The Skinny with Rico and Ken welcomes Jim Leo of PitFit Training to the studio.

After creating a unique fitness and conditioning program for Penske Racing in 1993, Jim Leo soon expanded to form PitFit Training and began working with drivers and teams in several other series. His current roster of champions is a who’s who of auto racing, and PitFit Training has grown to become the industry leader in motorsports-specific human performance training. Jim joins Rico and Ken in the studio to share some insider stories and talk about his focused training, conditioning and rehabilitation methods.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Skinny with Riego and Kenna is a production of
I Heart Radio. I'm Jim Leon. This is the skinny
from the Fatheads I Wear Studios in Speedway, Indiana. This
is the skinny brought to you by Toyota, Rhino classifies,
General Tire and Dream Giveaway. This segment of the skinny

(00:23):
is brought to you by General Tire. It's more than
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(00:45):
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Tire dot com. Today. Today on the Skinny is one
of those days when you know when you're est walks in,
you're just gonna feel inferior. You're gonna immediately feel judged,
especially whenever he looks at someone like Rico and myself

(01:09):
and he'll immediately without saying a word, I U s
up and down and say Yep, you guys clearly are
not following the plan. You like to eat, and you
don't work out did he did he? Do you think
he happened to notice the the container of chicken in
the chicken well, not to mention the pepperoni pieces and

(01:31):
the cheese, I mean the healthy stuff car low carbon,
you know, but the fried chicken. So if I start
nodding off here in a minute, you'll know who had
the fried chicken at once. So so for a lot
of people out there, the myth for so many years
is that race car drivers were not athletes. Well, I
got news for you. The people that sit behind the

(01:53):
wheels certainly have an indy car and f one. I mean,
even the cup cars these days are some of the
best athletes you will ever find in your life. You
don't sit inside of a car and pull the js
that they pull for two and a half three hours
and many times, and and heat and excess of a
hundred degrees because you're fatten out of shape, not to
mention the last thirty minutes whenever you really need to

(02:16):
be attacking, We're out. We're out. We're saying, do we
can't even in the car. Well, maybe a cup car.
But uh yeah, it's it's amazing. And one of the
guys that's responsible for what these athletes are able to
accomplish before they ever get inside of the car has
joined us here on the skinny. His name is Jim Leo. Uh.

(02:36):
Certainly all the people in the industry are very familiar
with him. He is the president of pit Fit, which
is located here in Indy. And much more importantly, he
also brought Chester with him, the dog, who is located
down on the floor. So oh, he's right in between
us now, just chilling out. And of course Leo already
ground him into the ground, right, ran him right into
the ground. I'm onna grind him now, and so he

(02:57):
won't make any noise. I mean, the dog hasn't hardly breath.
He takes him to the park on a rainy day
and makes him walk. How far did you go? Twenty
miles or something four and a half miles and a
half miles, So welcome to the show man. We've already worried.
How do we beat you up here? For five minutes?
That's usually how we do a long time. I'm used
to it. Well, this is all payback for the for

(03:21):
the uh what the hell is that? Staring? Not stair
climbing Jacob's ladder? Yeah, have you ever got on one
of them? Uh, there's that the one where the stairs
just keep now it's it's rungs. Oh yeah yeah, like uh,
I mean there's probably some video he's sold somewhere, like
some people needed some entertainment and watch this, uh large

(03:44):
individual on that And here's the thing. It's got like
a clutch on the cable that the the things wrapped
around your your belt that's you put on. So the
higher you get up, is it? The higher you get,
higher you get up, the more the break releases, the
faster you go. Ya. So I didn't. I just stayed

(04:04):
at the bottom. And it's clearly it's professional piece of
equipment because the weight rating must be it's fairly significant
if he allows you get on it. Well, the part
he was like, let's weigh in. Hold on a minute,
let's check this out. The good part is that you
can't see the people watching you because you're looking in
this direction, so they can't tell if you're laughing or

(04:25):
filment or making faces or like that rolling in the floor.
You know, I can tell you what they were doing.
Yearly the same thing they would have been doing that
virus on it. Trust me, let's see how long this last. Yeah,
so so Jim and I'm at many many years ago.
I was trying to think about that a little bit earlier.

(04:47):
But you know, the the interesting thing of it is is,
you know, we used to help him with some of
his stuff. You know, I wouldn't say in the early days,
but a ways back, and some of the stuff for
the interior of his building and signage and some of
the web stuff, and just you know, it's kind of
like when you're you get started and you're like, Okay,

(05:10):
I'm not really sure which way I'm going, and then
you're then you get to the point of all right,
I know where I'm going, but you know, you don't
have this, you know, hundreds of thousand dollars budget to
to build all this stuff out. So and listen, we
go through it all the time building things out. So
we helped him out and then he beat us half
to death about every other morning at his facility. So

(05:31):
it's a great trade out. I mean, it really really
felt good. And uh, you know, and I always said,
somebody said, somebody said, oh, you know, Dix and I said, oh, yeah,
we used to work out in the same building. I
never said together because that clearly would have been an
outright lie because there's nobody keeping up with that machine.
I mean, he's he's he's something else. But it's a

(05:53):
it is a great experience, nevertheless, And and did learn
a lot from him. But you know, some of the
folks that he had in their the pit crews that
would come in and he would work out. I could
kind of keep up with some of those guys. It
was usually the guys are about sixty five that drove
the truck like so, but you know, anyhow he had

(06:15):
he has a as a great staff and also has
a great uh program there and uh so who are you?
Who are you working with? Andy five? This year? Who
have you got? Um? Well, this year we were we
would be working. We worked with Charlie Kimball. Unfortunately he
did not make the race, so that's kind of a

(06:35):
a bummer. But um, Scott Dixon, Tony Knaan, Hinchcliff Rossy, um, uh,
Felix Rosenquist, Stephen Wilson, Pietro Fittipaldi, Um, maybe I'm I
know I'm missing I think we have nine drivers in
the five D this year, So that is that the
most ever I think we've had. We've had ten before,

(06:57):
you know, and uh, it doesn't matter. I haven't haven't
had a driver win this race since Dario in two
thousand and eight. So I just I just expect not
to have one of our drivers whin. I think we're
the jinks for a lot of these drivers, So hopefully Dixon.
Dixon was two thousand eight. Yeah, oh was Dixon? Yeah
that you want to get on the radio and tell
him when your spot you don't think about, Yeah, I

(07:19):
don't think about. It's brutal. And somebody just said I
would rather start from second than I would from from
the poll. It seems like if you start from the poll, No,
but you know, you never win the race. And I'm like,
two thousand nineteen page now, yeah, two two thousand and
eight Dixon, You know that can happen. It can happen,
for sure, But it's it's a it's a race of

