October 29, 2025 • 60 mins
In this episode of The Bear Grease Render, host Clay Newcomb sits down with six-time NASCAR Cup winner Ross Chastain to explore his unexpected journey from 8th generation watermelon farmer to professional stock car driver. They dive into Ross’s passion for hunting, the lessons he’s learned along the way, and the story behind his iconic “wall ride.”
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
My name is Clay Nukham and this is a production
of the Bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Rendered
where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the
scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast, presented by FHF Gear,
American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed
(00:36):
to be as rugged as the place as we explore.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
So we're in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
With Concord technically Concord, North Carolina, about twenty miles northeast.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Suburb of Charlotte, North Charlotte. Yes, at the track House
Race Team Global headquarters. Huge facility. Unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yeah, for NASCAR, this is where all the magic happens.
All of our cars come out of here. We come
back with our semi hollers here every week before headed
out of the next race.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Man, I mean we just got here. I've been with
you for a few days here. I'm astonished. I'm with
Ross Chastain, who told me not to say this, but
I'm gonna say it. Six time Cup winner, NASCAR Cup winner.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yes, technically, as we were trying to get how you
would introduce me, we have won six Cup races in
the number one car for trackhouse racing. So that goes
back to our very first win as a team in
twenty twenty two at Circuit of the America's down in Austin, Texas.
And my most recent win was the Coca Cola six
hundred this year. I'm Amorial Day Sunday.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
That means these really good folks. Just in case you
weren't able to interpret that, that means that you're good man.
So Ross and I have been together. We've been deer
hunting and Georgia. Yeah, we've had a good time. So
so you're a NASCAR driver. But what is the second
thing that you would introduce yourself Probably the first thing
(02:12):
that you would introduce yourself.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
As is a watermelon farmer.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
There's our watermelon.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I know we've forgot it.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
It's in your truck.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
It is.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
We we've had a watermelon that we've been carrying around
through multiple states that we were supposed to have here
it is.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
But you're an eighth generation watermelon farmer. Yeah, so I'm
really the son of a farmer. Like I use that
as a term of endearment like that is I'm proud
to say that. You know, the term son of a
usually doesn't have a good ending. Mine is a good ending.
I'm proud to be the son of a farmer. I'm
the brother of a farmer, the cousin of a farmer.
(02:47):
So my job is to tell the story of agriculture.
I'm not the one out in the field. I can
show you the field. I've grown up in these fields,
right But day in and day out, my job is
right here at Trackhouse Racing.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
But that would have been your trajectory if you hadn't
been a phenom racer as a kid and turned into
this NASCAR driver. So there's as I've learned, there's there's
a lot of different great ways to get into NASCAR,
but at the end of the day, there's only like
forty guys in the world that get to race NASCAR.
(03:21):
Is that about right?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah? Guaranteed, thirty six cars are going to start every race.
That's part of our charter system, which is a bit
of an uproar right now with lawsuits and teams fighting
NASCAR and court the courts are involved. But right now,
the way it stands, thirty six cars will start every
race in the Cup Series, and then there's up to
four more spots up to forty a specialty can be
forty one. We can run an extra car if the
(03:45):
situation's right and everybody agrees. But it definitely is a
very exclusive groups. It's similar to a single position in
a football team, right, There's only so many quarterbacks really,
that's that. Even even though each team has several in
the lineup like as backups. We have three cars that
(04:05):
operate out of this shop. This year, our reserve driver
has been Connor Zilich, who is now being promoted into
the third car starting next season for his first full
time cup entry. So yes, my path was as a kid,
I followed in my dad's footsteps, the sugar sand of
South Florida and the watermelon fields that we grow in.
(04:27):
You leave a print when you walk. Everything, tire tracks,
animal tracks, everything, your boots. So I would as a
kid walk and have to jump. I usually had like
rubber boots on, those black rubber boots with the orange bottoms.
As a kid, I love those things and I would
jump to follow my dad. Into my head, I thought
that was following in my dad's footsteps.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
You, I wanted heard somebody say that phrase, he's following
his dad's footsteps. You actually took that.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
I did it and I jump, and I would jump,
and I want to to be like my dad, my granddaddy,
my great grandfather's sister before that. So it just didn't
work out. I fell in love with racing at twelve
years old. Never had a thought. I never had a
belief that it would work, that NASCAR would work for me.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Don't you don't start when you're twelve and have a
realistic dream to become one of thirty six drivers in
the world.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
A lot of people do, a lot of people that
I raced against told.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Well, a lot of people it's unreally, it doesn't happen right.
But they a kid wanted to play NBA and not
being able.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
To do it right, But they have that dream and
they work towards it. And there was kids working towards
that in two thousand and seven racing against me in
Southwest Florida. I'm the only one that got here, like
some of them were better than me. But the way
the business side works, the way I think that the
work ethic that my family instilled in me to just
(05:50):
keep getting up and going at it. I spent years
to get here. When people they'll give me a hard
time because like my calendar is pretty full. I'm kind
of down to the minute on race day, sket things.
Even during the week, there's a lot a lot of
nights I'm not at home. I tell them, I worked
really hard to be this busy. I wasn't always this busy.
I worked and built this brand and built this life
(06:11):
and career. But that wasn't at twelve. That really got serious.
When I was eighteen.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, well, the more I've seen the inside of this,
I mean, you are a professional athlete. You're handled like
a professional athlete. But I mean, now that I think
about it, we're big NBA fans, not big NBA. We're
lower tier, serious NBA fans, And at any given time
(06:41):
in the NBA, I don't know the a couple hundred players,
maybe more than that. And so when I think about
what you're doing, you're one of forty thirty six that
are in NASCAR. And so I want to explain NASCAR
just a little bit because I have not I'm new
to NASCAR, new to understanding how it works. And so
(07:04):
NASCAR is the North American Stock Car Association something NASCAR
senys for North American stock Car Not sure what the
ar At the end.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Stay you're close what is it. It's the National Association
for Stock Car Auto Racing. Okay, NASCAR, Okay, got I
also think they went that's a NASCAR, and someone said,
let's call it that NASCAR.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
It works, it's a good it rolls off the tongue.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
It does. And that is the premier stock car racing
series in the world for fenders, for fendered cars. You
have Open Wheel with IndyCar here in America, North America,
and then you've got Formula One with races across the
globe that is not anything like what we do. We
are a Florida owned company. The league is owned by
(07:51):
a family and well theyton't to Beach, Florida, the France family.
They've built this. I mean they had a lot of help.
They've built this sport. They've built their Brandy on the track.
On about half the tracks. They worked with the Smith
family on the others. There's a couple of private tracks.
But they have built a world that has provided a
life for so many of us. And I'm selfishly one
(08:13):
of them that has benefited from NASCAR Beyond my wildest dreams.
This this shop wouldn't be here. This was formerly a
different name shop. This was Chip Gannassi Racing. Chip Gannassis,
a guy out of Pittsburgh, has an IndyCar team is
winning all of the IndyCar Championships right now. Races over
there win sports Car Races has over the years operated
(08:34):
this team. It was his time to get out and
now Justin Marx is our owner in track House Racing.
So it's crazy to think about the life I've been
able to build in this sport. And I couldn't do
it without the league, NASCAR, the France family and their
thought process and how they built it decades ago. We're
over seventy five years old as a league. But for
(08:56):
the chastains, we were watermelon farmers that fell in love
with racing at our local short track and we have
grown all the way into the Cup Series where we've
now won races.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
It's incredible. So you you just were a gifted racer
and a driver as a kid, and then you just
started winning. Like I heard your dad talking, I met
your dad, spend a little bit of time with him,
and you you just started winning. And so it was
like you just kind of kept inching up in competition
(09:26):
until you got to the top of kind of the
I don't know if it be amateur, you got to
the top and there was nowhere else to go but
to the big leagues. I mean, and so, and what's
interesting to me is that, as we've seen, there's different
pathways where that happens with people. Some people are born
into it. I mean, like even I know about Dale
(09:48):
Junior and phenomenal racer and everything I know about him,
Like he wasn't just given that, but you know, his
dad was like one of the most famous guys ever.
And but so there's different path pathways to get into this.
And and uh, I think your pathway is unique and cool.
How many other guys would have been like that in
the circuit that would have just kind of started from
(10:11):
really zero.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
I mean, there's there's some there's a good mix. Yeah,
well we all. I don't think that any driver in
the Cup Series just woke up one day and then
they themselves if they're there currently, they didn't wake up
and say I want to be a NASCAR They were
molded by somebody. Somebody introduced them to the sport. It's
no different than outdoors. It's definitely not different than agriculture.
(10:36):
Somebody has to lay the groundwork for you. And I
think that that's a continual it's like a bright spot
to spotlight about. Like human beings, we we tried to
make it better for the next group. Now there is
that cycle of like hard times create hard people, which
create soft people, which create bad times, which create hard time.
It's like, you know, that could be a cycle. But
(10:57):
in the right frame of mind and the right circumstances,
people can make it better for the next generation. They
can leave a piece of land better for the next
generation than they found it. And that's through land management
and a lot of stuff on the agriculture hunting side.
But in racing, I'd say it's a good mix. There's
racers with names Elliott Blaney that you know like you
(11:19):
just know that name because there was somebody that raced
before them. Nobody knew who the last name Larsen was
before Kyle got to the sport. Nobody knew who the
last name Chastain was. Nobody knew who the last name
Suarez was until he got here, came to the States
and chased a dream of racing in the Professional American
(11:42):
League of NASCAR, coming in from Monterey, Mexico. So I'd
say it's a mix. I don't know what the number
with the what the percentages are, but it's a good mix.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yeah, yeah, and so part of the reason. Oh man,
there's so many different things I want to talk to you about.
We're gonna start with watermelons. Your family, the Chastain name,
like inside the watermelon World, y'all are supplying most of
the East Coast with watermelons that you're brokering, basically growing
(12:16):
but also brokering.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Is that right, yes, sir, Yeah. So our ag story
goes way back. The first just like a quick story
is the first Chastain came over from France in seventeen
hundred on a big ship with a bunch of people.
They were part of a religious group, some sort of
a Huguenot. I'm a little fuzzy on all those details.
But they landed and had a track of land outside
(12:39):
of Richmond up the river that they were given if
they would come homestead it. And from there they had
to start growing food to survive. So they did, and
then they started going south. I don't know if it
was too cold story as they went into South Carolina
and then into Georgia, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, and they
were there until the nineteen fifties. That's where it becomes
(13:01):
very clear because my grandfather was born and raised in o'clotney, Georgia,
near Thomasville. It's kind of due north of Tallahassee, Florida,
and that was not a good life. But we can
go back eight generations for my brother Chad and I
and track the watermelons specifically. They were farming the whole time.
You had to. It was just the way the world was,
(13:22):
and we've been fortunate enough to stay in it. And
my great grandfather sister moved the family to South Florida
in the fifties after my grandfather graduated high school. They
were down there about a year and my grandfather and
my great uncle, his brother, they enlisted in the service
because life wasn't even that good in South Florida. Now
you traded nats for mosquitoes and it was hot. They
(13:46):
went into the service, skinny, came out a lot fatter,
they had three meals a day. They had they were like,
this is the life amazing. So looking back at that
those times in South Georgia, they were going watermelons, but
they were not the early ones they want for domestically
in the States, water mils were coming out of Florida
getting the good market, good price per pound, and then
(14:07):
as it would come north, they got paid a lot less.
And my great grandfather was looking at that and ended
up moving the family south. And so we've got to
go for that earlier crop. And that's where it flourished,
just the weather, just being able to.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Grow, chasing the best watermelon crop possible.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yea too.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
I mean it was financial that. I mean they were
trying to make it living, but.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
They were not gonna be able to stay in ag
stay in farming in South Georgia. The way it was
going that it just wasn't They were not the good
old days. And that's where my grandmother and grandfather ended
up meeting. And our family has flourished and we're all
in a small pocket down there near Fort Myers. It
was Florida, and then we've partnered with other people. My
(14:50):
uncle decided to you know, partner with like minded people.
Met Hamilton dis out of South Carolina and John Lapede
out of Northeast up in New Jersey, New York, and
they partnered together over thirty years ago, created melon one
they wanted to Before that, it was the stories are
that it was live loading watermelons into bulk semis with
(15:13):
like straw on the floor, and then that semi would
drive store to store and out the side door would
unload into your pickley wiggley, go over to the Walmart, unload,
go over to the whatever food line, unload. And the
the grocery store industry was also evolving where their distribution
centers were becoming more prevalent. The palette cardboard bins on
(15:34):
pallettes were becoming the way things were working. And so
they wanted to take my dad's crop, Richie's crop, my
uncle even Hammy's crop in South Carolina and say, let's
not wait until like the week that we harvest it
to sell it. Let's like try to sell it like
nine months ahead of time or one year ahead of time.
