The Dale Jr. Download Mar 25, 2026

Scott Speed: Red Bull, F1, and Why He Left the Driver's Seat

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Brand

Chevrolet

Chevrolet is a car brand (part of GM). In racing, some driver programs focus on specific brands, like Chevrolet, because teams and sponsors are tied to them.

Concept

NASCAR

NASCAR is a popular American racing series, mostly on oval tracks. Drivers have to be good at handling the car over long runs and racing wheel-to-wheel.

Concept

X Games

X Games is a big TV event where athletes compete in extreme sports. If someone is an X Games champion, they’re really good at that kind of high-intensity competition.

Term

Go-Karts

Go-karts are small race cars. A lot of racers start in them because they’re affordable and teach you the basics of driving in a competitive way.

Concept

national championship

A national championship means you won at the highest level in your country for that age/class. Doing that can get you noticed and help you get sponsorships or better racing opportunities.

Concept

Being sponsored means a company helps pay for racing or gives you gear. In racing, that support can be huge because racing can get expensive fast.

Company

Red Bull

Red Bull is a big sponsor in racing. Here, they’re talking about a program they ran to find and support up-and-coming drivers.

Company

Skip Barber

Skip Barber is a racing school. People can win opportunities or scholarships to go learn how to drive faster and more safely in race cars.

Concept

open-wheel road racing

Open-wheel road racing is the kind of racing where the cars look like formula cars and race on road courses. He’s saying Europe has a lot more top young drivers pushing each other.

Concept

go-karting

Go-karting is usually where future race drivers begin. It helps them learn how to drive fast and race against others before moving into bigger cars.

Concept

F1

“F1” is short for Formula 1, the highest level of open-wheel race car competition. The cars are very specialized, and it can be a big jump if you’re coming from a different kind of racing.

Concept

F1 test

An “F1 test” is a structured driving session where a driver evaluates an F1 car as part of development or preparation. It’s a key step for drivers transitioning into the F1 environment.

Concept

“Onboard” refers to onboard camera footage from the driver’s perspective, used to study braking points, cornering lines, and throttle/brake timing. The speaker uses it as a learning tool before his own test.

Concept

F1 car

An “F1 car” is a super specialized race car used in Formula 1. It’s designed to stick to the track at very high speeds, so the tires and aerodynamics matter a lot for how fast you can go.

Concept

communication skills

F1 teams rely on the driver to tell engineers what the car feels like. Good communication helps the team make the right changes so the car drives better.

Concept

Formula One

Formula One is the highest level of open-wheel race car racing. In F1, different teams use different cars, so sometimes the car itself makes a huge difference in how well you can do.

Concept

finish a lap down

“A lap down” means you’re behind by one full lap compared to the front of the race. If your car is much slower, you can end up losing laps even if you’re driving well.

Car

Ferrari

Ferrari is a famous racing team in Formula One. Here, it’s used as an example of a top-performing car where the driver’s results may feel tied to the team’s overall strength.

Concept

wet

“Wet” means the track is covered in rain. Rain changes how the tires grip, so braking and cornering feel very different.

Concept

Monaco

Monaco is a famous F1 race track. It’s very twisty and hard to pass on, and rain can make it even more unpredictable.

Concept

pits

The pits are where the team stops the car to do things like change tires. When weather changes, stopping at the right time can help you move up.

Term

pit road

Pit road is the special lane where race cars go in to get serviced. You can’t just drive fast there—there are rules, and it affects your race timing.

Concept

DTM

DTM is a high-level touring car series in Germany. It’s a different style of racing than F1, but it’s still very competitive.

Concept

primary car to the backup car

In F1, teams typically have a primary car and a backup car for each driver to reduce downtime after damage or mechanical issues. The speaker’s point is that these cars are engineered to be effectively interchangeable, so a driver shouldn’t feel a major difference when switching.

Concept

truck series

The NASCAR Truck Series is one of NASCAR’s national touring series, featuring pickup trucks and serving as a common stepping stone for drivers aiming to reach the top NASCAR Cup Series. Drivers often build experience with race strategy and car control in this series before moving up.

Concept

rookie of the year

Rookie of the Year is an award for the best first-year driver. It recognizes who does the best job adjusting to racing at that level.

Concept

driver development

Driver development is coaching drivers so they get better over time. It’s not just teaching speed—it’s helping them make better choices and stay consistent.

Concept

break my back

A “broken back” is a serious injury that can end or permanently change a driver’s ability to race. The speaker links it directly to their ability to drive, highlighting how motorsport injuries can have long-term career consequences.

Concept

resilience

Resilience just means you can handle hard moments without giving up. In racing, you’ll mess up sometimes, so being able to bounce back is a big deal.

Concept

confidence

Confidence here is the psychological payoff from completing difficult practice and then applying it in competition. For drivers, confidence can translate into calmer decision-making and better execution under pressure.

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You're Dale Jr.

Should I say it?

It's Dale Jr. podcast.

I gotta say it.

Hey everybody it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download here.

It's Wednesday the guest segment and we got a great guest coming in here today.

Scott Speed for episode 701.

Thanks for joining us here in the Arby's studio.

Don't forget about Arby's new meat and three box.

You get more meal for your money at Arby's.

We have the meats.

Scott has been in the driver development side of things over the last several years with

Josh Wise.

They work predominantly with Chevrolet drivers to coach them up, make them athletes,

make them great at reaction time, teach them how to be grown adults,

teach them good race craft, all these things.

And that business is booming.

It's, and it's really developed into a very thorough, intricate sort of a bit of a,

it's a bit of a college I would say.

I don't know what you call it, but they got a lot of drivers involved in that and

Scott's been part of that for quite a while now.

But before that, Scott raced in NASCAR, before that, ARCA, before that,

he was in the F1 series and many, many other things before.

So, look, I don't know all of Scott's career.

I do know that he had some spectacular, you know, moments at times and some good success.

Raleigh Cross being one of those after his Cup career was over.

But he's drove a ton of cars and he's always shown incredible speed, no pun intended.

Some things worked out, some things didn't.

I'm excited to learn about the career of Scott Speed.

This is going to be a fun one.

Let's bring him in the room.

All right, Scott Speed on the Dell Junior Download.

Thanks for coming in today, Scott.

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

I'm serious, man.

Hey, looking over these notes, dude, you've done it all.

I mean, you're only 43 years old.

And I say that because once we go through this, you know, this career of yours,

it's going to be impressive what you've packed into 43 years, all the different disciplines

and things that you've experienced.

But three-time X Games, Raleigh Cross Gold Medalist, four-time Raleigh Cross champion.

You've won other champions in other forms of motorsport.

But I wanted to know, where were you born?

From the start, huh?

Right from the start.

I was born in California, the Bay Area.

The Bay Area.

Where did you see racing?

When did you first go?

Hey, what is that?

That's a great question.

I was born into it, I would say.

From three years old, I was going to the Go-Kart Track watching my dad race Go-Karts.

And so I can't think of a memory before I saw racing.

Yeah.

Did your dad race out of the garage?

What kind of racing did he do?

Yeah, he raced Go-Karts.

And so he raced out of the garage and he was really good.

He was a national champion.

He was a sponsored Go-Kart driver.

Yeah.

That's how he could afford to do it.

So I got to see my dad race Go-Karts at a super high level.

Where did you guys go to compete?

Well, he ran all over the country.

He ran some big races.

And he actually, he raced lay down Go-Karts as well.

Like the stuff they were racing at year's point and the Laguna Seca.

And then obviously he raced the sit-up Go-Karts, like the standard ones.

And we raced all around California.

