equals results.

Yeah.

We have a lot of young drivers that listen to this show that

are just starting out.

Some we have a lot of old drivers that listen to the show,

like Andy Lally, for example.

Yeah.

He's a hold.

He's really old.

You've obviously, you yourself drove for the, for the captain.

You've worked alongside some of the greatest drivers ever,

you know, drive in any sport of racing as, you know, and

obviously any car.

How does a young driver, myself included, how does a young

driver get Roger Penske's attention to the point of

opportunity?

Like what's he out there looking for?

And basically what I'm saying is, is like, give advice to the

young driver listening that's like, how do I get there one day?

How do I get a DPI right?

Yeah.

You know, it could be, I'm sure it's the same thing for

Kenassi and Andretti and all those guys.

What are they looking for?

Yeah.

But the question's been asked a lot.

And, you know, other than, and I don't study that.

And I, you know, I don't know what's best because I'm

not a driver.

I don't know what's best because I didn't do it.

You know, I remember getting asked that early on.

I said, I don't know.

I just went out and raced.

Yeah.

You know, I just did what I enjoyed doing.

Yeah.

And one of the things was that I didn't split my, you know, I

didn't have one foot here and one foot trying to get over there.

Yeah.

Right.

You know, when I look back at what took place for me, what

was, whatever I did, 100% of my focus was in it.

That car.

Right.

This car wasn't here to get me to that one.

Right.

So I didn't have, have my focus here and here.

You're right.

I'm thinking 100% on that.

All I want to do is win this race.

Yeah.

And the consistency is when you told us your career story two

hours ago, was, was that, yeah, you were racing dirt for fun.

At no point was this, I'm going to be in an F5,000 car in a year

and I'm going to be in a car year after that.

Yeah.

But, but the point is that all my focus was there because I wouldn't

worry about anything else.

Right.

And that creates the result.

Right.

The result creates the next opportunity.

Right.

I mean, that's the way it worked for me.

Sure.

Could that 17 year old kid from Bakersfield today with no money,

who's out just pedaling off road or just kind of racing go-karts or

whatever he can do.

And follow the beat.

Could, could he achieve what you achieved today?

Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah.

It, it would be hard.

Yeah.

I think, but yeah, now it would be hard.

Yeah.

But not to say that, that it can't be done because still even like with

me, timing is everything.

Yeah.

Period.

I don't care.

I just happen to be there and be out of a ride when Mario decided

to go run Formula One.

Right.

All year.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

Had he not done that, I would, right, where would I be?

And I'd be on the back home.

So that's interesting.

or you have enough money to plant it.

Yeah.

Haleo could get number four this year,

number five, obviously, he's, Haleo's got so many years left.

Is the first five-time winner on the grid right now?

Possibly.

I mean, I, I don't know,

I've never been a record guy, I've never been a,

it's, you know, he either does or doesn't or,

right, thank you.

Or whatever and, and,

but very well could be.

Very well could be.

Dude, go ahead.

Okay, so I wanted to ask you about this because

when I was reading the story, I couldn't really believe it

and it was your first time, I think, either you made the race

or maybe you were trying to make the race, but

when I say the name Jim Herdebees, what do you think of?

I think of the beer cooler.

In the engine bay?

Yeah.

So, yeah, so, yeah, so we're doing research and

I don't just look at you, I try to look at other things that

happen around that time just because I'm curious, you know,

I love the sport so much.

I'm, I'm reading about Jim Herdebees because the first time

you tried to qualify, I think, you were definitely in the,

on the, trying to make the grid when this happened.

He, I guess, was told he couldn't run his front engine

roadster or they were trying to stop him from running it.

Right.

So he hops in, I think Jim Harky's car and like

slams his foot on the brakes so they can't move the car.

Yeah, something like that.

Because he's like, if I can't qualify, no one can.

So he gets in the next car in the line to like stop him.

So they're wrestling him out of that car.

They let that guy go try to make a lap and then he jumps on

the front straight and runs until security.

Yeah, I don't remember.

This all happened the year, we were like in the, in your hunt

to make the 500.

I mean, it was basically the last year of the roadster period.

Right.

Yeah.

I think that was the last time a roadster ran.

So now I'm just obsessed with Jim Herdebees because he

sounds like he was a crazy person.

But I guess the following year or maybe the year prior, he tried,

he knew I wasn't going to make it.

He didn't have the motor or whatever.

So he pushes his car to the grid.