Let's do some somet' Let's let's try to stabilize this
(15:57):
a bit. Let's lock in some prices that we know
we can survive on. And they did that, and and
other people were doing it too. But that changed the
game for the Chastains, and that solidified us to where
we've been able to grow in the industry, partner with
other families. The Green family line Arms who we've been
hunting with Daniel. Now seeing Ben grow into that role
(16:19):
with his dad is really cool. The pluses they're in
cordial Anthony Brown, Darryl lewis that group.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
It's he's named driving Watermelon Farmers.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Now, people that we met, We're not going to show everybody,
but it's it's on camera, but it's it's a it's
a network of about thirty farmers. So we can sell
watermelons three hundred sixty five days a year. And that's
what we're proud of that it's not Chastain Farms anymore.
It's bigger than us, and we're proud that it's melon
one selfishly for us mel On. The watermelon industry is
(16:51):
a big family though, and I do want to say
we are competitors with a lot of people, but I
promote all watermelons. When I mash a watermelon, I might
get it from one of our competitors. I'll have our
competitors out of the races. People that my family is
directly competing to sell to a produce buyer at a
chain store. I'm in the middle. I'm like, yes, of course,
I want my family to do good and provide for ourselves.
(17:15):
But I'm going to have the Lagiers, I'm gonna have
the Gibsons out at races whenever they want, and anybody
in the watermelon industry knows they're always welcome. That's it's
a unique thing about the watermelon industry. It's a family first.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Well, I consider myself in the watermelon industry. Ross because
of how many watermelons I eat. I've told you this
like ten times, but I've got to say it to
the world. They've heard about it. My world has heard
about the watermelon sixty, which you know, sixty days a year,
first of July in August, eat watermelon every day, go
through two melons a week. Usually it's like a it's
(17:47):
like a it's like a ritual. Use huge watermelon.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Man. Do you subtract a meal out of your day
or is this added? That's a great life you're living.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
It's sort of additive. Man. So Ross and I have
been to go for three days, two and a half days,
well three days three days now, and I went to town.
There's a lot of cool parts of this story. I
was at the Talladega Race and the pit all that stuff,
(18:19):
YadA YadA YadA. We've been talking watermelon, serious watermelon. I'm like,
I went to my first watermelon farm, like big, large
scale watermelon farm, super impressed, and then I didn't know
what kind of culture there was around watermelons. Pretty cool.
Ross represents the Watermelon Association of America, which I'll be
(18:42):
vying for some bite in that. Like, you know, we've
been talking about national watermelon campaigns that you know, maybe
could go on. I told him about Brent Reeves podcast
that he did early on on This Country Life of
Brenton did an incredible exisd on of watermelons. But so
(19:02):
now your story is so cool because it's just so authentic.
It is and it's and it's it's uh uh. I'm
fascinated with just rural America and farmers are a big
part of that. And then what's so cool about your
story too, is that you you grew up farming, connected
to the land in this like legitimate way, but you
(19:24):
didn't hunt, never hunted. But now you're hunting and that's
so we've been hunting this week. But tell me a
little bit about that, like.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Like, well, what I think, what my takeaway and what
I'm learning is that I've grown up on land, I've
been very fortunate. Like I said, I chose racing. Agriculture
chose me like I was born into it. And there's
pictures me as an infant in the field, my dad
hold me. What's so cool is the tractor local tractor
dealer for Caboda Creole Equipment Creal Tractor Company down in
(19:56):
Fort Myers, Florida. There's a picture of my dad and
one of their old hats. They were a different brand
of tractor then, and that's how my dad got started,
was Mark Creole loan my dad attractor and I'm an
infant and my dad's got their hat on. And then
we work with them again. Now through Caboda and the
racing sponsorship that corporate Caboda sponsors my NASCAR Cup car,
(20:19):
I'm able to represent a tractor brand on the race track.
It's amazing. But on that land, driving those tractors, driving
the old trucks. Way before I was sixteen, right, I
was driving on the farm, working a four wheeler, having
fun with my cousins old cars, racing them, hitting each other.
(20:40):
Our stories are definitely unique to maybe other farm kids
or might have a similar story. But I drove at
an early age through the woods across the fields. I
never looked for animals in the way that I do now.
I never looked the land the way I did. I
looked at two trees and I thought I could race
around those. I looked at a field and thought I
have to disc have to plow it or hero it.
(21:02):
But not where you're at in the country, you call
it all different things, but we call it a disk.
So you're plowing the dirt over to get the sand
and the grass all gone so we can plant our watermelons.
We need dry sand to plant in with some moisture,
and now to hunt only for this is my third
season fall deer season. I just look at every piece
(21:24):
of land, every tree in a It's a new way,
and it's what's so exciting. I've look at a watermelon
field and I'm looking for things the farmers are telling
me about disease. Are we getting white flies in as,
there's some sort of fuse, areas spreading? Are we too wet?
Are we too dry? What's their layout they're spacing their
plant spacing like a lot of things I'm looking at
as I go to all these different watermelon farms to
(21:47):
see what I think is the best, Like We're going
to keep evolving watermelon farming and make it better and
grow a better watermelon and cost the farmer hopefully less costs.
Input costs are always going up. But now when I
pull and I'm looking at the side of the field
for a stand, I'm looking at where as you've taught
me about pinch points and looking at natural features of
(22:08):
the land in ways that I would have never funn
looked that. And I haven't had that feeling about anything
in years. I hadn't racing when I first got in.
But remember I got into the NASCAR world in twenty eleven.
I got into a truck justin Marx, my now owner,
was getting out of in twenty eleven, and it was
all new, and for years I learned the sport from
twenty eleven till now twenty twenty five, and a bit
(22:32):
of that newness has worn off. And for hunting and me,
it's brand new, and I'm just when I climb a ladder,
I'm thinking about it because I'm just I didn't grow
up doing it, and I didn't grow up walking into
the woods to get ready for a hunt.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, afternoon, So something that you said to me that
I thought was interesting is that you never set still
on the landscape or in the woods. So you have
been on the land, you would have been working the land.
And it's I think it's a common thing, not not
all of the there's some farmers that are serious hunters,
but a lot of farmers they're out there working when
(23:12):
when they're done, they don't want to recreate in that
same place sitting there that they want to be somewhere else.
And so you said, when you first started sitting in
the woods, it was just like a whole different uh
consideration of data points, you know. I mean, you're you're
needing to learn tree species, and you're needing to learn
(23:34):
about what the animals are doing and their travel patterns
and wind and it just became this whole new world,
which is unique because a lot of people that get
into hunting, you know, they're they're getting used to being
outside really for like exposed period of time. I mean,
it's we live in such a bizarre time period in
place where like we rush around from place to place
(23:58):
trying to get away from outside. I mean it's like
you're standing outside in the parking lot and you're like,
let's go inside.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
When the park is close to the front and everybody
piles up.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Like if you were just a bile just looking at humans,
you'd be like, man, they're just always wanting to get inside.
They're wanting to get away from outside, you know. And
so you wouldn't have had that, like you would have
been a farmer. You would have been exposed to a
lot of it. But but it's just a different a
complete different set of considerations when you're hunting. And then
(24:31):
what's so fun? So I was with you yesterday when
you killed a deer and uh, so Ross, I mean,
we could go into the story, but like, he shoots
this deer, and it was kind of stressful. The deer
came from a position we weren't expecting it really at
a time we weren't. I mean, it's like right a dark,
right it dark, and you get situated and we finally
(24:53):
get everything set up, and uh and I mean it's
like I could just feel the adrenaline pumping like right
beside me. I kind of had to duck down into
the blind when he turned and laid a gun over
this rail and uh and I asked him, I said,
we were at Talladega two days ago, and I was like,
were you ever this excited at Talladega on Sunday? And
(25:15):
your answer was.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Hell, well, yes, about my heart rate And it was
a heart rate ever that high?
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Like no, and you were shooting a doe deer too.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Yeah with a rifle. No, not at all. And if
it would have won, heart rate would have spiked. I
mean that if you're in contention for the wind. But
I got shuffled back. I'd made some bad moves at Talladega.
But yeah, getting turned around my knee on the chair
had been sitting on in the chair, almost almost knocked
the chair over. You got her to stop in that moment,
(25:44):
to exhale and pull the trigger. I mean it just
it's only that that is that is my fourth dear
that I've ever harvested, and and I respect that, and
I have I let deer walk, But that was a
cool moment to do it with you there. Of course
I want the big buck to walk out, But for
that land, that was the first year of harvested on
(26:05):
my land that wasn't ertilize. That so really cool to
see that that's our first dear season hunting on that property,
and the group I've got down there that I do
it with on we you know they've they've already harvested some.
But for me that was my first, So it was
that was a big moment, my first piece of land
down there, an area of the country that I've grown
(26:27):
up going to know, a bunch of families there and
that's why I'm down there.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
So yeah, it was such a cool group.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
But shaking.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
And what's so awesome is that it really doesn't go away.
I mean it it, I hope not. To some degree
it does. I mean there's times when I take an animal,
you know, the like heart thumping adrenaline is is less.
I mean, there's certainly times when it's higher than the
others based upon the circumstance. But to this day, I
(26:59):
will at times get very nervous at a dough deer
with when I've got a bow. I mean, for reals.
That's kind of the cool thing about about this is
it that can never Sometimes it never goes.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Away, I hope not. And and talk about a bow.
I remember growing up some one well, my best friend
growing up was Cody Singletary, Singletary's Big Hunters best friends.
Me and Cody and his older brother Matthew, and then
our dads have been best friends for a long time.
Our grandparents knew each other in all farms, so watermelon farmers.
(27:35):
We all grow from melan one. I say we. I
lightly insert myself into that. It's really my dad, as
you can, I think. But to grow up with them,
I remember standing there, sitting on the ground watching them
shoot their bows ross you and try it. No, I
want to go ride the four wheeler. Well, we're gonna
shoot bows until dark. We're shooting at the block, shooting
at the decoy. We're like practicing. They're practicing. They're practicing,
(27:58):
And I could have been doing that at ten years
yars old, and I never had any interest. And now
I've asked you, like, all right, guide me on how
to buy a boat, Like where should I go? So
we've talked about that and yeah, find somewhere, and it'll
start that process sometime soon. I'm not saying I'm gonna
go today, but that's exciting for the next step, and
(28:18):
to be able to get more intimate and understanding then
the different positions I'm gonna need to go sit and
hunt from with the bow versus the rifle is exciting
because now that's like a whole other chapter of this book.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Yeah, and I think I heard you say this, but
there's something about the natural world that you can't control.
And the exposure that I've had to the inside of
inside looking too NASCAR just the last couple of days,
I have been amazed at the control that you guys
(28:51):
have over that car. I mean, just phenomenal. I mean
I could do this whole podcast just telling you what
I've seen, just like the the micro adjustments that they're
making on these cars in the fly. Your your job
is so, I mean, you have a race on the weekend, Monday,
you have this big meeting where this huge team comes
(29:12):
in and you analyze the car, the data, how you did.
And then today is a Tuesday, and so the guys
have your car in there and they are tweaking on
that thing, getting ready for next week. Ton of control
is the point of that story. When you go into
the woods and you're hunting the deer, white tailed deer
(29:36):
or turkey or whatever, that control is completely different. I mean,
does did you identify with that as something that's that's
that's uh compelling about going into the woods, like it's
it's it's kind of like a relaxation, just like I'm
this is not nobody's asking me what to do here?
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Yeah? Is that? I mean absolutely? And that's what I love.
I don't my life and calendar is is I'm helped
by a lot of people. I've got We use Apple Calendar,
and I think there's nine getting ready to be a
tenth person added to it that input things. And they're
all talking, and they're all guiding me on where I
need to go. And a couple work like almost a
month out on stuff, and sometimes longer. Stuff comes on
(30:17):
the calendar for like already next race season. We haven't
even finished this one, and we're already like locking in
dates down to the minute of things next year. And
so when I get to the woods, I am not
making a decision. When I get away from the racetrack
and away from work, I don't you saw. I don't
want to pick where we go to breakfast. I don't
want to pick where we go to dinner. I don't
(30:38):
care what we eat, I don't care what time. I'm
just along for the ride. I want everybody else to
guide us. And I'll be a I'll paddle the boat,
but I'm not steering it. And so I feel like
when I get in the woods and the natural part
of animals, and what I've learned is they're not going
to do the same thing every time. There's gonna be
some wildness to it. And so not expecting that dough
(31:00):
to walk out directly behind us. We had picked our quadrants. Yeah,
a game you had us play. Picked of the four
quadrants we picked. I would think I was closest. Ish
you picked opp.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Yeah, I'd say you because the dough came from the quadrant.
