Rear-wheel drive means the back wheels get the power. That changes how the truck feels when you accelerate, compared with cars where the front wheels (or all wheels) do the work.
Nitro Circus is a stunt brand/show known for extreme tricks and big jumps. In this segment, they’re connecting it to the Ram truck being used for that kind of stunt work.
The U.S. Rally Championship is a competition where drivers race against the clock on rally stages. Winning it multiple years means you’re really good at rally driving.
Suzuki is a motorcycle brand, and the speaker is describing being a fan of Suzuki’s Supercross scene. That matters because it highlights the driver’s background in two-wheel motorsports before moving toward stock-car racing.
Supercross is motorcycle racing on tracks with lots of jumps and obstacles. It’s a different skill set than racing on paved ovals, so it helps explain why the speaker wanted to learn pavement racing.
It means you open the gas as you leave the turn. The idea is to keep the vehicle moving fast and pointed the right way, especially when traction is sketchy.
He’s saying that on normal paved roads, pushing too hard doesn’t always pay off. Different racing surfaces react differently—sometimes you need to be aggressive, and sometimes you need to be precise.
Pace notes are the rally “instructions” read by the co-driver that tell the driver what the road is about to do. They help the driver prepare for turns and hazards before they arrive.
Concept
progressively get better and better the whole time
He means that in NASCAR, things often improve as you keep running—your car feels better and you learn the track. So the best time may come later rather than immediately.
“Over-driving” is when a driver goes too fast for the situation. It means the car is near (or beyond) the limit of grip, so a small mistake can cause a crash.
SIM Expo is an event focused on racing simulation hardware and software—things like sim rigs, steering wheels, pedals, and driving games. In this context, it’s being used to contrast “computer crashes” with real-world crashes, implying sims can help practice without the same physical risk.
A wing on a race car is there to press the car down onto the track using air. That extra “squish” helps the tires grip better when you’re cornering at speed.
Rally cars are race cars designed for rough, changing surfaces like gravel or dirt. Because the grip changes a lot, they handle differently than many normal race cars.
Overshooting a corner means you don’t make the turn where you planned—you go too far past the point you wanted. It usually happens when speed or grip doesn’t match what you expected.
Pike’s Peak is a well-known mountain road in Colorado that’s hard to drive because it’s steep and high up. The hosts are referencing it as a place where stunts get especially intense.
Alpinestars makes protective gear for motorsports. The speaker is saying the brand helped them with safety equipment for stunts and racing.
Person
Gabrielle
Gabrielle is a person the speaker credits with helping them get into racing and providing support through Alpinestars. She’s described as being very involved in their career.
Drift is when a driver intentionally makes the car slide sideways while still steering through the turn. It’s a controlled way of going around corners that looks dramatic.
Hoonigan is Ken Block’s brand connected to his stunt driving videos and racing projects. In this conversation, they’re talking about it like a business that can stand on its own.
Technical driving means driving with precision and control, not just doing something flashy. It’s about using the car correctly—steering and throttle—to keep it stable and in the right spot.
Tire marks are the marks left on the road by the tires when they slide or spin. Here they’re being used to show that even a “first day” of driving can already be hard on the tires and surface.
Spare parts are extra replacement pieces the crew keeps ready. If something gets damaged during a stunt or shoot, they can swap it quickly so the project can continue.
Term
valet park
Valet parking is when someone else parks the car for you. In this story, they’re using the phrase to describe a wild stunt that’s way beyond normal parking.
A reboot means restarting something with a fresh start. In this segment, it’s about bringing the Jim Connors idea back in a renewed way after things changed.
Term
governors approval
They had to get official permission from the governor’s office to close roads for the stunt. Big stunts can’t just happen on public streets without government sign-off for safety and traffic control.
“Hooning” is an Australian word for doing reckless driving stunts—like sliding or speeding around for fun. The story is saying the law was meant to stop that kind of driving.
A “four-cylinder” engine means the engine has four combustion chambers. The speaker is saying they thought it would be slower, but it still performed strongly.
A “kink” is a quick, slight bend in the road—more like a small change in direction than a full turn. Drivers care about it because it can throw off speed and steering for what comes next.
RPMs tell you how fast the engine is spinning, measured in revolutions per minute. Race cars often rev very high, which is part of why they sound so intense.
A dog leg is a tricky part of a race track where the car has to change direction quickly. It’s challenging because you have to set up the next turn while you’re still finishing the previous one.
V8 Supercars are a popular racing series in Australia with V8 engines. Travis is saying he’d consider racing them, but the biggest challenge for him is adapting to the driving side.
Wild Horse Pass is a motorsports venue Travis references as the location where the Nitro Crosscar course had jumps added and then rejoined the race track. Track layout matters a lot in off-road racing because jumps and transitions change how you brake, steer, and land.
Place
Loudon
Loudon is a place where races happen in New Hampshire. Travis is saying they tried the jump setup there and the track’s layout made it work differently.
Qualifying is when drivers try to set their best lap time to decide where they start the race. Travis says he spun during qualifying, which is a big deal because it affects your starting spot.
Charlotte Motor Speedway is a famous NASCAR track. Travis is talking about getting embarrassed there because he spun the car during practice and qualifying.
“Lead lap” means your car is still on the same lap as the front of the race. If you get behind, you have to use cautions and pit strategy to catch back up.
A “caution” is when the race slows down because something happened on the track. Everyone has to adjust their strategy because the cars get closer together again.
That phrase describes a late-race restart format: they restart on green, then it’s one lap to go (white flag), then the race ends (checkered). It happens if there’s a caution near the end.
LIVE
Good morning friends. It is Memorial Day Monday after a late night.
Hell, it actually ended up this morning when we wrapped up our post-race show.
Before we get real into it, core of the joy here alongside Ryan and Flores, we had a busy,
busy weekend and we're going to stack some pennies. We're going to put a little opener
on the week and put a little context for you. We had an unbelievable time Thursday for our
first ever Moparty here at the shop. A lot of great fans came out. We really just bootstrapped
that event. Dodge and Mopar or Ram supported it. Travis Pastrana came out. We had a lot of cool
fans, sold some merch. Had an open house. Mike Helton stopped by. We had a lot of...