(07:40):
you just you know, you look at the winners of it,
and there's been some great champions and then drivers who
basically have won the n E five hundred and not
done a whole lot else Buddy Rice, great guy, but
you know Sato, he's won it twice, but you know
he's never going to be in contention to win a championship.
And so it's just it varies from a year to
year who's gonna do well in that race and it

(08:00):
comes down to usually, um, it's predictable. You know, it's
going to be one of the big three teams for
the most part. But it's it's more and more, you know,
the the old days of where another lower tier driver
could win the race come out of left field, so
to speak, those those it's hard to find that these
working out with you guys. We haven't worked out with

(08:21):
her because she went over. We worked with her back
in the Toyota Atlantic days, so we worked out with
her in a long time. But yeah, she worked out
in our program. And we've had drivers that are in
UM in the race. You know, we worked with Will
for a long time until he moved down in North Carolina,
worked at Joseph for a long time New Garden until
he we've done in North Carolina, so we've had he's

(08:42):
in North Carolina to now drivers the whole Joseph relocated
to Nashville. Yeah, and his wife actually built a house
in Nashville, I think a year or two ago. But
all the drivers from Penske are in North Carolina. Remember
I remember new Garden being at the True Place when
we were there. And now his family's got the robot pong,

(09:03):
isn't it. Yeah? Yeah, that was his grandfather that invented
the rub upon. Yeah yeah. And then he raced with
Robert right, he raced with Robert him and Connor Connor daily.
We actually have a picture of of Robert and Connor
and Joseph Jimmy Simpson. I can't remember Eric Bachelart's so
Elliott Elliott, Elliott Bachelort when they were when they were

(09:26):
all kids running junior. Can you know at Newcastle? A
nice little group pictures. It's pretty cool to look back,
and that's really cool stuff, good history. Yeah, that was that.
They look like little kids too. Pretty funny. How young
all of them were so knowing rong? Yeah, I mean
they were thirteen years old, they were you know, they
were fourteen years old. Is that when you pulled up
in your stacker and uh with your with your multibellion

(09:51):
dollar motor. It was we used to just chuckle. It
was so awesome to pull up with a go kart
in the back of a pickup truck, you know, and
and you had your a little hand bag of tools,
you know, and right on out onto the stand and
you know, we got fancy and got a little inclosed trailer.
We were moving, moving up in the ranks, you know,
while blew the blew the lawn clippings out of it.

(10:11):
You know, like I study back in the day, and
that's where all these kids were though, you know, um, yeah,
pretty pretty cool. And of course Mark Dismore, president of
that that track out there, and former IndyCar racer twenty
four hours daytona racer, and I worked with a number
of those guys. You know. Connor was always on his
own own program, but new Garden was was definitely part

(10:31):
of the the Newcastle Mark Dismore engine building program. So yeah,
those kids, uh, those kids spent a lot of time
out there honing their craft and their early days. For sure.
It's pretty cool, pretty cool to look back at now.
Nobody really says that much about Newcastle. I mean, I'm
from there, so it's like he put it on the map, right,

(10:51):
I mean, maybe people around here, but and I think
it's actually spiceling Indian and I'm not really sure. Really, yeah,
I think that's the the exit is a Steve Alfred
All American in Oh yeah. Yeah. It's got whatever team
he's coaching for at the time. It's got their basketball
shoe in front of it. I saw when I went
home for Mother's Day. I think they've got a thirty

(11:12):
nine dollar by the hour special right now. So it's
pretty nice deal. I mean, if you just see m
stop in for a few I guess just throwing that
out there. Let we sat and enjoyed a couple there
with Mark Dismore. It was kind of a kind of fun.
He's a he's a great cat. His dad was even
more classic. Yeah, his Emerson. I never met him, but boy,

(11:33):
there's no short of stories of Emerson. Oh yeah. He
was a feisty dude. Man. He was a fighting He
was a big dude. I mean he was. He was
a tall and huge and stature I mean big. Oh yeah.
Neither one of Mark and Mark, you neither one of
them is really that big exactly, but or you know, Mark,

(11:54):
you have to kind of kind of punching to get
you know, getting to talk, you know whatever. Not Emerson not.
I mean, he was he was. I remember, so I
was racing go karts as you know, as a kid,
and I walk in there one time to buy something
and I'm looking at it. He goes, what are you
buying that for? I'm like, aren't you in the business

(12:16):
to sell stuff? I mean, would you care why I'm
trying to buy it? You don't need that. I mean,
he knew as a broadcast kid. Isn't one reason, you know,
he knew I didn't have any money and I was
doing it all on my own, and you know, it
was it was my my passion that that's what I
wanted to do. And he saw it and he was
just like, you don't need to buy that, that's that
isn't what you need to run that. I mean, it

(12:38):
was just totally telling me that. So it's just interesting.
I mean, and he was always you know he was
he was rough and gruffed to a lot of people,
but I I I liked his style. He was just
a really really need old guy. But you know, I
mean he gave Tony Stewart his first gig. Really, you know,
where Tony really became amazing at, you know, in the

(13:03):
go kart you know, business, and uh, I mean, you
know Tara Armstrong, she used to you know, Brad's wife,
She used to run the office for him and and he,
uh you know he she was she was talking about
how Tony didn't have a job and he was driving
for Comment and uh so Tony was doing inventory with

(13:28):
Tera and she says, here, I got this stinky boy
working with me with these beat up shoes. And you
know it's even you know, she's older than him, and
it's just hilarious listen to her and them banner back
and forth to this day, because uh, they both were
they both were big parts of Tony's life growing up,

(13:50):
you know, Brad and terrorist. So I never knew that
that Emerson gave him that that shot. I mean when
we were racing out there, Tony would always come out
once or twice a year, which seems to in and
out there, And I never I just figured it was
a relationship with Mark Senior. And uh, I had no idea.
I didn't remember who for them. You know, they had pros, right,

(14:10):
common always had their pros, like Andy Keller was one
of them at one point, and and uh, I can't
think of the other ones, but Tony and Mark were
you know, kind of the same era, if you will,
around that same era. Mark was a little bit older.
But but I mean, you know he's uh he told me.
He told me Wheneverson hired him, he goes go pick

(14:32):
out one of the suits. We'll have a card for you.
It's just like it's that. That was the way he
did stuff. It was never like, hey, what do you
think about driving forward? No, you know, so like you said,
just rough around the edges. I mean, that's and the
greatest guy ever. I mean I really really feel like
he would he would have. I mean, he gave a
lot of people a lot of stuff, you know, and

