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Josef Newgarden
Josef Newgarden
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About this episode
Josef Newgarden shares insights on his busy off-season, including filming a high-profile Super Bowl commercial with Fox and attending the event alongside Tom Brady. He discusses the promising future of IndyCar with Fox's increased promotion and his confidence going into the 2025 season with Team Penske. Josef also reveals a new passion for High Rocks racing, a grueling fitness competition that mirrors the physical demands of IndyCar racing, and his plans to improve after his first experience in Vegas. The conversation blends racing, personal life, and fitness challenges, offering a unique look at the life of a top IndyCar driver.
Topics:
indycar promotion
super bowl commercial
team penske
2025 season outlook
high rocks racing
fitness training
tom brady interaction
off-season activities
indianapolis 500
driver mindset
Cars:
Acura CL
Josef Newgarden has had a busy off season, filming super bowl commercials, going to the Super Bowl, and all the fun stuff. Somehow he found some time to come on and chat with Hinch and Tim.
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This is off track.
All right guys, this is the third attempt at starting this chat.
So we've already gone over everything.
We can pretty much say goodbye and call it a day.
Um, you know, we, we've, uh, we've covered all the bases, but, um, no, we, we were, I was admiring your hat, we were admiring your hat earlier and we weren't sure if it was, um, at a blurry image when you first popped up, if it was a Michael Jordan hat or a Joseph Newgarden hat.
But it looks like it's a newgarden Hat.
You could also make an argument that it's a Michael Jackson hat if, My God, he is a moonwalking, Michael Jackson. It's
A little bit like, he looks like he's moonwalking. Yeah,
That is impressive. .
My favorite thing is you guys asked about it.
I love that . I love that goal achieved.
So where can people go and buy this Joseph Negar at, Um, basically on my site, you know, we've got a, we got a really, we've got a great store up now.
Um, we put a lot of work into it.
It actually has been really fun this off season, and we got some new stuff coming that's gonna roll out very soon before St.
Pete. Um, so if you just go to my, my website,
joseph newgarden.com, you'll, you'll find a store there.
And, um, yeah, like I said, we got some really exciting stuff for the year.
It's been, it's been fun to deep dive into it and, you know, be proud of it.
Like we, we've been very involved, uh, cer like, like my whole team and, and my wife Ashley.
So it's been a fun project this off season.
When is Coda getting his own clothing line? .
That'll be up to him. He's gonna,
he's gonna decide his own destiny, you know, which is what's really fun.
Um, you know, he's so young now, and I obviously he's growing quickly, but, you know, when I, the older I got, the more I loved, you know, making mistakes and deciding my path, whatever it was.
And, um, I'm excited for him to go through that, you know, and he's gonna, he's gonna find out what he likes and, and what he wants to do, and he's gonna make mistakes.
And, you know, it's just, it's really cool to think about because the older I've got and the more I've appreciated, you know, making missteps or doing this or doing that.
And I, I'm, I'm certainly not gonna pressure him into anything.
So it's, it is gonna be fun.
I know we weren't, we didn't mean to get into talking about kids, but it's, it's been an interesting win the last years.
I'm, I'm all for it. Yeah, he's got one.
Um, but so has he, has he shown any, like, interest in motor sports yet?
Like, I see these videos, PAOs posting, he's got his kid doing like multi-surface, different grip level go-karting, like skill tricks, you know, in his garage and stuff.
Has, has there been any interest on the, on the Motorsport side yet?
Um, definitely, definitely.
But, you know, similar to myself, I I, I didn't really start until I was 13 and you know, the last thing I want to do is, is rush stuff.
I just want him to be, you know, I want him to be a kid and to kind of enjoy, you know, it sounds silly, but like, enjoy running around the yard and like, and you know, like chasing our dog axle and like silly stuff like that, you know, jumping in a ball pit.
Um, he loves racing.
You're gonna, you're not gonna Joss for stopping it and just leave him at a gas station if he doesn't do well, .
No, no. I think you,
you got a very different style there in our household, but, um, he loves racing to answer the question.
Like it's, it's fascinating how much they pick up on, like, he remembers everything from the Indy 500.
Like, he's, he's not even three yet, and he, you know, he knows about the Indy 500.
He knows what the race cars are.
He knows what an indie car is, you know, and, and his favorite movie is cars.