Kenny Wallace? Kenny Wallace stopped by. We had a lot of friends and family stopped by. Had a good
time at a bounce house for the kiddos. And then we talked to Travis. Anytime we got to talk to
Travis is an awesome time. He was my teammate this weekend, that free agent truck. That guy's
just happy and having a good time all the time. I've never seen that guy have a bad time.
And we were just going to rip that because we both had a late night last night and we'll touch
on it here briefly. But we talked to him for a decent amount of time before the news of Kyle
was passing on Thursday afternoon. So wanted to put an opener to that so that way we didn't...
We wanted to address the situation and I think that we... In my opinion, I think Prime
did an unbelievable job of paying honor and respect to the Bush family this weekend.
We had been, I said we, Alex Strand and his whole crew and Prime, we've been building out a show
for two months leading into this, right? To raise the bar from what we did last year.
And certainly after Thursday afternoon, in that news and the industry, you scrap the whole show
and you start over. So those guys had to build an entire pre-race show and rethink the entire
energy and tone of the show over a 24-hour period. In addition to always being up against rain and
all, you know, the truck race getting postponed until then Sunday after Sunday morning, a rally's
race getting pushed late till Saturday night. You were doing triple duty, my friend, because you
went from just going to do one race a day, Friday, Saturday, Sunday to doing a doubleheader Sunday
and you were there till what time on Saturday night? It was a hostage situation. Friday was
truck race, we were there late, then a garage back open six o'clock on Saturday, we were all there.
And then, yeah, but it was, I mean, it was just, I don't know, it was just like a...
talking to... I think that everybody grieves differently, right? And you go in the
the garage and you have your superstar of the sport pass away, just so unexpectedly like that.
Seeing his old bit page, you know, the black and white photo with the dates on the big screen all
weekend was like... Didn't feel real. And you know, I think everybody grieves
different and I think where I was at was I talked to a guy that worked for Kyle for a long time,
said, hey, how are you? And he said, you know, I don't know how I feel. And that's kind of where
I was like... It's where everybody was. It's just like, well, I think, you know, everybody's like,
you know, obviously, it's sad and it's shocking. And it's just like, I don't know that a lot that
we were able to process it. And thank God we had, as we always have a racetrack to go back to,
right? Where we're all together. Because at the end of the day, it's a community and we are all
family. Like Steve O'Donnell said yesterday, and it was just really heavy for the Cup race,
to see the whole Bush family there. But that's what they need for healing. That's where they
need to go for young because that's their community, right? We all need to be there for them. And it's
just... I mean, I was being there all weekend, went over and watched them unload 33 car and just felt
so bad for all those guys. And it's just so crazy, man. Like you're in the trenches, you're
preparing, you're always... And you said it on the prime broadcast, it's lightning fast. This
life we live in, racing. You never slow down or think about it. And it's on the next thing. It's
on the next thing. And you don't ever really take much time to appreciate it. So that was a gut
check of like, let's check in on each other. Let's have a little bit... Look, we've been critical
on Kyle on this show. Let's not hide from that, right? And it's more like, okay, we can... We're
all competitors, but there's also a point where we can go, okay, we can give each other a little
bit of grace. We're all human. And we're all... They say it takes a village, right? This is our
village, is that garage area. And it's really hurting right now. But yes, it was a long, long
weekend. The direction that... Kind of the conversations, whether it was public in drivers
talking about it in the media center or media or TV talking about it, or just some conversations in
the garage to your peers, the two different... Right, there was a rowdy and there was a Kyle.
And I finished my cup career with several run-ins with rowdy, right, in a way. So I was on the
positive end, sometimes on some rowdy run-ins. Most of the time, I was on the other side getting
my butt kicked by that guy. And that guy forced me to be better. And in terms of... I almost wore...
I held on to that spat like a badge of honor, because in my opinion, that guy is the best.
The most ability to drive a race car on the verge of how fast it's capable of going. There's
been nobody better. So for me to have run-in, I was like, man, I've made it pretty far if I'm
getting into it with Africa, right? So then you're racing trucks and you had this little thing and
it's kind of like fun in a way to like hold on to, but then you get that news and it's like...
There's nothing worth holding on to negatively where you shouldn't... Like, I should have just
called him, we should grab some lunch. And we have a conversation because I knew Kyle. And I think
that's probably where I was hurt. He knew who I was. I had built go-karts for him. He commissioned
me more or less to build like these four mini go-karts with slide and tires. And I spent a lot
of time with him on that project four or five years ago. And just then I learned how that guy's
mind worked. He cared as much... Every detail and bolt location on that damn go-kart was like
thought about. And that's how I am too, meticulous, but him to the 10th degree.
And just to see how he operated and how he thought about things. And it's been so unique for me,
talking about Kyle for a second, but I've been working now with Carl with this prime broadcast.
I've been lucky enough to be surrounded by some incredible talents of the sport and see how those
guys operate. I've learned a lot from and I've learned a lot from Kyle, whether he even...
whether it was a lesson up front or not. When you go look at how to drive a race car in SMT,
you go plug in the eight car or you go plug in the 18 car. And then you also... Now you start
to hear OD said it in that address. Everything that he did for people when he was not looking.
Not for the fame or not for the likes or not for the headlines. So that's why I felt so convicted
yesterday to... Because I don't have words to articulate the loss and the devastation of the news.
I just felt like the Lord was calling me to use the platform to say a prayer because everybody
says I'll pray for you. How... Like, I'm as guilty of as anybody. I'll pray for you. And then you just
don't. I'm praying for you. Sounds good. Yeah. And like, but... Yeah. Are you really?
Are you really? So... Well, what's better of a life than... Like, I've never worked with Kyle. I've
had one conversation with Kyle Busch when we won our first... It was 19 years old, 2007. We won
our first... Or one of my first cup race with the 26 car. It was me and Wesley Lape, who's...