So we were sending in a box line looking three
hundred and sixty degrees and I said, let's let's play game.
Pick which quadrant we split it into, you know this
three sixty into into four. And so we guessed and
both of us were wrong.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Yeah, the first one take that our caravan read was wrong.
Well he just copied you because you know, I went
with your But yeah, you were closest.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Yeah, so we we didn't know where the steer was
gonna come from.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
So yeah, that was that's cool. And yeah, excited to
learn that land more it's new and continue to learn land.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
You know, everybody's got a different angle for why they
do something. And I think, uh, as long as that
and I think They're all valid really as long as
I mean, as long as the hunting that the person
is doing is is inside the limits of the law
and you know, is aiming towards some conservation goal, you know,
(32:10):
you know what I mean. I mean, like there's people
that go to the woods to relax. There's also people
that go to the woods not to relax. And in
many cases ross my hunting is probably like you're NASCAR
racing in a way, and that like I go to
the woods oftentimes to to test myself in a while place,
if I'm being honest, I mean, that's part of the
(32:31):
fun of it. Is just you know, more these more difficult,
strenuous hunts or more technical hunts that require a lot
of time, a lot of getting stuff right, you know,
the hard stuff. But I also do a lot of
hunting that's just pure, just a pleasure hunt for like
we use that term in the coon dog world always
(32:53):
like that since I was a kid, they were like,
you pleasure hunting this weekend. Like it's an interesting way
to say it, but yeah, I guess so, you know,
so there's different I don't go to the woods necessarily
to I do go to the wood because my job
in some way revolves around hunting. But also that's my
hobby too, like I really don't do anything else.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
I think that's for me is what racing is. It's
it's a hobby that's turned into profession. But if if
the right circumstances, and it would have to be a
social thing with with buddies, with other racers, if we
were going to go and have a track day, call
it where we're not getting paid, we actually probably have
to buy the tires and pay for the fuel and
on the cars and have our own Like if we
(33:33):
were going to go do a track day with some
cars or something, I would do that for fun, so
you would pleasure. I pleasure race, pleasure race. But then
thirty eight times a year, I'm racing the cup car
not for pleasure. I want to win. I am there
only to win. I bring my friends with me at
trackhouse and we go try to win, and uh, it
is pleasurable to do, but it is not pleasure racing.
(33:55):
So I think it's similar for me in racing, you
to hunting. For me to hunting, and honey, I want
to go hunt now. If it was going to be
more strenuous, I'd have to know that ahead of time
and right where the right gear and be ready and prepared.
But most of mine is so I mean, I'm very
very new, and I think what is so cool is
you can always like every day you could be your
(34:17):
first day to go hunting, is what I've learned. Like
my first time was with Adam Will who you met,
and David set me up with that, and they were
hunting and Adam took me and just talked me through everything,
and I'll always remember that first staying. We sat in
me trying to be still, and a buck did walk
out and I was like, I couldn't shoot it. I couldn't.
(34:40):
I couldn't get the scope anywhere close to that buck.
He was moving back and forth and rut chasing a doe.
And that was a couple of years ago, three seasons
ago now and just like Adam, like I never even
got close and he was gone. So like I remember
that in that adrenaline rush, Mine's definitely gonna be more pleasure, say,
(35:01):
because I'm trying to relax. Yes, it's what I want
to do.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah. Yeah, And those those like hard hunts, I mean
they're fun. Yeah, I mean we're not doing it because
it's not fun. It's fun. If you're not familiar with
Ross Chastain, go type into your computer Wall the Wall Ride,
(35:29):
Ross Chastain Wall Ride. So something happened with Ross three
years ago. He was in a race and this, this
event has will will probably outlive him in terms of
its legacy. And NASCAR tell me about the wall Ride.
So we've had this conversation before, but it's it's I
(35:51):
had to bring it up on this podcast.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Yeah. So I went into the thirty fifth race of
our thirty six points races, eighteen points above my competitor.
I need to beat the eleven of Denny Hamlin, not
let him gain eighteen points on me. Nineteen we could
tie and I would win. So at eighteen positions over
the course of the race. Now we'd had a long
history that year. I had ran into him at Saint Louis,
(36:15):
he didn't. I ran into him again Atlanta, and then
he ran into me at Pocono. So we had had
this on track, hurting each other.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Is this I'm not sure if I can bring this
up or not, but it's kind of out there. Is
this the guy you punched?
Speaker 3 (36:27):
No? No, no, no, definitely not, definitely.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Not that that video comes up too.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
Yeah, that one does.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
And before I even knew you, I knew it wasn't
your fault.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
Oh well had I had a large hand to play
in it well as well as he and he started it.
He started it, and yeah it was it needed to
be ended. So and we were Noah Gregson and I
we walked in the gym Monday morning after that punch
and shook hands and worked out together. Is that what done?
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yep? He was good. I was good.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Is he still race?
Speaker 3 (36:58):
He does?
Speaker 2 (36:58):
He was at the race Saturday.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
He was in it.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
He was a leader.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
We're good. Yep. He texted me last week. They were
in Nashville. Everybody thinks because of the track house that were
in Nashville a lot. Yeah, And we're over here in Concord.
This is where our workforce is. But our kind of
soul and the foundation of the company justin lives in Nashville,
So we do a lot there with Tutsi's so anytime
any of the other drivers that I'm buddies with or
they're they're like, send me a picture on Broadway, like
(37:23):
where you at? Like I'm in North Carolina and where
you live?
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Yeah? We all live every year, so yeah, you could
have come over to my house. Yeah, where we left.
So the wall ride distracted, but you could also the
last last getting.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
A little scuffle the last lap, I needed to gain
two spots and I was far enough away I couldn't
catch them. So in the final corner I held it
to the floor. I ended up up shifting to fifth gear.
Normally we run fifth gear all the time, and at
martin zilt's a unique small track, so we run third
and fourth. Uh, and I shifted the fifth and ran
the wall and I gained like three seconds on my competition,
(37:56):
and that put me right ahead of the eleven, which
moved me on to the champion ship race the next week.
So in our first year as a team twenty twenty
two track Houses second year of existence, my first year
with the team, we're able to go fight for a
championship in a four car playoff at one race and
we'll ultimately finished second two hundred and thirty five feet.
We lost the championship by two hundred thirty five feet. Wow,
(38:18):
So that was a bummer.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
He kind of didn't give the full drama version, but
the wall ride was imagine an oval track with concrete walls,
and in the corner you have to slow your car
down to go around the corner, and the guys are
cutting the corner as tight as possible to make the
shortest line, And so if you go wide slower, it's
(38:44):
slower and you're taking a longer route to get to
the finish line. So on the final lap, ross is
like ten or eleven and he knows it just like
fifteen seconds before you did it. You kind of thought
about this, but.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
I had accepted defeat and then off turn four taking
the white flag the last lap to start the five
hundred lap, it popped in my head to run the wall.
And what's scary, I honestly, is that I couldn't think
of a reason why not to do it? Why not?
I kept why not? Why not? And I thought wall, fine, fence, fine, gate, fine,
all things that should have been like red flags. You know.
It's like I just ignored all of them and held it,
(39:24):
and I ended up letting go of the wheel because
it was shaking so violently. So we have aluminum wheels
and really low sidewall like low profile tires. Our sidewalls
are very short so they don't bubble out the year
before twenty twenty one, and all the way back in time,
we had a smaller wheel and bigger tire, fatter tire,
just the way the evolution of our car went to
(39:45):
a single lug nut aluminum wheel versus steel, and that
aluminum wheel the sidewall pressed in flat and like just
straight up and down, and the illuminum wheel slid along
the steel wall. So on the concrete. Then we bolt
steel with foam, and that steel just as smooth, and
that aluminit wheel is actually like a castor tire, like
(40:07):
a castor wheel and a dumpster like you can roll it.
You know, it's rough, but a steel wheel rolls on concrete,
it rolls on on asphalt. It's rough, but that's what
it felt like, was a steel wheel.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
So he used centrifical force to basically, when these guys
were slowing down to take a shorter route around the corner,
you went faster and the wall kept you in line,
and basically you were going twice as fast as that.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
Basically normally it's like one hundred and thirty on the
straightaways down to seventy five in the corners. Yeah, constantly
accelerating and slowing down. I went one hundred and forty
five ish. I don't have the exact number off the
top of my head to say I sped up an
extra fifteen miles an hour than our normal top speed
because I had more straightaway to keep going. They hit
the brakes. Sin took a shorter distance.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
But you went.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
I just shot it around and I couldn't see anything.
That's the G forces were high. It was a couple
seconds doing it. It took a couple to get around there.
And the car with the independent rear suspension the transact
so it kept driving the car like it kept the
wheels on the ground. The rear tires the left front
did pick up off the ground a little like the
G forces pulled it up. But it destroyed the car.
(41:14):
It bent the chassis, it broke the suspension. My brakes
weren't working very good at the after, so I kind
of hit the wall after the finish again, but it
accomplished the goal. We went from tenth to fifth place
and that got us in the.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Chair and then they outlawed being able to do this.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
They left it for one more week, so the championship race,
we were allowed to do it if we wanted. Unfortunately,
Joey Logano for teen penske. He won the championship and
won the race. His teammate Ryan, who wasn't in the
final four, was right behind him, so I already knew
if I did it, Ryan would just pull up and
block me. So I didn't do it, and Joey won
beat me fair.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
And square, beach, fair and square. Well, I thought it
was pretty cool that they outlawed it after that. I mean,
just you know, so nobody's gonna like, nobody's gonna do
it any better than you did.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
It, not better. It has been done again on accident.
Chrisopher Bell did it. Happened to him last year twenty
twenty four, and he didn't mean to do it, but
he did do it a little bit and they pulled
him out of the finale for doing it. He had
made it in and they pulled him.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
So that was bad, completely disqual.
Speaker 3 (42:19):
That was disappointing because that he didn't deserve that, Like,
there was a lot.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Of disciplined him. They didn't just like say that race.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
They disciplined him and that took him out.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Oh that's that was bad.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
I didn't I don't love that because he didn't do
it with my intention, My intention for fifteen seconds was
to do that. No, there was no rule. They created
the rule athlete legal, What you did? I asked NASCAR.
They'd add my initials in to the rule and it
told me to get out, go on, come on, get out,
go get out here.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
I thought that was I thought that was pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
Yeah it was. It gets talked about as much as
each win. What's I'm proud of? We won two races
before that, two then we won or then we did
the hell Melon. Then we've won four more times after.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
We call it the hell Hell Mary, but it's the
hell Melon.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
Yeah, I like it. I like it. We've won more race,
We've won more races after which I'm proud of.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Yeah, I didn't want that to be my last thing.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Well, and you said that in NASCAR, that was like
one of the most watched video clips of all time.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Yeah. I think I've seen some reports and the best
they can capture from all social media and all impressions
and right clicks and everything. I don't really know what
I'm talking about here, but there's been no no thing
right when you when you pile it all together. From
the winner of the Daytona five hundred, the winner of
the Coke six hundred, the championship winner. Like those videos,
(43:48):
none of them add up to anything close to what
Because it went worldwide, there was people chiming in other
racers from other Formula One series a right indy car
because a lot of us had done it as kids.
So the best I can tell you, the only way
it popped in my head was as a kid. I
probably did it on the game cube, and I know
I did. You turn around and go backwards on those games,
(44:09):
right video console games, hold it wide open, turn the
automatic brakes off on the video game and just let
it go into the wall and it'll flip or whatever,
and not not like, Oh, when I get to NASCAR
and I'm I'm racing for a championship, I'm gonna do this. No, definitely,
that's cool.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
I like it. Man, Have you ever been in any
bad recks?
Speaker 3 (44:29):
I have California twenty twenty two Spring practice, a track
that's now closed down. We've lost it. They developed that land,
but yes, bottomed out new car. The Gen seven car
was brand new, bottomed the left ear frame out and
over corrected. It got started to get loose and slide.
(44:52):
The rear and I turned the wheel to the right and
lifted and it caught. And it comes back to that
low profile tire. It acts different than our old tire,
and the suspension acts different. So I hit at an angle,
but pretty much head on at about one hundred and
forty miles an hour into the wall to the wall.