So, um, I think he likes it, you know, but that, that also is just, that's one part of the puzzle, you know.
I mean, he, he might like it but not want to drive, so, we'll, we'll see.
We'll see what he trains Like 5-year-old boys like cars in some respect anyway, right? So.
Exactly. Yeah. Is this,
I think this is the first time I've been on the show, is that correct, Tim? That
Doesn't sound I, I, no, I think you've been on before.
'cause I like back when we used to record in the buses.
I think you came over once.
Oh, maybe, maybe. It's been a long time. We've been doing
This Like way too long. We've been doing
This.
We can do it way too long.
And I, I just want you to know, I just want you to know this, the, the only reason that you haven't been on more recently is we didn't think we were good enough yet to invite you back.
No, because no, I, since the first time you've won a couple of five hundreds and a couple championships, we're like, well that's too big for the show, so we gotta like get a little bigger.
But now we like, people actually listen, so we figured, ah, maybe Joseph will come On.
I think we, we tried to have you on, uh, like a couple times, but for some reason you've been really busy the last two Junes . Yeah.
I think that's, you've had some stuff going on. I don't know. Well that's
Why, that's why I brought it up.
'cause we've been trying to do this.
I feel like we've made three or four attempts at, at trying to do a segment and it just never materializes.
So it's, um, good. We finally,
We, and, and the best part is, is I text you kind of outta the blue being like, Hey man, short notice, but like, do you want to come on the show today?
And you're like, yeah, sounds great.
Every time we try to plan ahead, we can't do it.
I give you like two hours heads up, you're like, yes, it doesn't matter the car. I'll give you a shout, .
Yeah. And funny enough, like this was,
this was terrible timing to do this, to be quite honest.
Like I was, I was at the Super Bowl over the weekend and um, that was fun.
It was great. But really yesterday
and then I had to get up at 3:00 AM It's just, it's a busy time.
But we finally connected on it, Dude, it's you, we were just talking about your schedule.
Absolutely. Like, okay, we're gonna talk about all
these things in isolation.
'cause obviously we wanna hear about the Super Bowl and that whole experience and, and all the rest of it.
But where, where were you before?
Were you at least home before Super Bowl?
I, I need to look at my calendar.
I, no, I wasn't, I was in Charlotte at one point.
Um, it's so funny when you talk to people, when you talk to people about the off season in, in racing, they just assume, especially with IndyCar, where we have a pretty large off season, you know, it's nearly six months, they just assume we're just hanging out.
Yeah. And, you know, waiting and vacationing
and just waiting for St.
Pete to come around the corner.
I think I've already done eight production days this year.
Yeah. . Um, so, you know, and it's just this calendar year.
I mean, we're only at the beginning of February, so it is just, there's stuff happening all the time, especially at Team Penske.
You know, they, it starts from the top, you know, whenever I'm around Roger, he's, he's nonstop and he's just going flat out, it's impressive.
I mean, at the speed that he, he paces and, and you know, that kind of permeates to the company then, then everybody has to, you know, sort of raise their level and, and match that.
So we, we just end up always being busy.
But it's a good thing, you know, when I look at it, I always love, love to be busy.
It's, there's, yeah. Yeah. It's good
stuff happening when we're busy.
So, um, yeah, it's been a lot. The sauce. Run
Me through that, stretch that, because you were just saying you were so, you were somewhere then Super Bowl.
Well, this next week and a half is really nuts.
Like, so we went down to, I'll just give you the rundown.
So we went to, we went to the Super Bowl Saturday.
We were there, we did our thing Saturday yesterday.
Uh, then I had to get up early, get here to be here in the next two and a half days, and then I'll go immediately to Sebring.
I've got a test in the, um, in the Porsche GTP car on Thursday.
Then I'll go to, then I'll go to Daytona, um, for our partner Shell, I, I'll do that.
And then immediately after Daytona I'll drive back to Sebring and we'll do the two day test for IndyCar.
And then immediately from there, I've gotta go to, um, where am I going?
I gotta go to Scottsdale.
I've got a PTL winner circle event that I gotta go do.
Then I'll come home. So this is like the next,
that was the next 10 days basically for this stretch.
Yeah, .
That's wild. That is
Wild.
And then I'm only, I'm only home two days before I have to go to Charlotte again, and then I'll go to Charlotte and I, and then I go back to somewhere I'm going, like San Antonio on race week of, of, uh, of St.
