Jordan Taylor
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This is, is off track.
Hello and welcome to a uh, Tuesday episode of Off Track Attention Rossi.
Uh, we're all here because we've got a very important guest.
Um, he's really just here because he also is a fellow Golden Doodle owner.
Um, but yes, we've got, uh, Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac driver, Jordan Taylor.
Um, Jordan, first question, uh, have you ever been dumb enough to get a sports car dropped on your foot?
Uh, yeah. I don't think mine was a dumb situation.
I blame someone else. But I'm curious to hear
how James Foot was actually under the car when it did come down.
Are you doing your own driver changes or how That Oh, happen?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have to do it ourselves
and I am dumb Jordan.
And, um, I can tell you that we did exactly zero hot driver changes in practice.
Did you do any hot laps in practice on That note?
I did 10, I did 10 laps in practice at night. Cool.
Even though I was never planning to run in the race at night, we're, look, we're, this is not about me.
This is not about you. Yeah. Ums.
So the answer is no, Jordan hasn't.
Um, which is good because I want to, before we talk about racing, I wanna talk about your latest venture.
Um, dude, insane, big insane, ultra insane Iron Man guy, which for those that don't know, can you please explain, because I am so in awe of what you accomplish, like your racing career, cool, whatever, like nice , but like what you did a couple months ago.
Can you just walk the viewers through what that was?
Yeah, so an ultra man is a three day event.
Day one is a 6.2 mile swim and 90 mile bike.
Day two is 161 mile bike.
And day three is a double marathon.
And each each day is, uh, 12 hour cutoff time.
So if you make it in like 1159, you're good to go to the next day.
If you finish in 1201, you can't move on to the next day, so you go home.
Uh, so it was, yeah, pretty interesting experience.
What was, I imagine day three was obviously the hardest.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. Um, but tell tell everyone like what you,
what your times were for each day, because I think I was most impressed.
Like I, I think a lot of people that follow you on social media know that you're a pretty strong cyclist and you spent a lot of time on the bike and everything, but your swim was unbelievable.
Uh, I was surprised about the swim as well.
Um, yeah, I think the, the swim time was like three hours under three hours, 20.
Um, and yeah, like, uh, the lake there was gross.
Everyone knows Florida's got alligators.
Um, so like, you get in the water and like, you literally couldn't see your hand like this close to your face.
Like it was pitch black, the water. Okay.
Uh, but Ricky, my brother kayaked next to me the whole way.
So basically like every 30 or 45 minutes I'd stop, have like a gel, have a drink.
Uh, and yeah, like the nice thing about like when you do open water swim, like you have to like cite where you're going, like to see where you're going.
And having Ricky next to me, like I didn't have to look forward at all, which was a bit of a time saver and energy saver, but yeah, it felt like an eternity of, of swimming.
Does everybody not have somebody beside them for that very reason?
No. So like the funny thing? No.
So you have to have a kayaker with you. Okay. Yeah.
Um, like, it's mandatory, but like when you jump in the water at the beginning of the event, like you swim out to this buoy and all 30, 45 kayakers are out there and you've gotta find your guy.
Oh man. It's like the sun still hasn't come
up all the way, so it's dark.
So you have no, like, they, everyone in the water looks the same because you have a wetsuit and a swim cap on.
They all look the same because they're just bundled up in a, in a hoodie. Did you start
Yelling like, Ricky?
I was like, I, I like spotted him.
Like when I was like looking to my right, I'm like, Ricke, ricke .
Like obviously he can't tell where that's coming from, but eventually we found each other and like, it was just, it was mayhem at the beginning.
But as soon as like you kind of filter out, you kind of find the people that you're kind of similar paced with and you're kind of around them most of the time.
And like we were, we focused a lot on like our efficiency of like our little pit stops.
And I felt like that's where we were making up a lot of time where other guys are like taking their time, like taking their gel and like every second kind of counts, even though it doesn't, but like over three days.
Over three days, like you have a hundred pit stops. Yeah.
So it's gonna add up at some point.
It's a era mentality. Yeah.