Came off the wall seventy, so it was like hitting
a wall at seventy and stopping.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
So you hit this wall going seventy.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
One hundred and forty, one hundred and forty, and when
I came off of it, I was still going seventy.
I like it like redirected me, you know, at an angle.
I hit it and then I went.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
So did the car catch on fire? Did it tumble?
Did it just crumple up it?
Speaker 3 (45:31):
It did not flip, And at the time it didn't
absorb much, so I took the energy. The energy the
G forces was up in the I don't know, mid fifties,
sixty sixty g's of impact. There's some discrepancy on their
data calculators and they're capturing at the time. Some math
(45:54):
doesn't add up back then when you look back at it,
the cars were very stiff. Everything all the frame rails
on the new car very horizontal. Everything's very block, I'll
call it. There's no real curves to the frame a
Monte Carlo that Chevrolet would have produced in the eighties.
Everything's very rounded because when it hits, they want stuff
to move. They want the frame horns, frame horns to crush,
(46:17):
bumpers to come in. We had just foam and the
way it was all built was very stiff, and we
hurt some drivers. Kurt Busch has retired, and he took
hits his whole career. It all adds up. He took
a hit at Pocono that year, backed it in the wall,
and he never raced again. We've learned from that. We've
evolved this car. I'm proud to drive this car. I
(46:39):
was proud then, I'm proud now when I took that hit.
I believe if I took that same hit today, although
the cars the same, technically, we have modified it, the
sport has, the league has, it would feel better. I
would take less impact than my body. So I had
some pull muscles in my back, in my neck, had
(46:59):
some pain that I raced the next day. So I
did I scare you? It did? It did? That was
the only one I've ever had that scared me. Scared. Yeah,
and I've never had any like, you know, broken bones
or surgeries. An ice bath that night got the swelling
down in my back, a lot of stretching to get
in the car. I was still really stiff though, getting
(47:22):
in really sore, and I was able to go race
and I ultimately worked my way up into the top ten.
Late in that race, and then I spun out in
the same spot, but instead of over cracking and hitting
the wall, I just held it left and spun the
car out and ultimately cost us to get finish. But
it it was at least I learned my lesson because
I hit the same bump I'd avoided all race and
(47:43):
I was trying to gain some more spots at the end,
I thought I'm gonna go on that line again, and
it bottomed out the same.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Way, and really it was a bump in the track.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
Yeah, that track was really bummy. It was an awesome track.
I hate we lost it. It was super wide. It's
unlike anything we have. And they ultimately sold the land
and there's some distribution centers or something there now.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
So when when I was at Talladega, the other day
in your pit, like watching the start and just being there.
I was thinking it was scary is probably the wrong word,
but it was intimidating it clearly it would be that
someone who's not been there before. But after the race
we met you, Like after the race, he's two and
(48:23):
a half hours, like white knuckle driving this car one
hundred and ninety miles an hour, bumper to bumper. I
mean you're touching the car in front of you sometimes
going one hundred ninety miles an hour. Yep. Like the
intensity level of it, I mean, just even as a
fan was over the top. And so you like crawl
out of the car and then we drive to go
(48:45):
deer hunting. I didn't know what to expect from you,
Like would you be like like you just got out
of an MMA fight, you know and you or would
you be like super tired or would you I had
no idea, and you were just like you are right
now when you got out of that car. That was
my perception, and I think I ask you, was that scary?
Speaker 3 (49:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (49:10):
Because in my mind, you know, Ross's race his whole life,
and I'm like the one race I see. I'm like, man,
I hope he's okay. I mean, I hardly know this guy,
and I'm like, man, this is this is dangerous. I
don't know about this, but you said that you're you
don't like, you're not afraid at all. You're more scared
climbing a deer stand than driving in the that Taladan
(49:31):
for any race. Yeah, absolutely, that's astonishing to me.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
I have respect for racing. I don't. I don't. I know.
I know that I will not always race. I know
one day I'm gonna stop racing. Now. I hope it's
on my own terms. I hope that I'm able to
decide that and plan that out. I don't want it
to be taken from me, but I respect that it could.
Like I'm not guaranteed to race this weekend, Like, yeah,
we're back from deer hunting. I'm gonna prepare now the
rest of the week, I'm not gonna you know, I'm
(49:57):
really not gonna think about hunting other than maybe some
memories from the week. But I'm going to focus now
for several days on Martinsville and Phoenix, and that's what
I'm gonna roll. Right out of Martinsville and no nothing
ahead of the ahead of Phoenix, well straight into our
finale in a week and a half. So I respect
racing from that aspect, just like I respect climbing a
(50:19):
ladder in a tree or climbing up into a box blne.
I just I don't. I don't. I don't lose sight
of like one slip off that ladder and it changes things.
One bad wreck and it changes things. Like we're human.
This is not nobody's getting out of this live. And
I respect that in all aspects of things I do.
(50:40):
When I get on the highway to drive home, like
I have a respect that and a feeling that like
that I could be my last time. I don't. I'm
not like a morbid I'm not saying it in a
morbid way. I'm just that I respect this so I
enjoy the time here. I don't take it for granted.
Walking in these front doors, walking in your eyes were
big to this shot, right. I've now walked into this
(51:01):
building since twenty eighteen. I was first invited here and
hired here to drive for zero dollars in their Exfinity car.
I got an opportunity as like a three race tryout,
and I was able to win one of those, finished
second in another and crash for the lead in the
third one and that got me And I'm still here.
That was twenty eighteen, and I've made a home here.
(51:22):
The name has changed, that people have changed, but some
of us are still here and that's really cool. And
I wouldn't do it want to be doing it right
with anybody else. So I just have a respect that, like,
one day's going to be my last day walking in here. Now.
I hope it's when we moved to some bigger shop
and we're in this better situation and track House has grown.
But yeah, I don't I appreciate that the race was over.
(51:47):
I think I had a bush light in my hand
when I walked up to you had had a bowl
of chicken and rice. I think I had some broccoli
and chicken and rice and had a meal and had
a beer and was ready to jump in the truck
and I had the deer camp and then we had
a good couple of days.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Yeah, you know when you told me that, it reminded
me people not it's not hunters that asked me this,
but people that just don't understand much about hunting or
bears in particular, and people here that we bear hunt
and The first question that people want to ask me
is are you not afraid? You know? And I respond
(52:23):
the exact same way that you do about your car.
It's like no, and it's not bravado or something. But
people that hunt bears aren't afraid of bears, like bears
are not. You should be much more afraid of driving
down the interstate. And we had this conversation. I mean, like,
it's probably more dangerous driving down the Interstate than it
is you driving out there one hundred ninety miles an
(52:44):
hour in the car that you're driving.
Speaker 3 (52:45):
You know.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
So Yeah, to the uninitiated, everything seems unusual or you're
you become like hyper aware of the of the of
the danger of it just because you're like just not
you just haven't been there before. Yeah, but but now
I had such a good time. I was amazed at
the access. I've heard it said before this week that
(53:10):
the cool thing about being a NASCAR fan is the
access that you can get. I mean there were fans
like the minutes before you get in your car, like
swarming you, getting pictures. Yeah, if you've never been to
a NASCAR event, you you should go. You should go
before we close? What what do you want to do
(53:33):
inside of hunting. I realize this is your third season,
you're new to it. You probably you probably don't know
all the options, nor do you need to like you could,
you could. You could hunting Georgia for the rest of
(53:53):
your life. Deer hunting at that camp with those friends
and like have a very very rich component of your life.
That's honey, that's the cool thing about it. You don't
have to do anything. But what what do you have
any goals? I mean, even like deer hunting on your land, Like,
do you have any goals?
Speaker 3 (54:12):
Well, I know an area that I'm gonna spray and
burn because it's a little thick. Yes, it's a little thick.
So that is on the docket. David la we.
Speaker 2 (54:23):
Had to track his deer a little bit last year,
pushed a little bit good gear habitat though.
Speaker 3 (54:29):
You know, I know, I know it, I know it.
I was all in it. Well you were in it, yeah, yeah,
uh yeah. I want to work that land. I want
to continue to learn it. Like I told you, I
had hunted the gilly, but I had not hunted that
tower blind. So I like to add some bird like
little things, like I want to add some bur Lab.
(54:50):
I didn't like that we were so exposed. They liked it.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
You want to learn how to hunt your land.
Speaker 3 (54:55):
I want to do it a bit my way, and
I want to be a little more more covered up
up and blend in a little more. So.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
I don't know, but you like whitetail hunting. I think
that's kind of what you're focused.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
I do know it. And yeah, hunting hogs is something
that we do in South Florida, so I've done that before,
but that's a that's not a sitting thing as much
where those are now since they're eating the watermelons. That's
a more of an ag hunt. Totally different atmosphere when
(55:28):
we do that. So have met a friend in Kansas,
his daughter actually works here at track House, and then
met her dad and mom and so it been out
to his place last year. I'm going to go again
this year with a farmer from Florida. So mine is
definitely if I'm going to my land, I can go
by myself and sit and I don't you know, text them,
(55:51):
text the group, chat a picture or something, but my
hunting buddies. Other than that, if I'm going somewhere, I
want to it's social for me, I want to do
it with pool that want to go to deer camp
and have that experience. Justin marks no different. Him and
I got into hunting on the same day. Neither one
of us had ever done it. He's hiked mountains right
like climb He's a climber. I've been in fields. He's
(56:14):
been in the wilderness. He never and I never, like
we never looked at the woods like we look at
it now. And for him and I, it's been so
cool to have this, this professional relationship we've built after
over a decade of a personal friendship and now we've
grown it in a hunting so I kind of have
three different parts of Justin that we've and he has
three different parts of me that we've grown through and
(56:36):
to get to go race and win races together and
see what he's built a worldwide brand now where track
House has won. Now in Moto GP in America, Motor
GP is not what it could be. It's not nearly
as popular as NASCAR motorcycle motorcycle racing on circuits, so
it's the fast motorcycles where the riders are leaned over
on the racetrack that a Formula One car would race
(56:58):
on and their elbow me touching the ground. They have
pucks on their elbows and Rowell was able to get
his first win from self and trackhouse. So I look
at that like we were just a couple of years
ago and I met Rowell. He's been here to America,
came to the shop and to see his struggles and
now see his success and see Justin Who's I think,
(57:20):
by the way I know it, one of his first
loves was Motor GP racing, even before NASCAR, So to
see that come through for him, to get to see
him Sunday after his team won all the way in Australia,
he wasn't there. It's a bummer. I wish he would
have been there, but he was with us in Talladega
getting ready to go to Deer Camp. Yeah. You got
a guy that has built a race winning NASCAR team,
(57:40):
has won a race in the Nationwide Nationwide Series, in
now Xfinity Series, getting ready to be O'Reilly Auto Parts Series.
It's stepping through some names and has built this winning
organization here with all of his drivers winning and now
winning in Australia in Motor GP. It's just incredible. And
the fact that he wants to go to deer camp
(58:00):
with me for two days. Is so cool. Yeah, and
we have learned it together. We're learning about ammunition together,
We're learning about guns together. You know, everybody in both
of our families are not hunters like we. We both
are catching some flak for it. You know. We we
have to have both have hard conversations with our family
(58:21):
that can be tough about why we want to do
this and the respect we have for it. Right. So
doing that together has been really really cool, and I
think it's very unique. I don't see that in a
lot of Nascar, and I I want to do this
with my people. I want to go hunt with my people.
I want to go racing with my people, and Justine
my people. So we have we have a good time.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
Man, That's cool, very cool.
Speaker 3 (58:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (58:44):
Well, ross Man, for for a guy that has been
on a super Bowl commercial, on the halftime super Bowl commercial,
you're you're incredibly humble and been really genuine and fun
to hang out with. And I hope we get to
(59:05):
do something together again at some point inside of hunting.
I want to bring my wife to a NASCAR race.
She wants to come, come on, she does, but it's
been a pleasure. Thank you for the hospitality. Yeah. So
we're at the now we're going to go to the
track house facility.
Speaker 3 (59:23):
All right, we're here at the cup shop. This is
where our cars get assembled. Nearly one hundred and ninety employees,
nearly two hundred, right around one hundred and ninety, and
a lot of them live right in this area, come
to this shop right Their careers, their lives, their families
all revolve around these three race cars going and trying
to win every Sunday. We've been able to win six
races as a team this year. I've got one. SVG
(59:46):
has got five last five road course races, so definitely
a lot to celebrate as we wrap up the year.