Can you tell the story?

I don't remember it in detail myself.

I don't remember if he had it in line and then he kept having

to shuffle it, you know, because it, he knew he couldn't run.

He had to roll it out.

Yeah.

And then when the gun went off or whatever, then he opened up

the engine bay.

The engine bay.

It was full of beer.

Full of beer.

Cooler full of beer and he's handing them out.

And he was sponsored, I think Miller Highlife or something.

So that was like his PR move.

Yeah.

His character.

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

That's so cool to me.

We've been keeping you a long time, but we've got a, we've got a

couple of very important questions.

Sure.

So Dr. Robin L. Miller.

Yeah.

DDS.

DDS told this number of awesome stories from sort of year year of

racing.

He told us a little bit about the conquests of Gordon Johncock

or Bobby Gunser.

Did you ever hang with those guys?

Yeah.

Who was your like go to crew back in your heyday for going out for a beer?

Usually just the team.

Really?

The guys in the team.

Right.

So you weren't out on a hunt like those guys?

No.

Okay.

I've been married all my life.

Fair enough.

How did you, I mean you mentioned you liked the pedestal thing, but you were

basically the American hero at the time, winning four of these things at the pinnacle of

stardom for IndyCar.

The level of celebrity status that you had that doesn't exist anymore for race car

drivers, except maybe for one, even stock cars kind of dwindling.

You didn't like the pedestal feeling, but like you had to be recognized almost everywhere

you went.

Quite a bit.

Yeah.

Especially depending on where you were.

Sure.

Did you struggle with being noted, like recognized?

Not too much, but you know, also I learned most recognition is created because it's wanted.

Right.

You know, I mean, that's like, you know, you see anybody with on to rise.

That's what that's only reason to rise is there.

Sure.

You know, you know, you can't go to the cars or whatever it's because, oh, they'll notice.

Right.

If I just walked around by myself, I didn't get near as much of it as if, but you know,

you do little things over the years.

You know, I'm fortunate to have it.

Yeah.

Very lucky to have it.

Now there's times and places for everything, you know, and there's times you get tired of

it.

But you know, it's only normal, but you know, I didn't hide from it so much, but you do

little things to, you know, I'd find a different route through a track or something to get from

right.

A to B or whatever that kind of avoids saying something like that between the trucks behind

the trucks, you know, in the scooter or whatever.

Sure.

But, but also just never wear anything racing out.

Yeah.

Right.

I mean, you know, it'd be amazed if you don't have anything on indicates racing of any sort.

Right.

You'll see people.

Oh yeah.

I know, I know that face, but we're a big deal now.

So this happens to us.

But you see them, they know, I, you know, they know.

I'm pretty sure that's who I think it was on an episode of coach.

Yeah.

Coach of talent.

Yeah.

But, but if you've got something on with racing, it's like a medium.

Giveaway.

Yeah.

Especially this town.

They put the two in duty.

Yeah.

Right.

And here, here you can do it even without the wear anything, you know, this, this place

obviously would get crazy.

But it's, but it's out of sight out of mind like anything else with time these days.

I remember here, you know, a few years ago, I went over to the ball on the other side

of the town, the keystone and wife, I used to go over there a lot, you know, during the

matu need, need things, look around and I was looking for shoes or something.

I went over there, we knew flip flops and went over there and I went all over the place,

you know, and cruise around and but I wanted went back up.

I just got out the car.

Whoa.

I went through the whole place without getting stopped.

Nobody buys.

Yeah.

I mean, it's just the time that it happened.

Right.

It's, you know, okay.

Yeah.

It's going to be okay.

I kind of like this.

Yeah.

Were you wearing that ring?

Oh yeah, I always worry.

I didn't come off right.

Which one is that?

91.

Nice.

Yeah.

Okay.

Do you have all four or did you give them away?

No, I've got them.

Yeah.

I've got them.

Do you, I know you're not attention hungry, but do you ever like, just sort

of wrap your hand around, grab a salt shaker with somebody who doesn't know you?

Just to like show them that finger.

Yeah.

No, I got it.

This is, I got that.

I'm not going to be here.

Yeah.

Anybody?

No, I usually do that.

Oh, you turn around.

Yeah.

Okay.

With your celebrity status when you were in your heyday of Indy car racing, did you

get to meet anybody that stands out that you wouldn't have met otherwise?

Like, obviously you do the PR tour, but is there somebody that got to come and you're

like, Oh my God, that's Chuck Yeager or something, you know?