He was his interior guy. We ended up winning a championship with Kyle and he works on the 20
car now. But we were with J. McMurray in the 26 and won. They told him to beat Kyle. He was in the
five car. That's how long it goes. By like an inch, right? And we were walking out. We ended up walking
out next to Kyle. And we're like, hey, man. And he goes, yeah, that's your one for the next two
years. Congrats. Right? Like, just like, pissed off that he lost. And... But I had never been around him.
But if you look at the... You want to leave the world better than where you found it, right? And
you want to leave racing better than where you found it. And when you look at the guys that
he has brought up, even if you didn't work with Kyle. Ten guys in the garage racing Sunday.
Wow. And look, driving one thing. Working there. Rood chiefs, engineer,
archer chief Marty Lindley, right? Like Danny Stock, all the people that came, Rudy Frugal,
everybody that came out of there, starting late model teams and Snowball Derby. Even if you
didn't work with Kyle directly, you indirectly were impacted by the people that he put in place
in the garage and taught. So, like, his fingerprint was all over the garage. And he left it a better
place. And everybody saw what they saw on TV. But, you know, the way that he left the sport
better than where he found it and elevated everybody's game. I mean, what... That is how
you celebrate your life. That's how you measure a life. Yeah. I've been wanting to... I've been
thinking through on how to say it. And I think this is probably a better platform than,
you know, the setting yesterday on Prime where the sport will inevitably go on no matter who you
are. Because the sport is bigger than any one of its competitors or any one of its people. But
there are a certain number of people that come through that the sport is bigger because of that
person. And Kyle and NASCAR is bigger because of Kyle Bush, because he got people off center.
Whether you love to hate that guy or you went... I certainly didn't have, in my budget line,
spent $280 at the Kyle Bush merch trailer, you know? Like, but I went in there and bought
six hats and gave them away to some, you know, some people. But like, everybody, whether you
were a fierce competitor of his, you had this understanding and respect for that guy's ability.
All right, guys. What a day we have on hand here. It's, what is it,
went Thursday of race week here in Charlotte. We are having a mo party that kind of came together
literally on like Monday or like, let's just have open the doors of the studio.
Let's invite our buddies out here. Several RAM drivers showed up and special appearance made
by none other than Mr. Travis Pastrana. Stacking them deep, selling them cheap.
That tastes like gasoline, grubber and victory. Where's that here? Stacking things.
Driving the free agent truck this week, man. That means a lot. You came out today. I know you're
busy scheduled. Very busy man. Hope you guys enjoy the show today. It's going to be doing
some fun stuff. Ryan came in late per usual. Travis has been here for multiple hours.
I got to do all three series this weekend. You guys are just hanging out.
So yeah, give the fans an update on that. So SPG is running a truck.
Third truck is spire. So whenever they run a third truck, I'm like, yeah,
I'll help out and do a third truck. But I don't want, like I didn't want to really do it full
time. So he's running the third truck. Rajas in 88, which is the car that I do. Or Riley's
every week. And then AK, the front changer on the 77 for host bar broke his hand. So
I'm going to go change tires for host bar in the 600 for like multiple weeks until he gets better.
I hope he comes back pretty quick. I got a vacation of the Jersey shore planned.
Sundays are occupied now. I think we're going to actually go raise some go-karts with host bar
later and hopefully you'll take us to Chili's. Trackhouse. I have no idea. He says like 10
minutes from his house. He was leading the 600 last year and blew up and I told him
numbers align. Numbers align. We won in 2020, one in 2023. So if it could be on a team that
wins in 2026, it'd be every third year for the last nine. I don't ride the Dente if he wins that
thing. I'm sure he'll be riding Dente for sure. What about you, man? What are the goals on Friday
night? teammate. Well, I'll take all the help I can get. Just did a kind of some eye racing,
realized I'm bad on a computer and I haven't been really quick on on pavement or rear wheel drive.
Kind of better and went it out throttle out, but this Ram program came on and they're sponsoring
with Nitro Circus and so many stunts. It's like usually with the manufacturer, you can't do fun
things. So like, great, we want this to look awesome. Now don't slide it. Don't jump it.
Heaven forbid. Don't drive it without both hands on the wheel and stew and windows up. Blinker here.
Dude, Ram came and said, Hey, what do you want to do? I'm like, we want to put people in the back
doing tricks on dirt bikes over 120 foot gap. They're like, Hey, take that. Take that ram off
the showroom floor. We're like, well, like, should we modify it or what? Like, dude, these trucks
are meant to go. So just a stock RHO and we pulled a trailer behind it over the hundred foot gap.
Trailer is still good. Still running. Like trucks still good. Everything, you know, it's limited miles
only driven on Sundays just to church and back. So it only has 130 miles when we were done with it.
It's good. I'm not going to say the dealership to if you happen to buy something with the
running board blown off of it. It might have been what Travis? Nothing was blown off. It was perfect.
I don't disagree because I mean, if it, that's our, that's our saying over there is you can't pass
it right now. So I've rammed several people out of the way. Hopefully you're not one of them on
Friday night. Oh, dude, if I'm ahead of you at any point on Friday night, I'm pretty excited.
How did this deal come about? So like, you've always been in, been out, just decided one time
you're going to do the Daytona 500 after not race for a couple years. Like, didn't you finish like
nine? Yeah, I got 11th, but I took, I took out my teammate and my team owner. So I didn't get
an invite back, but last lap, it was, was fun. But so Denny, let me go back to the
start of that. If you guys have a minute. We got, we have all the minutes. So I talked to Jimmy
Johnson. So I had won four consecutive years US Rally Championship and I'm like, all right,
like there's great competition here. I like it, but I either go to Europe and go chase WRC
or I want to try something different, something that's, that's not that rally's not, it's fully
challenging. And it was, you know, we had Ken Block and there was everyone rallying in the
championship. So it was a fun time, but I thought, I don't know much about pavement. I haven't been
able to do it on motorcycles. I haven't been able to do it on go-karts, but I'm like, I'd love to
learn. It looks fun. Like what, what would it take for me to go race the Daytona 500? And Jimmy,
he kind of laughed. He's like, look, restrict your plate races. He's like, technically, like you
could, good car, good team, you might be able to qualify, but he's like, there's so much,
because by the time you get to the point where you can race Daytona,
you're going to have so much invested. You're going to want to be a champion. You're going to want
to go and join this guy down. I think you won the K&N series the year before I started racing.