Speaker 2 (59:52):
Awesome man, cool, Keep the wild pless as wild because
that's where the bears live.
Speaker 3 (01:00:01):
Nine
My name is Clay Nukham and this is a production
of the Bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Rendered
where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the
scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast, presented by FHF Gear,
American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed
(00:36):
to be as rugged as the place as we explore.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
So we're in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
With Concord technically Concord, North Carolina, about twenty miles northeast.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Suburb of Charlotte, North Charlotte. Yes, at the track House
Race Team Global headquarters. Huge facility. Unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yeah, for NASCAR, this is where all the magic happens.
All of our cars come out of here. We come
back with our semi hollers here every week before headed
out of the next race.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Man, I mean we just got here. I've been with
you for a few days here. I'm astonished. I'm with
Ross Chastain, who told me not to say this, but
I'm gonna say it. Six time Cup winner, NASCAR Cup winner.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yes, technically, as we were trying to get how you
would introduce me, we have won six Cup races in
the number one car for trackhouse racing. So that goes
back to our very first win as a team in
twenty twenty two at Circuit of the America's down in Austin, Texas.
And my most recent win was the Coca Cola six
hundred this year. I'm Amorial Day Sunday.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
That means these really good folks. Just in case you
weren't able to interpret that, that means that you're good man.
So Ross and I have been together. We've been deer
hunting and Georgia. Yeah, we've had a good time. So
so you're a NASCAR driver. But what is the second
thing that you would introduce yourself Probably the first thing
(02:12):
that you would introduce yourself.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
As is a watermelon farmer.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
There's our watermelon.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I know we've forgot it.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
It's in your truck.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
It is.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
We we've had a watermelon that we've been carrying around
through multiple states that we were supposed to have here
it is.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
But you're an eighth generation watermelon farmer. Yeah, so I'm
really the son of a farmer. Like I use that
as a term of endearment like that is I'm proud
to say that. You know, the term son of a
usually doesn't have a good ending. Mine is a good ending.
I'm proud to be the son of a farmer. I'm
the brother of a farmer, the cousin of a farmer.
(02:47):
So my job is to tell the story of agriculture.
I'm not the one out in the field. I can
show you the field. I've grown up in these fields,
right But day in and day out, my job is
right here at Trackhouse Racing.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
But that would have been your trajectory if you hadn't
been a phenom racer as a kid and turned into
this NASCAR driver. So there's as I've learned, there's there's
a lot of different great ways to get into NASCAR,
but at the end of the day, there's only like
forty guys in the world that get to race NASCAR.
(03:21):
Is that about right?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah? Guaranteed, thirty six cars are going to start every race.
That's part of our charter system, which is a bit
of an uproar right now with lawsuits and teams fighting
NASCAR and court the courts are involved. But right now,
the way it stands, thirty six cars will start every
race in the Cup Series, and then there's up to
four more spots up to forty a specialty can be
forty one. We can run an extra car if the
(03:45):
situation's right and everybody agrees. But it definitely is a
very exclusive groups. It's similar to a single position in
a football team, right, There's only so many quarterbacks really,
that's that. Even even though each team has several in
the lineup like as backups. We have three cars that
(04:05):
operate out of this shop. This year, our reserve driver
has been Connor Zilich, who is now being promoted into
the third car starting next season for his first full
time cup entry. So yes, my path was as a kid,
I followed in my dad's footsteps, the sugar sand of
South Florida and the watermelon fields that we grow in.
(04:27):
You leave a print when you walk. Everything, tire tracks,
animal tracks, everything, your boots. So I would as a
kid walk and have to jump. I usually had like
rubber boots on, those black rubber boots with the orange bottoms.
As a kid, I love those things and I would
jump to follow my dad. Into my head, I thought
that was following in my dad's footsteps.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
You, I wanted heard somebody say that phrase, he's following
his dad's footsteps. You actually took that.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
I did it and I jump, and I would jump,
and I want to to be like my dad, my granddaddy,
my great grandfather's sister before that. So it just didn't
work out. I fell in love with racing at twelve
years old. Never had a thought. I never had a
belief that it would work, that NASCAR would work for me.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Don't you don't start when you're twelve and have a
realistic dream to become one of thirty six drivers in
the world.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
A lot of people do, a lot of people that
I raced against told.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Well, a lot of people it's unreally, it doesn't happen right.
But they a kid wanted to play NBA and not
being able.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
To do it right, But they have that dream and
they work towards it. And there was kids working towards
that in two thousand and seven racing against me in
Southwest Florida. I'm the only one that got here, like
some of them were better than me. But the way
the business side works, the way I think that the
work ethic that my family instilled in me to just
(05:50):
keep getting up and going at it. I spent years
to get here. When people they'll give me a hard
time because like my calendar is pretty full. I'm kind
of down to the minute on race day, sket things.
Even during the week, there's a lot a lot of
nights I'm not at home. I tell them, I worked
really hard to be this busy. I wasn't always this busy.
I worked and built this brand and built this life
(06:11):
and career. But that wasn't at twelve. That really got serious.
When I was eighteen.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, well, the more I've seen the inside of this,
I mean, you are a professional athlete. You're handled like
a professional athlete. But I mean, now that I think
about it, we're big NBA fans, not big NBA. We're
lower tier, serious NBA fans, And at any given time
(06:41):
in the NBA, I don't know the a couple hundred players,
maybe more than that. And so when I think about
what you're doing, you're one of forty thirty six that
are in NASCAR. And so I want to explain NASCAR
just a little bit because I have not I'm new
to NASCAR, new to understanding how it works. And so
(07:04):
NASCAR is the North American Stock Car Association something NASCAR
senys for North American stock Car Not sure what the
ar At the end.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Stay you're close what is it. It's the National Association
for Stock Car Auto Racing. Okay, NASCAR, Okay, got I
also think they went that's a NASCAR, and someone said,
let's call it that NASCAR.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
It works, it's a good it rolls off the tongue.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
It does. And that is the premier stock car racing
series in the world for fenders, for fendered cars. You
have Open Wheel with IndyCar here in America, North America,
and then you've got Formula One with races across the
globe that is not anything like what we do. We
are a Florida owned company. The league is owned by
(07:51):
a family and well theyton't to Beach, Florida, the France family.
They've built this. I mean they had a lot of help.
They've built this sport. They've built their Brandy on the track.
On about half the tracks. They worked with the Smith
family on the others. There's a couple of private tracks.
But they have built a world that has provided a
life for so many of us. And I'm selfishly one
(08:13):
of them that has benefited from NASCAR Beyond my wildest dreams.
This this shop wouldn't be here. This was formerly a
different name shop. This was Chip Gannassi Racing. Chip Gannassis,
a guy out of Pittsburgh, has an IndyCar team is
winning all of the IndyCar Championships right now. Races over
there win sports Car Races has over the years operated
(08:34):
this team. It was his time to get out and
now Justin Marx is our owner in track House Racing.
So it's crazy to think about the life I've been
able to build in this sport. And I couldn't do
it without the league, NASCAR, the France family and their
thought process and how they built it decades ago. We're
over seventy five years old as a league. But for
(08:56):
the chastains, we were watermelon farmers that fell in love
with racing at our local short track and we have
grown all the way into the Cup Series where we've
now won races.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
It's incredible. So you you just were a gifted racer
and a driver as a kid, and then you just
started winning. Like I heard your dad talking, I met
your dad, spend a little bit of time with him,
and you you just started winning. And so it was
like you just kind of kept inching up in competition
(09:26):
until you got to the top of kind of the
I don't know if it be amateur, you got to
the top and there was nowhere else to go but
to the big leagues. I mean, and so, and what's
interesting to me is that, as we've seen, there's different
pathways where that happens with people. Some people are born
into it. I mean, like even I know about Dale
(09:48):
Junior and phenomenal racer and everything I know about him,
Like he wasn't just given that, but you know, his
dad was like one of the most famous guys ever.
And but so there's different path pathways to get into this.
And and uh, I think your pathway is unique and cool.
How many other guys would have been like that in
the circuit that would have just kind of started from
(10:11):
really zero.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
I mean, there's there's some there's a good mix. Yeah,
well we all. I don't think that any driver in
the Cup Series just woke up one day and then
they themselves if they're there currently, they didn't wake up
and say I want to be a NASCAR They were
molded by somebody. Somebody introduced them to the sport. It's
no different than outdoors. It's definitely not different than agriculture.
(10:36):
Somebody has to lay the groundwork for you. And I
think that that's a continual it's like a bright spot
to spotlight about. Like human beings, we we tried to
make it better for the next group. Now there is
that cycle of like hard times create hard people, which
create soft people, which create bad times, which create hard time.
It's like, you know, that could be a cycle. But
(10:57):
in the right frame of mind and the right circumstances,
people can make it better for the next generation. They
can leave a piece of land better for the next
generation than they found it. And that's through land management
and a lot of stuff on the agriculture hunting side.
But in racing, I'd say it's a good mix. There's
racers with names Elliott Blaney that you know like you
(11:19):
just know that name because there was somebody that raced
before them. Nobody knew who the last name Larsen was
before Kyle got to the sport. Nobody knew who the
last name Chastain was. Nobody knew who the last name
Suarez was until he got here, came to the States
and chased a dream of racing in the Professional American
(11:42):
League of NASCAR, coming in from Monterey, Mexico. So I'd
say it's a mix. I don't know what the number
with the what the percentages are, but it's a good mix.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yeah, yeah, and so part of the reason. Oh man,
there's so many different things I want to talk to you about.
We're gonna start with watermelons. Your family, the Chastain name,
like inside the watermelon World, y'all are supplying most of
the East Coast with watermelons that you're brokering, basically growing
(12:16):
but also brokering.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Is that right, yes, sir, Yeah. So our ag story
goes way back. The first just like a quick story
is the first Chastain came over from France in seventeen
hundred on a big ship with a bunch of people.
They were part of a religious group, some sort of
a Huguenot. I'm a little fuzzy on all those details.
But they landed and had a track of land outside
(12:39):
of Richmond up the river that they were given if
they would come homestead it. And from there they had
to start growing food to survive. So they did, and
then they started going south. I don't know if it
was too cold story as they went into South Carolina
and then into Georgia, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, and they
were there until the nineteen fifties. That's where it becomes
(13:01):
very clear because my grandfather was born and raised in o'clotney, Georgia,
near Thomasville. It's kind of due north of Tallahassee, Florida,
and that was not a good life. But we can
go back eight generations for my brother Chad and I
and track the watermelons specifically. They were farming the whole time.
You had to. It was just the way the world was,
(13:22):
and we've been fortunate enough to stay in it. And
my great grandfather sister moved the family to South Florida
in the fifties after my grandfather graduated high school. They
were down there about a year and my grandfather and
my great uncle, his brother, they enlisted in the service
because life wasn't even that good in South Florida. Now
you traded nats for mosquitoes and it was hot. They
(13:46):
went into the service, skinny, came out a lot fatter,
they had three meals a day. They had they were like,
this is the life amazing. So looking back at that
those times in South Georgia, they were going watermelons, but
they were not the early ones they want for domestically
in the States, water mils were coming out of Florida
getting the good market, good price per pound, and then
(14:07):
as it would come north, they got paid a lot less.
And my great grandfather was looking at that and ended
up moving the family south. And so we've got to
go for that earlier crop. And that's where it flourished,
just the weather, just being able to.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Grow, chasing the best watermelon crop possible.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yea too.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
I mean it was financial that. I mean they were
trying to make it living, but.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
They were not gonna be able to stay in ag
stay in farming in South Georgia. The way it was
going that it just wasn't They were not the good
old days. And that's where my grandmother and grandfather ended
up meeting. And our family has flourished and we're all
in a small pocket down there near Fort Myers. It
was Florida, and then we've partnered with other people. My
(14:50):
uncle decided to you know, partner with like minded people.
Met Hamilton dis out of South Carolina and John Lapede
out of Northeast up in New Jersey, New York, and
they partnered together over thirty years ago, created melon one
they wanted to Before that, it was the stories are
that it was live loading watermelons into bulk semis with
(15:13):
like straw on the floor, and then that semi would
drive store to store and out the side door would
unload into your pickley wiggley, go over to the Walmart, unload,
go over to the whatever food line, unload. And the
the grocery store industry was also evolving where their distribution
centers were becoming more prevalent. The palette cardboard bins on
(15:34):
pallettes were becoming the way things were working. And so
they wanted to take my dad's crop, Richie's crop, my
uncle even Hammy's crop in South Carolina and say, let's
not wait until like the week that we harvest it
to sell it. Let's like try to sell it like
nine months ahead of time or one year ahead of time.
