November 11, 2025 • 36 mins
On this episode of Throttle Therapy, Katherine Legge is joined by the commissioner of NASCAR, Steve Phelps, to discuss his journey from Chef Boyardee to racing. They discuss NASCAR’s growth, from international expansion to how they incorporate fan feedback with the Fan Council. They also talk about the importance of introducing new OEMS to the sport and future possibilities for electric and hybrid vehicles.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Throttle Therapy with Catherine Legg is an iHeart women's sports
production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You
can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Hey you guys, and welcome
(00:21):
to this week's episode of Throttle Therapy with Me Catherine.
I really really hope I'm not getting sick. I'm never sick,
and I got the sniffles. And it might be because
the temperature has dipped below freezing here in Georgia, all right,
and it might be in my head. I'm hoping so,
or it's locally in my head, but either way, not great.
(00:42):
Made good progress this week on next year. I think
everything feels like it's moving forward again, which is good.
And been trying to get everything in order from the
end of this season, catch up on all my emails
and my paperwork and try and organize next season, as
well as training a bit harder in the gym. It's
so much nicer when you're in a routine and you
(01:02):
can feel like you're achieving things. So that's been fun.
Really hoping to get the majority of next year tied
down over the next few weeks. So that I can
enjoy the holidays and not have to worry about who
I were, what and when. When it comes to teams
and sponsors and series and all the other stuff, it's
very stressful. We've spoken up before, so this week I
(01:27):
have a very special guest. I obviously knew of him
before this year, but I didn't know him personally and
his lovely fiance. Since getting to know them, I have
an immense amount of respect for what they do, especially
how he leads, and I aspire to be the kind
(01:48):
of leader that he is because he's very strong and
yet compassionate and very helpful, and I have asked I've
asked him for a few things this year. I've gone
to him and said, Hey, can you help me with this?
Hey can you help me with that? And I feel
like it's very one sided at the moment, but he's
been awesome and I think that's part of the reason
(02:10):
why they have such an epic product. And that product
is a NASCAR and this is Steve Phelps, who is
the commissioner of NASCAR. Hello, and welcome to this week's
episode of Throttle Therapy with me Catherine Legg and this week,
(02:33):
I have a very very VIP on the pod with me,
and I've got to know him a little bit this year,
and I would love to call him a new friend.
And I have been super impressed with the way that
he conducts himself and what he has done for a
motorsport in general. And I'm very honored to invite Steve
(02:57):
Phelps on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Hi Stephen, Hello Catherine. It's such a pleasure to be
here with you.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Thank you for taking the time. I know you're an
extremely busy man. I had no idea that NASCAR was
so hard because you're racing every week, so you literally
don't get a day off, and there's no time. There's
no rest for the wicked. As they say, you literally
have no time. So I really do appreciate you taking
the time to talk to us. So I would love
(03:23):
to start with younger version of Steve and what you
wanted to be when you grew up and how you
transitioned from your other various roles into being their commissioner
of NASCAR, Like what drives you?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
So I grew up in Burlington, Vermont, which are there
are not a lot of people who are growing up
in Burlington, Vermont because it's pretty small I really wanted
to get into sports, although I'm not really sure I
knew what that meant. And so I went to the
University of Vermont undergrad Then I went to got my
MBA at Boston College, and then to New York City.
(04:00):
I got a job there working for a fortune fifty
company called American Home Products, and I worked for the
food's division, and I was ultimately a brand manager on
the Chef boyar D brand, which I'm not even sure
you know what the chef board brand is, Catherine, because
it's really so it's essentially pasta and a can and
(04:21):
he's got on the little chef. Yeah. So yeah, that
was super exciting. And then I transitioned to a new
job and I worked for the Guinness Import Company. I
was the brand manager on the Bassett brand. Cool so yeah.
So I was eating really bad pasta and a can
and then I was drinking too much. So but I
had an opportunity to go work at the NFL, which
(04:45):
I did, so I went and I worked there for
almost fourteen years, and when I left, I was working
for the current commissioner, Roger Goodell. So it was a
great place to work, a great place to cut your
teeth in sports, just a massive brand and they continue
to just be super successful. And I worked for a
(05:08):
year for a gentleman named named Casey Washerman who owns
an agency called Wasserman. He's also the head of LA
twenty eight and a good friend. And then NASCAR came
knocking and they went out for me pretty hard, and
I decided to go back to you know, kind of
the league or sanctioning body in this case. And I've
(05:31):
been here for twenty years in various roles.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Twenty years. That's cool.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I've got one of the best jobs in the world.
So I'm super grateful to my two owners, Jim France
and Lisa Franz Kennedy. You know, they're the ones who
gave me this opportunity to be the CEO and then
the president and now the commissioner. And I'm humbled and
honored by that.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
If I think about running any major sport, but most sports,
what I know, like whether it's NASCAR, Indykara, imso whatever
it is, you've got so many different parties that you
have to juggle keeping happy because you've got the OEMs,
you've got the teams, you've got the drivers, you've got
the internals of the series. You've got the tracks, you've
(06:14):
got the sponsors, and like inevitably, they're all odds at
some point in time. So I think people would look
at it and think, oh, that's not and that's no
mean feat to be able to look at it from
thirty thousand feet and do what's best for the sport
as a whole.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Well, it's very astute of you to understand all the
stakeholders that are involved as part of this kind of
at the center of that for me really needs to
be about the fan and trying to serve the fan.
I think the most difficult thing, Catherine. I've said this
many times before. Let's say the universe of fans is
one hundred, which obviously it's significantly larger than that, but
(06:52):
for lustrative purposes, we're not going to make a hundred
people happy out of one hundred. To your point about
serving different constituents. Some fans don't like that we ran
the Chicago street race, or ran the class at the Coliseum,
or went to Mexico, or I don't like road courses,
I don't like short ovals. So everyone's got their thing.
(07:16):
We try to balance that with what we believe is
going to help drive the sport forward because to me,
my main objective is not to make money, and I
think the France family is great about that. Do we
make money, Yeah, we make money, but it's not the
driving factor for us. The driving factor for us is growth.
(07:39):
So we want to grow the number of people who
are NASCAR fans, both here domestically as well as internationally,
which I think is incredibly fertile ground for us.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah, how do you survey, like what the fans want?
Do you look at social or do you realize that
it's growing so you're on the right track.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
I think there are a number of different things. So
we have something called the NASCAR Fan Council, which is
I don't know, made up of thirty five thousand or
forty thousand fans that have different levels of avidity. So
some are casual, some are super heavy avid fans, and
we get their opinion after every single race. There's some
(08:24):
open ended questions about what they like, what they don't like,
what they like to see change, how our media partners
are resonating with them, production quality, any number of things.