Yeah. And so we were racing together in K&N.
Point 12-ish, 11.
Yep. We had a Kyle Larson, Brett Moffitt was in there as well, but Chase Elliott was in there.
You were, so it was a good Blaney, good, good field. You know, not, they were all kids at the
time. And I mean, we were kind of the, it was cool coming in because like I was a Suzuki Super
Cross fan, right? I mean, you were like, that guy, right? Backflip into all the X games, wild
stuff. I think everybody remembers also, you know, there's very significant historical moments that
you know exactly where you are in life. I know exactly where I was when I watched you do the
double backflip. Oh, I remember exactly where. Yeah. Like that was such a monumental and I'm
definitely going to sidetrack because I want you to like explain to me when you're sitting on top
of the ramp, ready to do something nobody's ever done in their life. What was that like? The first
one was just a backflip. I remember you, well, so Kerry Hart 2000, I was actually racing motocross
and I remember Roger DeCoster, like everyone in the world, no one that even cared about freestyle
was like, dude, someone just back flipped a dirt bike and he landed so hard, he broke his back
and flipped over the, but he hit the wheels like that's me. That was insane. Proved the world
could be done. So double backflip was 2006. The coolest part for me about that is so many veterans
that were overseas, like they don't have a lot of TV stations and they're all like, dude, we were
at this base or we were doing this or we were about to do that. Honestly, I've heard so many times,
especially now with black rifle, like getting to go and talk to a lot of veterans and
like for me, it's something I never thought of at the time, but like just here and you say you
knew where that was. There's very few moments in life that you get to do. There's so many huge
monumental moments for yourself that you or your friends or your parents or somebody knows is like
a huge deal, but to go somewhere and have the world kind of watching is a really cool thing.
Dude, what was the black guy that was a host with the dreads like that was doing it?
Salema Masakala. That guy, right? Like I remember the whole thing, the lead up, the anticipation
and then I can do backflip on the trampoline, right? And I have no, what is it called?
Air awareness. I have zero air awareness. You have backflip the dirt bike probably more times
you can count. Yes. Tens of thousands, you think? Thousands? Dude, I was doing 50 double backflips
into the foam pit a day, every day of the week, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it's pretty
like, it's hard to pull it around. It's heavy. So you're sitting up there and were you,
how nervous were you when you wanted to attend? Do you ever get nervous?
So you know that feeling you get when you're, usually when you're crashing or he's real close
to hitting the wall or something bad's about to happen where everything slows down and that's my
happy place. Like I've made a career in that moment being able to like even did some test
when I was with Red Bull they're like your brain is very mediocre until everything hits the fan
and when most people stop reacting is where you actually start working. So I've made a career there
like unfortunately not so great on pavement. She's not supposed to be there to go fast as it
turns out, but it's been fun. But when I dropped in, I've never had that happen where I could tell
you every smell, every sight, every sound. I picked up people in the audience. I picked up
different, the light where everything was, I've never had it slow down from the moment I dropped
in and felt 100%. Like I was so sure that it wasn't going to work and the landing was so hard packed
and it was half the height that we do it now. The takeoff was propped up on a bunch of two by
fours that looked like it was going to fall down. I didn't even want to jump this jump
without doing the double flip because if you land perfect, you're still going to slam down.
And we're already, we're getting up in the rafters pretty much, not the rafters,
but where the lights are because the ramp is propped so much steeper than anything else.
And I knew I was about 50-50 into the foam pit, like to where it probably would have come around.
But it's one of those moments that, I mean, I had my hero, like all-time freaking rally legend,
Colin McRae, and I'm sitting literally two tenths of a second off after all the stages
against Colin McRae, Ken Blockson third. I'm transferring everything to rally. I want to go
race four wheels. And I got the final stage the next day. I got everything to lose.
Sitting third, I'm like, I can collect a bronze medal without even dropping in.
And I was like, you know what? I will forever wonder how this, I would rather have land on my
head and whatever happens, happens than to have this moment in front of me and not take it.
So you did the double back flip while you were racing, you were racing in the middle of rally?
So we had, I was racing four events that year, competing in four events. So rally,
they started off X Games with rally. And they did three days of us rallying through the mountains
in Central California. So I was flying helicopter back and forth between practice and up there,
doing press, doing four different events, which, you know, during the four days is a lot. But that
moment, I never wanted to strangle a reporter quite as much as that day when this lady kept
going up to my mom, your son could die today. How's that make you feel? And my mom's bawling.
I'm like, dude, why would you? And it all worked out to that moment that was able to translate
on television to where everyone understood what the rules that say. I can't even give you enough
credit for like, you're very humble and modest in your NASCAR adventures, right? But I think that
you've been successful at that, even those statistics, right? They might be different.
Facts might tell you differently. But like you have been successful literally in everything
you've done. And for you to like be somebody that you can pull for and be successful,
like in Daytona, whether it be a race car, a dirt bike, or whatever the rally car, like
you have the most, I think, raw talent. Like we talk about just guys that drive something fast,
like you're on that list of, I don't even know. Talked about Cletus a lot.
Talked about Cletus a lot. And his transfer over.
Everyone, Cletus, Cletus, a hard time, dude. Cletus jumped into an airplane race and won it,
jumped into a boat like one of those, and he's on the podium. I think that's sad.
That was wild.
The big wheels. He just goes and Biffle actually jumped passenger, which that was.
What, uh, has Cletus leaned on you at all?
No, I mean, honestly called you because you have the NASCAR experience, right? He had a hard
time. I mean, he's got a lot more of you guys that he can, he can lean on for sure for NASCAR
experience. But Cletus reopened my eyes to kind of going down the YouTube route a little bit.