Let's do some somet' Let's let's try to stabilize this
(15:57):
a bit. Let's lock in some prices that we know
we can survive on. And they did that, and and
other people were doing it too. But that changed the
game for the Chastains, and that solidified us to where
we've been able to grow in the industry, partner with
other families. The Green family line Arms who we've been
hunting with Daniel. Now seeing Ben grow into that role
(16:19):
with his dad is really cool. The pluses they're in
cordial Anthony Brown, Darryl lewis that group.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
It's he's named driving Watermelon Farmers.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Now, people that we met, We're not going to show everybody,
but it's it's on camera, but it's it's a it's
a network of about thirty farmers. So we can sell
watermelons three hundred sixty five days a year. And that's
what we're proud of that it's not Chastain Farms anymore.
It's bigger than us, and we're proud that it's melon
one selfishly for us mel On. The watermelon industry is
(16:51):
a big family though, and I do want to say
we are competitors with a lot of people, but I
promote all watermelons. When I mash a watermelon, I might
get it from one of our competitors. I'll have our
competitors out of the races. People that my family is
directly competing to sell to a produce buyer at a
chain store. I'm in the middle. I'm like, yes, of course,
I want my family to do good and provide for ourselves.
(17:15):
But I'm going to have the Lagiers, I'm gonna have
the Gibsons out at races whenever they want, and anybody
in the watermelon industry knows they're always welcome. That's it's
a unique thing about the watermelon industry. It's a family first.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Well, I consider myself in the watermelon industry. Ross because
of how many watermelons I eat. I've told you this
like ten times, but I've got to say it to
the world. They've heard about it. My world has heard
about the watermelon sixty, which you know, sixty days a year,
first of July in August, eat watermelon every day, go
through two melons a week. Usually it's like a it's
(17:47):
like a it's like a ritual. Use huge watermelon.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Man. Do you subtract a meal out of your day
or is this added? That's a great life you're living.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
It's sort of additive. Man. So Ross and I have
been to go for three days, two and a half days,
well three days three days now, and I went to town.
There's a lot of cool parts of this story. I
was at the Talladega Race and the pit all that stuff,
(18:19):
YadA YadA YadA. We've been talking watermelon, serious watermelon. I'm like,
I went to my first watermelon farm, like big, large
scale watermelon farm, super impressed, and then I didn't know
what kind of culture there was around watermelons. Pretty cool.
Ross represents the Watermelon Association of America, which I'll be
(18:42):
vying for some bite in that. Like, you know, we've
been talking about national watermelon campaigns that you know, maybe
could go on. I told him about Brent Reeves podcast
that he did early on on This Country Life of
Brenton did an incredible exisd on of watermelons. But so
(19:02):
now your story is so cool because it's just so authentic.
It is and it's and it's it's uh uh. I'm
fascinated with just rural America and farmers are a big
part of that. And then what's so cool about your
story too, is that you you grew up farming, connected
to the land in this like legitimate way, but you
(19:24):
didn't hunt, never hunted. But now you're hunting and that's
so we've been hunting this week. But tell me a
little bit about that, like.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Like, well, what I think, what my takeaway and what
I'm learning is that I've grown up on land, I've
been very fortunate. Like I said, I chose racing. Agriculture
chose me like I was born into it. And there's
pictures me as an infant in the field, my dad
hold me. What's so cool is the tractor local tractor
dealer for Caboda Creole Equipment Creal Tractor Company down in
(19:56):
Fort Myers, Florida. There's a picture of my dad and
one of their old hats. They were a different brand
of tractor then, and that's how my dad got started,
was Mark Creole loan my dad attractor and I'm an
infant and my dad's got their hat on. And then
we work with them again. Now through Caboda and the
racing sponsorship that corporate Caboda sponsors my NASCAR Cup car,
(20:19):
I'm able to represent a tractor brand on the race track.
It's amazing. But on that land, driving those tractors, driving
the old trucks. Way before I was sixteen, right, I
was driving on the farm, working a four wheeler, having
fun with my cousins old cars, racing them, hitting each other.
(20:40):
Our stories are definitely unique to maybe other farm kids
or might have a similar story. But I drove at
an early age through the woods across the fields. I
never looked for animals in the way that I do now.
I never looked the land the way I did. I
looked at two trees and I thought I could race
around those. I looked at a field and thought I
have to disc have to plow it or hero it.
(21:02):
But not where you're at in the country, you call
it all different things, but we call it a disk.
So you're plowing the dirt over to get the sand
and the grass all gone so we can plant our watermelons.
We need dry sand to plant in with some moisture,
and now to hunt only for this is my third
season fall deer season. I just look at every piece
(21:24):
of land, every tree in a It's a new way,
and it's what's so exciting. I've look at a watermelon
field and I'm looking for things the farmers are telling
me about disease. Are we getting white flies in as,
there's some sort of fuse, areas spreading? Are we too wet?
Are we too dry? What's their layout they're spacing their
plant spacing like a lot of things I'm looking at
as I go to all these different watermelon farms to
(21:47):
see what I think is the best, Like We're going
to keep evolving watermelon farming and make it better and
grow a better watermelon and cost the farmer hopefully less costs.
Input costs are always going up. But now when I
pull and I'm looking at the side of the field
for a stand, I'm looking at where as you've taught
me about pinch points and looking at natural features of
(22:08):
the land in ways that I would have never funn
looked that. And I haven't had that feeling about anything
in years. I hadn't racing when I first got in.
But remember I got into the NASCAR world in twenty eleven.
I got into a truck justin Marx, my now owner,
was getting out of in twenty eleven, and it was
all new, and for years I learned the sport from
twenty eleven till now twenty twenty five, and a bit
(22:32):
of that newness has worn off. And for hunting and me,
it's brand new, and I'm just when I climb a ladder,
I'm thinking about it because I'm just I didn't grow
up doing it, and I didn't grow up walking into
the woods to get ready for a hunt.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, afternoon, So something that you said to me that
I thought was interesting is that you never set still
on the landscape or in the woods. So you have
been on the land, you would have been working the land.
And it's I think it's a common thing, not not
all of the there's some farmers that are serious hunters,
but a lot of farmers they're out there working when
(23:12):
when they're done, they don't want to recreate in that
same place sitting there that they want to be somewhere else.
And so you said, when you first started sitting in
the woods, it was just like a whole different uh
consideration of data points, you know. I mean, you're you're
needing to learn tree species, and you're needing to learn
(23:34):
about what the animals are doing and their travel patterns
and wind and it just became this whole new world,
which is unique because a lot of people that get
into hunting, you know, they're they're getting used to being
outside really for like exposed period of time. I mean,
it's we live in such a bizarre time period in
place where like we rush around from place to place
(23:58):
trying to get away from outside. I mean it's like
you're standing outside in the parking lot and you're like,
let's go inside.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
When the park is close to the front and everybody
piles up.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Like if you were just a bile just looking at humans,
you'd be like, man, they're just always wanting to get inside.
They're wanting to get away from outside, you know. And
so you wouldn't have had that, like you would have
been a farmer. You would have been exposed to a
lot of it. But but it's just a different a
complete different set of considerations when you're hunting. And then
(24:31):
what's so fun? So I was with you yesterday when
you killed a deer and uh, so Ross, I mean,
we could go into the story, but like, he shoots
this deer, and it was kind of stressful. The deer
came from a position we weren't expecting it really at
a time we weren't. I mean, it's like right a dark,
right it dark, and you get situated and we finally
(24:53):
get everything set up, and uh and I mean it's
like I could just feel the adrenaline pumping like right
beside me. I kind of had to duck down into
the blind when he turned and laid a gun over
this rail and uh and I asked him, I said,
we were at Talladega two days ago, and I was like,
were you ever this excited at Talladega on Sunday? And
(25:15):
your answer was.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Hell, well, yes, about my heart rate And it was
a heart rate ever that high?
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Like no, and you were shooting a doe deer too.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Yeah with a rifle. No, not at all. And if
it would have won, heart rate would have spiked. I
mean that if you're in contention for the wind. But
I got shuffled back. I'd made some bad moves at Talladega.
But yeah, getting turned around my knee on the chair
had been sitting on in the chair, almost almost knocked
the chair over. You got her to stop in that moment,
(25:44):
to exhale and pull the trigger. I mean it just
it's only that that is that is my fourth dear
that I've ever harvested, and and I respect that, and
I have I let deer walk, But that was a
cool moment to do it with you there. Of course
I want the big buck to walk out, But for
that land, that was the first year of harvested on
(26:05):
my land that wasn't ertilize. That so really cool to
see that that's our first dear season hunting on that property,
and the group I've got down there that I do
it with on we you know they've they've already harvested some.
But for me that was my first, So it was
that was a big moment, my first piece of land
down there, an area of the country that I've grown
(26:27):
up going to know, a bunch of families there and
that's why I'm down there.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
So yeah, it was such a cool group.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
But shaking.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
And what's so awesome is that it really doesn't go away.
I mean it it, I hope not. To some degree
it does. I mean there's times when I take an animal,
you know, the like heart thumping adrenaline is is less.
I mean, there's certainly times when it's higher than the
others based upon the circumstance. But to this day, I
(26:59):
will at times get very nervous at a dough deer
with when I've got a bow. I mean, for reals.
That's kind of the cool thing about about this is
it that can never Sometimes it never goes.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Away, I hope not. And and talk about a bow.
I remember growing up some one well, my best friend
growing up was Cody Singletary, Singletary's Big Hunters best friends.
Me and Cody and his older brother Matthew, and then
our dads have been best friends for a long time.
Our grandparents knew each other in all farms, so watermelon farmers.
(27:35):
We all grow from melan one. I say we. I
lightly insert myself into that. It's really my dad, as
you can, I think. But to grow up with them,
I remember standing there, sitting on the ground watching them
shoot their bows ross you and try it. No, I
want to go ride the four wheeler. Well, we're gonna
shoot bows until dark. We're shooting at the block, shooting
at the decoy. We're like practicing. They're practicing. They're practicing,
(27:58):
And I could have been doing that at ten years
yars old, and I never had any interest. And now
I've asked you, like, all right, guide me on how
to buy a boat, Like where should I go? So
we've talked about that and yeah, find somewhere, and it'll
start that process sometime soon. I'm not saying I'm gonna
go today, but that's exciting for the next step, and
(28:18):
to be able to get more intimate and understanding then
the different positions I'm gonna need to go sit and
hunt from with the bow versus the rifle is exciting
because now that's like a whole other chapter of this book.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Yeah, and I think I heard you say this, but
there's something about the natural world that you can't control.
And the exposure that I've had to the inside of
inside looking too NASCAR just the last couple of days,
I have been amazed at the control that you guys
(28:51):
have over that car. I mean, just phenomenal. I mean
I could do this whole podcast just telling you what
I've seen, just like the the micro adjustments that they're
making on these cars in the fly. Your your job
is so, I mean, you have a race on the weekend, Monday,
you have this big meeting where this huge team comes
(29:12):
in and you analyze the car, the data, how you did.
And then today is a Tuesday, and so the guys
have your car in there and they are tweaking on
that thing, getting ready for next week. Ton of control
is the point of that story. When you go into
the woods and you're hunting the deer, white tailed deer
(29:36):
or turkey or whatever, that control is completely different. I mean,
does did you identify with that as something that's that's
that's uh compelling about going into the woods, like it's
it's it's kind of like a relaxation, just like I'm
this is not nobody's asking me what to do here?
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Yeah? Is that? I mean absolutely? And that's what I love.
I don't my life and calendar is is I'm helped
by a lot of people. I've got We use Apple Calendar,
and I think there's nine getting ready to be a
tenth person added to it that input things. And they're
all talking, and they're all guiding me on where I
need to go. And a couple work like almost a
month out on stuff, and sometimes longer. Stuff comes on
(30:17):
the calendar for like already next race season. We haven't
even finished this one, and we're already like locking in
dates down to the minute of things next year. And
so when I get to the woods, I am not
making a decision. When I get away from the racetrack
and away from work, I don't you saw. I don't
want to pick where we go to breakfast. I don't
want to pick where we go to dinner. I don't
(30:38):
care what we eat, I don't care what time. I'm
just along for the ride. I want everybody else to
guide us. And I'll be a I'll paddle the boat,
but I'm not steering it. And so I feel like
when I get in the woods and the natural part
of animals, and what I've learned is they're not going
to do the same thing every time. There's gonna be
some wildness to it. And so not expecting that dough
(31:00):
to walk out directly behind us. We had picked our quadrants. Yeah,
a game you had us play. Picked of the four
quadrants we picked. I would think I was closest. Ish
you picked opp.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Yeah, I'd say you because the dough came from the quadrant.