(14:54):
getting getting there so to seem actually and to see
Mark carry on the deal you know what he's got
out there. I mean that's what Comic Cart should have
had a long time ago, because they were you know,
they were they were tough, and I mean they were
the ones, you know, they weren't you know, I can't
think of the other the other card names, you know,

(15:14):
all the foreign the different ones and this and that.
But so it was interesting that I mean, like I said,
I that was a big empty field when I was
growing up, So there was nothing there and for him
to really to have that vision, you know, that's that's
pretty pretty amazing. And he put it all out there too.
I mean, that was a that was a big loan.
I've talked to him a number of times. It was

(15:35):
a big loan, and he he just kept scrapping. I
mean you were talking about it before as a business
owner and everything he had to go through, and he didn't.
You know, people think, oh, Mark Dismore, Randity Car and
Daytona and all this stuff. He's a millionaire, you know,
and it's like everybody else. Man. He had to go
go to the bank borrow a big chunk of money.
And I'm sure he had had some equity in it,
don't get me wrong, but i mean talk about sweat

(15:56):
equity to to make ends meet every day of the week.
Those guys were just ripping. And you're gonna go tell
the bank. Oh, by the way, I'm going to start
this go kart track. Yeah, knowing right off the bat
that you're gonna be down probably four or five months
a year, right, I mean, you can't run it weather,
it's not it's not an indoor carting center and you

(16:16):
know something like that. It's a you know, you know,
unlike perhaps in other circumstances, he continues to evolve that facility,
continues to make it better and adding more and adding this,
and and so I think it's you know, it's obviously
a world class operation. That's it is world wide known.
That's amazing. Really North America, they just aren't many tracks

(16:39):
like that. Oh no, no, and so that's you know,
people know about it. Tony and I were talking about
when we would race the Richmond Street Race. Well, part
of that street race back in the day was, um,
you had to go over a set of railroad tracks
before you turn left, and you were in the air.
You were in the air with your wheels cut, so

(17:02):
when you landed it would take you the right way
because I mean I didn't have much problem with my
flying too far, but I mean Tony and them were
alb lots smaller than me, so they could they could
definitely get some more air. But those straight races were wild,
and you know, there wasn't there was no There was
one closed circuit that we ran on and uh it

(17:23):
was up in Muncy and it was at the f
O P. I don't even think, I don't credit you know,
my son competes in sports cars, and I credit his
his street racing and the go karts as to really
helping him out. He went he went professionals first professional
series two thousand and ten with the probably World Challenge
Series at the time, and I think they were twenty

(17:44):
three years old, you know, at that point time. And
he went on to win. I think he won five
races that year, and he won the championship Brookie of the
the Year and won the championship. But I remember us
starting off um at St. Pete, went to St. Pete,
we went to Long Beach, I think we raced in Toronto,
and those street car races where they had walls on

(18:06):
either side and curbs never phazed him because he had
competed in carts on street races, so it didn't it
didn't rattle him. It wasn't new. And I remember for
so many of the other competitors to get in between
those concrete walls with no runoff, no room for a mistake,
and they started holding back just a little bit, you know,
and and the guys that had full confidence went for it.

(18:27):
And I'm convinced to this day that it came from
from street racing in carts because we all know when
you hit a curb in a card it's a bad day. Yeah. Yeah,
you're not one to get near the Let's pause for
a moment here to take a quick break. This segment
of the Skinny is brought to you by Toyota Salio.
Where did it all start? Um? It started back in

(18:51):
Detroit at a diesel engine plant. Wow. I mean I
was work for Roger Penskey at Detroit Diesel Corporation and uh,
you know, I ran or part of a big wellness
program that the U. A W had jointly funded and
and um. At the time, this was in ninety three. Uh,

(19:13):
you know, the sport Indy car was huge. I mean
NASCAR was still it was big. It was in the
Rusty Wallace days, but it was they hadn't won championships
and there wasn't really a lot of involving in other
other series. So that was the time when Emerson was
driving and Alantrew Jr. And Paul Tracy was I think
in a second or third year. And so what would

(19:35):
happen is they would race at Detroit, they would race
in Portland the truck he would bring the trucks back
straight to Detroit. And they would work on the cars
all week long in the garage area of our wellness center,
which is huge. And so I began doing stuff with
their pit crew and doing cholesterol testing and things like that.

(19:57):
And I had this idea to pitch working with the
pitcher to make them better. UM. And I wrote a
note to Roger and you know, I always tell the
story to younger kids, and they don't understand it. I said,
you know, back in mid nineties, emails just didn't exist.
Didn't have it. You you had, you wrote a note, UM,
you typed on a typewriter. And so I wrote him,

(20:18):
UM a note in her office, note to him, and
you know, saying hey, Mr Penzie, I'd like to do this.
And he sent back a note that said go for
it on his letter head. I wish I would have
kept that. I would have framed it. And that was
kind of the start of it. So I began working
with the IndyCar team at the end of ninety three.
I would fly to a writing Pennsylvania every month. I
designed a gym for them, and I worked with not
really the the drivers, but I would go there and

(20:39):
do all this you know, training, and built a gym
for him and UM work on pit stops with them,
and I learned how to do pit stops and and
just ingrain myself into the culture. And uh, there wasn't
you know again with the internet, wasn't there, just wasn't there.
So it was a lot of trial and error. You
learned a lot of things. You ask a lot of questions,

(21:01):
guys like Rick Reineman, Um. I mean there's guys that
have been a retire now that you know. I learned
so much from John Booze log and all these guys,
and I would they would set up a tire on
a wall mount and I would set a time a
stop watch, and I would basically take an air gun
and I would change tires for thirty minutes straight just

(21:21):
to understand. And then the next day I couldn't move.
And I knew dan well what muscles to work and
that kind of a thing. So we just worked on that.
And the timing was great because that was the year
that UM they won the the Pushrod Engine you know,
the Beast, and they won the series and they want
literally they swept almost all the races. It was almost

(21:41):
bad for the sport because it was one two three,
and I kept doing that with them for a couple
of years, and then I had my job with Detroit
Diesel back and forth, and then um, I just realized
that this there's got to be more to this. So
I started branching out a little more. Was hired by
pack West Racing to be their team physio and than
and moved here and um, you know, from there, I

(22:03):
did that for a couple of years. And you know,
I knew, though my job was so new, that if
push came to shove and dollars got tight. So I
I used that two year agreement to basically lay the
ground and work to work with other groups and get
the word out to things and and um and basically

(22:24):
develop a bigger plan for the future. And you know,
and then Scott Dixon came along, which is huge, and
I worked with ninety a little bit with Stefani Johanson.
He basically won the championship in lights and then um
the next year, Lo and Behold, I went on just
a contract with this team and two thousand and uh