Well, he's one.

Oh, well, there you go.

Yeah.

He is one.

Yeah.

He drove the pace car here and he's a great guy.

Yeah.

Super cool guy.

Yeah.

Both, the Bush president, you know, both of them, going to the White House, and it's just,

I just wish I had, you see, and back then, you know, I was never a camera nut anyway,

carrying camera, taking pictures, and keep track of stuff, you know, and now with the

memory I have, I wish I would have, but I'm pretty sure we can find a lot of these photos.

Yeah, one day, you'll meet Johnny Rock page.

Yeah, right, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, well, I voted for him.

So, you know, at least he can do this hang out with you.

Yeah, at least.

But I wish I could remember off the top of my head.

There's been so many opportunities like that, you know, meeting people like that and Yeager

and just the things you've got to do, you know, flying F4 Phantoms and F18s and landing

and takeoffs and carriers.

Right, right.

You know, the opportunity to do stuff like that just would never happen.

Right.

So we know about like the banquet, but on the PR side, like you got the upsides flying

F4s, but was there like a TV show or a talk show or anything like that that you're like,

I don't want to do this.

It's not going to go well.

Oh, yeah, any of them that I ever had to do.

Oh, really?

So this podcast.

Which doesn't mean.

Oh, there's no camera going here.

Yeah, fair.

That's fair.

Yeah, the coach show.

I know that.

You didn't like that?

Oh, I fought that for a long time.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, there was a show called Coach starring Craig Teenelson where he was like a college

football coach who's on for years.

And at the time, Craig Teenelson was a big racer.

Yeah, good guy.

Yeah, yeah.

I've met him at the tracks.

Cool.

I can name a few riders at Discrete.

But he did an episode where he like went to like a mock Jim Russell or Skip Barber School

or something like that.

And you and Bobby Gunser were naturally two of the coaches as I remember or something

like that.

I go on.

That's the hell of the school.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

That's the experience.

Yeah, I mean, I just, you know, that's just not me.

It's not a natural.

And you know, and you talk about stage, it's done live.

Oh, right.

The studio audience.

That's a big stage.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right.

And so finally, they shoot that in LA.

They've been trying to get me to do it.

Trying to get me to do it.

And I kept saying, no, no, no.

And finally, we were going to Australia for a race.

So I'd be going to the West Coast anyway.

And all the timing was starting to work out.

Yeah.

Hey, we can get this done and you know, you can come in here and then boom with that

and knock it out.

Then you go on to there and sure.

Yeah, I really need to be there on loading day guys.

I kept saying, well, I guess they will give me something to look at.

How much do I have to do?

Well, you know, what's my involvement here?

Right.

Oh, yeah, yeah, we'll get to tell you.

So finally, it came time to go.

And we had to make the plans ago.

Yeah.

Where's the script?

I still don't know what I'm going to be doing here.

And so I get it as I'm getting on the plane basically.

Yeah.

And I hope that thing up my look.

My page, my page.

Yeah.

And like 15 pages of stuff I had to memorize.

You know, you've got to be kidding me.

Based on my memory.

Right.

And it was actually, you know, and we did the two takes, you know, early afternoon and

a late evening, two different audiences.

And again, as the second one came around, getting more comfortable and knowing the lines

and everything.

And you start working, doing what you think you should do more.

And it was actually fun once you got into it.

Right.

Well, I can see you being somebody that would like geek out over the tech sides of what

they're doing.

What?

Over the technical side.

It's like some of the camera equipment.

Oh, yeah.

That's interesting.

Yeah.

That's always interesting.

It's like any commercials or anything we've ever been involved with.

I like all the behind the orchestrating volume and how they get it all done.

But I mean, it was actually, it was actually fun once, once I got far enough alone to get

rid of the, you know, the weak knees.

Yeah.

I mean, they never completely wiped it.

So you got tricked into doing this by Jeremy, I think.

Yeah, I kept trying to get the script from him all the way up.

Yeah, we nailed it.

Yeah, we're happy like that.

Our show is not exactly going to be the staple of your legacy, but if there was something,

you know, the whole point of this is that fans get to know what it's like to sit down

with guys like yourself.

So, because it, you know, so we're lucky to have this experience and obviously people

listening aren't as fortunate.

What is the takeaway of something like this that you're hoping fans get?

Well, I, I don't know.