It's a great opportunity for us to understand kind of
the wants and the needs of the fans, which helps
in our decision making, so we don't always make decisions
(08:45):
that are based on what's happening through the Fan Council.
There are many, many other opportunities for us to gain
people's opinion, and a lot of that also goes to
that next level, down to all those stakeholders that you
talked about, including our media partners, which is one you
didn't talk about, and really surveying you know what it
(09:05):
is that the industry wants us to do. I saw
on the Kevin Harbick podcast the other day he was
talking about, Hey, that horsepower really going from six seventy
to seven point fifty on tracks less than a mile
and a half. He does think it's going to have
a great impact. I don't know what can impact it's
going to have. Could we go to a thousand horsepower?
(09:25):
We could, but that's a significant cost burden that would
go to the industry, the OEMs, the teams, ourselves. If
we really thought that if that was the panacea for
better racing at short tracks and road courses, we would
get the industry to rally around it. The question is
(09:45):
will it and so are you going to make a
fifty million dollar decision and then find out, oh, it
didn't work, and then you can switch it back, which
is going to cost another fifty million dollars or whatever
it is that you're cheasing. So the biggest part of
my job is and the most important, is what I
would call industry collaboration. It's bringing a fragmented industry together.
(10:09):
So if you think about where I used to work
at the NFL, it's a franchise system. So you have
thirty two geographic locations around the country that are part
of this thing called the National Football League. And then
when a team wants to sell, they're sold to another
billionaire that then comes into the fold and he or
(10:30):
she gets one thirty second vote on how the league
is going to move forward. But once the league determines
they're going to go in a certain way, that's where
they're going, and they're all on board. We are at
a competitive disadvantage because we don't own ourselves in a
broad sense, you know, tracks, teams, drivers. We actually at
(10:55):
nasc our own fifteen race tracks, so there's a bit
of a vertical that comes with that. But at the
same time, Speedway Motorsports and Marcus Smith, they own ten
race tracks. You've got independent Pocono with a Matty only family,
and then you've got Curtis Francois at gave Way and
then other places that we are racing, whether that's coda.
(11:17):
You know, next year we'll race on a Navy base
at Coronado Island, which is gonna be super cool. There
are a lot of different opinions that people have and
it's probably as much as anyone my job to try
to bring them all together, have them understand the vision
that we have for the future and why they should
(11:38):
want to get on board. And if I'm not able
to do that, I would consider that to be a fail.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, that's got to be enormously tough, especially because you've
got Gem and Lisa France as well, right like, and
they have a ton of racing experience. I mean, they're
a racing family. NASCAR was born of moonshine and rebellion
and all these things, and they know what their vision
is and what they want and so reconciling that with
what everybody else wants as well. Do you find yourself
(12:05):
having the same opinion as them often or do you
have to portray what the team that you have to
give them the information of why the teams or the
media or whatever wants something different.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Do I always agree with them? I don't. Do they
always agree with me? They don't. But we're all coming
at it from the same place, which is great, which
is growth. That is their primary objective. They're very open
to hearing what both myself and my colleagues have to
say about how to do that. And you know, I
(12:40):
give you an example early on. So we just built
this beautiful production facility in Concord, North Carolina, which where
we met a couple of weeks ago, and it really
kind of has transformed our business, both from a live
event production standpoint as well as remote officiating and then
(13:02):
really importantly content creation. But sixteen million dollars is a
lot of money for a building, and early on Jim
was not exactly thrilled about green lighting that project, and
I kept out him quite a bit, and he absolutely
(13:22):
adores the building now and understands fully what the capabilities are.
And we had an opportunity where we build out another
studio which costs another ten million dollars. He couldn't have
greenlit that faster. So we may start in different places,
but we meet in the middle. At the end of
the day, I work for them. I am not shy
(13:43):
about giving them my opinion. But if there's an opportunity
that they feel strongly about something, we're to do it
their way, and I'm going to get on board with that.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
So if you look at other sports in America, you know, football, baseball, basketball,
whatever it may be, they're all kind of the same
in that they all have the same team structure, they
all have stick and ball sports in some way, shape
or form, and so they all have like the same
kind of fan base too, if that makes sense. So
they all have people who follow those teams. But NASCAR
(14:27):
is so different because it's really one of only two
or three major championships in North America, and I guess
unless you're introduced to it, you're not exposed to it
when you're young. So it's a different sport to try
and navigate. Do you see any similarities with NFL? Can
(14:50):
you use any of that to try and like pull
people in?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
It is different I think most sports you have when
I would term generational transfer, my first race was going
to a short track with my dad. I was five.
My brother who's a year older than I, so the
two of us and my dad, and it was a
third of a mile paved oval what's called Catamount Stadium.
(15:14):
It doesn't exist anymore. One of the owners of that
was Ken Squire, who's a NASCAR Hall of Fame broadcaster,
and then he owned a track in Barry, Vermont called
thunder Road, which is still there, a great place to
watch races. So that's where my love of racing started.
And I was a fan of all motorsports, you know,
NASCAR obviously being close to my heart because it was
(15:36):
the first one I went to see. And you know,
watching the cars careening off each other and get into
each other, and you know, see the passion drivers have
when they get out of the car when there's a
disagreement of some kind. I thought, I love that, and
I think you'll see that in stick and ball sports too.
(15:58):
So if you were a Boston Red Sox fan, you're
kind of died in the world. That's you know, what
you learn from your father or your mother, or your
grandfather or grandmother or whomever. And I think that's an
important touch point to fandom. But we need to make
sure that we are going past that and creating opportunities
(16:19):
to create fans in different ways. So that's why we
do lots of different things to introduce our support to
those that wouldn't consider us. So for example, whether it's
the Amazon shows that we did, you know Earnhardt or
you know American Thunder, or the Netflix show that we
did that kind of behind the scenes look at our playoffs,
(16:42):
or we just released the NASCAR console video game and
we have a relationship with Robots and Fortnite and substack
and all these different places to try to meet potential
fans where they are. Sports betting is superstick, so some
of it's content creation, some of it's hey, this is
(17:04):
what you're interested in, so you're meeting them there. It's
just we can't be all things to all people, but
we can at least expose our sport to people through
mediums that are important to them, and I think that
we've done a decent job of that. One of the
reasons why I was so keen on building the productions
(17:24):
facility is this idea of creating kind of meaningful long
form content as well as short form content is super
important to us because you're one you are exposing your
sport to a new audience, but you're also nurturing the
existing fan base by having them get content that is
(17:47):
served to them. And part of that has to do
with the twenty two million names we have in our
data warehouse. So I know, you know fans of yours,
cat Forn because we have we have those records. I
have some and then you have many, and then we're
going to What we need to do is then serve
(18:07):
that fan by creating meaningful content or robust content that
is about you, right, or things that they like, whether
that's the track or a driver or a particular team
or a particular OEM. All those things are you know,
within our tool chest.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
So I think Drive to Survive coming over here on
Netflix making F one bit because F one was nowhere
in North America ten years ago, it kind of highlighted
to me the personal aspect of racing, Like I don't
think if I go to a race, I don't think
I'm a race fan as much as I want a
(18:49):
horse in the race. So when I grew up, I
went to the races with my dad, and we've watched
touring cars or whatever, and there'd be a Reno lagooner there,
and my mum drove a Reno LAGOONA. So therefore I
wanted the Reno Laguna to do really well and I
think the same This kind of highlighted to me that
the same kind of thing exists here. If you have
something someone that you're passionate about, and it could be
(19:11):
because x Y and Z team is sponsored by x
Y and Z brand that you really love, you know,
like oh for example, or as Newty, you might really
love to te quill it. But I think if somebody
like has that hook or something, then it's more It
could be a oem Like I drive a Chevy, I
support Chevy. I think that that is what makes them
(19:34):
keep coming back rather than just watch your race and go, oh,
that's cool. There was some crashes, I drank some beer
and peace out.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
No, I agree, finding those hooks is what's critical. And
again we can't be all things to all people. But
I do think when you have something that is delivered
to a mass audience, you at least have a shot.