So we were sending in a box line looking three
hundred and sixty degrees and I said, let's let's play game.
Pick which quadrant we split it into, you know this
three sixty into into four. And so we guessed and
both of us were wrong.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Yeah, the first one take that our caravan read was wrong.
Well he just copied you because you know, I went
with your But yeah, you were closest.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Yeah, so we we didn't know where the steer was
gonna come from.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
So yeah, that was that's cool. And yeah, excited to
learn that land more it's new and continue to learn land.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
You know, everybody's got a different angle for why they
do something. And I think, uh, as long as that
and I think They're all valid really as long as
I mean, as long as the hunting that the person
is doing is is inside the limits of the law
and you know, is aiming towards some conservation goal, you know,
(32:10):
you know what I mean. I mean, like there's people
that go to the woods to relax. There's also people
that go to the woods not to relax. And in
many cases ross my hunting is probably like you're NASCAR
racing in a way, and that like I go to
the woods oftentimes to to test myself in a while place,
if I'm being honest, I mean, that's part of the
(32:31):
fun of it. Is just you know, more these more difficult,
strenuous hunts or more technical hunts that require a lot
of time, a lot of getting stuff right, you know,
the hard stuff. But I also do a lot of
hunting that's just pure, just a pleasure hunt for like
we use that term in the coon dog world always
(32:53):
like that since I was a kid, they were like,
you pleasure hunting this weekend. Like it's an interesting way
to say it, but yeah, I guess so, you know,
so there's different I don't go to the woods necessarily
to I do go to the wood because my job
in some way revolves around hunting. But also that's my
hobby too, like I really don't do anything else.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
I think that's for me is what racing is. It's
it's a hobby that's turned into profession. But if if
the right circumstances, and it would have to be a
social thing with with buddies, with other racers, if we
were going to go and have a track day, call
it where we're not getting paid, we actually probably have
to buy the tires and pay for the fuel and
on the cars and have our own Like if we
(33:33):
were going to go do a track day with some
cars or something, I would do that for fun, so
you would pleasure. I pleasure race, pleasure race. But then
thirty eight times a year, I'm racing the cup car
not for pleasure. I want to win. I am there
only to win. I bring my friends with me at
trackhouse and we go try to win, and uh, it
is pleasurable to do, but it is not pleasure racing.
(33:55):
So I think it's similar for me in racing, you
to hunting. For me to hunting, and honey, I want
to go hunt now. If it was going to be
more strenuous, I'd have to know that ahead of time
and right where the right gear and be ready and prepared.
But most of mine is so I mean, I'm very
very new, and I think what is so cool is
you can always like every day you could be your
(34:17):
first day to go hunting, is what I've learned. Like
my first time was with Adam Will who you met,
and David set me up with that, and they were
hunting and Adam took me and just talked me through everything,
and I'll always remember that first staying. We sat in
me trying to be still, and a buck did walk
out and I was like, I couldn't shoot it. I couldn't.
(34:40):
I couldn't get the scope anywhere close to that buck.
He was moving back and forth and rut chasing a doe.
And that was a couple of years ago, three seasons
ago now and just like Adam, like I never even
got close and he was gone. So like I remember
that in that adrenaline rush, Mine's definitely gonna be more pleasure, say,
(35:01):
because I'm trying to relax. Yes, it's what I want
to do.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah. Yeah, And those those like hard hunts, I mean
they're fun. Yeah, I mean we're not doing it because
it's not fun. It's fun. If you're not familiar with
Ross Chastain, go type into your computer Wall the Wall Ride,
(35:29):
Ross Chastain Wall Ride. So something happened with Ross three
years ago. He was in a race and this, this
event has will will probably outlive him in terms of
its legacy. And NASCAR tell me about the wall Ride.
So we've had this conversation before, but it's it's I
(35:51):
had to bring it up on this podcast.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Yeah. So I went into the thirty fifth race of
our thirty six points races, eighteen points above my competitor.
I need to beat the eleven of Denny Hamlin, not
let him gain eighteen points on me. Nineteen we could
tie and I would win. So at eighteen positions over
the course of the race. Now we'd had a long
history that year. I had ran into him at Saint Louis,
(36:15):
he didn't. I ran into him again Atlanta, and then
he ran into me at Pocono. So we had had
this on track, hurting each other.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Is this I'm not sure if I can bring this
up or not, but it's kind of out there. Is
this the guy you punched?
Speaker 3 (36:27):
No? No, no, no, definitely not, definitely.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Not that that video comes up too.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
Yeah, that one does.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
And before I even knew you, I knew it wasn't
your fault.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
Oh well had I had a large hand to play
in it well as well as he and he started it.
He started it, and yeah it was it needed to
be ended. So and we were Noah Gregson and I
we walked in the gym Monday morning after that punch
and shook hands and worked out together. Is that what done?
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yep? He was good. I was good.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Is he still race?
Speaker 3 (36:58):
He does?
Speaker 2 (36:58):
He was at the race Saturday.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
He was in it.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
He was a leader.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
We're good. Yep. He texted me last week. They were
in Nashville. Everybody thinks because of the track house that were
in Nashville a lot. Yeah, And we're over here in Concord.
This is where our workforce is. But our kind of
soul and the foundation of the company justin lives in Nashville,
So we do a lot there with Tutsi's so anytime
any of the other drivers that I'm buddies with or
they're they're like, send me a picture on Broadway, like
(37:23):
where you at? Like I'm in North Carolina and where
you live?
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Yeah? We all live every year, so yeah, you could
have come over to my house. Yeah, where we left.
So the wall ride distracted, but you could also the
last last getting.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
A little scuffle the last lap, I needed to gain
two spots and I was far enough away I couldn't
catch them. So in the final corner I held it
to the floor. I ended up up shifting to fifth gear.
Normally we run fifth gear all the time, and at
martin zilt's a unique small track, so we run third
and fourth. Uh, and I shifted the fifth and ran
the wall and I gained like three seconds on my competition,
(37:56):
and that put me right ahead of the eleven, which
moved me on to the champion ship race the next week.
So in our first year as a team twenty twenty
two track Houses second year of existence, my first year
with the team, we're able to go fight for a
championship in a four car playoff at one race and
we'll ultimately finished second two hundred and thirty five feet.
We lost the championship by two hundred thirty five feet. Wow,
(38:18):
So that was a bummer.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
He kind of didn't give the full drama version, but
the wall ride was imagine an oval track with concrete walls,
and in the corner you have to slow your car
down to go around the corner, and the guys are
cutting the corner as tight as possible to make the
shortest line, And so if you go wide slower, it's
(38:44):
slower and you're taking a longer route to get to
the finish line. So on the final lap, ross is
like ten or eleven and he knows it just like
fifteen seconds before you did it. You kind of thought
about this, but.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
I had accepted defeat and then off turn four taking
the white flag the last lap to start the five
hundred lap, it popped in my head to run the wall.
And what's scary, I honestly, is that I couldn't think
of a reason why not to do it? Why not?
I kept why not? Why not? And I thought wall, fine, fence, fine, gate, fine,
all things that should have been like red flags. You know.
It's like I just ignored all of them and held it,
(39:24):
and I ended up letting go of the wheel because
it was shaking so violently. So we have aluminum wheels
and really low sidewall like low profile tires. Our sidewalls
are very short so they don't bubble out the year
before twenty twenty one, and all the way back in time,
we had a smaller wheel and bigger tire, fatter tire,
just the way the evolution of our car went to
(39:45):
a single lug nut aluminum wheel versus steel, and that
aluminum wheel the sidewall pressed in flat and like just
straight up and down, and the illuminum wheel slid along
the steel wall. So on the concrete. Then we bolt
steel with foam, and that steel just as smooth, and
that aluminit wheel is actually like a castor tire, like
(40:07):
a castor wheel and a dumpster like you can roll it.
You know, it's rough, but a steel wheel rolls on concrete,
it rolls on on asphalt. It's rough, but that's what
it felt like, was a steel wheel.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
So he used centrifical force to basically, when these guys
were slowing down to take a shorter route around the corner,
you went faster and the wall kept you in line,
and basically you were going twice as fast as that.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
Basically normally it's like one hundred and thirty on the
straightaways down to seventy five in the corners. Yeah, constantly
accelerating and slowing down. I went one hundred and forty
five ish. I don't have the exact number off the
top of my head to say I sped up an
extra fifteen miles an hour than our normal top speed
because I had more straightaway to keep going. They hit
the brakes. Sin took a shorter distance.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
But you went.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
I just shot it around and I couldn't see anything.
That's the G forces were high. It was a couple
seconds doing it. It took a couple to get around there.
And the car with the independent rear suspension the transact
so it kept driving the car like it kept the
wheels on the ground. The rear tires the left front
did pick up off the ground a little like the
G forces pulled it up. But it destroyed the car.
(41:14):
It bent the chassis, it broke the suspension. My brakes
weren't working very good at the after, so I kind
of hit the wall after the finish again, but it
accomplished the goal. We went from tenth to fifth place
and that got us in the.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Chair and then they outlawed being able to do this.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
They left it for one more week, so the championship race,
we were allowed to do it if we wanted. Unfortunately,
Joey Logano for teen penske. He won the championship and
won the race. His teammate Ryan, who wasn't in the
final four, was right behind him, so I already knew
if I did it, Ryan would just pull up and
block me. So I didn't do it, and Joey won
beat me fair.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
And square, beach, fair and square. Well, I thought it
was pretty cool that they outlawed it after that. I mean,
just you know, so nobody's gonna like, nobody's gonna do
it any better than you did.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
It, not better. It has been done again on accident.
Chrisopher Bell did it. Happened to him last year twenty
twenty four, and he didn't mean to do it, but
he did do it a little bit and they pulled
him out of the finale for doing it. He had
made it in and they pulled him.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
So that was bad, completely disqual.
Speaker 3 (42:19):
That was disappointing because that he didn't deserve that, Like,
there was a lot.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Of disciplined him. They didn't just like say that race.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
They disciplined him and that took him out.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Oh that's that was bad.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
I didn't I don't love that because he didn't do
it with my intention, My intention for fifteen seconds was
to do that. No, there was no rule. They created
the rule athlete legal, What you did? I asked NASCAR.
They'd add my initials in to the rule and it
told me to get out, go on, come on, get out,
go get out here.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
I thought that was I thought that was pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
Yeah it was. It gets talked about as much as
each win. What's I'm proud of? We won two races
before that, two then we won or then we did
the hell Melon. Then we've won four more times after.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
We call it the hell Hell Mary, but it's the
hell Melon.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
Yeah, I like it. I like it. We've won more race,
We've won more races after which I'm proud of.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Yeah, I didn't want that to be my last thing.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Well, and you said that in NASCAR, that was like
one of the most watched video clips of all time.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Yeah. I think I've seen some reports and the best
they can capture from all social media and all impressions
and right clicks and everything. I don't really know what
I'm talking about here, but there's been no no thing
right when you when you pile it all together. From
the winner of the Daytona five hundred, the winner of
the Coke six hundred, the championship winner. Like those videos,
(43:48):
none of them add up to anything close to what
Because it went worldwide, there was people chiming in other
racers from other Formula One series a right indy car
because a lot of us had done it as kids.
So the best I can tell you, the only way
it popped in my head was as a kid. I
probably did it on the game cube, and I know
I did. You turn around and go backwards on those games,
(44:09):
right video console games, hold it wide open, turn the
automatic brakes off on the video game and just let
it go into the wall and it'll flip or whatever,
and not not like, Oh, when I get to NASCAR
and I'm I'm racing for a championship, I'm gonna do this. No, definitely,
that's cool.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
I like it. Man, Have you ever been in any
bad recks?
Speaker 3 (44:29):
I have California twenty twenty two Spring practice, a track
that's now closed down. We've lost it. They developed that land,
but yes, bottomed out new car. The Gen seven car
was brand new, bottomed the left ear frame out and
over corrected. It got started to get loose and slide.
(44:52):
The rear and I turned the wheel to the right and
lifted and it caught. And it comes back to that
low profile tire. It acts different than our old tire,
and the suspension acts different. So I hit at an angle,
but pretty much head on at about one hundred and
forty miles an hour into the wall to the wall.
Came off the wall seventy, so it was like hitting
a wall at seventy and stopping.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
So you hit this wall going seventy.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
One hundred and forty, one hundred and forty, and when
I came off of it, I was still going seventy.