There was tracks, a couple, probably three tracks within an hour or two hours of where we grew up.

When did you decide, you know, that you wanted to give it a shot?

Well, I think I always wanted to, you know, from age three, I guess.

You know, I was, I saw my dad racing how much he liked it.

He was really good at it.

And so I started racing video games.

So what video games you recall?

Man, I'm thinking early stuff, you know, Seca.

You know, there was a Grand Prix game.

There was Monaco Grand Prix.

There was, gosh, obviously Daytona USA when that came out was super popular.

And then you had the Sega Rally.

That was an original game, I'd say.

You, you started racing cars in 2001?

Or?

Yes.

So I got my first shot in a car in 2001.

Okay.

You began carting at age 10?

Yep.

Okay.

In a really interesting impactful moment for me, really, because like I said,

I always watched my dad do this.

I raced every video game I could growing up.

And eventually my dad had a friend who had a kid my age who had a go kart.

And he said, Hey, do you think Scott would want to try this thing?

And that my friend, he had been racing for a couple of years.

And I got into his go kart.

And like my very first session out in the go car, I was faster than he was.

And I was like, Oh man, I'm like pretty good at this.

And the guy gave my dad, my kid, his kids go kart to try.

I raced that go kart for a year.

I did really good.

And the next year I ended up winning a national championship.

So it happened really, really fast.

And that was good and bad.

It was good in the sense that I then had the ability, I got sponsored from that, right?

I started getting tires and go karts for free.

And that allowed me to continue racing.

The bad piece of that is I like really early on had this really bad idea that I was just

naturally talented.

I was like, I got this.

Like I just sat in it.

I could do it.

I was completely unaware of all of the work and all of the things that I had absorbed up

to that point, which was watching my dad at a super high level, playing video games,

learning how to make cars move, how to make them go fast.

And so when I obviously got in one, I had some, I had a lot of knowledge on it.

And so, you know, from that moment on, I just, I was a fast study.

I was able to pick up things pretty quickly.

And that really launched my career.

When you're, you know, you won the Super Road title in 2000.

You raced karts until 2001.

You won the IKF Grand Nationals.

And then you graduated into Formula Cars.

Your dad had ran karts his whole life during his career.

He was a kart racer.

You as well.

What are the, how do you create these opportunities or get these

chances to go race full size cars?

I just, I won a lot of kart races.

You know, the...

Who did you meet that said, hey, I wanted you to try this?

Well, unfortunately, I never had the ability or put the effort into doing any of that,

like reaching out to anybody.

I got really lucky.

Every opportunity I got was either from winning a scholarship or obviously the huge

opportunity was when Red Bull called and said, hey, we're going to do this Red Bull American

driver search.

And we've selected you to come and compete in this.

Before that, I would just get opportunities by winning a kart race.

And there was always some kind of programs around.

I'm thinking Skip Barber, Jim Russell, where, hey, you win a chance to do the driving school

here in the race car.

And I would do that.

When you hear about those things, you wonder now, you know, my...

Those type of things don't happen in the oval pipeline, right?

Where you, man, if you win these series of races, that gets you the scholarship to do

X or gets you the opportunity in this ride, in this series.

And when I hear those, when I hear about those, I've had a lot of guys sit in that chair and

tell me the same story about how this win, this championship propelled them into their next series

driving for this specific team.

And they went over to Europe and so forth, which we're probably going to get into with your

own career.

How legitimate are those opportunities?

Are they...

Is it a money game or back then, was it genuinely like

a system, a working system to help provide opportunity for drivers like yourself to get

out of carts, to get beyond the next level?

I think, by and large, it's always been the same.

There's always people out there that want to help the next generation.

And I say that because I am that person now, right?

So there's always someone trying to help.

There's never been...

Motor racing has never been like football where there's a set program.

There's always different paths that everyone takes, even in NASCAR and in Formula One.

The guys that reach the top, they all come through different kind of unique paths.

When I was growing up, it was similar in the sense that there was some programs.

There's probably less now, honestly, in OpenWheel.

But there was always some programs where guys would give scholarships or you would meet someone.

For example, I got to do a Mazda race in that time.

And I won my first Mazda race.

And then from then, the team that I was racing for said,

hey, we need you to come race full-time.

How can we make this happen?

It was like, well, we're going to need $5,000 a race.

Well, I didn't have that.

And so I'd call around to some friends and I'd get a couple guys to write me checks for $5,000 a race.

And then I went and did a couple of those.

And then I actually found two people to give me that.

And then I ran out.

And but I'd already done four races and we're doing really good in the championship.

And the team's like, oh, well, we're just going to let you run the rest of time.

And then from there, the huge break, the thing that changed my life was the Red Bull runoff.

All right. So tell me what the Red Bull runoff is.

Well, Red Bull had this idea that they wanted to create an American Formula One team.

And funny enough, it was also with Ford because Red Bull was looking to buy the Jaguar F1 team.

And they had this idea that they wanted to do this whole American thing.

American F1 driver, American manufacturer.

And originally, actually, I find this out later in life,

but this was originally Danny Sullivan's idea, right?

And he was pretty instrumental in trying to put that program together.

In any case, it got into Dietrich Matyshit's lap in Red Bull.

And he thought, this is a great idea, real smart marketing guy.

And they put together this driver search.

They select 16 of us young American racing drivers anywhere from,

I was on the younger end.

I think I was 18 at the time, maybe 17.

And they brought us all to Europe.

We did fitness tests.

We did hand-eye coordination tests.

We raced some go-karts, some Formula cars,

and eventually they narrowed it down to four of us to eventually move to Europe and to race in Europe.

And so you were one of the guys that got that opportunity to go to Europe

and race in the British Formula 3 championship.

What's your memories of that experience, being over in Europe and...

Life, I mean.

Like massive culture change.

Well, just also growing up.

I would say I was a pretty sheltered 19-year-old when I went over there.

My parents did a lot for me.

I barely knew how to pump gas.

I stayed home and played video games all day.

I played in the... I did so much.

But living as really an adult at that time was really hard.

Yeah, did you have any kind of parental supervision of any type,

any kind of guidance of any type?

I was an 80s kid.

No, I shipped over there.

My dad left me with a suitcase and I got a little apartment.

And yeah.

How scary was that out of the gate?

Well, I would say it wasn't scary because of just...

I didn't know any better.

This is great.

I got freedom.

I'm not living at home.

You know, I'm living in Europe, which was really cool actually

because I'm an American.

I had this American-Californian accent.

So you can imagine living in England was awesome.

It was a unique culture.

The food was really hard because it's not mom's home-cooked meal by any means.

And but it was a really cool experience.

And honestly, looking back at all of it,

that being able to live overseas and live in these different cultures,

and I eventually moved from England to Austria

to where Red Bull was based for the remainder of my European racing career.

And I think that was the things that I take away most.

Being able to see different cultures, different racing,

and how people can live life differently than I grew up doing.

So how did you find success over there?

Was it good?

Well, it was really, really hard to start.

I think the level, the comparable would be to have someone

who would want to race in NASCAR and was growing up in Europe.

You have to come here, right?

So imagine you're racing in Europe and you want to race in NASCAR

and you come over and you do your first truck race.

It's like, wow, everything just got serious.

It's really hard.

And so it was like that for the open-wheel road racing side of things here.

Like when I was racing here in America,

whether it was Formula Mazda or the small formulas that I did right out of go-karting,

it was the level wasn't even on the same planet to what it is over there.

That's where all the best guys that go to race open-wheel go, they go to Europe.

And so there's just this huge concentration of talent of young kids.

And the first year was really, really hard.

About a lot of health issues.