(22:44):
one I think it was, and lo and Behold. Four
five months later, the they walked the team walked into
a conference room. They said, okay, we're shutting down like
that day, fired fifty people on the spot, but I
was already out the door, and I'd already start to
working with other people. So it was, you know, I
knew what I just knew. I knew that they need engineers,

(23:08):
they need drivers, they need fuel, they need truck ees.
They don't need a physio, they really don't. So and
that just led to growing things and getting more involved
in other series and other drivers. And it just wasn't
a whole lot out there. There wasn't a lot of
what I was doing out there, So I was learning
a lot on my own and making great relationships, partnering
with people and getting to know people and having success

(23:30):
with drivers. And then it just continued to grow from there.
And now you know, I look at it now and
it's it's commonplace. I mean, every drivers blowing up his
Instagram with his abs and he's working out and doing
this and all this. Back then, I mean, yeah, what
was that psych I mean you had Steve Kinser back then,
you know, chunky smoking cigarettes, you know, ripping around killing
everybody in a sprint car. And and it goes back

(23:51):
to what I said at the top of the show,
right the myth was they're not really a right, you know,
sitting in the car wheeling around. But as when did
you see it really story starting to take shape and
meaning that the psyche of the drivers was they started realizing, oh,
this guy being in better shape than than I am
is giving him an advantage. When did it? When did
it really start to switch? It kind of picked up

(24:13):
steam in the you know, I'm probably right when I
got started, the timing was impeccable. But you started seeing
this influx of these F one drivers coming over, you know,
Jill Deferren and Alex and Hardi and Christian Fittipaldi, and
they had been raised on this thing with Ayrton Senna
that you all trained and so every team had, you know,
a physio that worked with the driver to the track,
look after all their needs, trained with them, did all

(24:35):
these things, and so that's kind of how they're raised
over as the culture of the European culture. So the
drivers started coming over here and and just kicking ass
and and they're in great shape. And I remember Bobby
Rayhall lost like thirty pounds because he realized, I've got
to do something, i gotta do something different here, and
so shaved his mustache, he took he took out his wallet.

(24:57):
That's thirty right there. And so you started seeing more
and more of it. And uh, you know, I was
in the right place at the right time. I had
great connections at Elmore Engineering with Mercedes Benz the great
friends of mine, and they put me in touch with
you know, the ben has and team and pack West
and and these different teams are running Mercedes engines and
it just grew from there. But you know, there was
there was a lot of um kind of turning your

(25:21):
head looking at me, like what this is kind of silly?
Well that's that. That's what I was getting ready to say.
So when you walk in that you know, one, you're
the new kid. Yeah, and too you want us to
do what? Yeah? Yeah, I mean think about it back
in NASCAR when it all really started. The Rainbow Warriors, right,
Gordon's team. How hard those guys you know, trained, and

(25:44):
and all of that stuff. I mean, it's funny you
mentioned that because before the Rainbow Warriors they had Rusty
Wallace is over over the wall gang. And that's how
I got started. My grandfather sent me an article out
of National Speed Sport News. Remember that when it was
actually Chris On and they had done an article on
Rusty's crew being the fastest pit crew and they were

(26:06):
doing step aerobics, so they were already doing that and
that's what gave me the idea. So it was kind
of picking up steam as they went. And and you know,
now it's a whole there, it's a whole industry of
of guys flying in and working on you know, the
pit crew, and that there's coaches that all they do
is work with the pit crew. It's that critical um.
It definitely was something that took a little more time,

(26:27):
and it took a few guys just to kind of,
you know, John Anderson from Pack West Racing um kind
of champion the cause a little bit. Having Roger believing
what I was doing was huge, and that's it's always
good to have on your resume. Oh you know this
started with Roger Penn, right, It isn't nobody, and so
it helped. It helped look at that and they're like, oh,
another thing he was doing that we didn't know about,

(26:48):
and I wonder he keeps kicking our ass. And so
it just it just continued to pick up steam. But
with those drivers doing well, then you started seeing driver.
You know what came out of nowhere that we're curious
about it. I'm working with Jeff, with Josh Wise and
and Brad Sweet and those guys way back when, and

(27:10):
and it was just one of these things where they
weren't sure it was going to help, but they knew
made them feel better. Larry Dixon came in and and
I bean't work with Larry Dixon. And I remember Larry
walked in my office n HR top Field Driver, and
I got I said, look, man, I gotta be square
with you. I don't know what I can do to
help you because I don't understand drag racing at all.
And now, how many do you have? Well, we we

(27:32):
only have we have JR. I mean anymore, right, we
have JR. Todd. JR. Todd. By the way, those two
wallies over there are from there you go, there you go.
You used to have but then you know, well Bernstein
was coming in with Morrigan. But over the years and
Mortgage and Brandon and these guys. But Larry said, I

(27:52):
just you know, I'm getting up in age. I just
want to feel better. He saw that ahead of a
lot of other people. Now you're always gonna have the
ran in every single sport, there's the um you know,
there's the anti fitness and they're successful. And I've done
so many lectures everybody would come in to say, well,
what about Tony Stewart or what about one Montoya Ken Schrader.

(28:14):
He explained it to us earlier, John Force, you know,
and and and you know, And it's hard for me
to dispute that because they are just god given talent.
But exactly, but that is a one and very very few.
There's a lot to have to fight for it. And listen,
Dixon is at the absolute top of his game. I
mean it just he is unbelievable how good he is,

(28:38):
what shape he's in, and it is hilarious. When Hinchcliff
was in here, he's like, he's like, we're going to
make up. We're gonna make up some risk bands he said.
He said, well, he said, we're gonna make up a
shirt that says what would Scott Dixon do? He said.
Every time we go in there and he's like do
you want to put on He's like, I don't know
what Scott Dixon do? Yeah, because he's like he is like,

(29:00):
Alex is gonna put it up now, just leave it out.
We're gonna use that same stuff right over there. It's
it's unbelievable. You know, it's got to be cool working.
I mean we talk about a personalities. I mean that
is a personalities at the highest level. They are so
competitive that they want to beat each other no matter,
it doesn't matter, just in the in the race car,

(29:20):
just at the gym wherever, walk into the mailbox, whatever
it may be. Yeah, and you can see, you know,
Scott sets the bar very very high, and he has
and he he will step his game up to beat
someone else, even if it's by a second or two.
He'll quietly just go in, We'll put a time up
for some particular activity or endeavor, and then it'll be

(29:41):
on the board. And then you'll see the next day
walk in and just look at his head and he
knows that to even get close to that, he's not
even gotten close to that yet, and it's already and
he's gone just twisting the knife in their back. Yeah,
and it's just it's just you know, and that that
is he's been like that. Um, it really got like
that probably around oh five. And I remember when we