Petersburg. And then I was trying
to work the NFL combine in.
I really, really, really wanted to go to the combine, but I just don't, I don't see how, I don't have the time.
Like it's, it's Wednesday of race week and it's just, it would, it would be unwise for me to go do it.
I wish I had the time, but I, I wanted to plug that in. Yeah.
So during this off season, you know, obviously everybody's been pretty impressed with how much Fox has, uh, been promoting IndyCar and, and, and stepping up the game of like, of promoting the drivers.
Uh, and obviously that started with your commercial, which now everybody saw on the Super Bowl yesterday.
I mean, the being the face of something isn't necessarily new for you, right?
You, you've been the, the golden boy of IndyCar for a while.
You two time back to back 500 champion.
But like, how has this been being on an ad during the Super Bowl, being at the Super Bowl for the pregame show, hanging out with Tom Brady?
Like what ha has that, has it felt different coming into this next season?
Or is it just, uh, another day at the office?
Well, the Fox relationship feels very different.
Um, I mean, it's like a, you know, honestly, it's a 180, um, from, from what I've been used to in the past, you know, uh, as far as the event, like being able to go to the Super Bowl was just really, it was fun.
Like, it was such a cool privilege to be there with Fox and to see the game.
It was really the first time that, that we've seen it, you know, uh, in, in full action.
I went once in, in 2021 when it was still like covid conditions.
And so there was really no one there.
It wasn't a normal Super Bowl.
This was the first time we got to see it, and, and all of its authenticity.
And it was really impressive to just be there.
Um, but I, I think, you know, the long and short of your question is like, I, I mean, genuinely, and I've said this before, like I, I care about the success and the growth of this series, you know, and, and what's, what's fun right now, and I, I've kind of a broken record on this too.
I've been telling this to people a lot.
The great thing about what I see happening within the sport with Fox's new involvement and, and they're seeing it too, is that if you can, if you can tell the story properly, if you can, if you can show it properly what IndyCar is, it can, it can be brought back to what it was.
We're not hoping and dreaming that we're gonna make IndyCar something great one day.
It was something great. It was something
of great significance, you know, globally and certainly domestically here in the United States, the Indianapolis 500 is the oldest most historic event on the planet for motor sport.
Okay? And it's still the single largest sporting event for,
for a day attendance that we have around the world.
So, you know, the prominence of this sport is very much intact.
And I think Fox is already finding a way to capture the image of that and display it and put it in front of people, which is what we've said we've always needed all along for the last 20, 25 years.
So, you know, I'm not, I don't have a crystal ball.
None of us do. I don't know what's gonna happen in 12 months
time, but I can see the potential for a wave.
It's not, we don't have a wave right now, but I can see the potential of it.
And I really believe, you know, that we can, we can be in a very different spot in, you know, eight months time from now.
So it's, it's super exciting to be involved in it.
You can feel it with, with everybody that's in, in the mix.
I, I am, uh, not one to argue with guy, guy like Tom Brady that often.
I, I try to avoid, you know, getting into skirmishes with people that have that level of success.
But I'm gonna disagree. I think you are that good looking.
Um, so I, I look everybody's seen the commercials.
Everybody. Everybody, everybody. They're awesome.
Like, everybody loves them. They're all great.
They're all amazing. I wanna know about the filming it,
like, did you enjoy filming it?
Like, what was that process like?
'cause that's, look, you know, my wife's in that world, so I understand this stuff.
I look at that commercial, I'm like, man, that's high production value.
That's not a quick shoot.
Like, that's so many different sets and so many different, like how long did it take?
Like when did you do, like, just kinda walk us through actually filming. How did it,
How did it compare to filming that one off season video We all did at Marco's house. , ,
People have to do a deep dive, uh, on, in the, in the library to find that one.
But, um, the YouTube's, Yeah, it's, it's out there.
You know, the internet does not forget.
But, um, the, I so to give you the rundown in the Fox deal, it's impressive the way they operate.
Like, very, very impressive.
I've just gotta, I'm gonna give you genuine praise, you know, this is, of course, you know, it's a new exciting time.
We're, we're all excited to be partnered with Fox.
We feel like they get us, we, we feel like they're gonna, you know, deliver.
I, they're already delivering in, in such a huge way.
But their team has been incredible to meet and to get to know and to work with.