And I always made fun of YouTubers and social media people. And I was like, that's not,
that's not real racing. And then I look at you.
Well, yeah, right down. Street bike Tommy last night was saying, I'm trying to get my TikTok
online. I'm like, that's something I never thought street bike Tommy would ever say.
Go get your channel 9199 subscription. Thank you.
No, I appreciate you. But no, but at the end of the even podcast and whatever you're doing,
Cletus is having fun with his best friends and with his family. Like I'm, if anyone's done it
fairly well through racing, like, I mean, not to be that guy, but I've done a pretty good job.
I feel of surrounding myself with people I want to hang out with on a daily basis,
doing stuff that makes me truly happy with my wife, with my kids, with my best friends.
And still I'm like an amateur compared to Cletus McFarland. This guy starts a track,
puts everything into it, gets this a group of fans, the followers of, you know,
guys that just want to see him succeed or want to live life vicariously through him.
And he's good because every single day, like every NASCAR driver, this guy is driving.
He's flying. He's building cars. He's working on something. He's living his dream. And I feel
like a lot of people hate on anyone that really is, is living their dream or the dream they want
to live. But there's a lot of work to there. There's jealousy there. Nobody's going to go on
social media. He'd be a compliment. We were in the carbon shop scoping it out and Carl Edwards is
back behind the cameras. I was telling a story. Carl, would you mind coming in and telling the
story? Okay. I don't want to tell it for you. Sit much sit much here. All right. Yeah. Hey,
I got you, man. Okay. Thank you. So I got to be your teammate. What year did you,
what years were you at Roush? It's basically 12 and 13, I believe. Okay. And so, you know,
Pastrana comes in and it's like, yeah, you jump a motorcycle, you're a wild man, you can do all
this. But NASCAR driving is is different. You got to really finesse these things. So there was a
day and we were talking. I remember your mom was there because your mom was so cool.
And somebody came down said, hey, Carl, will you hop in Travis's car? We're at Atlanta. You're
pretty good at Atlanta. You know, he's struggling. And I think about this all the time when people
bring you up. I got in this car and I'm thinking, you know, I'm going to really lay one down. This
is going to be good. I mean, three real good laps got out is the same exact speed you were going.
And I thought, damn, Travis Pastrana can drive a race car. You know, and the funny thing about
this was that my recollection of that, when you got out, I saw the times of the overlay and they
were like, like really, really close. Now, I've been driving that car all day, you jump in from
Cupcar. And I look at Carl's like, it's like, that's pretty good, right? He goes, well, I mean,
if you're going to make it in the sport, every driver, if you're given the same machine, should
go about the same speed. And that's the biggest compliment that he gave me that day. So I'm glad
that you had a similar thought process to what I was having when it was close. Well, I just think
it's important. Everybody knows, I think everyone can see, like you were just saying, your love for
for the sport, your love for people, all that shines through. But I just need to let NASCAR
fans know, do can drive a race car for real. And that I think is important for people to know.
And sincerely appreciate it. I think not to, but why? So the really interesting thing is I
learned that my true talent is being able to take risks where other people are not willing to do that.
When in doubt, throttle out is always with dirt bikes. You can always, even if something's going
bad, you can come into the corner a little bit faster. So I learned a lot from, from you,
from Biff, from Stenhouse, from Scott Speed, even who jumped over it. And Scott's like,
if this is where your breaking point is, and you know, you can't break further than this,
how come every time you're behind, you charge in harder? It makes so much sense on paper. But
I'm like, because you're going faster, I'm trying to catch up. So pavement does not reward
aggression as much as the sports that I'm. So in rally, you're on a cliff, you got a hundred foot
cliff on one side, you got a tree on the other side, drainage ditch, snowing, whatever's going on.
And you got to pretend that all of those obstacles are cones. And if it was all cones,
the chances are there was a lot of people that would be as good or better like there is in NASCAR.
But my skill set is being able to trust my co-driver, great people around you, great equipment,
the equipment's going to do its job. The co-driver nailed the notes. My job is to drive this as though
all those trees and all those cliffs are cones. In NASCAR, you guys progressively get better and
better and better the whole time. I turned my fastest time on lap three. You realize that you
just said that, you know, a hundred foot cliff, a tree going by at 120 miles an hour, he can
actually imagine little cones. No problem. That is a skill set. And it is neat to know, you know,
somebody said early in my career, they said, hey, over-driving, you know, the things you do,
the risk, they said, you can always slow a guy down. You can't speed a guy up. So I'd say you
did it perfectly, man. I appreciate the comments. Good to be able to share that story. Thanks, Cory.
It's fun. See y'all. Okay, not to take it too long, but for our short track fans,
because we're racers, I saw that you finally got to go run a sprint car.
That was one of the most embarrassing days of my life. I got a call. Well, actually, so great led
better. Actually just standing right back there. She had always, she's like, you have to drive a
sprint car. You haven't lived until you're, I'm like, look, I will never get in a sprint car. I
watched Wolfgang when I was a kid. Oh, Doug Wolfgang. Yeah. My dad was, we watched Thursday Night
Thunder or whatever it was like. I saw, I've seen me drive and I've seen what happens with these
vehicles. So a sprint car scares you. And then I went to watch my first race. I was doing a
race in the Gator Nationals or whatnot right before Daytona. And I thought everyone committed
suicide. They all just like the green flag went off and everyone practiced. Everyone took off.
I'm like, they're, everyone's throttle locked at the same time. Like, I just, what does that
defy physics? So Kyle Larson, I got a call from Kyle through street bike Tommy, ironically.
Must have been following his Tik Tok. Yeah, it must have been following his Tik Tok. Tommy's actually
sidebars down here for the, the video game or SIM Expo, which is talk about a hard left. But
so it's safer, I guess. Yeah, you don't wreck as hard on a computer. So I go out to Vegas.
It's windy. It's dry. I'm like, I'm definitely, I'm crashed. I guess I just, I know me. I'm getting
a couple laps in this thing. So I'm trying to wedge into this thing. I'm 220 pounds. I'm 62.