(30:03):
first did his first half iron Man Triathlon and that
that's when I started seeing that I could always beat
him in just about everything. And that's when I started
seeing his maturity level and his physical stature growing, you know,
as a driver, as a person. And then since he
you know, when he married Emma Dixon and o A,
I mean, he's untouchable. She kind of made him the
complete person. And now he's just he's good. He's got

(30:26):
this innate fire that you see. All the drivers have it,
but you're right that they all come in and they
just they don't. Even James is in phenomenal shape for
the average person, but there's just a next level. I
think a guy who's kind of trying to knock on
the door and has that mental Alexander ROSSI he's he's
he's strong, and he's very fit, and he he I

(30:48):
don't want to see. He looks up to Scott in
a big way, you know, but Scott also knows that's
easy to do. Yeah, he's you know, and so I
think that it motivates, you know. It's it's really unique
when you see these younger junior drivers look up to
a Scott Dixon and they say, man, if I could
just do what he's done, but they're they're so far

(31:08):
down the pike from doing that that they're you know,
they're they're fifteen years from getting to that level or
ten years from that level. But then you see the
same the same viewpoint from drivers that are competing on
the same tracks as a guy like Scott Dixon and
they're still trying to achieve what he's achieved. And I
think that's in the gym on the track, and I

(31:28):
think that's just a unique thing you don't see in
this day and age, the amount of respect admiration for
what your competitor is doing and just kind of bow
down the deference and say, hey, I know I'm not
gonna win in this situation. I don't mean not on track,
but I'm going to be as damn close as I can.
And and you know, you hear about that saying no
one is ever perfect, but if you, if you work

(31:50):
hard enough and strive for greatness, you know, excellent well.
And and that's just that, I mean that the whole
thing of it is is he's great all those things
you mentioned, but he's great in life too. He's he's
just a good dude. I mean, and uh, you know,
uh not. You know, he's got the right amount of arrogance,

(32:11):
not too much, you know, which those guys have to
They got a pretty big deal to do there, you know.
And and uh but but you know, always friendly and
try to tackle me in the middle of the chili
bowl when you were with him there and uh there.
There have been moments you know that was that was
a fun weekend. So we're gonna take a quick break

(32:34):
here as we spent some time with the president of
Fit Fit, Jim Leo. We'll be right back in just
a month. This segment of the Skinny is brought to
you by Rhino Classifies. Tired of all those ads and
random stuff that shows up when you're looking to buy
or sell your car parts, Rhino Classifies was created just
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(32:56):
created by racers for racers and race van ends, modified cars,
classic cars, race cars, that special pig block. You need
the trailer to move your baby around the country in
we got you at Rhino dot Com. Once again, welcome
back to the Skinny. We have Jim Leo on with
us and he is responsible for a number of the

(33:19):
athletes that compete in motorsports to be at the top
of their game. Thanks for taking the time, Jim, and uh,
talk to me, Talk to me about the couple of
the business itself. Give yourself a little a little promo here,
give us a well, well we'll attach some video to it.
So let's let's show the people and tell the people
what you actually do to make a driver a better driver.

(33:39):
It's such a matter of fact. We were just talking
about it with Kenny Schrader a little bit earlier today. Uh.
And and we see him at sixty five, soon to
be sixty six years old, and I said, how is
it that somebody of your age can get into a
sprint car and ripped for five laps? Is it just
muscles that you've used your entire life. I mean, he
clearly doesn't look cut, you know, but it's something that

(34:02):
his body is adapted to over the course of time.
But as as you get these drivers, the muscles that
they use are so unique. It's only in driving. How
do you actually help them? Well, I mean the thing
you have to realize is that there's gonna Research has
shown that, um, the driver's ability to process information is
superior to the average person. There's research showing that, and

(34:23):
they take a group of drivers, They take the average
people and they do processing skill sets and and the
drivers there, whether it's accumulated over time or it's innate
from when they were born, I can't really say, but
they are able to respond and react and process information
and data quicker and respond to it. We train them
to do that. That's something that we do with a

(34:45):
lot of cognitive training drills. We do this under stress.
A lot of it's taken from the military with with
Navy seals and such, who have to respond obviously in
very traumatic, high intensity situations. We do the same things
with the drivers. So, you know, I think that is
something that will will doesn't diminish over time. With age.

(35:07):
It does diminish somewhat, but it's kind of like, you know,
you're you're already at the absolute top above the average person,
so you're diminishing down to where you're at a lower
level is still far superior to the average person. Um,
you know, muscles are. Depending on the series you're gonna
drive in, there's different things being used. I had I

(35:28):
had a talk with Terry Trammell this morning, who everybody
you know, obviously surgeon and I talked to Tim Tim Pullman,
who was James Hinchcliffe's doctor when when he had his
bad crash and for an article I'm writing about the
core and everything, and you know, we talked about we
talked about some of the things that that go on

(35:50):
with the driver and the muscles that are used and all. Um.
It's amazing the different types of cars you drive, it has.
Everything is different. Whatever you drive, it's a little bit
different the way we work with someone. So somebody who
is in a sprint car versus someone who is in
an Indy car versus someone who raises carts, there's a
foundation of training that will do, but then it changes

(36:10):
depending on your series. Someone who is in a car
where you don't have that you're not locked into the
seat as as well. So for example, a sprint car
versus an Indy car. Indy car, they're they're so tight
in the car, there's no movement. You don't want, you
don't want a whole lot of movement in there. Look

(36:31):
at a sprint car and I don't care how tight
you're in there, You're you're gonna move. So your your
core strength is more important in a sprint car than
it probably isn't an indy car um. The less support
you have in the seat, the less you're tied down,
the more activation there is of the core, which if
your core isn't strong enough, what happens is a lot
of that workload gets transferred other parts of your body,

(36:52):
your shoulders, your arms, and then that gets fatigued. So
there's a lot of working pieces with the way we
do things with the drivers, But for them most part,
you know, the goal is to make them as safe
as possible, and then the performances. We don't advertise it,
but you know it's it's kind of secondary. We want
the drivers to be able to survive a crash. We
want them to be able to respond to situations on

(37:13):
the track faster than the average person, average driver. We
want all these factors to take take part in the
racing career, so they have a long racing career. So
it's not just a jazzer sized class. One Thursday, Hey
he had one, we could go. Hey he had a
stone hot yoga Bernstein and I tell still talk about
the hot YEA, yeah, Well I got news for you.