I mean, every individual, I haven't met an individual yet that I've, that I've, you know, kind of disliked.
I mean, it's just been super easy and fluid to work with everybody.
The fun thing is we are working with, I don't really know that they have a B team.
Um, if they do, I, I've not seen anybody on a, They don't, they have one team.
Yeah. The people that, like, part of the reason some
of this stuff's been so sorry to interject, but like, I think this is No, you're right.
'cause I've, I figured this out.
Part of the reason that some things have been kind of delayed in getting the IndyCar thing going is 'cause Fox has the clash.
Fox had the Super Bowl, Fox has aona 500 coming up, and it's the same group that does pretty much all of this stuff.
So like, we are working with the A lineup.
It's, it's incredible.
I mean, you know, I'm just now realizing that I, and that's why I said it kind of, you know, half questioning.
I, I didn't know either. I'm like,
I know we're working with the A team here.
I don't know that they have a B team.
And I, I think you're right. They,
they don't, they do everything.
And it's the same group that does it all.
I mean, even at the Super Bowl here, you know, half the people we were working with in Indianapolis, they were here shooting the Super Bowl, and, you know, the biggest event that they have domestically, uh, and certainly around the world, um, it was the same people that we were working with.
Same creatives, you know, same, same helpers.
Everybody was lovely.
I mean, they're just so great to work with.
You know, you know what's amazing too is when you meet people that work for Fox, Fox Sports, they love working for Fox Sports because Fox, they, they're not, they're not scared to, to spend capital and to really put effort into the show and the way the audience is gonna receive things.
I mean, they, they truly care about innovating and trying to, you know, provide the resources to their people to, to do a great job.
And it's like palpable when you talk to any of 'em.
They're, they, they know that, they recognize it and they love being a part of it.
So we're just now getting to experience that as a new plugin for them with this new product that IndyCar that they're gonna be pushing.
And so you ask about this production day, it was sort of next level.
I mean, it, there, I don't think there's a difference between stepping on a a hundred million dollar movie set and what we were doing.
You, you really, you're not gonna know the difference.
It's the same type of people. It's the same process.
It's the, it's the, it's all the same.
You know, everything on the post that you're seeing, that they're creating these great, these videos out of, I mean, this is what you would do on a high level production for, for a movie, for a cinematic release.
So it's just been, I mean, it's so cool.
And, you know, obviously there's, you know, there's some fun to that.
I care about the growth of the sport.
I care about the history, the legacy, and bringing it back to what it used to be.
And, and it needs to be, you know, in good hands.
And I feel like we're in the best hands we can be right now.
W which, which, uh, you know, your commercial was like this funny montage of all these different versions of Joseph Newgarden, right?
Which one was your favorite one?
Um, of the commercials or of the montage?
No, of the, of your montage.
Which Joseph was your favorite?
Joseph, because I got mine and I'm curious what yours was.
Well, I'll, I'll tell you the, the, the real story on this.
So first off, this, this director Jack that shot this, he's a young guy.
I mean, I don't know how old Jack is. I think Jack's 28.
And he's like, you know, he's like a kind of like a gun slinger in, in, in his industry.
He's like, I want to do this.
I'm doing this, that he's working on rap videos.
And I'm, I loved this guy. Like, he was amazing.
And he had to be really fluid.
Um, he did just, you know, and it's more than just Jack, it was his whole team, but they had to be really fluid.
We only shot for like seven hours.
That's all, that's the time window that I had. You shot
That whole thing in seven hours. Seven
Hours.
So it was like really run and gun, you know, you had to be like quick and okay.
But we spent the majority of the, of the time on this gasoline cologne ad because Jack and I got in there and we just started joking around with this thing.
And I'm like, Jack, we started doing it.
I could not, I couldn't stop breaking.
I'm like, this is, this is so funny.
I was like, Jack, we could make a whole extra piece on just this.
Like, we'll make a whole segment.
And Jack was for it, Jack, Jack.
We were like, we were getting pushed by the producers.
They were like, Hey, we have to move.
And we were like going 30 minutes over on the set.
Jack and me were like, we'll, just try this.
So we have so much in the can that we could make a whole production and video out of this cologne set.
Um, so that was, that was my favorite part.
And just the fact that they're willing to do that.
I mean, I think we might pull something from it at some point, to be honest with you, That That would be good.