I started, I got Ulcerative Colitis.

So I was using the bathroom a lot.

I was really anemic at some points.

And just how do you think that came about?

Probably, well, my Ulcerative Colitis is an autoimmune disease.

So it's something that I had going on.

Yeah. But stress is certainly not helpful for that.

You can imagine being a 19-year-old trying to live and make a career in motor racing.

But honestly, it didn't really affect me much because I just so focused on the racing

and so focused at the job at hand.

But it was really, really tough the first year.

I think I got my first year racing, I got like one top 10.

And honestly, I thought, well, okay, I don't have it.

I mean, we would all heard as a kid, I think even to this day as an American open-realer,

you think that going over to Europe and racing in open-wheel cars or an F1,

like that's just too hard, we can't do that.

We don't have that ability.

So I just thought, okay, I'm like the standard American.

Went over here, like these guys are really good.

They're better.

And that's where I'm at.

You had to come back to get treatment for your health conditions?

Yeah. I was really lucky.

Red Bull had some great doctors in Europe.

And basically, after the first year of really struggling, I moved to Austria

and got some really good help by those doctors there.

I had a really good support system there that Red Bull put in place for me.

And my second year of racing over there is when everything kind of changed.

And some of that was maybe a little bit of getting life in order,

but most of it was just dealing with the challenges of the racing over there

and competing against the best and learning.

And so my second year, I ended up winning two open-wheel championships over there

and started finding a lot of success and then everything changed really quickly.

You got the GP2 in 2005, which is Formula 2 today,

and you got promoted to the top driver of the team.

All of this would, you know, you had a lot of podiums, top five finishes,

finished third in the drivers' points, and you would also compete in the A1 Grand Prix.

All of this would present you the opportunity to become a test driver for Red Bull and the F1 team.

Do you realize, I guess, what do you think about that today?

I know at the moment, at the time, you probably had,

everything's happening so quickly and life's moving so fast.

You had no moment to really sit down and realize where you had landed, right?

Oh, I think I grasped it at the time.

I mean, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, you couldn't not because it's just so big.

Josh, how old were you at the time when you were

tabbed as a test driver for the F1 team?

Well, I was competing in GP2.

Yep, I got the test and the big thing, the test driving thing was just a formality.

Things were already kind of set that that was put in place because I was going to race the next year.

The big moment came when I got the call to do the F1 test.

And so, you know, I just got the GP2.

I just won some championships.

I was one of the best, you know, one of the higher rated Red Bull junior drivers at the time.

And they had a stacked field.

The really cool opportunity I got was the Red Bull junior team at that time was just fast kids.

Carding champions, they had, you know, obviously Sebastian Fettel was right behind me in age.

There was a stacked group of Red Bull drivers that didn't need.

Red Bull didn't care if he had money.

Helmet Marko was out there picking the best kids.

And so it was a really unique environment to be around and living with like the best,

what would become, you know, Sebastian Fettel, some of the best open wheel racers of all time.

All in kind of one area and kind of together in Austria, together doing Red Bull events,

doing, you know, training, having an actual training facility where you would go twice a day

to work on your physical fitness and to work on yourself.

Doing the reaction time tests.

And, you know, this is all early days, but at the time this was, this wasn't being done.

So to be in that environment with all these kids, it was cutthroat, but it was also, you know,

there was some camaraderie, like we were all trying to make a racing career.

And so doing all that ultimately ended with getting a call to say, hey, you're going to drive,

you're going to test the F1 car.

And that was for me when I got that call, like that was it, I could die a happy man.

I was going to get the worst case.

I got, I was going to get to drive, you know, the fastest car on the planet.

And I remember going into that test being completely content, not having any expectations

and just being like, I made it.

This is good.

And as it turned out that we did this test, there was four other Red Bull juniors that were

effectively, I didn't, I mean, we were trying out for the F1.

And for whatever reason, I was just really fast.

It was one of these things that in my career, it was a Barcelona.

And how much experience had you had there before?

I got to, I got to test on it in the GP2 car.

So I'd been around the track.

I knew the track, but honestly from a GP2 car, which I would say is about the speed of an

Indy car to an F1 car, it's a different planet.

And I remember specifically being in the hotel room the night before,

and I'm watching the onboard of Christian Clean in the car I'm about to drive.

And I'm literally like a little scared because I'm watching like how fast he's going into the

corners and where he's breaking and thinking, oh my, I have to do that tomorrow.

And it was just so fast, so much faster.

It was like the sense of like really nervous.

Like I was really scared.

And I just, I studied the video I was watching like, well, he's breaking here at the hundred

meter somehow.

All right.

Going through this corner in fifth gear somehow.

All right.

And I just, I just watched this video and I was like, all right, well, I'm just going to

go out there and try to, try to do this.

And, uh, and it was really interesting because at the time the guys that we were all running,

that we're all going to do that test, I would have rated us all as really great racing drivers.

And as soon as we all got in the F1 car and the grip level went that next 30%.

And all of a sudden now you're doing four and a half Gs in the corner.

You're breaking at five Gs.

There was a huge gap.

And I think if I remember right, I mean, I was probably a second faster than the other guys.

And like the, the, the, the Delta just went huge.

And I didn't know why it wasn't like I was trying harder, but something about

feeling the tire at such high grip force I could do.

And so I was like, man, this is incredible.

Like for one, I got to drive this thing.

And for two, like I'm actually doing this pretty good.

Like I couldn't believe it.

So that is what got me the opportunity to ultimately race for the, for the Toro Rosso team.

What did you think about, uh, when they, you know, when, when you're putting away your helmet

and your helmet bag at the end of that day, uh, and you know what the end results are in terms

of the performance on the racetrack.

Man, I think that to me it was, it was just valid, it was just validation to me.

Um, you know, I didn't have, I had it looking back.

I mean, I just had a really terrible model for how I used racing and how I thought about things.

You know, I had a very fixed mindset about, about things.

So for me, I never went through racing trying to learn or get better.

I just went through it trying to see how good I was.

Like, where do I stack up between these people?

So when I got to this place, I thought, I can't believe that I'm actually at this level.

Whether they gave me the job to drive the car or not, it was, it wasn't about that.

I was, I was like more about seeing like, how good am I at racing?

And I thought, okay, I'm, I can't believe that this is the level I'm at, but cool.

I'm, I'm this good.

And it was just a measurement and just a validation for me.

Yeah.

There's not many people in the world that can claim that they've gotten the opportunity to race in F1.

But that's what would, that's what would happen.

You'd be the first American to participate in F1 since Michael Andretti.

Red Bull purchases minority and starts up the Toro Rossi team.

And they tabbed you to be one of their drivers.

I can't, I can't imagine you're any more nervous about that particular race than any other race

and all the preparation that you had to do going into it probably made you feel ready.

But you, your F1 career, you know, for whatever reason was a, was a clunky one.

There were some moments, but like, what would you, what would you do?

I guess, what would you do different?

Would there be anything you could have done differently?

Oh, I missed so much.

I could have done differently.

Well, what?

I mean, looking back, I think, man, just, I think the, the core piece of it just starts

how I thought about racing in general.

I had no, I had no communication skills.

I had no real education.

You know, I'd gone from high school to this and I just mean that I didn't know how the world

worked.

I didn't know how to communicate with people.

I didn't know what it took to drive a race car fast.

I knew that when I sat in the seat that I had this magic pouch of talent and that

it made me drive a car fast.

I had no idea why.

And when that didn't work, I was left with, well, what's wrong with the car?

What's wrong with this?

Like, I never had the real ability to look internally and say like, what, what can I

do to affect the situation?

I didn't look at it like that.