(37:35):
I mean, I've I've tried, I've attempted yoga A couple
of times, and it's brutal. I mean, I'm talking about
beginners yoga. You thought you were going to say that
Little Green Man, it's I mean to watching it and
advanced yoga classes. It's pretty aggressive when you realize how
difficult it is to do. Yeah, well, I will tell
you this. You know that this goes back a little

(37:57):
further than the next one I'll talk about. But you know, uh,
you know Shane Mills. You know, there's a lot of
there's a lot of you know, a lot to be
said about what Jim was just talking about. You know, Shane,
Shane was working out with Jim when that all happened,
when he got in the horrific crash and the Silver

(38:17):
Crown cart tea Haute and uh they you know, the
strength that he had in his body from in the
endurance and and everything to go with it, there was
there was a lot of I mean, they point blank
said they probably would have died otherwise just because of
you know the severity of the crash and things like that.

(38:38):
So uh, you know, of course, the other one you
know of note, uh, you know just that that I'm
thinking of it is of course Hingecliff And so you
know walk us through a little bit of that. Of
course we heard his side, We know a lot of it.
Of course I was there when it happened, and and
knew that it was pretty bad right away when I

(39:00):
saw him, when I saw him nosing over that, that
think things were going bad pretty quick. You know another
name I want to throw in there. And I don't know,
we might not have been working out with you, but
but I remember the accident and I already remember the covery.
The recovery time was so short after an accident that
was so severe, and that was Sebastian board A. He

(39:22):
had a nasty crash and he recovered so quickly. I
mean just a few months later. I mean the same scenario.
I was like, I don't have the guy would ever
walk again, And here he is swimming. You know, it's
a few months later. But it was all because of
his prep, not because of the aftermath. Yeah, And that
that's the thing. You know, there's research that shows that

(39:42):
the more fit you are, the more likely you are
to it to recover quicker from from whether it's surgery
or whether it's an accident or that kind of a thing.
And you know, with James, the situation. Um, it was
it was I just I just talked to his doctor,
Tim Pullman this morning. We just just talked about that.
And know, he told me that when James when they

(40:03):
got off the elevator, Um, he had his hand on
James's wrist and he lost his pulse when he got
off the elevator. I didn't know that. And so he
said that that they have basically once he feels that,
you have ninety seconds to get him alive again. Yeah,
and you know, and and they got that done. And

(40:24):
Dr Pullman has said that his you know, James had
that that rod go you know, through basically his his
pelvis and and come out through his abdomens. And the
fact that he was able to recover from that, that
whole process of recovery, you know, we worked really hard
at making sure that it was done properly. But the

(40:45):
fact that he was able to come back from that
that quick. Um, you had to have a fair amount
of fitness and a fair amount of strength to be
able to withstand that kind of demand on the body
and come back the way he did. The average person,
it just it doesn't work that way. The body has
to um developed muscle that it doesn't even have well,
the muscle is already there. You've just lost a little

(41:06):
bit of it. It's been compromising one area, but everything
else is still intact. So the fact that he's able
to come back, and and we were able to do
so many things that that didn't compromise the injury, you know,
that's the idea. The reason we do the things with
rehab is our drivers. They need to get back in

(41:26):
the car. There's a lot of concern about losing your ride.
And so rather than to take them to conventional physical therapy,
which is gonna say, okay, this is a twelve week process. Um,
it's gonna take twelve weeks to get through this. We
speed that up under the doctor's care, of course, but
we pushed the boundaries as much as possible. And it's
always been that way, whether it's Joey Saldanna, you know Joey,

(41:49):
and I mean, Dario, Uh, so many people, Pietro Fittipaldi,
we worked I mean, there's so many drivers that we've
worked with and um, and and it's just a process
that we have so many things that we can do
with them that don't affect the injuries, so that you know,
instead of instead of waiting till the injury is completely
healed and then working on the rest of it, we
work on everything else, and we work on the injury

(42:10):
at the same time with a lower intensity UM and therefore,
by the time the injury heals up, the package is ready,
it's done well. I mean it's amazing because how many
times have you seen somebody get into bed or just
say a regular car crash, maybe a mountain bike crash,
whatever whatever the case may be, and and they go
do this process. They have the surgery and their mending

(42:30):
back and UM, and it takes them months, and over
the course of the months they've lost so much muscle
it seems like they almost never get it back. And
these drivers that you're talking about their back and like
you said, I mean at full strength. You know, in
the span of a year, you'd never know what happened
to him. It's mean it is and you know when

(42:56):
you know when that whole deal happened with Hinecliff And
I told him when he was here, I said, you know,
we uh, you know, we had I pulled some of
the staff from I m s over and I said, um,
I said, you guys need to create a public service day,

(43:17):
you know, and they're like, they're like, well, what do
you mean. I said, that guy is alive because of
those rescue guys. I said, you should have police and
fire out here honoring those guys because those are the
people who get that done. They didn't quite take it
where they should because I think, you know, what's all

(43:37):
fire companies want to do. They want to have a
chili cook off. They don't care if it's a hundred
and fifty degrees outside, you know, exactly right, right right.
And you know the other side is is, you know,
have the burnhouse out there where these kids can understand
what it is how to you know, to get out
of a out of a situation like that. So I
wish they would do more with it, and and uh

(44:00):
and and move it up and maybe in the years
to come, maybe it will. But it was I was,
I was, you know, of course, my relationship with Hinchcliff
was you know, from your facility and knowing him. They're
talking to him and a good guy, just just a good,
down to earth guy, and and you know, I was like,
you know, these they just saved his life, you know,

(44:22):
at that point, to get him to the next stage.
And that, and that's what Dr Pullman said. He said,
he said, basically, James Hinchcliffe saved He saved his own
life in a way just because of his preparation and
his attitude and everything. And it's obviously a lot of
people were involved, but you know, there's just so many
there's so much now being tied into safety in the

(44:45):
medical side of motorsports, and there's their International Council and
Motorsports Science Um part of that, and there's so many
doctors now that we have seminars on safety and extraction,
fire and all these areas, and now it's starting to
get more into the physiology and the human performance side
of it. So you know, it took a long time
for that to happen. But if you were to say
this was gonna be around thirty years ago, you know,

(45:08):
it just wasn't there. Doctor said Watkins over and f
one who passed away a couple of years ago. He
was the guy that really started everything. He's the guy.
And I got to meet him. I got to do
a presentation for him years ago and he came up
and he said he super guy and I just phenomenal guy.
But he said that's the best presentation he told because

(45:30):
it was all about training and no one was doing
that yet. And this is back in oh to Oh.
I don't even know when. There was a long time ago,
but he's the guy that started it. And now it's
to the point now where you have doctors specializing and
you have like the IndyCar medical team that travels around
and the drivers will tell you that when they see
one of those guys poked their head into the cockpit,