Dude, my favorite was the ping pong. Yeah.
And I practiced a lot.
And the look, the look like the comedic timing in your look to the camera with the blindfold under the P pong, I died.
It was, it was so well done.
The whole thing was so funny. Oh man,
This is gonna, this is gonna be extremely arrogant of me, but that this is why it was fun working with Jack, because like, he would let me do that.
You know? I mean, you know
how it is when we're on a set together or something, you know, there's things that just feel right or natural, and you're like, can we just try this?
You know, we're gonna take five takes. Let's just try this.
And he would let me do that.
He was like, yeah, you know, and there was some stuff that he nailed and he was like, oh, this is, this is what's gonna be funny.
And then there was some things that I said, and he let me do it.
And I was like, well, just see, you know, and you can, and they'll pull it and they'll put it in the edit and it ends up working.
Was the look your call, was that your creative in info?
Oh dude, well done. Well done.
That was, that was well played. Uh, that's good.
I love that. Another thing let you kind of riff on, that's
One thing there was so many little things, and like I said, there's, you know, there's probably a hundred things that didn't even make it, that, you know, we could just spend hours putting different pieces together.
What, uh, when you got to, I saw you taking pictures with Brady at the Super Bowl, was uh, was he like kind of standoffish because, you know, everyone was calling you better looking than him?
Or like, how did he take it was, you know, uh, No, he was lovely.
Um, honestly, you know, I I Brady has always been, uh, inspirational to me, like just as an athlete.
Uh, you know, I know that's controversial.
You know, he's, he's someone people either love or they hate.
And look, I, I'm, I've always stated this, I like people that do, you know, ex extraordinary things in sport, you know, things that people don't, you know, see very often, um, he's certainly done that.
You know, he's, he sits at a level that no one else has sat at, uh, from a quarterback, um, viewpoint.
And I think what you see about Tom is the way he interacts with his team, you know, how close he is with, with a lot of the players that he got to work with and, and how they still interact today and like what you see on, on camera that, like, that's Tom Brady.
Like, he's a, he's a super genuine, nice guy, like give you all the time in the world that he can.
It was really cool. We got to spend a good, I don't know,
probably 30 minutes together in the Green room while they were doing their thing and we were getting ready.
So yeah, just a cool interaction.
And that kind of just speaks to Fox again.
You know, they've got this portfolio with so many different individual individuals involved and, and they're crossing over a lot of different sports and everybody likes, you know, cross-promoting.
Like, it, there's no, yeah, hey, hey, you know, we're standoffish.
We want to, people aren't doing that.
They're just happy to have whoever's there and they're very easy to interact with.
So it's been a pretty pleasant experience. It's up to this point.
Alright, man. Well, let's,
let's just shift gears real quick before we let you go.
You know, you've kind of talked about your schedule and how manic it is from now until St.
Pete, but St. Pete's coming. It's, it's around the corner.
New season in Indy cars kicking off.
Not a lot of changes this year.
You know, we, we, we have the hybrids now.
We're not introducing something weird.
Midseason your team is the same, uh, from driver lineup.
I don't know if you have anyone different on your car, if your program's identical. Pr
Pr pretty similar.
Yeah. We're, we're not a we're not a
big change in the two car group. So
That must, that must make you feel pretty good going into the season.
Just kinda how much are you looking forward to St Pete and what do you think the twos have in store in 2025? Uh,
I mean, I'm excited.
I think everybody is, you know, I, I don't know how you couldn't be at this point, you know, just kind of to, uh, you know, continue to harp on the, on the Fox relationship.
I, I think people are excited to, to see what they're gonna present.
You know, it's, and I I, you know, I'm speaking more from the series standpoint than, than just personally.
But, um, what I like, and I think you, you know, this, you, I'm sure you've talked about this, like there, you guys are gonna be able to just tell the story, uh, so much, you know, so much more than maybe, maybe what you've had in the past because there's so many Indy car races that you watch where, you know, either the race up front was really good and maybe you didn't get the full picture of it.
Or there's races, you know, somewhere else in the field that are incredible and like no one knows about it.
So I, I'm really excited to see the story that you guys tell, and I think it's gonna be a great year for that on the two cars specifically.
You know, I think we're in a great spot.
I mean, I, I've you know, almost, I don't remember a year going into it not feeling, you know, extremely confident in, in what we have going on as a team.