There's cars I made for guys like you. They were not, no, they're built for guys like Kyle Larson.
So I'm wedged in to this spring car. Like I have to push myself in and I'm so locked. I don't know
that. Knees are shoved back. No, my knees are both bleeding from like being pushed so hard. I can't,
and you stomp on the pedals, aren't push pedals. So I'm so wedged in there. I can't move my knees.
Every time I'm moving my gas or the brake, I'm like, am I hip flicking? I'm like, dude,
I'm locking up. My back's locking up. I had a panic attack. Really? First time in my life
when they, because I couldn't physically get out through the window. And when they drilled the top
on, they had to pull the wing off so you can get in it. They pulled the wing off. So they drilled
it back in and I'm like, my head's touching the ceiling. My knees, I'm like, I've seen me drive.
I am flipping this thing. I'm going to have a Ricky Bobby moment. It's catching on fire.
Yeah, and you're stuck. So I didn't really give it a good, you know, I gave it the old college
tribe, but like I really would like to go again with it. If they make bigger cars, maybe.
What was the like acceleration feeling comparable to?
So it was dry. Like the wind was blowing like 80 miles an hour. It was like gale force winds,
and it was hot. And it was Vegas during the middle of the day. It's like gravel track.
It was, and even with that, I think it felt honestly better than a modified to where
I could kind of aim it better, like modified sometimes. Like I'm good by myself until there's
people in front of me. And then everything that I've learned with all wheel drive and rally cars,
it's exact opposite of that. So it's a little difficult. But everything I wanted it to do,
it did. And it was probably better because it was a lot slower. But the coolest part about
a spring car, that wing spring car, came into a corner and I'm like starting to slide. I'm like,
okay, so I overshot it one time real big. And it went sideways. And all of a sudden,
I'm right on the ends. I went from thinking I'm going to overshoot the corner to on the inside.
I'm like, oh, I haven't even started playing this arrow. Like that's then I got scared more.
Yeah. So when you put the board in the air, it sits on the left rear.
Yeah. But like, I came in thinking I was overshooting the corner because it's just dry
slick. And as soon as that thing sat on the wind, yeah, all of a sudden, I'm taking out the infield.
Dude, those guys used to race at Syracuse. Like if you talk to old guys like Doug Wolfgang
and Frigga Kerr, they'd race on a horse track mile along at Syracuse. And they said when they
went by the openings in the fence, if it was a windy day, the car would be against the wall.
And then if you went by that, it'd blow your car all the way down to the inside wall without even
moving the wheel. So there's a different, different deal. So every, every guest we have on here,
man, you, you were on actually your Daytona 500 year too. So guest appearance number two,
I appreciate that. I don't know if we had these questions
when we were up in a suite. Our first question is if you had to pick one, you've raced literally
almost everything there. Have you dripped in top fuel dragster? I got to get in with Scott Palmer.
Alex actually is his dragster. It was, I didn't get a full run, but it took off Tony Stewart.
Actually, he stayed a day late. Him and Leah just, he heard I was coming in and not to make,
drag this story on, but he's like, dude, I will pick you up from the airport. I'm like,
I get in at midnight. He's like, I'm staying late. I'm picking up the airport. We're going to go
run through the procedure. I'm like, wait, now you're scaring me. Someone that's done indie
fucking, like everything, best driver, maybe of all time. He's like, you should be scared.
And what he explained when I took off, I'm like, it's not hard to drive, but my brain is so far
behind where the front is. Like it was like warp speed on a, I don't know, one of those movies
where you're going through the stars. Yeah. So did you burn out or anything? Sit in it?
Did you launch it? I launched the whole thing. The whole thing. Well, they shut me off after
whatever it was, 300 feet. I was going real fast. So almost 200 mile an hour and whatever
distance we were. What's that punch feel like? Literally, we hit the warp, the hyperdrive or
whatever the hell you thought. Fastest acceleration. No, I may have sat on top of your hold and not
started it, but that was the first time I ever saw one. A Tesla Plaid, dude. That thing will launch
you. Probably not even. It ain't a Tesla Plaid by no means because it makes noise in school
because it's internal combustion. But dude, our, so all wheel drive, the Jim Conakars are zero to
60. I mean, with like a prep line, you can get off zero to 60 in 1.2. That's flying. Like it's
going and it was nothing compared to a top fuel. I watched the, the Mustang, the Jim Conak,
what the, which one's that, the Hoonacorn? Oh yeah. Where you hung it all at, um,
Pike's Peak. Sure. We hung it off the side of that corner. Yeah, bro. Bro. That, if you haven't
watched the Jim Conak files, I'm deep into it. Well, before, before I wrap it up with the questions,
I do want to talk about Ken Blocker. Come out before we find the cameras up. I've got a signed
Ken pitcher over there. Just massive fan of what he was able to do. He's down the rabbit hole of
all the Jim Conak files. And you kind of were the bridge you were talking about. So I don't want to
speak for you. So tell me about your relationship with Ken and those Jim Conak. So Ken and I became
friends. Um, actually I was sponsored by Puma was one of my biggest money deals and Alpine Stars.
Anytime I needed anything for, I had really bad ankles and bracing ankles or body armor for
whatever stunts. Uh, Gabrielle, who's a owner of Alpine Stars was always right there. And
Gabrielle lied about my first ever car race. It's 18 years old, ran the Porsche Cup, um,
and Indy Motorspeedway. So I was in Juan Montoya's pit box. I was. Oh, cool. And he lied about
everything. All driving experience. Like, Oh, this kid's great. I had never, it was raining in
practice. I was like, I'm going to die. Like this is, but so long story long. Um, Ken block.
So Puma, when I started doing rally right for that, uh, you know, 2002 or 2003, they said, Hey,
you got to choose. And they thought I'd go with the money. And I thought, I mean, Alpine Star
wouldn't pay me anything, but I'm like, dude, I Gabrielle literally got me into cars, like got
me into everything that builds, whatever I need next day aired from, you know, Italy, whatever
I need. And he was like a dad to me. So I said, no, we're staying here. So I went to Ken block
a week before X games. I said, Hey, can I get a win bonus? Just we'll put a DC logo on or whatever.