(45:51):
they feel better. They know they're gonna be okay, and
they'd rather see that than anywhere else. And if you know,
you look at the stories of Dr Trammell and Dr
Old and some of these things, and um, you know,
I just bowed down to their what what they can do?
I mean, we can do so much and preparing them,
but when it comes down to it, you know, if
they're not they're on the bad accident ain't gonna work out. Yeah,

(46:13):
they're the ones putting them back together. Yeah, I don't
care how fit they are. If there's a certain point
where man, it's it's this is it. They've got to
put it back together to keep the bleeding from from continuing.
So that that's but it takes a whole team. It
takes the safety crew and everybody involved in the track
to do that. And you're right. I mean, I'm in
awe of that whole that whole industry and in the

(46:34):
heroes and hence Cliff talking about how he had to
plan his day out, how many steps he was going
to take all right, again, I go to the bathroom
X amount of time. So that's this because I didn't
want him to walk, you know, not overdoing it, which
I thought was I thought it was pretty wild. I
thought it was pretty interesting. And knowing he's a racehorse, right,

(46:56):
so they had to pull the racehorse back and wanted
to go and get better, and they said, you're gonna
make it worse man, and he said he literally had
to make it a competition with himself to not go
like how could he like you said, how can he
go so many steps inside of that house without overdoing it?
Which is wild? I mean, they they're there there, they
want to do well, they want to get back in

(47:17):
the car right away. And so we we we had
guidelines with James to follow and and you know, in
the beginning it wasn't that difficult because he was so
gassed over anything he did, he would say, I'm I
can't go anymore. But we would just follow specific heart
rates and intensity levels and making sure that we didn't
have any problems. And then if he was ready to

(47:38):
go further, I'd called Dr Pullman and say here's what
we want to do. Yes, you can do this. And
so it was. It was one of these things we
didn't leave it up to James and make the decision
because you know, he wanted to do more and more
and more. But he knew he knew going in that
it was a miracle if he could get back in
the car that soon, and we had timeline. He gave
me specific days early on. I'm gonna get back in

(47:59):
the car on this date, if if, if I'm ready,
if I can get back in the car in this date,
And you know we're called upon to make decisions like
that at times. Remember Casey came calling me about Joey
sell Donna. I mean every time Joey went to Eldora,
I was just either either left he ever left either
one the race, he left in helicopter. You know, it's

(48:19):
one thing after another. Remember Casey calling asking it was
okay for Joey to get back in the car if
I thought, and I said, look, I'm giving my professional opinion.
He's done all the things that we've been asked to do.
He is so far ahead of where he should be
at this point, I would feel comfortable saying that he's
physically prepared to get back in the car um And

(48:40):
he did. He went out I think that was somewhere
in and he won that first first race back. But
it was it was cool to have Casey called to say,
is Joey ready? I mean, of course, we had doctors
confirming that it wasn't. I wasn't sure God making a
decision on something like that, but not about the mental
fortitude of these guys to get back on the car
and then go like it never happened. And and the

(49:03):
best example again it is Hench and we had him
on the show. I mean for him to have that
accident there and then come back a year later and
put it on the pole. I mean, and then and
you really and I don't I don't want to. I
don't know how to help the fans at home understand
the intensity of Pole day at the five hundred. But
when you're standing there, I mean, goose bumps right here dude.

(49:25):
I mean I was just standing there Sunday next to
Dixon's car and I'm watching Colton take off and I'm
standing next to Dixon's car thinking, my god. I mean,
I can't believe. First of all, I'm standing here next
to the baddest Indy car in the land and the
baddest team in the land. I mean, we just qualified
number one the day before and now going out to

(49:46):
do it again. But the intensity level of qualifying day
Pole day is is just inexplainable to me. I don't
know the proper words to help somebody understand that that's
never been there. So to watch him go out after
that crash that he had and hang it out for
four laps, I just it. It's unbelievable to me that

(50:08):
somebody can be that strong. Mentally, well, they just there.
It's it's something that I don't All I can say
is that their their competitors. It's they live for it,
um and and and at some point they decide they've
had enough and they walk away. And I think there
is a point where they just say, you know what,
this isn't worth it anymore. But until they get to
that day, every single driver we've ever worked with is

(50:30):
the same way. They just want to keep going faster
and be the next guy, and they're super competitive. And
I don't think you can you know, create that. We've
dealt with drivers of all levels throughout the years. And
you have some that are, you know, financially well enough
off to they do this because they like to do
it and they don't really need it. And then you
have some that I've always said, there's two kinds of
race car drivers. There's drivers who like to be um

(50:54):
like to be a race car driver, and there's those
that like to drive cars. And the guy I'd like
to drive car will compete in lawnmowers, they'll compete in
anything you know that you know. And then there's others
who you know, and there's been successful drivers like this,
but that they just love the trappings of going being

(51:15):
a race car driver. And and and and there's to
two types, and I think that that you can't make
one the other. I think that if you're either born
with it or or not. And that's why you have
you know, that's why that's why only one percent of
what high school athletes make in the NFL, because there's
that tiny fraction that have what it takes to go

(51:35):
to the next level. It's just like it is in business.
You know where you're where, you're setting there, and you go,
you know, I did all these things right, Why is
this not happening? And you know there's there's some luck
that's involved in it, you know, and it's the right place,
the right times, and just a lot of other things
that go along with it. But what you're doing for
these guys and gals is is second to none, and

(52:00):
I mean it's it's pretty pretty wild to see. We're
gonna take a quick breakcare spending some time getting the
behind the scenes looked at some of the drivers here
with Jim Leo of pitt Fit. Will be right back
this segment of the Skinny. It's brought to you by
Dream Giveaway. Dream Giveaway has been giving away high end
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(52:22):
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(52:43):
Welcome back to the Skinny. We're with Jim Leo of
pit Fit and giving us a men's sights of what
he's seen from some of the top athlete drivers on
the planet, and boy, it has been truly exceptional to
watch them make their comebacks. Um As as we proceed
forward coming out of the nineties, as you talked about,
you've seen it from its infancy up to where it

(53:05):
is now. The technology is changing by the day. Where
do you see it going in the future. Well, I
think you're gonna see um much much more. The mental
side of it. I think you're gonna you know, we
we've started, we started years ago working with the neurocognitive
side of things and trying to work on the processing
skills of the drivers and enhance that. So now you
can you can take a driver who is at a

(53:27):
certain level and try to enhance that a little bit higher.
I think at some point in years past, you basically
you know a driver would get to a certain level
and that's as high as he could go. As you
have more and more science based research done on racing,
you can learn how to help them be safer in
the car. To help them with heat tolerance, you know,
tolerate g loads, better respond quicker under stress, all these areas.