I like it like redirected me, you know, at an angle.
I hit it and then I went.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
So did the car catch on fire? Did it tumble?
Did it just crumple up it?
Speaker 3 (45:31):
It did not flip, And at the time it didn't
absorb much, so I took the energy. The energy the
G forces was up in the I don't know, mid fifties,
sixty sixty g's of impact. There's some discrepancy on their
data calculators and they're capturing at the time. Some math
(45:54):
doesn't add up back then when you look back at it,
the cars were very stiff. Everything all the frame rails
on the new car very horizontal. Everything's very block, I'll
call it. There's no real curves to the frame a
Monte Carlo that Chevrolet would have produced in the eighties.
Everything's very rounded because when it hits, they want stuff
to move. They want the frame horns, frame horns to crush,
(46:17):
bumpers to come in. We had just foam and the
way it was all built was very stiff, and we
hurt some drivers. Kurt Busch has retired, and he took
hits his whole career. It all adds up. He took
a hit at Pocono that year, backed it in the wall,
and he never raced again. We've learned from that. We've
evolved this car. I'm proud to drive this car. I
(46:39):
was proud then, I'm proud now when I took that hit.
I believe if I took that same hit today, although
the cars the same, technically, we have modified it, the
sport has, the league has, it would feel better. I
would take less impact than my body. So I had
some pull muscles in my back, in my neck, had
(46:59):
some pain that I raced the next day. So I
did I scare you? It did? It did? That was
the only one I've ever had that scared me. Scared. Yeah,
and I've never had any like, you know, broken bones
or surgeries. An ice bath that night got the swelling
down in my back, a lot of stretching to get
in the car. I was still really stiff though, getting
(47:22):
in really sore, and I was able to go race
and I ultimately worked my way up into the top ten.
Late in that race, and then I spun out in
the same spot, but instead of over cracking and hitting
the wall, I just held it left and spun the
car out and ultimately cost us to get finish. But
it it was at least I learned my lesson because
I hit the same bump I'd avoided all race and
(47:43):
I was trying to gain some more spots at the end,
I thought I'm gonna go on that line again, and
it bottomed out the same.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Way, and really it was a bump in the track.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
Yeah, that track was really bummy. It was an awesome track.
I hate we lost it. It was super wide. It's
unlike anything we have. And they ultimately sold the land
and there's some distribution centers or something there now.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
So when when I was at Talladega, the other day
in your pit, like watching the start and just being there.
I was thinking it was scary is probably the wrong word,
but it was intimidating it clearly it would be that
someone who's not been there before. But after the race
we met you, Like after the race, he's two and
(48:23):
a half hours, like white knuckle driving this car one
hundred and ninety miles an hour, bumper to bumper. I
mean you're touching the car in front of you sometimes
going one hundred ninety miles an hour. Yep. Like the
intensity level of it, I mean, just even as a
fan was over the top. And so you like crawl
out of the car and then we drive to go
(48:45):
deer hunting. I didn't know what to expect from you,
Like would you be like like you just got out
of an MMA fight, you know and you or would
you be like super tired or would you I had
no idea, and you were just like you are right
now when you got out of that car. That was
my perception, and I think I ask you, was that scary?
Speaker 3 (49:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (49:10):
Because in my mind, you know, Ross's race his whole life,
and I'm like the one race I see. I'm like, man,
I hope he's okay. I mean, I hardly know this guy,
and I'm like, man, this is this is dangerous. I
don't know about this, but you said that you're you
don't like, you're not afraid at all. You're more scared
climbing a deer stand than driving in the that Taladan
(49:31):
for any race. Yeah, absolutely, that's astonishing to me.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
I have respect for racing. I don't. I don't. I know.
I know that I will not always race. I know
one day I'm gonna stop racing. Now. I hope it's
on my own terms. I hope that I'm able to
decide that and plan that out. I don't want it
to be taken from me, but I respect that it could.
Like I'm not guaranteed to race this weekend, Like, yeah,
we're back from deer hunting. I'm gonna prepare now the
rest of the week, I'm not gonna you know, I'm
(49:57):
really not gonna think about hunting other than maybe some
memories from the week. But I'm going to focus now
for several days on Martinsville and Phoenix, and that's what
I'm gonna roll. Right out of Martinsville and no nothing
ahead of the ahead of Phoenix, well straight into our
finale in a week and a half. So I respect
racing from that aspect, just like I respect climbing a
(50:19):
ladder in a tree or climbing up into a box blne.
I just I don't. I don't. I don't lose sight
of like one slip off that ladder and it changes things.
One bad wreck and it changes things. Like we're human.
This is not nobody's getting out of this live. And
I respect that in all aspects of things I do.
(50:40):
When I get on the highway to drive home, like
I have a respect that and a feeling that like
that I could be my last time. I don't. I'm
not like a morbid I'm not saying it in a
morbid way. I'm just that I respect this so I
enjoy the time here. I don't take it for granted.
Walking in these front doors, walking in your eyes were
big to this shot, right. I've now walked into this
(51:01):
building since twenty eighteen. I was first invited here and
hired here to drive for zero dollars in their Exfinity car.
I got an opportunity as like a three race tryout,
and I was able to win one of those, finished
second in another and crash for the lead in the
third one and that got me And I'm still here.
That was twenty eighteen, and I've made a home here.
(51:22):
The name has changed, that people have changed, but some
of us are still here and that's really cool. And
I wouldn't do it want to be doing it right
with anybody else. So I just have a respect that, like,
one day's going to be my last day walking in here. Now.
I hope it's when we moved to some bigger shop
and we're in this better situation and track House has grown.
But yeah, I don't I appreciate that the race was over.
(51:47):
I think I had a bush light in my hand
when I walked up to you had had a bowl
of chicken and rice. I think I had some broccoli
and chicken and rice and had a meal and had
a beer and was ready to jump in the truck
and I had the deer camp and then we had
a good couple of days.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Yeah, you know when you told me that, it reminded
me people not it's not hunters that asked me this,
but people that just don't understand much about hunting or
bears in particular, and people here that we bear hunt
and The first question that people want to ask me
is are you not afraid? You know? And I respond
(52:23):
the exact same way that you do about your car.
It's like no, and it's not bravado or something. But
people that hunt bears aren't afraid of bears, like bears
are not. You should be much more afraid of driving
down the interstate. And we had this conversation. I mean, like,
it's probably more dangerous driving down the Interstate than it
is you driving out there one hundred ninety miles an
(52:44):
hour in the car that you're driving.
Speaker 3 (52:45):
You know.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
So Yeah, to the uninitiated, everything seems unusual or you're
you become like hyper aware of the of the of
the danger of it just because you're like just not
you just haven't been there before. Yeah, but but now
I had such a good time. I was amazed at
the access. I've heard it said before this week that
(53:10):
the cool thing about being a NASCAR fan is the
access that you can get. I mean there were fans
like the minutes before you get in your car, like
swarming you, getting pictures. Yeah, if you've never been to
a NASCAR event, you you should go. You should go
before we close? What what do you want to do
(53:33):
inside of hunting. I realize this is your third season,
you're new to it. You probably you probably don't know
all the options, nor do you need to like you could,
you could. You could hunting Georgia for the rest of
(53:53):
your life. Deer hunting at that camp with those friends
and like have a very very rich component of your life.
That's honey, that's the cool thing about it. You don't
have to do anything. But what what do you have
any goals? I mean, even like deer hunting on your land, Like,
do you have any goals?
Speaker 3 (54:12):
Well, I know an area that I'm gonna spray and
burn because it's a little thick. Yes, it's a little thick.
So that is on the docket. David la we.
Speaker 2 (54:23):
Had to track his deer a little bit last year,
pushed a little bit good gear habitat though.
Speaker 3 (54:29):
You know, I know, I know it, I know it.
I was all in it. Well you were in it, yeah, yeah,
uh yeah. I want to work that land. I want
to continue to learn it. Like I told you, I
had hunted the gilly, but I had not hunted that
tower blind. So I like to add some bird like
little things, like I want to add some bur Lab.
(54:50):
I didn't like that we were so exposed. They liked it.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
You want to learn how to hunt your land.
Speaker 3 (54:55):
I want to do it a bit my way, and
I want to be a little more more covered up
up and blend in a little more. So.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
I don't know, but you like whitetail hunting. I think
that's kind of what you're focused.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
I do know it. And yeah, hunting hogs is something
that we do in South Florida, so I've done that before,
but that's a that's not a sitting thing as much
where those are now since they're eating the watermelons. That's
a more of an ag hunt. Totally different atmosphere when
(55:28):
we do that. So have met a friend in Kansas,
his daughter actually works here at track House, and then
met her dad and mom and so it been out
to his place last year. I'm going to go again
this year with a farmer from Florida. So mine is
definitely if I'm going to my land, I can go
by myself and sit and I don't you know, text them,
(55:51):
text the group, chat a picture or something, but my
hunting buddies. Other than that, if I'm going somewhere, I
want to it's social for me, I want to do
it with pool that want to go to deer camp
and have that experience. Justin marks no different. Him and
I got into hunting on the same day. Neither one
of us had ever done it. He's hiked mountains right
like climb He's a climber. I've been in fields. He's
(56:14):
been in the wilderness. He never and I never, like
we never looked at the woods like we look at
it now. And for him and I, it's been so
cool to have this, this professional relationship we've built after
over a decade of a personal friendship and now we've
grown it in a hunting so I kind of have
three different parts of Justin that we've and he has
three different parts of me that we've grown through and
(56:36):
to get to go race and win races together and
see what he's built a worldwide brand now where track
House has won. Now in Moto GP in America, Motor
GP is not what it could be. It's not nearly
as popular as NASCAR motorcycle motorcycle racing on circuits, so
it's the fast motorcycles where the riders are leaned over
on the racetrack that a Formula One car would race
(56:58):
on and their elbow me touching the ground. They have
pucks on their elbows and Rowell was able to get
his first win from self and trackhouse. So I look
at that like we were just a couple of years
ago and I met Rowell. He's been here to America,
came to the shop and to see his struggles and
now see his success and see Justin Who's I think,
(57:20):
by the way I know it, one of his first
loves was Motor GP racing, even before NASCAR, So to
see that come through for him, to get to see
him Sunday after his team won all the way in Australia,
he wasn't there. It's a bummer. I wish he would
have been there, but he was with us in Talladega
getting ready to go to Deer Camp. Yeah. You got
a guy that has built a race winning NASCAR team,
(57:40):
has won a race in the Nationwide Nationwide Series, in
now Xfinity Series, getting ready to be O'Reilly Auto Parts Series.
It's stepping through some names and has built this winning
organization here with all of his drivers winning and now
winning in Australia in Motor GP. It's just incredible. And
the fact that he wants to go to deer camp
(58:00):
with me for two days. Is so cool. Yeah, and
we have learned it together. We're learning about ammunition together,
We're learning about guns together. You know, everybody in both
of our families are not hunters like we. We both
are catching some flak for it. You know. We we
have to have both have hard conversations with our family
(58:21):
that can be tough about why we want to do
this and the respect we have for it. Right. So
doing that together has been really really cool, and I
think it's very unique. I don't see that in a
lot of Nascar, and I I want to do this
with my people. I want to go hunt with my people.
I want to go racing with my people, and Justine
my people. So we have we have a good time.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
Man, That's cool, very cool.
Speaker 3 (58:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (58:44):
Well, ross Man, for for a guy that has been
on a super Bowl commercial, on the halftime super Bowl commercial,
you're you're incredibly humble and been really genuine and fun
to hang out with. And I hope we get to
(59:05):
do something together again at some point inside of hunting.
I want to bring my wife to a NASCAR race.
She wants to come, come on, she does, but it's
been a pleasure. Thank you for the hospitality. Yeah. So
we're at the now we're going to go to the
track house facility.
Speaker 3 (59:23):
All right, we're here at the cup shop. This is
where our cars get assembled. Nearly one hundred and ninety employees,
nearly two hundred, right around one hundred and ninety, and
a lot of them live right in this area, come
to this shop right Their careers, their lives, their families
all revolve around these three race cars going and trying
to win every Sunday. We've been able to win six
races as a team this year. I've got one. SVG
(59:46):
has got five last five road course races, so definitely
a lot to celebrate as we wrap up the year.
Speaker 2 (59:52):
Awesome man, cool, Keep the wild pless as wild because
that's where the bears live.
Speaker 3 (01:00:01):
Nine
Host
Clay Newcomb
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