Again, I don't, I don't ever do anything really that thinking what other people are

trying to get anything one way or the other.

You know, other than, I mean, it's like somebody would say, well, let's get in there after

we retire the other cardio, what's your legacy?

What do you want to leave?

What do you want for people?

I don't know.

I, I mean, if I got to think of something, then eraser consistency, you know, I tried

to be there day in, day out, you know, let the highs get too high, the

lows are too low and I just an even keel kind of thing.

And that's what I've always tried to do.

And I think that's what, you know, this is something like this would be, hey, he puts

his bands on one leg at a time, you know, just like all of us.

But when he does, he wins the Indian 500.

Yeah.

Good people though.

Yeah.

We got good people.

That's what makes it happen.

Yeah.

We got, we got a lot of good people that put their pants on one leg at a time that make

it all happen.

That's right.

But and just very fortunate, you know, right place, right time and it can be done.

You know, it's with the right opportunities, but you got to have the lady luck with you.

And you've got to, you've got to do a little work yourself.

You got to hustle.

Yeah.

And I always worked on the car because I didn't want to work that hard.

Actually, that brings the question.

And then I'll let you go.

So you were notorious for falling asleep in the car on the grid and things like that.

Is that true?

Or are you just closing your eyes and relaxing?

You would literally fall asleep.

Yeah.

That was my, that's called narcolepsy.

You actually should look at that.

That's, that's, that's my body's way of getting away from the nerves.

Really?

You can just shut it down like that.

Yeah.

I just get sleepy.

I started yawning.

I mean, I remember that one of the first times I remember it happening was we got caught

in a storm when I was little out in the ocean.

And I remember doing it.

I remember my mom telling people, you know, I just, I ended up grabbing a rail on the

top of a small boat and being rock and roll in the water.

I just wrapped my arms around the deal.

Fell asleep.

You just fell asleep?

Huh.

You know?

Wow.

And I mean, it's like getting a car to qualify, waiting in line to qualify.

I started yawning and I got dosed off.

I used to do it in testing.

Dosed off.

Guys have tapped me on the helmet and wake me up to, okay, go on.

Yeah.

I was just like part of the startup routine.

Well, there's like, you know, key the switches or a tap on the head.

Oh, actually we should, we should ask this question because I'm sure you've had it a

million times, but Sean didn't know the story.

I didn't know the story.

Your first time you start the Indy 500 from the front row.

Why did you have to pit early?

Oh, that is no net.

It's just, you know, my helmet was coming off.

So you literally forgot to strap your helmet for your first 500.

That's a little too much.

Not really.

I mean, yes, I did, but no, I didn't.

I don't, Roger loves that story.

So I don't like to really tell it the way it actually happened.

He likes the story that I did.

He belashes it a certain way.

But actually what happened, he's heard it.

But actually what happened was I've always tried to stay relaxed, you know, and calm.

I was always opposite.

You know, turn one means zip, you know, starting the race, you know, qualifying.

Now you're like this.

Sure.

And it's, you better have it right.

And it's now, and you got one shot and no mistakes.

And that's what makes it fun.

So you get a little more excited for that.

Call, you know, race.

I've got 500 miles to get excited.

Yeah.

I got all day to get excited.

You know, so I want to, I don't want to.

I go to turn one.

I don't know what the tires are like.

I don't know what the tracks like.

I don't know what the, you know, there's no tampony.

I don't know who's going to be a competitor.

Who's going to be not, you know, I've got all day to get sorted here.

So you know, what's the rush?

Staying to hunt.

And so, so race morning, that's what I was doing.

You know, I was staying relaxed and I stayed at the room as long as I could and the garage

staying there out of the hoopla, you know, and I just being calm and collected.

And I was so calm and collected.

I was almost late.

So now I'm running to get into the thing.

Now I'm having to get my heart started that I'm trying to keep calm down.

And so I run and jump in the car, you know, on a buckle helmet, yank it down and we plug

everything in and take off.

A couple laps into the race.

I notice my helmet starts climbing.

You've got to be kidding me.

And every step and it's undone.

And you know, the suction is lifting the thing up and the windows went up.

So I'm going to like, I'm chasing the helmet trying to see out of it.

And finally I got to turn loose and grab a hold of one hand and just hold it down and

drive.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

And I think, man, I do not want to make this phone call.

I mean, this this call radio.

Yeah.

I'm going to call him Roger.

I didn't get my helmet buckled.

And he's the guy on the radio for you.