And I do think the drive to survive really helped
f one here in the States. Yeah, it's going to
(20:03):
be interesting to see how that continues to evolve for them,
you know, here domestically.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
But I think if you watch if you watch a
Formula One race, and I've been watching Formula One since
I was nine years old because I wanted to be
enough one driver when I grow up. I literally am
bored unless it's the start or the finish of the race,
right like the middle part. Unless I'm really like wanting
Max to win this one or wanting Lewis to win
(20:31):
that one or something, then I'm kind of bored in
the middle. And I know that if you watch a
sports car race, when the fans used to say, well,
we don't really know what's going on, like what's that class,
what's bop? So it's confusing to the casual fan there.
And then when you watch NASCAR, there's enough crashes, I
hate to say it, and there's enough like in fighting
(20:53):
between different groups of people and everything to keep it interesting.
So I think it has a lot to offer, but
I don't I think, you know, like I think we
just need to bring it to the masses a little
bit more. The problem is, I don't even know whether
that's humanly possible when you have so many different options
of what sports and how do you get that passion?
And I guess you have to look at younger generations.
(21:16):
And what fascinated me about the last time we talked
was you said the gen Z people are like super
into it, which is very cool.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah, I mean for us, you look at this year's ratings.
You know, we had a change that went from two
partners to five partners, so lots more fragmentation, and the
distribution went more cable heavy and streaming versus broadcasts. So
we knew we'd have a slight erosion in the overall audience,
(21:45):
which we have had. But the eighteen to thirty four
year olds were up seventeen percent, cool and so, and
then eighteen to forty nine were essentially flat. So we've
lost a bit of our older audience. I think there
are ways that we'll look to do some things to
show that up. But you know, if you are an
advertiser and you're at Fox or you're at any of
(22:07):
our you know, our media partners, you're serving from an
ad standpoint, that eighteen to forty nine year old. So
we're actually quite pleased with where that is, and we'll
continue to grow back that audience starting next year.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
And that's actually the audience's got the kids that brings
the kids along right.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Exactly right, I think. I think for what we have seen,
Catherine is if you can get someone to go to
a race, there'll be a race bank nine times out
of ten because it's just it's the access, it's the
you know, century experience that you have as part of it.
It's just they go and they can appreciate it and
(22:48):
they're like, wow, that was way different than I thought.
I get it now, And so for us is how
do you get that right? So we do things like
partnership with a boys and girls club and you'll have
one hundred and fifty kids, you know, out of the racetrack,
understanding about the sport and what are the job opportunities
(23:09):
within the sport. In addition to being a driver, there
are significantly technology, more positions, and so it's just exposing
these kids to the sport and it works. So we
need to do more of that. Find partnerships. Again, as
they said, it's trying to meet a potential fan where
they are and if we're able to do that and
(23:29):
we give them a meaningful experience, then we have a
shot of them becoming a fan.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
How much difference does it make to the sport in general?
When you bring another oem in because you've had Chevy
and Toyota and Forward for a while and then you
bring Ram in and then there's rooms that there's another
one coming in in the PtD, Like what kind of
(23:56):
difference does that mean? Like how do you have to
juggle that.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
OE that came into the sport before Ram came in,
it was Toyota And that's been twenty years and we've
been digging hard to try to get another OE, and
so for Ram to come in, and we're hoping that
you know, Dodge will come into the Cup Series and
what will be then the O'Reilly's Series. And it does
(24:22):
many things. One they help with promotion, They help race
teams out significantly with both data, sometimes money, sometimes engines.
It just is is huge. And so if you think
we'll just take the Cup garage, there are kind of
A B and C teams if you will, right, So,
(24:45):
I don't think it's a surprise to anyone that Hendrick
Motorsports would be an a team for Chevy, the Penske
organization would be an a team for Ford, and the
Gibbs Organization is an a team for Toyota. So if
we have a second or third Oe K men, they're
kind of spreading the love if you will. And so
(25:05):
if that happens, you actually won't have any CE teams.
You'll have A and B teams, but you'll have a
lot more A teams than you had. And so it's
a really good thing. And why should fans care. They
should care because it makes their favorite driver or team.
It makes them competitive on the racetrack.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
That's a really good point. Yeah, I didn't actually think
of that. So it raises the standards and makes it
a more narrow band, which is really good because, like
to be completely honest with you, there are teams that
have a chance in winning and being in the top
ten every week, and there are teams that just don't
unless something miraculous happens. And so you're broadening that band
and you're making it more competitive, and then when you
(25:45):
get to the playoffs and stuff, then you've got more
people that could have should have worn it. So and
it also for me, I think it opens the opportunities
to bring more fans in because you got some die
hard dodge people out there that would come a supports.
And then also as drivers, you know, I think it
opens up more opportunities to be aligned with an OEM
(26:07):
and to go down that road to you.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Totally agreed. We're going to keep working on bringing others
in and certainly nothing to share right now, but excited.
Like we do have talks that are ongoing with different
always that have not committed yet and that part's exciting
to me.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
I think in your tenure as a commissioner, you've definitely
got a view for what the future looks like, right,
Like you want to keep pushing forward and breaking new
barriers and like doing things like that along those lines.
Have you ever thought about anything electric, anything hybrid, anything like,
(26:56):
Because racing, to me, is at the forefront of technology
in every aspect and the things that we learn in
the race car then get transferred to the road car,
and I think people don't understand how much the OEMs
and the teams move those technologies forward. And so it's
obviously something that's really important to you. So have you
thought in that direction.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yeah, So we actually built a car and then there'll
be three models of that car for our three existing
Oe's that is an electric car. So we partnered with
a company called ABB and they have been super helpful.