And so the other really difficult thing about Formula One and the thing that was really hard

for me was for the first time, you're not in the same cars as everybody.

And so to win a race doesn't mean the same thing.

And I remember specifically like, you know, Michael Schumacher was a hero of mine as a

kid growing up.

I idolized this guy, I watched him and I got to be around him.

And I remember thinking once I got to F1, like you're really only racing your teammate

because at that time the difference between the cars are so big.

Nowadays it's actually closed up a lot.

But back when I was like, we were going to finish a lap down almost no matter who you

put in that car.

So that makes it really difficult to be, to find motivation or to find the drive to get

better.

And I remember asking Michael one time, like, dude, like, how do you put in this much work?

Like you're racing Rubens, like you just won.

Cool.

You beat the other Ferrari.

Like how, like, how do you find the drive to really push?

Like, because me in my mind, I just quickly extrapolate out.

Like right now I'm running, you know, if we have a great weekend, I'm running an 8th.

If we have a bad weekend, I'm running 14th.

But I'm just racing Tonio and we're kind of just pretty laid back guys.

How do you motivate yourself to put in 100% effort?

And I just couldn't understand because Michael went deep.

He put in so much work.

He was the first guy to like really bring a gym to the racetrack.

And I just, I couldn't imagine.

And I think the idea of just simply waking up every day and trying to be better than you were

and working on yourself and competing against yourself, I had no concept of that.

My idea was purely like, did I win on the weekend?

Yes.

No.

Okay.

It was either a good day or a bad day.

Yeah.

I never had the chance to, I also felt have a very high opinion of Michael Schumacher.

I never got the chance to meet him.

What was he like?

Just a disciplined, focused, very driven person who really loved what he did.

I think that the story that I remember, the story that resonated with me the most was,

you know, at the time the FIA was testing helmets in a certain way and he figured out

that they weren't really testing this area of the helmet.

And in the form of the one car, you're pulling a lot of G-Force.

So not only was he already probably the most physically fit guy on the paddock,

but he was also modifying helmets and working with the helmet manufacturer to take ounces

out of the front part of the helmet that wasn't being tested because it would save

the load on the neck and he'd be fresher for the end of the race.

So like, it's just that level of depth that he went to to get better.

I couldn't understand how he got there.

And so it was really cool to see that.

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You talked about the performance of the team.

You know, how, I guess, how much does that play a factor in

your opportunity, right?

To find, you know, it's Red Bulls relatively new to F1 at this point.

They've, you know, you've seized this opportunity to be one of the drivers in the car,

but you're also on a, in a rebuild of your brand new build of a team that's struggling to really

find out where they are on the, on the competitive scale.

I guess how, was there any frustration over not being able to see out

a little more of that runway being able to be behind the wheel?

You're learning as a driver, but the team's also, you know, finding, you know,

trying to correct their own missteps in the process of building the team.

I mean, it was very imperfect.

You know, were you, was there any frustration over not having a little bit more of the runway

there to see that out?

No, not, not really.

I think that,

look, I think that's always the case.

Everybody's always working on the car and trying to make it better and everyone's going to

miss, you know, that's the beautiful thing about sports and racing is every weekend you get to

go and see what reality is.

So you go when you do a race weekend, you come back and you're like, all right,

what worked, what didn't work?

We're going to try this now from the driving side and the engineering and the racing side.

That's what's so beautiful about motor racing.

And then you go to the weekend, you go to the race the next weekend and you get to find out if

is what you changed working or not working.

That's the reality.

So I think that is always a part of it.

But I can tell you that, you know, when I left Formula One and,

in spectacular fashion, I had opportunities to race with other, I had other opportunities in F1

and I couldn't get over the, for one, I think being away from America for so long was a piece

of this, but also just not having like a clear definition of what like I can impact as a driver

from a result standpoint, because all the cars are different.

Like I couldn't make that work in my head.

Like, so from running, if I was running fifth or 10th or winning in a Ferrari, in my mind,

like I was just, I only got to race one guy and it's like, that's, that wasn't enough feedback

for me.

Like I want to know like, you know, that I can impact the result more as a driver.

And I just was not aware of how much you could just, you could do that.

And then the perfect example is at a Sebastian Fettel when he came in,

because he came in with such great energy and such great drive that that affected the whole team.

I mean, he ended up winning in, in effectively the same car that we were running 12th in.

And it's not like that's all driving.

That's all culture.

That's all pushing.

That's all motivating everybody.

There's so many other things that he brought that I didn't even know you could.

Yeah.

Do you remember getting penalized for cursing at David Coulthard in a post race here?

Oh yeah.

I mean, that's a piece that probably changed motor racing for me the most.

You know, as my third F1 race, I got, I finished eighth in the Australian Grand Prix.

I won Torrosa's first point.

It was unbelievable.

And then somehow, I guess the other Red Bull team protested us.

They said, I passed David under caution, under a crash.

And I thought, well, that's strange because like David had to pit anyways after it had no effect on his race.

Why would he, why would he protest us for this?

And they're looking at this video and, and evidently like a yellow flag came out like

right beside him as we're going by like 150 miles an hour.

And he's like, yeah, I saw that and I slowed down.

And I was like, I said, I probably cursed at him.

I was very childish at the time.

And David is such a smart, you know, and I've got to hang out and be with David recently.

And he's just such a smart, calculated guy that I utilized to zero.

You would think that, you know, a young kid would take a veteran like that and try to

like ask some questions.

I was just this outrageously cocky kid.

And so they, you know, they penalized me and they took the point away.

And that disheartened me so much that I want to say it was that point.

But really shortly after I just, I lost a lot of motivation for trying to continue to

push really hard.

So how do you end up leaving F1?

Well, I got, we were doing a race at Nurburgring.

Okay.

We qualify at that time.

I think me and Tony have qualified 17th or 18th on the grade.

This is a spectacular story.

Start 17th and 18th on the grade.

Our car, the Torroso car was outrageous in the wet.

Earlier that year in Monaco, I was actually P1 in practice in the wet, in the rain,

in pre, in pre-practice one.

The thing is our car was really good in the wet.

We don't know why.

Right before the start of the race, it downpours.

I mean pouring rain.

So you have to start the race on slick tires.

Me and Tonyo drive from 17th and 18th to, I think I came in the pits, 11th,

after three quarters of a lap.

We were flying.

I'm passing cars on the, I'm just your dog fighting.

And I passed Tonyo in the last section coming to pit road.

And so in F1, you can only pit one car at a time.

So it was really crucial that, you know, you entered first.

So I had to just dive, bomb, pass on.

And I passed him in the last sector.

I come in the pits, well, they got Tonyo's tires waiting.

And so I come in, they put Tonyo's tires on, then they realized, shoot,

we got to take those off.

It ends up being like, why does it matter?

Well, they're his tires.

Is it like a, he's, those codes belong to his car and it's illegal?

Yeah, because otherwise if he fail, I couldn't like take those sets at a time.

Okay.

And so the pit stop ends up taking forever.

We lose a lot of time.

The next lap, now we got rain tires on there, but it's pouring so much.

The entry to the first corner at Nurburgring is pretty downhill.

And go into the brake zone.

I'm pretty conservative and I don't stop a second.

I'm hydroplaning down the hill, off into the gravel, I'm crashed.

So the race is over.

I mean, the most spectacular two laps basically in my F1 career.

And I come in and I'm actually like in a pretty good mood because it was pretty awesome.

I drove from my 18th till, I mean, it didn't work out, but like it was an awesome first lap.

And I'm talking to my engineer in France, the team owner of France comes and he's like,

what's happened in turn one?