My, my biggest question is just why. Yeah. That was,
I was gonna also, I was gonna ask that , what, what motivates I I get it because I people too easy.
I Yeah, like exactly. You've done those
and I obviously Finn is a big part of your life.
You have a competitive outlet in, you know, your job.
Uh, so what is it that motivates someone to want to Tim, Tim?
Are we boring torture themselves? , uh,
Sorry.
Tim had a big three mile run yesterday. Yeah. Yeah.
It was four. It was four with no AirPods he had to do.
Yeah, he had to do it with just his thoughts, which is a terrifying thought in itself. Right.
We we're not allowed to listen to music either in ours The whole time.
Oh. Like even on the bike, the run, nothing,
Nothing .
Yeah. You're just out there with your helmets.
Um, I mean, oh man, I don't really know why, why I wanna do it.
I think I did two Ironmans and I was like, the Ironman's hurt for sure.
Like, like you have to push yourself to get a time.
And I feel like with the Ultraman it was more about like just finishing it.
So I'm like, it's gonna be a long kind of adventure.
And like multi-day events always intrigued me, like how you recover and like how much you kind of save yourself on day one to have a good day two and kind of pacing.
It was interesting. Um,
and also like race car drivers always call themselves athletes and I'm like, I'm gonna do something that no other driver can say they did because like a couple of guys have done Iron Mans Yeah.
And these things and they like to brag about it.
I'm like, well watch this. Come to an ultra man. Yeah.
And I like was like none of them have Done it.
Probably . Yeah. They
Don't have as much free time.
Maybe . Um,
but I liked someone commented like, uh, something about like, and and people say race, race car drivers aren't athletes and I just wanna respond, like show me another race car driver that's actually done an ultraman then, which I kind of a dig back.
So are you, um, do you like, are you that guy that has the bumper sticker, but instead of it being like 70.3, it's like seven 38,222.
Yeah, No, I just, I just wear the backpack around to let people know. Oh yeah.
It's subtle. It's one of those things
where like if, you know, you know.
Right, exactly. If someone see that like,
Hang on a minute, that Guy's nuts.
Okay. So sorry.
You know. Fine. So, okay. Uh, you did that. Great.
Let's talk about, let's talk about racing.
So, um, I think a lot of people know you, uh, and, and a lot of your career in the beginning.
So you actually, I raced against you and, and Ricky and Skip Barber.
Um, you kind of went to way Great. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
We had some heated battles, , uh, That I remember. Um,
I think Alex was like 12 when he started to skip over though. ?
Yeah. Uh, yes. I was very young. Yeah.
Um, and then you kind of went, uh, the sports car route.
Um, you had a lot of success there and kind of the Daytona prototypes, the original kind of big old, I remember the SunTrust car and, and that was your guys' thing.
And then as IMSA started to take off Wayne Taylor racing, um, you and your brother had a huge amount of success, uh, with Cadillac.
Um, Daytona, 24 hour wins, yada yada, yada.
And then you made a very interesting decision, um, and kind of left that, that zone of success and um, probably comfort in some, in some respects.
Familiarity. Familiarity.
'cause you knew everyone and um, had kind of grown up with the team and became a GM Chevrolet Corvette factory driver.
So walk us through kind of that decision process.
Was it a hard decision, easy decision, and what made you ultimately go the the the Chevy factory route?
Yeah, I think, yeah, I think you kind of hit all the points.
Like it was very comfortable being kind of on my dad's team and with family and growing up with everyone.
And like I was a professional driver doing those things and we were winning races.
But at the end of the day, you feel like it doesn't feel like a job, I guess.
Like you feel like you're just going to do stuff with friends and, and family.
And, uh, Ricky and I had won the championship together.
We won Daytona and Sebring.
So like we had checked all of our boxes off and he got hired to go to Penske and kind of moved on with his career.
And I stuck around with WTR, I think two more years.
And I was a third driver at Corvette for quite a while doing Lamar with them.
And they had an opening and they made an offer and I was like, I was like happy to stay at WTR, but I was like, this could be a cool kind of transition in my career to go to like a proper factory team and effort.