So they're a sponsor of NASCAR, but they have really
helped in the design and build of this electric car.
(27:40):
So we've rolled the car out and David Reagan has
been the driver for us and for them, you know,
with the Chicago Street Race and LA Coliseum. Initially, there
are no plans right now for us to race the
electric cars that we're building. Noises such an important part
(28:01):
of our support and so it's not that there isn't
any noise, but it's certainly not what you're going to
get from a you know, a seven hundred horsepower V
eight engine. And then do I see an opportunity in
the future to do something hybrid? Sure, maybe we are
testing all kinds of different options that we have with
(28:24):
you know, body styles, and the next gen car was
important for us, so we have to determine, you know,
we're going to create a different car in what is
now the Exfinity Series, and are you ultimately going to
create a new body style, new chassis that kind of
mirrors the safety things that you get out of the
(28:45):
next gen car and raceability and you know, something that
looks a lot more like would be a street truck
or what a different style of vehicle would be for
the Exfinity Series. So again, nothing to announce at this
particular point, but those are things that we're working on
and we work with the OEM partners on that, we
(29:07):
work with our race teams on that, we get driver
input on that.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
I think that sounds like the super fun part of
your job is like the navigating the future and like
the vision and what that looks like. I would love
to design the next six Sfincy car. I think that'd
be super fun. But there's another couple of things actually
that I want to touch on just before I let
you go. Firstly, the going to Lamont with the NASCAR
and how well that was received. I bet you couldn't
(29:33):
have imagined how the French fans took to it.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yeah, I mean it was pretty incredible. And again, if
the folks that are watching is they haven't watched American
Thunder on Amazon. It's tremendous and it tells the story
of kind of the building of the vehicle and all
the logistics necessary and going over to Lamon. And you know,
little spoiler alert that the winning pit crew there was
(30:00):
a pit crew competition and the guys from Hendrick they
actually won end and they did it with not an
air jack. They did it with a floor jack, which
is like they're doing NASCAR and all these other teams
were looking at these guys like what. So it's just
a really a really cool thing. But I think that
you know, the Amazon people with our folks at a
(30:22):
really nice job kind of documenting everything that went on there.
And it is pretty amazing that, you know, we're going
down the front stretch around the grand stands and you know,
a bunch of people are chanting USA USA. Probably not
something you think that the French fans would do, but
just the sound is so much different than the other
(30:47):
cars that are on the racetrack, and so you could
tell when it was coming. And you know, the folks
that are a really good job and that was really
Jim France's vision, and Jim France is kind of a
nod to his father who did the same thing in
nineteen seventy six. That car didn't do quite as well
as what our next gen modified next gen card did.
(31:11):
They did a tremendous job. And then you have you know,
Jimmy Johnson Button, you know Rocky as your drivers. I mean,
that's just a really cool, you know, f one driver,
seven time NASCAR champions, great sports car guy in Mike Rockefeller,
and it just it's just a neat idea, not inexpensive,
(31:34):
but a need idea. And so that partnership was with
Rick Hendrick obviously in head Chomotorsports and really is out
of his respect and friendship with Jim France, but I
thought he you know, it was really cool for him too,
and then Chevy in Goodyear and everyone needed to, you know,
play their part, including us making sure this was going
(31:56):
to work. But it was tons of fun. I think
it was a really surprising result to the sports car
world that you can take this NASCAR vehicle, do some
modifications to make it lighter, put lights on it.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Make it easier to get in and out of.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Drive.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Changes in is not easy. That's really cool. The other
thing that I'm super looking forward to is Phoenix next
year because now you're doing a collab with INDYCA Series,
which is kind of where I came from and before
I even went to sports car racing, and so I
think there's only a handful of us that are licensed,
for want of a better term, or capable of doing
(32:41):
the double there, and I'm desperately trying to set something
up because I think that would be so cool to
do the same weekend, same track, race one car and
then race the other. I think that would be super neat.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
I totally agree with you. Yeah, that was kind of
born out of a discussion, out of a dinner that
we had with Roger Penske and his folks at that
you know, kind of that IndyCar museum which they have
redone and it's spectacular, and we had a dinner there
that was catered and and Rogers said, would you guys
be willing to run with us at other places? And
(33:13):
we're like sure, So we've thrown out a couple of them,
and it was decided that we'd go to Phoenix or
they would come to Phoenix too, which is a racetrack
that we own at NASCAR. But I'm really excited about
it. I think it's going to be really cool and I
would fully support and be there to watch you race
and you know, both series. That would be really cool. Thanks.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
I love it because in my era it was kind
of like pitched against each other, you know, like NASCAR
versus IndyCar. Who's going to have the biggest billing, And
apart from the Indy five hundred, NASCAR are much bigger
in terms of who watches it, and so I love
that you can now do both and that you're working
(33:56):
collaboratively together because I think a lot of racing fans
a lot of different races. And I can say that
because my dad literally watches every kind of racing this
out there. So I think it's like a really cool
thing for the fans and it's a really good thing
to do.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
I agree. Our research would suggest that F one fans
and NASCAR fans are different, so we only have six
percent overlap with.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Really with that F one is because the fans of
F one over in America now were born from getting
to know the personalities of the drivers and everything. They
didn't come I think so, I think so whereas I
think so, I feel like NASCAR fans and IndyCar fans
to cent extent, like grew up with this, you know,
(34:39):
the roar of the engine and everything in their heart,
and so they came from a different side of it
and it developed differently for them.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
And if you look at IndyCar and NASCAR fans, there's
like a thirty percent overlap, so five times as much
as as F one and makes sense. I do think
though that means there's an opportunity for seventy percent of
our fans and their fans to be a fan of
the other and I'll take that all day long. And
it's a slightly different style of racing as you know,
(35:09):
you know, open wheel versus our vehicles, but super competitive.
And I think that oval races are slightly terrifying to
me for Indy cars, but I do think having a
mile track or three quarters of a mile track like
we have at Richmond, I think it puts on some
great racing for IndyCars. So yeah, we're excited about it.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Yeah, I am. I could sit and talk to you
all day, and I know our listeners could probably hear
all about what's exciting in NASCAR currently and what's coming
up and all the things. But I also know that
we're out of time, so I really appreciate you taking
the time. It's nice to get to hear all of
these things from the man himself. So thank you very much. Stein.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
It was such a pleasure to be with you, Catherine,
and I look forward to seeing into.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Thanks for listening to Throttle Therapy. We'll be back next
week with more updates and more overtakes. We want to
hear from you, leave us a review in Apple Podcasts,
and tell us what you want to talk about. It
might just be the topic for our next show. Throttle
Therapy is hosted by Katherine Legg. Our executive producer is
Jesse Katz, and our supervising producer is Grace Fuse. Listen
(36:22):
to Throttle Therapy on America's number one podcast network, iHeart.