And I was like, what do you mean?

Like there's eight cars parked out there.

Lewis Hamilton, Jensen Button, like everybody basically that went in the corner.

I was like, well, the same thing happened to everybody else.

We hydroplained in a thing.

And he says, no, not everybody, just the wankers.

And I was like, you're right.

Lewis, he's a wanker, Jensen, you're right.

Everybody's like, I told him the F off and I walked away.

And I guess I thought I could tell the team owner that he can F off

and that everything was to be okay in my mind.

It was not in the next weekend.

Sebastian Federal was in the car and that was it.

That was the end.

And honestly, it was time.

Like I, it wasn't for, like I didn't have the ability, the model to process what needed to

have, like how to be a racing driver.

And for me, I was, it was just as much of me wanting to go as it was them wanting me gone.

Yeah.

So you, would you go to go to your apartment pack?

Well, first I met with, you know, they put Fettle in the car, right?

And that was the piece.

You stayed as a test driver, did you not?

No.

So I stayed around while Fettle, he did two races.

And when he, when it was pretty clear that he was running in the same spot I was,

he wasn't qualifying or finishing any better.

Did he call me and said, Hey, look, like obviously the car isn't, you know,

really capable right now, but we love you.

What do you want to do?

And he gave me carte blanche.

I could, I could pick basically anything.

So it was a really an important time that at least it kind of.

Anything.

I could be test driver with the main team and stick around in the Red Bull F1 deal.

I could go, you know, basically he wanted to know what I want to do is the easy,

the easy solution would have been to do like DTM or like sports car racing.

DTM was cool.

It was, it was.

But for me, like I had done, I had answered the question I had for myself,

which is like, how good am I as a racing driver?

And I was like, okay, I'm like, I'm not, I'm not a Lewis.

I knew like I'm not Lewis.

I'm not Nico, but like I'm a good F1 guy.

Cool.

I'm, I'm can sleep.

I've answered the question for myself and I want to go do something fun.

I want to go do something different.

I don't want to just keep like I know where I make after formula one,

everything was such a huge in my mind step down that it wouldn't,

it just didn't make sense.

So you decided to go home.

So I decided to go back to America.

And, and I said, Hey, what do you think about NASCAR to DD?

And he's like, I love it.

Go, go there.

And I thought, okay, I'm going to come back to America.

And I'm just going to race NASCAR Cup series.

Just like that.

And I got here.

What before that moment though, what had you known about cup?

Almost nothing.

I actually, man, my it's, I'm embarrassed to say, but I what about it?

Like you, you know, you, you said, you know, everything was a step down.

What about it stood out to you?

Well, it was different.

Yeah.

I knew it was very different.

And it would be a challenge.

I did grow up a little bit watching obviously your dad, Ernie Irvin.

I watched some stock car racing, but not enough to really have any grasp of what it was going

to take or what the level was at all.

I just thought, okay, there's these Southern boys out here running around in circles.

Like surely I can figure this out.

I mean, basically days of thunder.

Yeah.

Like it was very, it was very similar.

I thought, okay, I'm going to get in here.

And, and luckily, Gunther Steiner was running the, the Red Bull NASCAR team at the time,

and he had some kind of wisdom about him to say, hey, maybe let's start off by doing

like a year of ARCA and some truck and we'll feed you into this thing.

I'm surprised that I love this about Red Bull.

They went, they built you up to be able to take over a seat in the F1 car,

the top echelon of motorsport in the planet.

And when that didn't end up working out as everyone had hoped, they gave you other

opportunities and you were still in the family and they were still believing in you and knew

that there was somewhere in their portfolio that you could, you know, you could have success.

I'm just really, because usually you assume that the guys, guys get chewed up and spit out and,

and you know, you, you, they have to go fend for themselves and they have to find this,

you know, find whatever it is that next opportunity is if they want to be a race car driver.

But it seems like in the Red Bull system, you had, you had a personal relationship or something

about you that they liked and appreciated and didn't want to lose and they wanted to,

they had all kinds of other avenues for you to go down.

You know, that's unique. Do you not see that as

unbelievable? Luckily, unbelievable. Luckily for me, because I was never the kid that was

going to go raise sponsorship or work on his image. Is there anybody else or any other thing

comparable to Red Bull in terms of like, hey man, you know, hey, all right, that didn't work out.

That's cool. We got this, this, this, this. Do you see anything here you like?

Well, I think you got to remember Rebels, a marketing company.

I know.

My, my last name is Speed and I'm a very authentic person.

And so I fit the brand really good. And I was also, I was a really fast racing driver.

So I think all those things just fit really good. And certainly with the last name Speed,

being an American, having a pretty good personality. I could always talk pretty

good on camera. I could always engage with people pretty good. It was,

it's just an easy fit for them.

Yeah. Well, you go racing the Arca series, you have success, you know, relatively quickly.

I mean, we've, what we've seen all kinds of examples of guys that have come out of,

predominantly grew up road racing, try to come run ovals and they're like, well, this is weird.

You know, what are the, what these cars, all this is archaic, all this equipment,

the way that people think and act and race is completely.

There's no data.

No.

Like the cars are all different.

You get it from one car to the other. You're like, the setups are the same,

but they're not the same because at the end of the day, they're made in the,

in the, you know, they're just tubes welded. It's not like, you know,

the F1 car, when you go from the primary car to the backup car.

The identical.

You don't know the difference.

Yeah.

Like, well, you know, like sometimes you got some cars, you even name them.

I know.

Yep.

She runs good.

Like, yeah.

We got to try to build another one.

Yeah.

So you, so you seem to fit right in.

You seem to be, I don't know whether it's malleable or you, you made it work.

I mean, if you call my stock car career of making it work, good on you.

Well, I mean, you won't break.

It was such a failure.

No, you went, you look, it was not you.

So you, I remember, I remember this.

You, you won Kansas, Kentucky, Berlin, Nashville.

You finished seventh at Talladega in your first race in ARCA.

You're battling for the championship when you have this spectacular event.

My most favorite moment of my racing career was definitely that.

I mean, it was an epic moment.

But listen, no one would have assumed that while, yes, you might have went to a road

course and destroyed these guys, but nobody would have said, yeah, he'll win Kentucky,

Berlin of all places.

Like you're not a, you're born an oval guy.

You weren't a short tracker.

You didn't drive stock cars.

How did you, how did you adapt and be able to find it?

You know, it was pace and speed.

I mean, you do truly have just a pouch talent somewhere.

I, I do, I have a lot.

Yeah.

I'm, I have a lot, but I had no, I was not, I'll say it like this.

I never watched a day of film.

I did not watch a single race.

Jerry, actually I ran into Jerry Baxter.

He was crew chiefing me in Xfinity, qualified pole, my first Xfinity race.

I go to Darlington, Jerry's like, Hey, you want to watch the guys run a little bit

before you get in the car?

You know, I was like, well, no, why get in the car and rip it.

I remember.

And I was, I think after like three laps, like one P1 on the board and then I fenced it in four

and I had to fix the car.

But like I, I just had, I think I have a really good feel for attire.

I obviously had some, some models growing up that work pretty decent,

but there was huge limitations.

I was terrible at racing.

I had no race craft, right?

So I think that if you think of what makes someone successful on F1, you got to be fast.

You got to qualify good.

There's some racing going on, but really it's about going fast.

NASCAR is about racing.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen like, she's like Austin Hill, for example,

win with like a fifth place car.

Like I, there's so much race craft that happens in NASCAR that I never learned or

didn't understand.

It was literally, it was, it was days of thunder.

I could get in there.