And the class back then was GTLM, which was super intriguing.
Like a proper factory, you know, program.
Like you're developing tires with Michelin just for your car, you're doing tons of tire testing. Lamont. Yeah, those,
Those are badass cars. Like they
Were cool.
Yeah, like really cool cars, like unlimited development.
Like if you have an idea, go back to the team, they're gonna go develop a new part for the next weekend.
Uh, it was all homologated, but you could do a lot of work.
So even though you had that aspect of it, did you at all miss the ultimate performance of what the DPI CAR was at the time, or not really?
It was different. Um,
like the TTM cars were impressive to drive.
Uh, like the grip of the tire was insane.
Like understanding how the tires worked was a huge aspect of GTLM, which I still carry over now to prototypes is understanding, you know, how to bring a tire in, how to maximize, how to bring in like a front versus a rear for like a qualifying run.
Like I learned a lot about tire development in that kind of era and just the competition, like I, the cars were so close and the competition was so close.
Like I've never studied as much data as I did back then because, you know, we had like Nick Tandy, Antonio Garcia, Tommy Milner, Nikki, Casper Sims, like a lot of really good guys on our team where like the cars are so refined, like you're looking for like hundreds of seconds all the time.
So I've, I've never dug through so much data in my life kind of trying to find little bits.
So I felt like it was an interesting part where I focused a lot on myself as a driver to kind of push myself more than I was in prototypes because I felt in prototypes, like you just, you're just pushing the car the whole time.
And I felt like G TM was much more like precise driving because you don't have the horsepower to save you and all these little things.
So it was definitely different.
Um, but when it went away from GTLM to GT three cars, I was like, all right, I don't love this as much anymore. ,
I gotta find a way to get, get outta here.
But uh, I love, yeah, I love that time of my career though.
Like I always saw myself as a GT driver when I grew up.
'cause I grew up doing GT cars and Ricky was the prototype guy.
So going back to GT and having some success again, like I felt good about that and kind of representing success GT drivers. Yeah.
Things like that. You know,
just whatever these little things. Yeah.
But I felt good like coming back to prototypes now, like representing the GT guys being like GT guys should be respected for what they do.
'cause I feel like a lot of guys don't get the praise they should.
And like everyone's good in this grid and the prototype guys kind of beating up on GT drivers a lot of the time and like they know what they're doing as well.
But that's a fascinating part of it, right?
Because at the end of the day, yes, a race car is a race car, but there are very different styles that it takes to get lap time out of one versus the other.
And there are some drivers that are just unbelievable in a GT car.
And you could take, I don't care Max for staff and friend of <inaudible>, you can take anybody you want out of anything in the world and it's gonna be really tough to beat them in a GT car, but that doesn't necessarily mean you chuck 'em in a prototype and they're gonna be awesome.
And vice versa. There are recent examples of guys
that had a lot of prototype experience got put into a GT car or maybe guys from Open Wheel that come into a GT car and struggled to find the, you are not the one I was referring to, Alex.
No. Um, but it's but true.
Well you did one race that doesn't count. Um, but
No, I mean I didn't barely drive.
I mean, I mean, well we didn't finish a lot, we drove a lot, a lot of laps down, but yeah, .
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But so I mean is does that,
the fact that you've been one of those kind of hybrid drivers that's had tremendous success both in a GT car and in a prototype car, is that a bit of a badge of honor?
And is that, do you kind of walk around the paddock being, being like a, a little more of an authoritative figure on this topic you slap?
Do you year ultra marathon sticker? Yeah. Yeah.
Is that on your backpack? Yeah,
so I got three things now. .
Yeah. Uh, no, I mean, I like to think that I was able
to do both and be kinda like a hybrid as you said.
Um, because like there's, yeah, there aren't a lot of guys who have, I guess have won in both.
Like Tandy obviously is one that's been super successful on both sides, A lot of the PORs drivers, some of the BMW guys.
But yeah, like I always saw myself, it's a short list.