Open your free iHeart app and search throttle Therapy with
Katherine Legg and start listening.
Throttle Therapy with Catherine Legg is an iHeart women's sports
production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You
can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Hey you guys, and welcome
(00:21):
to this week's episode of Throttle Therapy with Me Catherine.
I really really hope I'm not getting sick. I'm never sick,
and I got the sniffles. And it might be because
the temperature has dipped below freezing here in Georgia, all right,
and it might be in my head. I'm hoping so,
or it's locally in my head, but either way, not great.
(00:42):
Made good progress this week on next year. I think
everything feels like it's moving forward again, which is good.
And been trying to get everything in order from the
end of this season, catch up on all my emails
and my paperwork and try and organize next season, as
well as training a bit harder in the gym. It's
so much nicer when you're in a routine and you
(01:02):
can feel like you're achieving things. So that's been fun.
Really hoping to get the majority of next year tied
down over the next few weeks. So that I can
enjoy the holidays and not have to worry about who
I were, what and when. When it comes to teams
and sponsors and series and all the other stuff, it's
very stressful. We've spoken up before, so this week I
(01:27):
have a very special guest. I obviously knew of him
before this year, but I didn't know him personally and
his lovely fiance. Since getting to know them, I have
an immense amount of respect for what they do, especially
how he leads, and I aspire to be the kind
(01:48):
of leader that he is because he's very strong and
yet compassionate and very helpful, and I have asked I've
asked him for a few things this year. I've gone
to him and said, Hey, can you help me with this?
Hey can you help me with that? And I feel
like it's very one sided at the moment, but he's
been awesome and I think that's part of the reason
(02:10):
why they have such an epic product. And that product
is a NASCAR and this is Steve Phelps, who is
the commissioner of NASCAR. Hello, and welcome to this week's
episode of Throttle Therapy with me Catherine Legg and this week,
(02:33):
I have a very very VIP on the pod with me,
and I've got to know him a little bit this year,
and I would love to call him a new friend.
And I have been super impressed with the way that
he conducts himself and what he has done for a
motorsport in general. And I'm very honored to invite Steve
(02:57):
Phelps on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Hi Stephen, Hello Catherine. It's such a pleasure to be
here with you.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Thank you for taking the time. I know you're an
extremely busy man. I had no idea that NASCAR was
so hard because you're racing every week, so you literally
don't get a day off, and there's no time. There's
no rest for the wicked. As they say, you literally
have no time. So I really do appreciate you taking
the time to talk to us. So I would love
(03:23):
to start with younger version of Steve and what you
wanted to be when you grew up and how you
transitioned from your other various roles into being their commissioner
of NASCAR, Like what drives you?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
So I grew up in Burlington, Vermont, which are there
are not a lot of people who are growing up
in Burlington, Vermont because it's pretty small I really wanted
to get into sports, although I'm not really sure I
knew what that meant. And so I went to the
University of Vermont undergrad Then I went to got my
MBA at Boston College, and then to New York City.
(04:00):
I got a job there working for a fortune fifty
company called American Home Products, and I worked for the
food's division, and I was ultimately a brand manager on
the Chef boyar D brand, which I'm not even sure
you know what the chef board brand is, Catherine, because
it's really so it's essentially pasta and a can and
(04:21):
he's got on the little chef. Yeah. So yeah, that
was super exciting. And then I transitioned to a new
job and I worked for the Guinness Import Company. I
was the brand manager on the Bassett brand. Cool so yeah.
So I was eating really bad pasta and a can
and then I was drinking too much. So but I
had an opportunity to go work at the NFL, which
(04:45):
I did, so I went and I worked there for
almost fourteen years, and when I left, I was working
for the current commissioner, Roger Goodell. So it was a
great place to work, a great place to cut your
teeth in sports, just a massive brand and they continue
to just be super successful. And I worked for a
(05:08):
year for a gentleman named named Casey Washerman who owns
an agency called Wasserman. He's also the head of LA
twenty eight and a good friend. And then NASCAR came
knocking and they went out for me pretty hard, and
I decided to go back to you know, kind of
the league or sanctioning body in this case. And I've
(05:31):
been here for twenty years in various roles.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Twenty years. That's cool.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I've got one of the best jobs in the world.
So I'm super grateful to my two owners, Jim France
and Lisa Franz Kennedy. You know, they're the ones who
gave me this opportunity to be the CEO and then
the president and now the commissioner. And I'm humbled and
honored by that.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
If I think about running any major sport, but most sports,
what I know, like whether it's NASCAR, Indykara, imso whatever
it is, you've got so many different parties that you
have to juggle keeping happy because you've got the OEMs,
you've got the teams, you've got the drivers, you've got
the internals of the series. You've got the tracks, you've
(06:14):
got the sponsors, and like inevitably, they're all odds at
some point in time. So I think people would look
at it and think, oh, that's not and that's no
mean feat to be able to look at it from
thirty thousand feet and do what's best for the sport
as a whole.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Well, it's very astute of you to understand all the
stakeholders that are involved as part of this kind of
at the center of that for me really needs to
be about the fan and trying to serve the fan.
I think the most difficult thing, Catherine. I've said this
many times before. Let's say the universe of fans is
one hundred, which obviously it's significantly larger than that, but
(06:52):
for lustrative purposes, we're not going to make a hundred
people happy out of one hundred. To your point about
serving different constituents. Some fans don't like that we ran
the Chicago street race, or ran the class at the Coliseum,
or went to Mexico, or I don't like road courses,
I don't like short ovals. So everyone's got their thing.
(07:16):
We try to balance that with what we believe is
going to help drive the sport forward because to me,
my main objective is not to make money, and I
think the France family is great about that. Do we
make money, Yeah, we make money, but it's not the
driving factor for us. The driving factor for us is growth.
(07:39):
So we want to grow the number of people who
are NASCAR fans, both here domestically as well as internationally,
which I think is incredibly fertile ground for us.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah, how do you survey, like what the fans want?
Do you look at social or do you realize that
it's growing so you're on the right track.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
I think there are a number of different things. So
we have something called the NASCAR Fan Council, which is
I don't know, made up of thirty five thousand or
forty thousand fans that have different levels of avidity. So
some are casual, some are super heavy avid fans, and
we get their opinion after every single race. There's some
(08:24):
open ended questions about what they like, what they don't like,
what they like to see change, how our media partners
are resonating with them, production quality, any number of things.
It's a great opportunity for us to understand kind of
the wants and the needs of the fans, which helps
in our decision making, so we don't always make decisions
(08:45):
that are based on what's happening through the Fan Council.