Yeah.

I think he was first year.

I was a Dirk.

Yeah, I've been Dirk Walker.

I've been Dirk.

But anyway, I knew where it was going.

No matter who I call it.

It is not good.

So I saw I live with it for a few laps.

You know, I keep trying to go.

Yeah, this is so bad.

I think I'm better.

Anything happens.

Better do something here.

Good.

So I called it in and sure enough, we got lucky and a yellow came out.

Yeah, it broke down.

So really come in and get it buckled and gone.

But what what actually happened because I did it a race later, a couple races later.

Again.

But not in the race.

Okay.

I caught it before the race.

Sure.

And what had happened is I stuck it through and looped it back and it didn't go around

the outer the other loop.

Okay.

So you're pulling right back out.

Yeah, because I always I'd always tighten the helmet and give it another extra yank.

Yeah.

You know, and and and so when I was running late, I pulled it once and jumped in.

I didn't give it that second yank.

Yeah.

Well, this time the other time it happened, I gave it a pull like that and it tightened

up and I pulled it again and pulled through.

I just wadded up against the knot.

So that second yank would have taken it back.

Second yank would have pulled it out.

Yeah, pulled it through and out of no one.

It wasn't buckled.

Yeah.

And so I I'm I had that not have happened the race or two later.

Right.

I'd have still not known to this day whether I really buckled it or not.

Sure.

I thought I did.

But so did it.

And a team like you say, how much did you catch from that team after after Indy?

Really not too much.

Yeah.

Not too much.

These guys are pretty good.

Yeah.

Or is that they're not allowed to give you shit?

They they know.

No, believe me.

You do something more than once you'll hear about a lot.

Okay.

Yeah.

They're pretty good, but they won't they won't get unless you get by with too much.

Yeah.

So now I really didn't catch much about that.

Probably help it.

You're like really fast.

Yeah.

Well, that's like that's like changing the wheels during the race, you know, going from

the flat wheels to the open wheels.

Was that was that 90 91 or 88?

Oh, you mean with the arrow?

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

And we'd qualified with the flush wheels and 10 laps into the race, the car goes loose,

loose, loose.

And I knew I could fix it.

Help it balance wise with a pit stop, some wing or whatever.

Sure.

I knew I would get more total if I could because I knew where the wheel worked, what it did

to the car.

Okay.

And I knew if I pulled that out of the equation, I'd make it better without losing as much

here and here to balance it.

Right.

On entry and exit or whatever.

So you wanted the different wheel.

Yeah.

So I knew I would totally I could make it a lot better without it, but I'd be even better

yet if we change my back to the other wheel.

Yeah.

So I get on a rail and say, I want to open the wheels.

That's awesome.

Wow.

I'm sure Breon about was about ready to shoot me.

I was going to say it because they probably didn't have those wheel mounted.

No, no, because all they're all ready to the same.

Everything are all mounted.

Yeah.

Right.

They make it happen.

They had to go break them all down.

Yeah.

During the race.

But they did it.

Yeah.

They did it.

They ran.

But fortunately I won the race because I'd have never heard the end of that one.

Right.

So I was taking them taking a big gamble there.

Yeah.

If we'd have, but I fell on my face.

I'd have never heard the end of that.

Sure.

Of all those cars, do you have a favorite?

Like I just visually and maybe it's because it's kind of my ear really getting into it.

Like the PC17 is like one of my favorite cars of all time.

Do you have a?

Me too.

And visually and everything else and drivability.

Yeah.

All of it.

But really it's, you know, it was always the latest one you won in.

Of course.

Right.

And even a car that starts out ugly can look very good if it wins.

Yeah.

That's right.

It grows on you or whatever.

But I think aesthetically and everything else, the 17 and, you know, those, that run of cars

was just so clean.

Yeah.

Right.

So nice looking.

Yeah.

You know, he did just such a, he's such a master at the packaging and, you know, and just

making everything look like it flowed together as well as working.

Right.

And it's.

Everyone talks about John Cough in 82.

Was there another race that you, that got away from you?

Um, not so much like that one did, but I mean, like the one we finished third behind went

to Ray Hall one, I think it was or I think Colgan was second or third.

So that was another close one.

But that day we weren't as good.

Using any of the others that got away from me, they, they deserved it.

You know, you weren't the best.

Yeah, we weren't.

Right.

You know, that one we should have won.

Yeah.

I mean, I didn't know John Cough, but, um, we've been, you did.