Yeah, it is a short list. Um,
but I don't know, I, I just like that I'm, I was able to do both.
I think if guys are humble enough to kind of wanna learn, like if you're a prototype guy, you think going to GT is like a step down and I don't like that kind of mentality and aspect and I see, I think a lot of the guys still see it that way.
Um, and then when they, when they go to GT and they don't have a lot of success, it's like there's some sort of excuse for, for why didn't go that way, right?
So, um, I don't know.
I I've always said like when you watch the MX five cup races and they're like crazy, like the best the top, It's his dream right there the Best.
But like the top guys in those cars, like those guys are so good.
Like yeah, they're so good.
I say put them in another car, they're gonna learn how to drive it and they're gonna be in the front.
Like I think at any level of racing, if they've been there for a couple years and they're at the top consistently, they could probably drive anything.
Well isn't that the Connor Zi example?
Like didn't he come from MX five cop? Yeah. Yeah, that's
True.
And He's been, he's wins in everything.
He's that kid on loop, So.
Alright, so fast forward to 2024, um, and you come back to Wayne Taylor racing Cadillac returns to Wayne Taylor racing after, um, WTR was with Acura for four years, I believe.
Um, and it was kind of a reunion of sorts.
So Ricky was, was obviously on the team, you were back, um, a little bit of a different guise with the Andretti name involved in everything, but still ultimately, like Brian Pillar, the technical director and, and a lot of the main people were still there.
Um, I I'm just gonna go out and say it.
I, I, I'm curious to know your thoughts because I was expecting that the Wayne Taylor racing Cadillac, like was gonna dominate everything kind of from the beginning.
And, and, and maybe that's an unfair assumption, but I, I feel like a lot of the conversations that I had, especially when I was there for that short period of time was like a lot of the mentality had to shift from what they had previously experienced with the Cadillac, then the ura and I obviously understand that a lot has changed from DPI to GTP and everything, but kind of walk us through how that transition has been and maybe how it's met expectations in some areas and and failed to meet expectations in others.
Yeah, I think it has been a, a big transition.
I think the DPIs were relatively like simple cars compared to what we have now.
And yeah, the team being with kind of Acura and HRC for a couple years, like they helped develop that car into what it is basically like Philippe and Ricky, like that's their dash page, that's their steering wheel layout.
Like they did all that stuff, they were hands on with it.
Um, and coming to Cadillac now, like it's something completely different.
Like it's the same wheel, but every button has a different label on it.
All the systems are different.
So I think coming in it's such a different car to learn and be on top of.
And we had two days of testing before Daytona.
We had two days with one car before Sebring.
So I feel like we are just a little behind just being on top of things.
I think from a strategy point of view, pit stops, those sort of things, like those are all clicking, those are fine, but we were missing a couple tenths this weekend in Sebring to the 31, uh, Daytona.
I feel like all the Cadillacs were a little bit off the pace.
Uh, but I don't know, I feel like we are gonna be strong.
I think even through the race at Sebring, we kind of got closer to everyone through the event.
Like in the night we were the strongest, we were all weekend at the end of the race.
So yeah, I think it was a little bit of a slower start.
Obviously we would've wanted to be fighting for the winds both through races, but uh, like we had the incident in Daytona, we had an incident in Seabring.
Um, there's just, there have been a couple little mistakes, but I think, you know, come Long Beach, I feel like we should be much stronger there.
Jordan, there's an element of of sports car racing that I love that is working with other drivers on the same car, right?
Because in most other forms of racing, it's one driver per car, you're super selfish, it's all about you.
Your teammate is the first person you wanna beat and can be your best friend or your mortal enemy depending on how you wanna approach it.
But then in sports, car racing, you get to work with other drivers.
Their success is your success.
Yes, there are examples where, you know, those inner car battles are toxic and painful because some guys have the wrong approach, but for the most part it's, it's pretty harmonious and you're all working together to get that car better.
Now what I've never experienced in sports cars is a multi-car team.
And so I'm curious as to how that dynamic is on a multi-car team.