There are many, many other opportunities for us to gain
people's opinion, and a lot of that also goes to
that next level, down to all those stakeholders that you
talked about, including our media partners, which is one you
didn't talk about, and really surveying you know what it
(09:05):
is that the industry wants us to do. I saw
on the Kevin Harbick podcast the other day he was
talking about, Hey, that horsepower really going from six seventy
to seven point fifty on tracks less than a mile
and a half. He does think it's going to have
a great impact. I don't know what can impact it's
going to have. Could we go to a thousand horsepower?
(09:25):
We could, but that's a significant cost burden that would
go to the industry, the OEMs, the teams, ourselves. If
we really thought that if that was the panacea for
better racing at short tracks and road courses, we would
get the industry to rally around it. The question is
(09:45):
will it and so are you going to make a
fifty million dollar decision and then find out, oh, it
didn't work, and then you can switch it back, which
is going to cost another fifty million dollars or whatever
it is that you're cheasing. So the biggest part of
my job is and the most important, is what I
would call industry collaboration. It's bringing a fragmented industry together.
(10:09):
So if you think about where I used to work
at the NFL, it's a franchise system. So you have
thirty two geographic locations around the country that are part
of this thing called the National Football League. And then
when a team wants to sell, they're sold to another
billionaire that then comes into the fold and he or
(10:30):
she gets one thirty second vote on how the league
is going to move forward. But once the league determines
they're going to go in a certain way, that's where
they're going, and they're all on board. We are at
a competitive disadvantage because we don't own ourselves in a
broad sense, you know, tracks, teams, drivers. We actually at
(10:55):
nasc our own fifteen race tracks, so there's a bit
of a vertical that comes with that. But at the
same time, Speedway Motorsports and Marcus Smith, they own ten
race tracks. You've got independent Pocono with a Matty only family,
and then you've got Curtis Francois at gave Way and
then other places that we are racing, whether that's coda.
(11:17):
You know, next year we'll race on a Navy base
at Coronado Island, which is gonna be super cool. There
are a lot of different opinions that people have and
it's probably as much as anyone my job to try
to bring them all together, have them understand the vision
that we have for the future and why they should
(11:38):
want to get on board. And if I'm not able
to do that, I would consider that to be a fail.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, that's got to be enormously tough, especially because you've
got Gem and Lisa France as well, right like, and
they have a ton of racing experience. I mean, they're
a racing family. NASCAR was born of moonshine and rebellion
and all these things, and they know what their vision
is and what they want and so reconciling that with
what everybody else wants as well. Do you find yourself
(12:05):
having the same opinion as them often or do you
have to portray what the team that you have to
give them the information of why the teams or the
media or whatever wants something different.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Do I always agree with them? I don't. Do they
always agree with me? They don't. But we're all coming
at it from the same place, which is great, which
is growth. That is their primary objective. They're very open
to hearing what both myself and my colleagues have to
say about how to do that. And you know, I
(12:40):
give you an example early on. So we just built
this beautiful production facility in Concord, North Carolina, which where
we met a couple of weeks ago, and it really
kind of has transformed our business, both from a live
event production standpoint as well as remote officiating and then
(13:02):
really importantly content creation. But sixteen million dollars is a
lot of money for a building, and early on Jim
was not exactly thrilled about green lighting that project, and
I kept out him quite a bit, and he absolutely
(13:22):
adores the building now and understands fully what the capabilities are.
And we had an opportunity where we build out another
studio which costs another ten million dollars. He couldn't have
greenlit that faster. So we may start in different places,
but we meet in the middle. At the end of
the day, I work for them. I am not shy
(13:43):
about giving them my opinion. But if there's an opportunity
that they feel strongly about something, we're to do it
their way, and I'm going to get on board with that.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
So if you look at other sports in America, you know, football, baseball, basketball,
whatever it may be, they're all kind of the same
in that they all have the same team structure, they
all have stick and ball sports in some way, shape
or form, and so they all have like the same
kind of fan base too, if that makes sense. So
they all have people who follow those teams. But NASCAR
(14:27):
is so different because it's really one of only two
or three major championships in North America, and I guess
unless you're introduced to it, you're not exposed to it
when you're young. So it's a different sport to try
and navigate. Do you see any similarities with NFL? Can
(14:50):
you use any of that to try and like pull
people in?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
It is different I think most sports you have when
I would term generational transfer, my first race was going
to a short track with my dad. I was five.
My brother who's a year older than I, so the
two of us and my dad, and it was a
third of a mile paved oval what's called Catamount Stadium.
(15:14):
It doesn't exist anymore. One of the owners of that
was Ken Squire, who's a NASCAR Hall of Fame broadcaster,
and then he owned a track in Barry, Vermont called
thunder Road, which is still there, a great place to
watch races. So that's where my love of racing started.
And I was a fan of all motorsports, you know,
NASCAR obviously being close to my heart because it was
(15:36):
the first one I went to see. And you know,
watching the cars careening off each other and get into
each other, and you know, see the passion drivers have
when they get out of the car when there's a
disagreement of some kind. I thought, I love that, and
I think you'll see that in stick and ball sports too.
(15:58):
So if you were a Boston Red Sox fan, you're
kind of died in the world. That's you know, what
you learn from your father or your mother, or your
grandfather or grandmother or whomever. And I think that's an
important touch point to fandom. But we need to make
sure that we are going past that and creating opportunities
(16:19):
to create fans in different ways. So that's why we
do lots of different things to introduce our support to
those that wouldn't consider us. So for example, whether it's
the Amazon shows that we did, you know Earnhardt or
you know American Thunder, or the Netflix show that we
did that kind of behind the scenes look at our playoffs,
(16:42):
or we just released the NASCAR console video game and
we have a relationship with Robots and Fortnite and substack
and all these different places to try to meet potential
fans where they are. Sports betting is superstick, so some
of it's content creation, some of it's hey, this is
(17:04):
what you're interested in, so you're meeting them there. It's
just we can't be all things to all people, but
we can at least expose our sport to people through
mediums that are important to them, and I think that
we've done a decent job of that. One of the
reasons why I was so keen on building the productions
(17:24):
facility is this idea of creating kind of meaningful long
form content as well as short form content is super
important to us because you're one you are exposing your
sport to a new audience, but you're also nurturing the
existing fan base by having them get content that is
(17:47):
served to them. And part of that has to do
with the twenty two million names we have in our
data warehouse. So I know, you know fans of yours,
cat Forn because we have we have those records. I
have some and then you have many, and then we're
going to What we need to do is then serve
(18:07):
that fan by creating meaningful content or robust content that
is about you, right, or things that they like, whether
that's the track or a driver or a particular team
or a particular OEM. All those things are you know,
within our tool chest.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
So I think Drive to Survive coming over here on
Netflix making F one bit because F one was nowhere
in North America ten years ago, it kind of highlighted
to me the personal aspect of racing, Like I don't
think if I go to a race, I don't think
I'm a race fan as much as I want a
(18:49):
horse in the race. So when I grew up, I
went to the races with my dad, and we've watched
touring cars or whatever, and there'd be a Reno lagooner there,
and my mum drove a Reno LAGOONA. So therefore I
wanted the Reno Laguna to do really well and I
think the same This kind of highlighted to me that
the same kind of thing exists here. If you have
something someone that you're passionate about, and it could be
(19:11):
because x Y and Z team is sponsored by x
Y and Z brand that you really love, you know,
like oh for example, or as Newty, you might really
love to te quill it. But I think if somebody
like has that hook or something, then it's more It
could be a oem Like I drive a Chevy, I
support Chevy. I think that that is what makes them
(19:34):
keep coming back rather than just watch your race and go, oh,
that's cool. There was some crashes, I drank some beer
and peace out.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
No, I agree, finding those hooks is what's critical. And
again we can't be all things to all people. But
I do think when you have something that is delivered
to a mass audience, you at least have a shot.