I could go really fast and then you put 40 guys out there and I was like,

whoa, these guys are, I'm getting shuffled back here.

Like one restart, lose a couple, another restart, lose a couple more.

Like what's going on here?

And I just didn't, I didn't understand what was going on.

Well, I, I remember you would run the truck series a little bit.

You'd obviously get an opportunity to go up and, and, and make your cup series debut

for Red Bull and finish out the season in the car.

You had a best, best finish of 16th at Homestead.

You have a full time schedule in 09, rookie of the year.

You also ran in the rally series with Michael Waldrop.

I remember, I remember, uh, this was,

I remember you having a lot of moments where I went, I mean, the Red Bull team,

again, very similar to F1.

This was a brand new team.

They had no clue what they were doing.

They were going to figure it out and especially if they had stuck it out.

Right?

But they, they weren't going to be a great team out of the gate.

Nobody, nobody was even Red Bull, right?

And they were going to figure it out, but you didn't get the runway to, to be a part of that.

I remember being out there with you.

I remember watching you.

I remember when you came in, Arca and went through all of the stuff you went through.

And there were a lot of moments where you were like, yep, the, the, the speed is there.

You know, and the race craft comes with just racing, right?

You just got to keep racing and keep going.

And AJ would figure it out.

And I thought y'all are quite similar, honestly, in terms of, you know, being very raw and,

you know, and I wouldn't, you know, being very raw in the race craft part of it.

People won't believe that I said that about AJ, but y'all both were very similar.

And I felt like that both could have, you know, you could have had a similar result

that AJ had as a stock car racer in a stock car career, given the same runway.

But it was like, there wasn't enough patience.

Man, it was, there, it was me.

I didn't want it bad enough at all.

Um, I, to me, this is going to sound crazy, um, because I get asked a lot now, obviously,

for the last five or six years I've been working with Josh on this, on, on developing drivers.

I have had the greatest, most fulfilling five years of my life doing this than I ever did

in my racing career.

Why?

And there, I think that deep down to my core, I enjoy much more helping and impacting people

than I ever did trying to win a trophy for myself.

To me, it was such a shallow, racing was, was shallow to me.

It was just purely validation for my self-esteem.

My real energy and what really motivates me and drives me is being able to acquire some

knowledge or some information and then to be able to impact someone with that in a way.

And I just assumed that your attitude back in the day was just, you know, you're a California kid

and you were just, you're living by the seat of your pants.

Yeah, there's some of that for sure.

You know, I thought you wanted to be there.

I thought you wanted to succeed, wanted to develop into a cup winner and a cup champion.

And I felt like that you had all the ability in the world.

But you're, I remember your attitude being very big contrast.

No, not when I say attitude, I don't mean bad.

I'm just saying I remember your personality.

I should use that word.

I remember your personality being a huge contrast to everyone else in the field,

but it was, I was purely basing it off of location and your own personal experience

being overseas and all of that.

You hadn't, you absolutely would be a different person than anyone else that came into NASCAR

because you came from a completely different path.

And I didn't think that it was bad.

I just felt like that, you know, he's here because he wants to be here.

He's got some support from Red Bull and he'll,

he's got speed and ability and talent and he'll figure it out.

But you really just feel like that maybe it wasn't,

you didn't have, your whole heart wasn't truly in it.

Yeah.

I think that my, my need or like my desire to go fast is just, you know,

for validation for my own ego, it was just not a drive and a real love, I think, for racing.

I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't able to think about racing like that.

And I feel like though a lot of guys have a lot, I think like all of us have,

are filling our ego, you know, I think, I think every race car driver races for that,

you know, to feel important, to feel like you're,

I'll give you the example in my life that where this, where this really resonates.

When I was at the end of my card and career, 19 years old,

I won every single national race you could win in the country.

There was undisputed.

We dominated everything.

It was maybe my most unhappy year.

There was no challenge.

There was just like, okay, we've got it figured out.

Now what?

Earlier, maybe like two years earlier, I went to, there was a race going on that I,

I couldn't go to this race, but I had my buddy that was racing.

His name was Landon Yee.

And he got to go to the race and I wanted to go with him and I wanted to help him out.

And we go to this race and I'm helping Landon.

He wins his first race, like his big first national race.

I was more pumped about that than any win I had up to that point.

And so let's fast forward to 2019.

I break my back at a rally cross race and so I can drive.

So my dad and my brother still have a really successful national carding team.

And I go to the, to the, to this race and I'm like,

Hey, who's the kid that you guys are struggling the most with?

Like who's the kid that, that I can help out?

And at this kid, Paul Bocuse, he's a, he's got tons of speed, but we,

you can work with this kid.

And so this weekend I'm working with this kid.

I don't really know what I'm doing, but he ends up winning his first national race.

And I had all those same like feelings like, man, I felt so much happiness and

felt just so fulfilled by, you know, feeling like I was able to contribute to this kid

having success and to watch him like just crying after the race, you know,

and all the joy that he felt.

And I was like, man, this feels right.

And I knew right away, that's the path that, that I want to go down.

And very, very fortunately for me, my best friend, Josh, why is the time had already

started this journey like four years before to start wise optimization.

And really quick during the, during my recovery of this, it just became so clear that

I think this is really what I was meant to do much more.

Cause even in my mind, I can look back, I can, I can replay the tape.

If I could go back right now, well, actually I could do it.

Like if you take me three years ago, I'm the best racing driver I've ever been

by a, by a mile, I have zero desire to get in a race car and do it zero.

The only race I've done was a Trans Am race with Tristan McKee

because he, it was a, it was his gonna be his first opportunity to get in a Trans Am car.

And I, I've been working with this kid.

This is something he needs to do if we can get him in the car.

And I have to go do this, this pro am thing with him to get in it.

What a cool opportunity.

I can show him some things about how to, you know, a tackle or race weekend.

But other than doing that for him, like I would have no motivation to go race a car

for myself.

My motivations now are, and it's, there's just so much more of it.

Because now like I'm at the office at 530 in the morning.

I'm putting in like real, real amounts of work and I would just not, I don't think I could,

I would have that same energy if it was just all directed towards myself to try to make me better.

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You ran some limited races for a team in 2012, 2013.

You'd stay around NASCAR, so I mean you say all that, but you did, you know, you did-

What, earn a living?

Yeah, you're trying to earn a living.

Yeah.

You end up, and I don't want to skip this particular part of your life.

You go to Raleigh Cross in 2013, you have insane success.

Yeah.

I mean you do, you had to have enjoyed all of that experience.

I'll tell you the experiences that I've enjoyed the most were the experiences where

I didn't know how to do something.

Raleigh Cross is a really good example of this, right?

I got lucky, like I'm sitting at the grid, I don't even know the story,

but I'm just at the grid in Bristol, and this guy Colin Dinewalks by and he's like,

hey, do you want to come do a guest car at the X Games in Brazil for Raleigh Cross?

And I'm like, yeah, sure.

And I'll never forget this, we go back, and at the time Josh Williams is my spotter,

we go back to this house, this is Mark, we go back to the hotel I think there,

and I look up like, what is Raleigh Cross?

And I'm like, oh my god, there's a jump.

And then I immediately call Pastrana, and I'm like, hey, like so I just said I'm going to

do this X Games in Brazil, and there's a jump, like what do I do?

And he's like, yeah, don't worry man, but like, it's kind of like a motorcycle,

if you hit the brakes or lift in the air, you're going to nose dive,

then you're going to flip, and it's going to be really bad,

he basically scared the crap out of me.

And I was like, oh god, so now I have to understand like how to control the pitch

of a car in the air, and I'm like, all right.