We have all the pieces, you know, I believe, um, I believe tremendously in our group and, and the people that are involved in it and what we're doing and what we can do.
So, you know, certainly the big item has to be that, you know, we, we've gotta elevate our championship game.
You know, we sort of, we, we drifted back much more than we wanted to, you know, was a rollercoaster year.
A lot was happening from the start to the finish.
Um, so trying to smooth all of that out and to have a championship run again, I think is, is very front of mind for me.
And then obviously Indianapolis, you know, is, is, is, uh, is gonna be, you know, a big opportunity for us.
And, and we always look forward to the month of May.
And it's just, it's just, uh, a, a different type of chance that we have there, you know, than, than than anybody else. Probably this year
You got two championships, you've got two, five hundreds in 2025, you can only have one. What would you rather have?
Well, having, having gone through it, it's, it's hard to turn down the, the 500.
Yeah. You know, I, I mean, look, I, I've, I, I got,
we all get asked this question and I've been asked it so many times, what would you rather have?
I always said both. I, I mean, I still think that's so true.
It's not, you know, you know, you look at them differently.
It's not like, you know, you don't Look, it's got the same amount of both now, and so you're still gonna go 500.
Yeah, I mean, I think now, I think in the past, you know, I even when I tried to shy away from the answer, because my, my real answer is both, you know?
Uh, but if you're, you're like really having to pick, I used to, you know, I still think the championship, they're just different.
The championship is so hard to win for one reason, because it's, you know, it's a collection of the year.
It's, it's a lot of results.
And to put that, you know, good finishes over time that many weekends in a row is, is very difficult to do.
And then Indy is, there's a pressure to that for a completely different reason.
You know, it's, it is more like the Super Bowl, and we call it the Super Bowl because much like that event, you know, their championship leads to one opportunity.
You know, it's like, it's all or nothing.
And that's how May is, right?
Like, you spend three weeks there and then it's, it's that it gets distilled down into one day, one moment, and it's all or nothing.
So you, you know, you kind, you kind of throw the 500 out of the championship conversation 'cause it feels like its own thing.
So they're, they're just very different.
They're, they're, they're both difficult to win for different reasons.
But, you know, as far as the history, the magnitude, having, having seen it and felt it, there's just nothing that compares to the Indy 500.
I mean, it is, it's on a level unlike anything else, Knowing statistically speaking, you're a, you're a numbers guy, you're a smart guy, right?
Knowing statistically speaking, that three in a row is like unheard of unprecedented, insane.
Do you almost go into May this year being like, yeah, look, it takes a million things, a confluence of, of, of the team, of luck, of this, of that, of everything coming together to win this thing once, to win it twice in a row is all that, to an exponential degree.
To win it three times is like, it's not impossible, but it's like getting closer to impossible than just winning it once.
Right? So do you almost go into may, like
with less pressure thinking, well, I mean, look, what are the chances?
Or is it No, no, we've done it twice. We know how to do it.
We did it this way, we did it that way. Let's go.
Yeah, I just, I, I mean, this is a genuine answer.
I, I don't know that it changes.
If I'm gonna trend one way, it's less pressure.
I mean, when I look at it for face value, what we don't have anything to prove to anybody at the, yeah.
Like that first one probably takes a ton of pressure off right from the get Go, right?
Yeah. Oh, you're like, the first one is like relief.
The second one is just pure excitement and it's like on the, you know, it's like the cherry, It's an exclamation point too, right?
Because it's like, yeah, that wasn't a fluke. A
Hundred percent.
So now you come back and you're like, we don't have anything to prove, you know, it feels like a lot less pressure and that's at face value.
But then, you know, genuinely you still go there and it feel, it feels the same as always, you know, there, there's, it's more than just, you know, it's more than just me.
Like of course I wanna win it three times.
But it's the same deal at Indy.
You're, you're there as a team together for a long stretch, especially our guys who, who don't live in state.
Yeah, for sure. They've been there three weeks,
they're kind of homesick.
Um, the season's already getting kind of intense at that point.
And like, you, you know, you wanna win it together and like, you don't wanna let anybody else down.
So it's, it's a real team feeling to it.
And so that, that pressure, you know, is still gonna be there regardless of, oh, we want it twice and it doesn't matter if we win it again or not.