And I do think the drive to survive really helped
f one here in the States. Yeah, it's going to
(20:03):
be interesting to see how that continues to evolve for them,
you know, here domestically.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
But I think if you watch if you watch a
Formula One race, and I've been watching Formula One since
I was nine years old because I wanted to be
enough one driver when I grow up. I literally am
bored unless it's the start or the finish of the race,
right like the middle part. Unless I'm really like wanting
Max to win this one or wanting Lewis to win
(20:31):
that one or something, then I'm kind of bored in
the middle. And I know that if you watch a
sports car race, when the fans used to say, well,
we don't really know what's going on, like what's that class,
what's bop? So it's confusing to the casual fan there.
And then when you watch NASCAR, there's enough crashes, I
hate to say it, and there's enough like in fighting
(20:53):
between different groups of people and everything to keep it interesting.
So I think it has a lot to offer, but
I don't I think, you know, like I think we
just need to bring it to the masses a little
bit more. The problem is, I don't even know whether
that's humanly possible when you have so many different options
of what sports and how do you get that passion?
And I guess you have to look at younger generations.
(21:16):
And what fascinated me about the last time we talked
was you said the gen Z people are like super
into it, which is very cool.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah, I mean for us, you look at this year's ratings.
You know, we had a change that went from two
partners to five partners, so lots more fragmentation, and the
distribution went more cable heavy and streaming versus broadcasts. So
we knew we'd have a slight erosion in the overall audience,
(21:45):
which we have had. But the eighteen to thirty four
year olds were up seventeen percent, cool and so, and
then eighteen to forty nine were essentially flat. So we've
lost a bit of our older audience. I think there
are ways that we'll look to do some things to
show that up. But you know, if you are an
advertiser and you're at Fox or you're at any of
(22:07):
our you know, our media partners, you're serving from an
ad standpoint, that eighteen to forty nine year old. So
we're actually quite pleased with where that is, and we'll
continue to grow back that audience starting next year.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
And that's actually the audience's got the kids that brings
the kids along right.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Exactly right, I think. I think for what we have seen,
Catherine is if you can get someone to go to
a race, there'll be a race bank nine times out
of ten because it's just it's the access, it's the
you know, century experience that you have as part of it.
It's just they go and they can appreciate it and
(22:48):
they're like, wow, that was way different than I thought.
I get it now, And so for us is how
do you get that right? So we do things like
partnership with a boys and girls club and you'll have
one hundred and fifty kids, you know, out of the racetrack,
understanding about the sport and what are the job opportunities
(23:09):
within the sport. In addition to being a driver, there
are significantly technology, more positions, and so it's just exposing
these kids to the sport and it works. So we
need to do more of that. Find partnerships. Again, as
they said, it's trying to meet a potential fan where
they are and if we're able to do that and
(23:29):
we give them a meaningful experience, then we have a
shot of them becoming a fan.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
How much difference does it make to the sport in general?
When you bring another oem in because you've had Chevy
and Toyota and Forward for a while and then you
bring Ram in and then there's rooms that there's another
one coming in in the PtD, Like what kind of
(23:56):
difference does that mean? Like how do you have to
juggle that.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
OE that came into the sport before Ram came in,
it was Toyota And that's been twenty years and we've
been digging hard to try to get another OE, and
so for Ram to come in, and we're hoping that
you know, Dodge will come into the Cup Series and
what will be then the O'Reilly's Series. And it does
(24:22):
many things. One they help with promotion, They help race
teams out significantly with both data, sometimes money, sometimes engines.
It just is is huge. And so if you think
we'll just take the Cup garage, there are kind of
A B and C teams if you will, right, So,
(24:45):
I don't think it's a surprise to anyone that Hendrick
Motorsports would be an a team for Chevy, the Penske
organization would be an a team for Ford, and the
Gibbs Organization is an a team for Toyota. So if
we have a second or third Oe K men, they're
kind of spreading the love if you will. And so
(25:05):
if that happens, you actually won't have any CE teams.
You'll have A and B teams, but you'll have a
lot more A teams than you had. And so it's
a really good thing. And why should fans care. They
should care because it makes their favorite driver or team.
It makes them competitive on the racetrack.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
That's a really good point. Yeah, I didn't actually think
of that. So it raises the standards and makes it
a more narrow band, which is really good because, like
to be completely honest with you, there are teams that
have a chance in winning and being in the top
ten every week, and there are teams that just don't
unless something miraculous happens. And so you're broadening that band
and you're making it more competitive, and then when you
(25:45):
get to the playoffs and stuff, then you've got more
people that could have should have worn it. So and
it also for me, I think it opens the opportunities
to bring more fans in because you got some die
hard dodge people out there that would come a supports.
And then also as drivers, you know, I think it
opens up more opportunities to be aligned with an OEM
(26:07):
and to go down that road to you.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Totally agreed. We're going to keep working on bringing others
in and certainly nothing to share right now, but excited.
Like we do have talks that are ongoing with different
always that have not committed yet and that part's exciting
to me.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
I think in your tenure as a commissioner, you've definitely
got a view for what the future looks like, right,
Like you want to keep pushing forward and breaking new
barriers and like doing things like that along those lines.
Have you ever thought about anything electric, anything hybrid, anything like,
(26:56):
Because racing, to me, is at the forefront of technology
in every aspect and the things that we learn in
the race car then get transferred to the road car,
and I think people don't understand how much the OEMs
and the teams move those technologies forward. And so it's
obviously something that's really important to you. So have you
thought in that direction.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yeah, So we actually built a car and then there'll
be three models of that car for our three existing
Oe's that is an electric car. So we partnered with
a company called ABB and they have been super helpful.
So they're a sponsor of NASCAR, but they have really
helped in the design and build of this electric car.