Okay.

I've never had a lot of, you know, real, what do you call it?

Regrets or.

Well, and we've, you have no triggers, as you said.

Yeah.

I wouldn't do any good anyway.

Still fine.

Exactly.

Why was that?

I mean, the second to John Cough, you know, obviously you don't like to lose and especially

after you win more and you think, well, that could have been fine.

Right.

But I was, I almost felt guilty for feeling happy after the race, you know, because I

felt like, I felt like they knew we were there.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

You finished second in the 5, and I felt like I did.

I felt, you know, we made up a lot of ground.

I felt like I did, I did my job.

Right.

You know, I'm hanging that thing out a little bit to catch up.

But then the other end of it was, if I couldn't, I was glad Gordy did.

Yeah.

You know, so, because he didn't get to enjoy his first win.

Right.

Well, the way it all went down, but Gordy and I have always got one win.

Yeah.

And in that race, like you mentioned earlier, you don't like blocking.

You seem very against it.

He was willing to die for that win.

Because you would be pretty far alongside.

But as you put it in an interview, I saw that if you weren't a nose ahead, that was his

corner.

Oh, absolutely.

You know, so even if you were well alongside of him, he's coming down.

He was coming down.

He was willing to die for it.

Yeah.

And if you had gone for it, I think you said third place guy would have won that day.

Yeah, absolutely.

If you had kept your nose in there.

So you probably did the best thing you could have done with what you had.

Again, it's not brain surgery.

He's survived.

It's not brain surgery.

Yeah.

You know, I go down there.

I go down.

Okay.

It's Indy.

Super Bowl.

He's a nose ahead.

He's going to the grass because he's been going to the grass every corner anyway because

things got a big push in it.

He's getting it down.

It's a little turn.

He's not going to stop because of me.

Right.

Yeah.

Okay.

Let's see what are my options?

I stay here and I crash or I back my nose out and I've got three more corners to try

to get it.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

Now is that brain surgery?

Yeah, it's not.

That's kind of common.

And that's where people, oh, it's always been.

Oh man, would you do anything different now?

I said no.

If we went back into that same scenario knowing the exact same thing I knew then, which is

the way it would be if everything was the same, I'd do the same thing again.

Right.

Now, if I went back into that same scenario and everything played out the same way, I

would say, sure, I'd do something different if I had a way to tell them, check your flag

lap, still the white flag lap because I know I could have them at the start finish.

Right.

Because where you got me back was at the second half.

Yeah.

Because of the weight difference.

Right.

Yeah.

If I could do it over again, I'd do that.

Yeah.

But that's what the knowledge of you had.

Yeah.

That's the FI site, you know, but because every, well, it wasn't because you're a rookie.

Was it because of this?

No.

It was because I didn't want to crash and the better odds was to have three more corners

to try to get it rather than end it right there.

Yeah, exactly.

Let's weigh this out now.

Yeah.

What makes sense?

Yeah.

He was willing to die for it.

He was.

Yeah.

He was going to bring it to the grass every time.

He didn't give a damn.

Yeah.

When you watch the highlights of that race, it's like, yeah, he was not messing around.

I remember Foyt saying, making that comment afterwards.

He's, oh yeah, if I'd have been Mayor's third, I would have won this race.

Oh, right, right.

I think he, yeah, AJ, you didn't win all yours by being that stupid.

He's smarter than that.

All right.

What time do you have to be on track tomorrow?

I don't even know.

Yeah.

11.

All right.

I think we've held you along.

Yeah.

Yeah, man.

Thanks so much for your time.

No problem.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you very much.

Enjoyed it.

You guys did a great job.

Cotton, let's get the check.

Meers.

And you can hear it on SoundCloud.

Also be a four, we jump to the music, just want to give a quick shout out to the folks

who suggested Rick Mears as a guest to us, and of course we always encourage you to go

to DinnerWithRacers.com, click on that guest admission button, let us know if you want

to hear from them.

But we had requests for Rick Mears from Alan Bujek, David Frey, David Scaroni, Fred Petke,

Jacob Donahue, Jeff Gable, Mike Dablow, Jeff Weber, and Josh Ayers, if I butchered your

name I apologize and if I forgot your name I'm blaming Natasha.

But other than that, thank you very much and once again here's the band.

I'm going to go to the music, I'm going to go to the music, I'm going to go to the music,

Acura Mdx

Rolls-Royce Phantom

Original notes