You still have the pressure of, of wanting to perform together as a team, you know, after all that work.
So yeah, it's just like a, it's like of two minds, I guess, is the only way I can think of it.
I, it, it's less pressure when you think about what could be, and the threepeat and whatever, but it's also just the same thing.
It's like, you gotta go into India and approach the same way.
And like, we're just gonna go there and have fast cars hopefully, and, and try and be upfront and, you know, we wanna be in position and if we can make it happen, like I'm gonna go for it.
That's, it's gonna be the same as last year in the year Prior.
For sure. For sure. Well, it's gonna be exciting, man.
I lied through my teeth. I have one other thing I wanna
discuss if you have another minute.
Yeah, of course. Yeah, I, I saw this online
and it's, it's very fascinating to me.
High Rocks. High
Rocks.
High Rocks, dude. Holy shit. That's intense.
Please explain to the people listening if they don't know.
I'm looking by Tim's face, he has no idea what we're talking about.
Explain High Rocks, how you got interested in it, and then like, you actually competed, right?
Yeah. Like you competed in something.
Yeah, I'm, so, I like, you have no idea.
I'm so invested. I, I love it.
I no, I can tell, I can, I know you, like, when you cl you click into something and you could see in those posts, like you were all in on this.
I mean, we could, we could talk for an hour about this.
So I, you know, to, to try and just give Us the Kohl's notes. Yeah,
Yeah.
I, I learned about this two months ago.
So beginning of December, I got a buddy in Nashville, Andrew East, um, and he, he invited me into this group.
Uh, there's like this, there's this group called Dader Days, and it's all these dads that do basically CrossFit and they, they do a CrossFit, um, like a weekly CrossFit together at 5:00 AM every Saturday.
And I was like, sounds, yeah, it's, it, it is definitely one of those things where you gotta like, you just gotta go do it, you know?
Yeah. Let's do something hard today on Saturday.
And so I, I, I got involved a little bit through Andrew and, and started going to these, and I was like, oh, this is a fun challenge.
I mean, I'm not good at CrossFit.
I've not really, I don't have the size for CrossFit.
Uh, anybody that knows that sport it, you know, knows that it's a, it's a lot of compound lifts.
It's a lot of Olympic lifting.
Um, you know, something I would've loved to have gotten into, but I, I can't have the body build while driving car to do that.
So anyways, I got involved in these Saturday sessions, it's been really fun.
And then Andrew told me about this High Rocks racing.
He's like, oh, I'm, you know, I'm getting ready to do this High Rocks.
I'm gonna do a doubles with my other buddy, and we're gonna do it in Vegas.
And I was like, oh, cool. What's High Rocks?
And I looked it up and then I learned what High Rocks was.
And, and the, what stuck out immediately to me was I was like, high Rocks is gotta be the closest physical fitness competition to driving an IndyCar.
I was like, it is really, it is identical to what is requested of us in a high intense IndyCar race.
Take a, a hot hum a humid race at St.
Petersburg where's, you know, it's just a very physical day.
It's gonna take you an hour and a half, hour and 45 to do it.
That's what High Rocks is. So High Rocks is an eight K run.
It's broke up into one Ks and then after each one K you have to do a station.
So it's eight k of running and then eight stations in between all that.
It's the first stations a sled push at four 50 pounds for 50 meters.
The second station is a, is a 350 pound sled pull for 50 meters.
Okay. And then, and then you have to come,
or it's actually, I lied.
The first two before the, for the first one, before the first two sled pushes is a thousand skier.
Okay. Okay.
Then you do the sleds, then you come back and I can't even remember the order.
There's like oat exercises, right?
But anyways, you have to go through all these exercises.
You gotta do like a, a a hundred meters of lunges with a 70 on your back.
You gotta do like 200, uh, meters of farmer's carries.
You have to do a hundred wall balls to finish with a 20 pound.
And I'm giving you all the, the pro weight descriptions.
So I looked at this and I was like, oh, okay, so basically you're telling me you have to have an incredible cardio base.
You have to have good strength, and you have to have strength endurance in an anaerobic state for about an hour, maybe, maybe an hour and change.
I was like, that's literally IndyCar an IndyCar. Um, yeah.
Now these guys, now that I dove into it and I was like, I was very like way too egotistical about it.
I'm like, I got two months . I got this,
I got two months to prepare for this Vegas race, and like, I can do that.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna be top of the charts in two months.