(27:40):
So we've rolled the car out and David Reagan has
been the driver for us and for them, you know,
with the Chicago Street Race and LA Coliseum. Initially, there
are no plans right now for us to race the
electric cars that we're building. Noises such an important part
(28:01):
of our support and so it's not that there isn't
any noise, but it's certainly not what you're going to
get from a you know, a seven hundred horsepower V
eight engine. And then do I see an opportunity in
the future to do something hybrid? Sure, maybe we are
testing all kinds of different options that we have with
(28:24):
you know, body styles, and the next gen car was
important for us, so we have to determine, you know,
we're going to create a different car in what is
now the Exfinity Series, and are you ultimately going to
create a new body style, new chassis that kind of
mirrors the safety things that you get out of the
(28:45):
next gen car and raceability and you know, something that
looks a lot more like would be a street truck
or what a different style of vehicle would be for
the Exfinity Series. So again, nothing to announce at this
particular point, but those are things that we're working on
and we work with the OEM partners on that, we
(29:07):
work with our race teams on that, we get driver
input on that.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
I think that sounds like the super fun part of
your job is like the navigating the future and like
the vision and what that looks like. I would love
to design the next six Sfincy car. I think that'd
be super fun. But there's another couple of things actually
that I want to touch on just before I let
you go. Firstly, the going to Lamont with the NASCAR
and how well that was received. I bet you couldn't
(29:33):
have imagined how the French fans took to it.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yeah, I mean it was pretty incredible. And again, if
the folks that are watching is they haven't watched American
Thunder on Amazon. It's tremendous and it tells the story
of kind of the building of the vehicle and all
the logistics necessary and going over to Lamon. And you know,
little spoiler alert that the winning pit crew there was
(30:00):
a pit crew competition and the guys from Hendrick they
actually won end and they did it with not an
air jack. They did it with a floor jack, which
is like they're doing NASCAR and all these other teams
were looking at these guys like what. So it's just
a really a really cool thing. But I think that
you know, the Amazon people with our folks at a
(30:22):
really nice job kind of documenting everything that went on there.
And it is pretty amazing that, you know, we're going
down the front stretch around the grand stands and you know,
a bunch of people are chanting USA USA. Probably not
something you think that the French fans would do, but
just the sound is so much different than the other
(30:47):
cars that are on the racetrack, and so you could
tell when it was coming. And you know, the folks
that are a really good job and that was really
Jim France's vision, and Jim France is kind of a
nod to his father who did the same thing in
nineteen seventy six. That car didn't do quite as well
as what our next gen modified next gen card did.
(31:11):
They did a tremendous job. And then you have you know,
Jimmy Johnson Button, you know Rocky as your drivers. I mean,
that's just a really cool, you know, f one driver,
seven time NASCAR champions, great sports car guy in Mike Rockefeller,
and it just it's just a neat idea, not inexpensive,
(31:34):
but a need idea. And so that partnership was with
Rick Hendrick obviously in head Chomotorsports and really is out
of his respect and friendship with Jim France, but I
thought he you know, it was really cool for him too,
and then Chevy in Goodyear and everyone needed to, you know,
play their part, including us making sure this was going
(31:56):
to work. But it was tons of fun. I think
it was a really surprising result to the sports car
world that you can take this NASCAR vehicle, do some
modifications to make it lighter, put lights on it.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Make it easier to get in and out of.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Drive.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Changes in is not easy. That's really cool. The other
thing that I'm super looking forward to is Phoenix next
year because now you're doing a collab with INDYCA Series,
which is kind of where I came from and before
I even went to sports car racing, and so I
think there's only a handful of us that are licensed,
for want of a better term, or capable of doing
(32:41):
the double there, and I'm desperately trying to set something
up because I think that would be so cool to
do the same weekend, same track, race one car and
then race the other. I think that would be super neat.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
I totally agree with you. Yeah, that was kind of
born out of a discussion, out of a dinner that
we had with Roger Penske and his folks at that
you know, kind of that IndyCar museum which they have
redone and it's spectacular, and we had a dinner there
that was catered and and Rogers said, would you guys
be willing to run with us at other places? And
(33:13):
we're like sure, So we've thrown out a couple of them,
and it was decided that we'd go to Phoenix or
they would come to Phoenix too, which is a racetrack
that we own at NASCAR. But I'm really excited about
it. I think it's going to be really cool and I
would fully support and be there to watch you race
and you know, both series. That would be really cool. Thanks.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
I love it because in my era it was kind
of like pitched against each other, you know, like NASCAR
versus IndyCar. Who's going to have the biggest billing, And
apart from the Indy five hundred, NASCAR are much bigger
in terms of who watches it, and so I love
that you can now do both and that you're working
(33:56):
collaboratively together because I think a lot of racing fans
a lot of different races. And I can say that
because my dad literally watches every kind of racing this
out there. So I think it's like a really cool
thing for the fans and it's a really good thing
to do.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
I agree. Our research would suggest that F one fans
and NASCAR fans are different, so we only have six
percent overlap with.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Really with that F one is because the fans of
F one over in America now were born from getting
to know the personalities of the drivers and everything. They
didn't come I think so, I think so whereas I
think so, I feel like NASCAR fans and IndyCar fans
to cent extent, like grew up with this, you know,
(34:39):
the roar of the engine and everything in their heart,
and so they came from a different side of it
and it developed differently for them.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
And if you look at IndyCar and NASCAR fans, there's
like a thirty percent overlap, so five times as much
as as F one and makes sense. I do think
though that means there's an opportunity for seventy percent of
our fans and their fans to be a fan of
the other and I'll take that all day long. And
it's a slightly different style of racing as you know,
(35:09):
you know, open wheel versus our vehicles, but super competitive.
And I think that oval races are slightly terrifying to
me for Indy cars, but I do think having a
mile track or three quarters of a mile track like
we have at Richmond, I think it puts on some
great racing for IndyCars. So yeah, we're excited about it.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Yeah, I am. I could sit and talk to you
all day, and I know our listeners could probably hear
all about what's exciting in NASCAR currently and what's coming
up and all the things. But I also know that
we're out of time, so I really appreciate you taking
the time. It's nice to get to hear all of
these things from the man himself. So thank you very much. Stein.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
It was such a pleasure to be with you, Catherine,
and I look forward to seeing into.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Thanks for listening to Throttle Therapy. We'll be back next
week with more updates and more overtakes. We want to
hear from you, leave us a review in Apple Podcasts,
and tell us what you want to talk about. It
might just be the topic for our next show. Throttle
Therapy is hosted by Katherine Legg. Our executive producer is
Jesse Katz, and our supervising producer is Grace Fuse. Listen
(36:22):
to Throttle Therapy on America's number one podcast network, iHeart.
Open your free iHeart app and search throttle Therapy with
Katherine Legg and start listening.
Host
Katherine Legge
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.