And luckily, I didn't realize at the time I know very much now,

you know, my first race in Raleigh Cross was at a track that ended up being like a

blue-grooved dirt track, which means it was really important to like hit the line really

precisely, and I could do that.

I couldn't really, I didn't know how to control a rally car yet,

but that was just the natural way I went around a track, so I ended up winning that weekend.

And then very soon after the next race, I was, you know, seconds off the pace

because it was actually a real gravel rally situation, which is just completely different dynamics.

But learning that, and also learning the stock cars from where I started,

I've enjoyed those processes more than anything.

I like the learning aspect of motor racing more than anything.

Man, so from Raleigh Cross, you'd run in that from 13 all the way to 19 when you talked about

the crash that broke your back.

You didn't compete in 2020, you came back in 21,

and then largely you would step away from competing full time.

You know, you talk about, I mean, you know, this is when I would ask the person how difficult

was it to leave, you know, the driving seat, but you've already answered the question.

Your emotions, your opinions, your feelings about all of this are very

different from most people's.

You know, a lot of guys that, you know, I would say that you're, I would say to you that

what you're extremely fortunate to have been able to do and see and touch and feel

all these different elements in the world of motorsport.

You know, like I made choices too.

I wasn't, I think maybe this is a trait of mine that's been fortunate, but I'm not scared to fail.

So making the choice to go from something that I'm one of the best in the world at,

knowing that I'm going to go try something, and that's gone.

Like I was okay with that.

It was harder than I thought it would be.

Like it is so much harder than I thought it would be, because I went from literally being the best,

one of the best in the world is something to being very, very average.

And that takes some recalibration.

But the challenge of that and the struggle, I enjoyed, I enjoyed that piece.

Well, your experiences and where you've been and what you've done are pretty phenomenal.

And I felt like that the large majority of people had, have a very high opinion of you

as a, as a race car driver, I do as well.

And not many people that are, not many people that are done driving like you and myself and

other guys that have had in this, this room, most of them have a hard time

stop, you know, not racing anyone.

Most of them have a hard time

knowing that that's not going to be who they are,

knowing that they're not going to get to get out there and feel that.

That's got to be everybody, right?

You're changing the identity of who you are.

But it seems like you are an anomaly.

Um, do you miss competition?

Do you miss the thrill?

Do you miss that challenge of trying to figure something out?

Well, I have that still, right?

I'm working with 25 guys.

They're like 25 different little race cars.

And every weekend they get to go out there and we see how they all do.

And they, they all need something different.

So I still have that.

Like if I left racing in general, that'd be so different.

But I get to still do it in the way that, that really fulfills me.

So I don't feel like I'm missing anything.

I found that too.

Like when I, uh, maybe this is somewhat similar.

So when I, when I knew that I was largely done driving race cars,

I didn't, I didn't want to not be at the track.

I needed to be at the track, but I needed to reason to be at the track.

Can't go to the track without a reason.

Yep.

You know, that's weird.

And so the broadcasting has been a way for me to feel like I'm still a part of something

and I can matter, you know, and maybe that's what you think you found

in this business with Josh.

And I want to talk about that.

So you and Josh Wise developed a program.

I would say largely associated with Chevrolet drivers, but

where you are tasked to teach these guys how to be athletes, how to be great at what they do,

um, help them also mature into young men, um, talk about the work y'all do.

Why is it important for a driver to be in your system?

Well, I think whether it's our system or any system, it's just important to have a system.

Um, I think that if you're going to improve at anything you do, you know, having some

support or at least a plan of how you want to do that is important.

Um, there's so many different things you can, you can work on.

You know, obviously we've been doing this for a long time and every year,

you know, we just, we get better at what we do too.

Um, so it's just this constant iteration of like, how do you, how do you really impact

kids? How do you impact people? How do you get people to reach, you know,

the closest to at least the, the optimum of their potential?

Yeah. When you're working with these kids, I mean, are there times when, I mean, you,

you, you see real true extraordinary ability in some while others, it's maybe somewhere

deeper in there that you're having extrapolated out of them. Um, how do you go through that

balance? Right? You've got some kids that it's like, Oh man, he picks it up natural. You give it

to him and he's, he just right on it. But this other guy, he could be as good, but I got to

work a little harder. I got it. His, his personality is more difficult to tap into or

he's not as accepting of the, of the advice. Um, how do you deal with those type of challenges?

I mean, that's, that's what I, that's what's so amazing about it. Um, the, the, the beautiful

thing is, you know, and you know, this about racers, everybody is perceiving it differently.

And so the first thing is, is you have to understand like, how are they looking at it?

What are they experiencing? What are they looking at? What are they feeling?

And, you know, what do they need? And then trying to figure out, well, how do I,

how do I build something for them? How do I build an environment for them? How do I

give them that to where they, um, can improve in that area? And so there's so much nuance to that.

There's so much context to it. It's what makes what I do so mentally stimulating and challenging.

How do you work on, uh, helping them understand the effort and the work needed to go through

with what they want to, you know, the, a lot of things that, um, you know, I think as parents, uh,

we, we worry about motivating our kids, right? To, to, to really go after things and challenge

themselves. I have, uh, you know, nieces and nephews and so forth racing and I, I'm critical,

right? Of their, of their ethics and work ethic and, and, and the pursuit of trying to be better.

Um, and I'm sure you get personal, you know, you get personal investment in these guys,

you know, and you're wanting them to succeed and you're, it's like they become family.

Oh yeah.

Right. Um, how do you, how is it, how do you best, I suppose, help a guy who truly doesn't

understand how much work needs to go into this? How do you, how do you coach them up to

where their understanding of the effort needed to continue this process? Cause that's, that to me

is probably something extraordinary. It's being able to actually help a guy see, oh, you know,

everyone over here is doing all this work and I'm not going to be able to skip corners on talent.

Well, I think it's individual, right? And, and the, the important piece of that is,

you know, what is hard to someone is easy to someone else. Everybody's on a different spectrum,

right? You know, we have Dan Jansen and Olympic gold medalists as a physical trainer, right? And so

just being around someone at that level and seeing guys put in work, um, it's, it's, um,

you know, the other piece too is it's like this with your kids, right? Your kids are going to

do what you do. Not what they're not going to do what you say. Um, so leading by example,

setting them up and giving them opportunities to push themselves in areas more than they did before

and, um, sort of monitoring that, like how hard you're stressing them and, and what kind of feedback

you're giving them. Um, but everybody's at a spot and they can all get better and do more in all

those areas. And it's like, you just constantly need to keep challenging and, you know, physical

fitness is a great, is a great piece of that, right? Because everybody starts out not being able to,

let's say, run a mile and it's like, all right, well, let's, let's run a mile. Like, oh, now you

can do that. That's cool. And we're going to run two and, and, and bringing in different aspects of

like working more and more and more. Um, and eventually it's just something that grows. All of

them just keep growing in how much effort they put in, how much work they put in. Um, if we do our

job right anyway, I'm sure you see some of these, uh, some of these kids though that are extremely

talented, but don't, don't want to put all that effort in, you know, how do you, you know, I guess,

you know, number one, that's probably disappointing. It's heartening, but it's saying, you know, how do

you, how do you motivate them? And how do you, because, and, you know, you mentioned another

thing too, which I find challenging in my own life is I push, pushing your, pushing your children,

right? Whether it's trying to figure out a math problem, spell a word or, um, ski down a mountain,

right? Uh, you know, we, we want to motivate them. We want to tell them they can do it,

but there are times when you push them by on this level of stress and they break down, right?