So you've got your group of 2, 3, 4 depending on the race drivers on your car, but then you still have a teammate car with their two, three or four drivers.
And it's the same philosophy.
Your teammate could be your best friend or also the person you have to beat most.
Is there that same sort of rivalry car to car in that sort of environment as you see in other kinds of racing?
I don't think it's quite as bad as probably like an indie car or a Formula one, I think where you're head to head and that guy's your number one enemy.
I think the WR culture like, like Alex knows is pretty open and like you want, when we look for drivers, like we want guys that'll mesh pretty well.
We don't want guys coming in with egos.
Like when we had Alonzo, that was kind of a tough cookie to, to understand .
There's certain guys that like you'll accept.
Um, but like with our current group and last year's group, like we all get along really well.
So like our debriefs with eight drivers, we kind of discuss between the cars of, of what we learned, what we feel, and there's honestly very little ego, which is surprising having eight guys.
Um, and if one guy feels good, like he'll, everyone's open with what they've learned on the track.
If they find something with bumps or curbs, like everyone's pretty open with that.
Uh, at Corvette when it was kind of a little bit more heated and like you're really head to head kind of more, I'd say F1 style, like I think there were kind of some drivers that would kind of hold some secrets on their side and that's when you kinda have to go dig in the data to kind of learn something.
And maybe some guy's not showing something in practice and he say if for qualifying in the race.
But I feel like with where we are at WTR, everyone's very open.
Like Alex has worked with Philippe and Ricky, like two super honest guys.
Louie is super honest. Uh, Brendan was one
of the nicest people on the planet.
Um, Jensen was easy to work with.
So yeah, I think the team's done a good job with finding the right guys.
So you've had, you've had the ability to race with, I mean you name those names and those are kind of all I would say in the upper echelon of, of some of the best drivers globally in any category.
You know, Brendan Hartley open wheel or not like, has had a huge amount of success.
Um, who would you put as like the one guy, if you had to choose one that was like you, you thought was the hardest to beat, the hardest to match or just had the most amount of pace, you know, that you've been one-on-one teammates with?
Hmm, that's tough. Um,
I mean was it Alonzo or, or was it someone?
I think, I mean, 'cause I think everyone default to think it was him.
Yeah. I mean he was obviously very good.
I think, um, yeah, it was, we were actually talking with Who were you like, yeah, we were talking with Brendan this weekend about it.
And I think like there's guys with like a natural feeling and ability.
There's guys that work a little bit harder.
I think Kamui, Fernando, um, and Antonio Garcia, like those three that I've been with, I think those are very natural drivers that drive on instinct.
Like as soon as they're in the car, like their first or second lap, like they're already having like light front locking into the first corner.
Like they're instantly on the pace, instantly up to speed, instantly at the, at the limit and zero fear for making mistakes.
So like they drive to the limit and they're like, if I make a mistake, I know I'm gonna catch it, basically.
And then there's guys who I think work a little harder and like maybe build up to it and then everyone kind of gets to the same pace.
But I'd say like those three guys get to that pace very quickly and get to work.
Um, but it also, like when you watch their on boards, it looks like a little bit more risk versus reward.
Like, like mayhem. Just yeah, like something's gonna happen.
And like with Alonzo, like he was, and, and Kamui that first year, like I was watching both their boards obviously a lot just to see what they're doing and you're like, oh, oh, oh, like take it easy.
Like, oh man, something's gonna happen.
Your heart rate's going up.
Just watching the Yeah, just watching.
And I mean, they don't make mistakes, but you're like always waiting for that little thing just, but that's their style.
And I think for me, like growing up in sports, car racing, you know, a 24 hour or like 18 hours doesn't matter.
Like I get in the habit in a long endurance race of like not pushing, not taking any risk and just like cruising around.
And I think that's a bad habit to get into because then when I do have to push 'em, like, all right, I'm gonna be uncomfortable now.
Like getting to that limit.
And I think having guys like that, that are just so used to being on the limit, um, helps me realize like maybe I need to be a little more uncomfortable most of the time when I'm driving.