And I quickly learned that there are people that have a, they do this for a job, dedicated Their lives to this. Yeah. And
Yeah, it's intense. And so hierarchy, it's
Like guys be like, oh, drive, I can drive in a circle. That's not that hard.
No, a hundred percent. Like I, I,
I got humbled very quickly.
Um, so I went and did it in, in, in Vegas.
I was like, I knew, I, I actually knew because I, I do simulations, which is what people do to kind of figure out where they are to test themselves pacing wise.
And I got pretty good on my sim times, but I knew I wasn't elite yet.
And so I was like, I kind of hate to go to Vegas.
I know I'm not where I need to be, but I also knew I needed to go to learn about it and to put a time on the board and go, okay, this is what I really need to work on.
Um, so just, yeah.
All, all of that combined, I, I've fallen in love with it.
I think it's amazing. And you know, the,
the best part about it, having it as a hobby is that, you know, the dedication and time to get good at it.
It's the exact type of training that I would be doing anyways for my job, right.
In car and it, it, yeah, It's not, it's not detracting from your normal kind of program.
Not, not at all. And honestly, the fitter I become
for High Rocks racing, I just, the better position it puts me in for my, for my day job driving an Indy car.
So it is kind of a win-win situation. I see. Yeah.
Well, hey man, Tim ran a 5K for the first time since high school a couple weeks ago.
So we're all kind of on a big fitness, Hey, that's big fitness push right now.
I'm, that's big still.
Yeah. Yeah. Hey buddy. Look, that's awesome.
I, I love just hearing the pa you can just see like your, your whole vibe just like notched up two levels when we started talking about that.
It's always fun kind of going after something that's like new to you and a new passion.
And, uh, I imagine, I think people get, imagine you're gonna go back, Like I, I'm gonna be disappointed if other drivers don't get into it.
'cause it, it's, honestly, it's very applicable.
It's super fun. It doesn't change. The formula's the same.
It is a race that you can measure and improve on.
So I I, I'm gonna be disappointed if other people's don't, don't get involved. Did
You do better or worse than you were expecting going into Vegas?
Like, I know you, I did worse.
You figured you weren't. Yeah.
Yeah, I did. Much worse.
But it, it is a, it's a long backstory.
I mean, ba I mean, the longest short of my performance was I wasn't running a lot.
And so, you know, what I quickly learned about High Rocks racing is you gotta be a really good runner.
60% of the competition time is running Right?
And you start looking at, It's only a K at a time, but it's eight of them over the thing. So you gotta be good.
Yeah. You start looking at the elite level guys
and what they're, what they can do for a 10 k distance.
And like, I was running maybe three, four miles a week.
Most of my cardio training is on ERG machines, you know, concept two, uh, rower, skier bike a little bit, but I wasn't, I didn't have a lot of running volume, so I tried to go zero to a hundred on running volume.
Yeah. Which anybody that runs
or knows about running that is like, um, that, that, that's a hard No, you're not supposed to do that . Yeah.
You know, you're supposed to incrementally increase your mileage.
And so I tried to go like zero, no mileage to 25 miles a week.
I ended up getting an Achilles issue. Um, yeah.
And then that was part of my, that was part of my problem in Vegas.
I didn't do bad. I ran a 74, 74 minutes, uh,
which the average time in the pro class is like a hour 30, but you know, the elite guys, they're gonna be just sub 60.
So, you know, I, I was, I was simm somewhere around 64, 65 minutes, and then I was well short of that in the race by the time I got to Vegas.
So, like I said, I wasn't prepared where I needed to be, but I'm glad I went and did it because it showed me how it worked and what I needed to work on. So, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Feel super
Excited.
I I'm, I'm just excited to see what your next time's gonna be.
'cause I know you and you're gonna probably shave 14 minutes off that time. Oh, I'm
Not stopping.
Like, I'm just gonna, yeah, I, I know you're not.
I can tell I can tell. All right, buddy.
Well, hey, look, really, really appreciate you, uh, coming on chatting with us.
Congrats on everything Super Bowl and Fox commercial.
Congrats on High Rocks and finding a new obsession.
And, uh, best of luck with all the stuff in the interim before we get to St.
Pete, and very much looking forward to seeing you back in action at St. Pete, bud.
Thanks, fellas. See you soon.
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