He goes, all right, you know what? I'll sponsor you. But I see you're starting rally. He's like,
I can drive. And everyone kind of joked around. Oh, rich guy just sold, you know,
it was about to sell DC shoes. Um, he's like, no, I'll pay for everything. I just want,
I want to get in with your team or whatever the best team is and the best coaches
everything goes. And that was Subaru at the time. That was Subaru. Yep. And, um, Vermont sports car
and Ken did, he put almost every dime that he made and he reinvested it back into himself. And
that's one of the coolest parts about Ken. And he started even to, you know, any 500 drivers
nowadays, like Connor daily was driving Subaru was like whole life wanted his dad was an F1
racer and he wanted to drive and drift because of the Jim Connoisseur. So kind of as just a sidebar
on that, like Ken started this whole new era of kind of what Cleetus is doing. Ken was very
different than Cleetus, very business minded, uh, wanted to win. But he's like, I want to have fun
driving cars. And that really inspired a whole new generation of people that are now enthusiasts
and in all these different sports for sure. So then you'd take the Jim Conno, you did one in
your hometown, Maryland. Oh dude. So like Jim Conno goes, Hey, or sorry, Ken Block goes,
I got to prove that as a business model, this works without me. He's like, Hoonigan is worth X
with Jim Conno. It's worth Y without it. Yeah. Um, he goes, I want you to take the reins and I
thought he was messed with me. And he's like, no, I'm, I'm, I'm dead serious. He goes, but if you
want to, he goes, I've kind of maxed out. He goes, I like technical driving. He goes, Jim Conno is
always going to be about technical driving. He goes, you have to have an epic build in an epic
location, like so an epic car, uh, whatever you do in an epic location. And he goes proximity
close to near death. I was like, check those boxes. I can check all those. So even though Ken was,
you know, Ford monster, uh, everything, uh, Toyo, I was Yokohama, Red Bull.
Exact opposite. He's like, this is a better business decision for me. And he goes,
you've given me crap after every Jim Conno about how you would have done it better and what you
would have done different. And I called Ken just short of crying after my first day because you think,
oh, you got all this time. You see all these tire marks. You've got usually three attempts.
And they shut the street down, right? It's, it's $150,000 a day production.
You have one car. You have four days. If you destroy the car beyond, I mean,
a great team. They got spare parts. But after the first day, we had fog all morning. We had rain.
Like, okay, now you have three days and we're starting day two with what I was like, oh,
I can put a tire off the edge and grind the car. I'm like, I could put this entire car
into the bay on basically our first thing. And I have all these jumps that I said I could do
that one was, you know, 280 feet to the landing and over water. I'm like, well,
that was, that was a different one because now I did it in my hometown. If he pissed someone off,
he got to leave. I knew the business owner. I'm like, I'm going to valet park the Subaru
at the bar, not in front of the bar, like straight through the window. So anyway, well,
yeah, it was, it was good. So he gave me that opportunity. But Ken said, look,
I want you to do three Jim Connors prove that we said, okay, if the first one doesn't hit 20
million views, you're done. I'm like, I think I can do that. I have no idea. Sure. Sign me up.
He goes, if it does, you get two more. It's kind of a life extension for me. It was huge because
rally was not doing so great. Now Subaru's invested. So now they're picking up Brandon
Seminoch. It's building the whole sport. Like it's all because of what Ken kind of started
and what he's allowing. So he goes, I want you to do three. I want to do it. You verse me.
And then he goes, then I'm passing to my kids. So when he passed away, everything kind of split
Hoonigan split, everything was separated. And I got talking to Scotto and Brian Scott,
I was producer of Jim Connors. I said, I promise, can I do three? He wanted to see his kids have
a chance to do this, whether they do or not. That's yeah, you gotta do and Leah and everything.
But I felt it was my obligation to, to Ken to at least get this kind of reboot. If not,
it's a amazing farewell tour. So we went down to Australia, which had a lot of,
a lot of meaning to me because Ken had tried to go to Jim, try to get Jim Connors Australia for
years. And to give you a little backstory on Ken. So he wanted to go do Jim Connors in San
Francisco, which if you haven't seen Jim Connors five best Jim Connors of all time, in my opinion,
I think it was amazing. He shut down the Golden Gate Bridge. It was insane. So this,
what does that cost? They paid him. They paid him to do it. They paid him. Yes. So he was looking
at this road that he really wanted for this. It was the kind of the jump around the corner.
And there was a couple of neighbors that complained one specifically that really,
really irritated Ken and irritated Scotto. So Ken, with all of the things that he has going
in his head, he was like, all right. So now instead of doing a smaller, he's doing bigger.
He went and got governors approval. He got every, like, you know, mayor, everybody's on board,
cops are on board, shuts down the entire city. And he puts his production,
where they did all the testing right on the road where that road wasn't just shut down for one
stunt was shut down for the entire week. And the, for instance, Jim Connors LA, if you check it out,
he wanted, when they were picking the second one, they were like, oh, maybe we do here,
maybe we do there. They found the most highly trafficked turn in the entire world was the 10-101
freeway. He goes, I want to drift that turn because it has more traffic than anywhere in the world.
And I want to see if we can shut it down. Back to the original story. He wanted to go to Australia.
They made a law, no hooning. They said, you can't hoon again. Obviously they're like,
you can't drift here. We don't want it here. He went over, tried to negotiate.
That's where the name came from. In Australia, they call people who drive like that a hoon.
I was like, cause we didn't have, you always think you got time. You're like, oh, we'll do
rehearsal. No, we had three hours to get all of these shots and to coordinate the day before
all of these guys in the cars or the race cars for the, for the biggest event of the year.
And I'm sliding in and out and weaving and there's, that's why I love race car drivers.
Stunt drivers are great. They can do anything that you set up. Race car drivers, we were on the
flight. Nothing that we had planned went right. Everyone just filed in. I thought we were going
to get smoked with this four cylinder. You know, we got, we had about the same amount of horsepower.