So when I do have to take that chance, like it's a little bit more of a natural feeling.
And that's probably something like you guys are used to in Indy car where like you're always pushing, like when a Dixon or a Palou comes into our, our sport now, like they're always on the limit pushing and like, I'll just let them go on track if it's our six Daytona, like Dixon came by me or a Palou in Daytona and they're like, they're fighting.
And I'm like, like I just like lifted on the straight and let them go.
And I'm like, yeah, all I'm not gonna do this right now.
Like, but then I was like, ah, maybe I should like just in case.
Um, yeah, exactly.
Um, so I think there's, there's really good lessons you can learn from such a different variety of guys that, that you get to drive with.
And like Alex, I think I talked to you after Daytona one year when you were with Ricky at Penske, like we were, me and you were fighting a little bit in the night, and I think that was one that might have been the Alonzo year.
And I think I was like, like I did my first stint and I was just cruising at the back and then Kamui drives to the front, Fernando drives to the front and I, I'm getting in for my night st I'm like, I looked like an idiot, like with these teammates, like I'm just dropped in the back every time and I'm like, I I'm gonna push this stint.
And Alex was actually around me and I remember we went in the bus stop and Alex got like right next to me and I'm like, I'm now lifting .
And then like, and then Alex like lifted early and like, like let me basically outta the corner.
And I remember telling Ricky like, Alex is the perfect teammate.
Like he's fast, it's hours eight and he is taking no risk.
Like he is definitely the guy you want in your car.
Like he can get the left time when he wants to, but he's not out there trying to go to the front for no reason.
Well hey man, I was just Scared man. I was just scared in the dark.
Yeah, . Yeah, that's a nice compliment to be paid from,
uh, such a decorated driver.
Thanks. And just real quick bud, thanks.
First of all, thanks for taking the time and, and coming to chat with us and I just wanna leave with this, you have accomplished so much in your career, you know, be it winning Lamont, Daytona Sebring championships done it all.
Is there anything left on the bucket list or is it just adding to the already impressive collection of trophies you Have?
I mean, I don't know. I think obviously more
success is always nice.
Um, like I enjoyed my one cup race experience.
I'd like to do another like Cup road course race mm-hmm .
And try have a better race part of it to qualifying what's good.
Yeah. Um, but I think little things like that I enjoy,
I think having a little bit more variety in my career again, like the GT stuff was fun prototypes now maybe I enjoyed my late model race that I did one year at North Wilkesboro, so maybe a little bit of that and just, uh, adding in some variety of stuff that I enjoy doing.
What the parents can never answer this, but the kids can.
Who's the favorite? You
or, uh, Ricky from the Taylor household. ,
Um, I'd say. Or
You're the neighbor, right? Yeah. You're
Next Doorly next door.
Uh, I think my Ricky's my mom's favorite.
Maybe I'm my dad's favorite. There we go. You
Now, now we're gonna check in with Ricky and ask him the same question without any practice and see if he has the same answers. .
I think I can be right. I think I'll be
right. ,
go. Alright. By the way, thanks so much for coming on. Yeah.
Appreciate it. No, no worries.
And, uh, best of luck with the rest of the season.
Thanks guys. Talk to you soon.
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About this episode
Jordan Taylor shares insights into his diverse racing career, from his early days in Skip Barber to his success with Wayne Taylor Racing and Corvette. He discusses the challenges and differences between GT and prototype racing, the dynamics of multi-car teams, and his recent return to Cadillac in IMSA. Beyond racing, Jordan reveals his incredible achievement completing an Ultraman, a grueling three-day endurance event, and reflects on the mental and physical demands of such challenges. The conversation also touches on teamwork, competition, and his aspirations for variety in future racing endeavors.
Original notes
Jordan Taylor shares insights into his racing career and what he's been up to lately, including participating in an Ultraman Challenge. He discusses the challenges and motivations behind such extreme endurance events, his transition from sports car racing to a factory driver role, and the dynamics of racing within multi-car teams. The conversation also touches on the competitive nature of racing, the importance of teamwork, and his aspirations for the future.
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