They fall apart. Um, and I feel like such a failure is apparent at that point that I've,

oh damn, I pushed them too hard, right? I should have, I should have seen that coming. Um, do you

experience that I suppose with some of these guys? Well, sure as resilience, right? Doing

something and failing at it and not accomplishing what you want and, and having it be hard, that,

that's really important. That's probably a big piece of something I didn't have. Everything was

easy for me. And so when things got hard, I quit, you know, when things got challenging and I couldn't

do something, uh, it was easy to sort of withdraw and, and quit and go do something that I was good

at. Um, so I think, yeah, making things challenging and making things hard is an important piece of,

of building some resilience and building the, the confidence in the person that,

hey, I just did this really hard drill this week. I struggled at it pretty much the entire time.

Now I'm getting in my race car this weekend and it's all going pretty easy, like no problem. So

I think that there's, it's nuanced. It's super individual. Everybody is in a different spot

and everybody needs different things. A lot of guys don't need motivation. A lot of guys don't need,

uh, to be motivated to come into the office and early in the morning and put an, uh,

an enormous amount of work. And a lot of times there's guys that go, Hey, like,

you need to take a week off. There's multiple times. Had to tell guys, Hey, you're taking a week off,

come back, you know, fresh, you got playoffs coming. We need to, you know, have you motivated

and have the energy right for, for when it matters. So I think certainly managing that

energy for everybody throughout the year is super important.

How often do you get the racetrack?

I get to go probably, you know, the thing about technology now and what we have, it's so,

I can see so much from my laptop. Um, and I don't think I'm not, I'm not a driver coach.

I'm not the guy that's going to go in there after every session and be like, Hey, you need

to break, look at this line. You need to break later here. Like I'm way zoomed out from that.

But I'm obviously there. I'm always talking with the guys every weekend.

When they have questions and I'm available, but I would say races that I go to are probably half,

maybe like 15, 15 a year. Yeah.

Luckily, I get to go to some, the cool ones, right? Obviously, I can be really impactful.

You know, I try to go where I'm impactful, I guess. So obviously all the road courses,

you know, the technical short tracks, some of the technical mile and a halfs,

I don't go to the super speedways very often. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, man, I think a lot of people,

I kind of knew where you were and what you'd been up to, but we hadn't talked a ton over the last

years. But there are a lot of people that, you know, not only have there's a lot of people,

myself included, who will learn a lot from your own career in racing and how just incredibly

diverse it was. But also, I think a lot of people really appreciate learning what you're up to these

days and what you're doing. That's one of my favorite parts about our show is kind of where

are the now and you're obviously out there impacting lives and setting up the next generation of

racers to be very successful in what they do. And I really appreciate what you and Josh are doing.

And I know you sink every ounce of yourself into it. Just want to say thanks, man. I've

always enjoyed being around you. You're a great personality. I've enjoyed racing with you when

we got to race with each other back in the day and love what you're doing, especially for all our

Chevrolet guys. Yeah, you're so welcome, man. Thanks for having me. Appreciate you, man. Scott

Speed on the Dale Jr. Download. All right, so Scott Speed. That was pretty interesting. I

had always wondered what made this guy tick because, you know, we talked about it in the

we talked about it in the show and talked about it during the interview. His personality was so

different when he came in. I mean, he wasn't I wasn't rub rub the wrong way or put off at all,

but he, you know, he just had a unique personality and I kind of wanted to I kind of wanted to be

friends with him, you know, but he was just not ever in the same he's never in the same place very

long. You know, he seemed like kind of the Red Bull vibe. They moved fast and and and I wasn't sure

how serious he was about NASCAR and whether he thought we were I didn't know how he thought

about us as drivers. And then when he came in and he kind of, you know, he was kind of figuring

out how to get his legs and get going. I never had a problem with him on the racetrack that I

can remember. I never was like, what did you know? I mean, I don't know if he ever had one with me.

We never we should probably cover that, I guess, but I always kind of wanted to know more about

him. I was kind of curious about him because I knew he had come from Europe. I knew he had, you

know, came into the Archistuff and won. He immediately got my appreciation and respect

coming into that and doing so well and not finding that to be completely foreign, right?

But I guess, you know, some great comments. I told him once we got it from the, you know,

the table that I thought him saying about how to parent your kids, you know,

they're not going to listen to what you say. They're going to see they're going to watch what

you do. They're going to do what you do. And if you tell them, you know, not to raise your voice,

but then you're, you know, you're bickering with your wife or something about what to have for

dinner or whether to go to this restaurant or that. I mean, they're watching that and that's

exactly what they're going to do. And he's absolutely correct. You know, we tell our kids all the time

how to behave and then they, but they don't technically take that information in and just

start to utilize it. They watch how we behave and they act that out. They, they, they take on that

information and start to utilize it. So I thought that was really great information. But the other

thing too, like he, he told us that he wasn't necessarily motivated by success or he had,

he didn't have a hard time, I guess, you know, just sort of stepping out of a race car and calling

it a day. And he talked about how he found out helping others was more rewarding to him.

While I understand what he's saying, and I do enjoy helping others as well,

is I've, I've got a completely different opinion about the racing side of it. And

he's one of the few or maybe the only person that's come in here and said that, you know,

that wasn't fulfilling, right? That wasn't as fulfilling as, as he wanted it to be or it

should have been. And I would have liked to have gotten, I guess, more into, he talked about some

of the personality flaws and things that he wasn't good at or didn't take, didn't appreciate or

didn't do well with or didn't respect. And, and we could have dug into that a little further,

but I wasn't sure whether he was comfortable admitting some of those missteps. But I do

remember him being cocky. Yeah. And though, but not too cocky. Just, you know, I was, I was like,

yeah, so, you know, I guess Southern California, F1 road racer. Yeah. Why wouldn't he be? Of course

he's going to be cocky, but great catching up with him. Thanks for joining us here in the Arby's

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About this episode

Scott Speed traces his path from Bay Area go-karts and video-game training to Red Bull’s American driver search, then into Europe’s junior open-wheel ladder, GP2 success, and an F1 test that led to racing for Toro Rosso. The conversation turns candid on why F1 didn’t click—his mindset, motivation, and the reality of racing different cars—plus standout moments like his wet Nurburgring crash and a penalty involving David Coulthard. After leaving F1, he finds purpose in NASCAR and rallycross, then shifts fully into driver development with Josh Wise, focusing on coaching, resilience, and helping others succeed.

break my back Chevrolet communication skills confidence driver development DTM F1 F1 car F1 test finish a lap down

Original notes

If you’re a motorsports fan, you’ve probably heard the name Scott Speed. From his journey through Formula 1, ARCA, NASCAR, and Rallycross as part of the Red Bull family, the three-time X Games gold medalist has sure done it all. On this week's episode, Dale Jr. sat down with the former Formula 1 racer to learn about his career journey. Though Dale and Scott shared the track for many years, they never got the chance to sit down and chat. Today, that changes. What spawned from a love of racing video games and an admiration for his father's own career quickly grew into national go-kart success and a call from Red Bull. Scott was quickly thrust into the Formula One pipeline, moving overseas and becoming Red Bull’s test driver for F1 as a teenager. Scott became the first American to compete in F1 since Michael Andretti.

A career as a teammate to Sebastian Vettel quickly disappeared after a rainy wreck at the Nürburgring and a heated exchange with the team boss. Scott's career took a sharp turn back to America, where he joined the NASCAR circuit, winning multiple races in lower series before going full-time in the Cup Series in 2009. Though Scott's stint in NASCAR was short-lived, he opens up to Dale about how a broken back in a Rallycross race introduced a new career opportunity with former NASCAR driver Josh Wise – taking Scott out of the seat altogether for a role he never expected.

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