We got 850 horsepower. I think we might have had a little more, but we crush them zero to 100.
But there's this corner that you're hitting 160 at the end of the straightaway into the,
this kink. And I'm like, for sure, Will is going to pass me and we're going through and we're racing
and I'm everything it's got right to the maximum. It goes 9,600 RPMs, which is pretty amazing for
four cylinder. It sounds like a F1 car almost. And we're going down to this dog leg, right?
We're at 152, 155 and we're side by side. I'm like, we can't, I never hit it before in my life,
either. I wasn't good on eye racing either. And so, and I back out and we drift the corner and
Will's like, how much faster was your car? I was like, how much faster was your car?
They were so identical down the straightaway. It was freaking, it was awesome.
Dude, we have some big, a lot of V8 Supercar fans. Would you ever have any
interest in doing a V8 Supercar race? I think most of them were wrong. It was driving on the
wrong side. That's the hard part. But I would, those guys like it.
Those guys are gassers, man. Those guys are really good. They're gassers. Back to the question. One
car and one race track to race at the rest of your life. You can't drive anything else anywhere
else the rest of your life. Two wheels, four wheels.
See, the beauty of my life is that I'm pretty ADHD with my driving choices. What makes it
so fun is jumping into something, diving the deep end. Having said that, Phoenix,
a Nitro Crosscar. Probably the last year they had the combustion. You guys put the jumps in
the middle and came back out on the race track, right? Where was Phoenix? Wild Horse Pass?
But you guys set up, we did a couple in the NASCAR tracks. It didn't work. It was too small.
Richman was way too small for us. Brother, one time they did it in Loudon and the track came out
in the one and two. Jimmy Blewett was the first one out qualifying and got too high and got in that.
Knocked the fence down because I didn't clean up. He's like a brother from another brother, Jimmy
Blewett. Yeah, sorry about that. That was the one best track. Everybody else did it too.
Our question were two. What's the most embarrassed you've ever been in the race track?
Charlotte. 100%. Charlotte Motor Speedway, which is funny that that's the race that I'm getting to,
but tomorrow. Yeah, again. You got it, buddy. Dude, I spun off a four in practice.
I spun off a two in qualifying. Didn't hit the wall any time. Kept it going. Just, you know,
just backwards. Yeah, yeah. Hanging, hanging. Yes, a lot of smoke. New tires. I was rookie,
so I had got extra tires. Not that many sets. Lap three, spun off a four right down pit lane,
pretty much back into my pit stall. After a couple of cautions, got back on the lead lap,
spun again. Tighten that son of a bitch up, man. And then the third time. So then the last time
they had it so tight, I was plowing and it snapped. And it was funny because every time
it caused a caution and for whatever reason, however it was going on, I managed my way back
to the lead lap. And the last green, white checker, we're sitting like 17. They're like, hey,
man, you got a top 15 in you. This could be a good day. I just over the radio. I told my spotter.
I was like, if everybody crashes and we win this race, it will still be the worst day of racing
What a story. Spotted spins one weekend. What car are you in? Was the Roush car?
Or the Walter. No, that was actually neither. That was an RAB. I was changing tires for you
that day. Really? Yes, I was. I thought you were memorable for you.
I think that's why we're on the lead lap and kept getting good pit stops. That's my story.
I'm sticking to it. I'm glad y'all are. I'm glad you're a part of that most embarrassing day.
Tomorrow will be much better than that, but don't worry. I'd hope to say it can't be much worse,
but I've learned not to do that. And like we talked about earlier in the conversation,
you literally have done more things when it comes to having a motor doing cool shit than
probably anybody in the world. But if I had the men in black pen, the neuralizer we found out was
called and zapped all your memory. You only got to keep one. What do you keep? Events or what are
we talking about? Yeah, yeah. Just every racing memory. Racing memory. Keep one.
Being on the podium with Colin McRae and Ken Block only got, like I said, one-tenth of a second
after all the stages. Colin would have had it for sure. He was dialed in on that last Super
Special. He lands, rolls the car over back to the wheels as it's flipping. He's already back
in gear. And it actually almost made time in the corner, but he had a flat tire from the roll.
And in the last turn, the time was just enough. So to be able to... Where was it?
So that was Staple Center, or just outside the Staple Center LA.
That, I mean, that racing memory, but it was the double backflip the night before.
And that experience. Oh, same time.
That whole game. Oh my goodness, bro.
Well, man, you've been so gracious with your time. Super excited to be your teammates
tomorrow night. We're going to have a good time with those rams. And Channel 199, you're doing a
lot of cool stuff on YouTube, man. Y'all go check them out. Appreciate the time stopped by the
mode party today. We had a lot of great fans. Fire up for you to be here. That's it, man. That's
all we got for Stag and Pennies. Coral of the Joy, Ryan Flores, Travis Soprano. Talk to y'all next week.
About this episode
Memorial Day weekend at the shop kicks things off with a Moparty featuring Travis Pastrana, then the conversation turns emotional as they process a NASCAR-related loss and lean on the racetrack community. Corey shares how rally instincts, co-driver notes, and even “over-driving” thinking translate to NASCAR—plus a high-risk double-backflip story and rally timing details. The episode also connects Ken Block’s Hoonigan business model and city-shutdown stunt planning to Pastrana’s NASCAR crossover, Carl Edwards at Atlanta, and Charlotte track embarrassment.
Travis Pastrana joins Corey LaJoie and Ryan Flores on Stacking Pennies for one of the wildest conversations we’ve ever had.
Travis talks about jumping a stock Ram truck with Nitro Circus, what it was like trying to break into NASCAR, the story behind the legendary double backflip, why rally driving and stock car racing require completely different skill sets, and what made Ken Block’s Gymkhana legacy so important.
The guys also get into Cleetus McFarland, creator racing, sprint cars, Top Fuel dragsters, Gymkhana Australia, and the one racing memory Travis would keep forever.
From Daytona to X Games to Ken Block to Charlotte Motor Speedway, this one is pure Travis Pastrana chaos.