(53:49):
And I think you're gonna see more and more research
coming out on racing and determining how to basically make
you know, and a machine driving a machine. You'll see
more more of that. So I think you're going to
see that continuing to to to rise up as the
industry continues to grow more and more money is involved
in it. Um you're getting You look at IndyCar now,

(54:12):
it's it's there's literally there's no weaknesses. There's it's such
a strong series right now, and it's getting harder and
harder for people just to show up with with the
checkbook and get into the series because there's it's so
strong that you can basically pick and choose who you
want to put in the car. So I think that's
gonna be something you're gonna see more and more, just

(54:33):
the science behind what they're doing with the drivers and
with the cars. And you know, we want to be
part of that. We've been kind of focused and we
you know, the conversation seems to wrap around Indy Car
and you have a lot of those athletes and soide
working out with you. But when you take a look
at supercross and how physical that is making those decisions

(54:54):
late in those races. Um, is there is there a
way you know, drag racing the reaction times that are
that a so imperative, you know when when all the
other stress is going on stuff that they're trying to
think about as the drivers get tired. I know you
have you have tests and you have exercises that that
you work with with these guys. Is there a do

(55:15):
you measure a performance? Do you measure? Do you measure
in percentages like each I'm sure each person individually, but
is there a way to quantify some of the exercises
that they're doing to tell if they're cognitive skills are
getting better? Yeah, we we've been working on something. We
started doing this the beginning of last year with a

(55:35):
company out of Sweden, uh called it's an app called
Soma p NPT, But we didn't tell anybody about it.
All of last see and all of our drivers were
using this and they basically discovered this this thing brain
endurance training, which what their research is shown is that
the brain has to be trained similar to a muscle.
You get to fatigue it. So now instead of doing
these you know, sixty seconds of a of a light

(55:59):
drill or something, now we're having the drivers do five
twenty minutes of the same drill over and over. And
it's a simple does an arrow point this way or
this way? But as you continue to do that, the
brain gets tired and you start making more and more mistakes.
So we've done that a lot in the last year
and we're able to measure their improvements on that and

(56:20):
that that's been probably one of the biggest changes we've
made to our program is adopting that. Then we can
put them under uh stressful situations. So now this same app,
you can do this with voice activation, so they can
be on an activity with the heart rate up and
calling out the commands to the whatever the's asking you
to do on the app, so that that is something.

(56:43):
Put them in a sauna and have them do this
for thirty minutes straight, the same drill in a hundred
forty degrees. Those are the things that that we've been
able to measure and determine. These are in fact helping
them in the and and their drill and then you
know the performance on track. It's hard to correlate that
because there's so many variables involved in that. You don't

(57:04):
the car set up. I don't care if Scott Dixon
got into maybe a car that didn't qualify, He's not
going to be on pole. I don't care how good
he is. You just can't do it. You saw that
in Formula one when Lewis Hamilton's was out and they
put in a guy driving for williams um He almost
damn near put it on pole, almost won the race
because because the car is car is so good that

(57:28):
Hamilton's is phenomenal driver, but a lot of it is
the car. So those are variables that we can't say
that you're going to win races because you use our programer.
You do these things, but we just look at the
checkbox of eliminate these concerns. But it's a way to
measure yourself and and to work on making yourself better.
You mentioned the Seals before. I think of the Seals

(57:49):
going through Hell Week, and I know they keep them
up for so many hours to the completely deplete them.
You know, they're so fatigued, and then they want them
to remember or math equations are some sort of equation
to see how their brain is going to function underneath
that fatigue. It's a great way to measure somebody just
I would guess to see if they're good enough to pass.

(58:11):
But how do you make that better? Now? And I'm
sure they probably have ways, and I'm certainly not inside
of that, but that's what I'm looking at. That's what
intrigues me. And that's what you guys are working on
your You're finding ways to do that to actually make
them better under those scenarios. It's it's super super cool.
It's very intriguing. Now there's a long way to go.
I mean measuring, you know, starting to look at measuring
brain ways and brain activity and seeing how to look

(58:34):
at the neural pathways and enhance those to make those stronger.
And it's just gonna take it's gonna take time, and
it's gonna take you know, innovation. But the technologies out there,
we just continue to find, as others do, find ways
to to make them better as much as you know,
that's just that's what we do. Yeah, it's it's very impressive.

(58:56):
I mean, look at the room for growth. You have,
Hello out of the park right after Rico has got
a softball build. He's a hell of a hitter. Look
at those big softball players that are right, you better
be a home run because I'm not running man, not

(59:21):
grutto park and just jog around. It's a it's all
good running to the cooler, get a drink. I'm not
running them bases it. So you are going to expand
you do have a new facility. It's not necessarily open
just yet in North Carolina, but it's coming soon. Yeah,
We've done a partnership with a facility in uh North Carolina.
We'll be announcing that soon and we'll be accessible to

(59:44):
the racing community. We already do a big online coaching programs.
We have drivers all over the world with our online
coaching program that we work with everywhere from Dubai, Australia,
UM we have South some South American drivers, but we
work with we remotely coached iris all over the world.
So the reaches it's there. We're just going to continue

(01:00:04):
to try to grow it from there and then the
expansion level with with motorsports facilities, clubs around the country
and hopefully around the world. I think that as we
continue to evolve this concept, it's just going to grow
bigger and bigger. So for the fans that are listening
in and do not have access to video, where can
they find you? You can just go to pit fit

(01:00:26):
dot com. Up real lazy. And it's the funny story
on that is when I first had a website, the
Yahoo that designed my website, which wasn't Rico by the way,
way before Ricos, they the guide, Um, we try to
register pitfit dot com and he waited too long and
so a pit bull training company got it for three years.

(01:00:50):
So we had to have a different in the beginning
to different email or different web domain, and they let
it expire. Yeah that so now we have it. We're
not letting it go so just and they are not
training pit bowl. We still get we still get calls,
we still get emails of that weld trust me, we
get it. We've been battered around in this whole website
game here, that domain name game here for the past

(01:01:13):
few months. So super cool stuff. You any any hope
for a fat guy over here, there's always hope. Don't
talk about I'm right here, right here. Hey, I got
near knee replacement surgery coming up here probably next March
or so summer ive and schedule it yet But somewhere
in there I did I did the m R S
and and they said, yeah, you're you're you're gonna get

(01:01:36):
new knees if you want to keep walking, so uh perfect. Honestly,
my my initial thought was I need to start working
out now, I need to lose weight, I need to
get my legs in shape. I mean, it really was
along the the app the same train of thought that
these drivers are, the better shape I can be in
going in, the easier it's going to be coming out.
And we have a private membership program, which we keep

(01:01:57):
it very small, but it's not just racing. We do
have we don't really advertise it, but it's a private
membership program that we do have and and it's all inclusive,
so we you know, we do work with the general population.
We just we don't ever want to take away from
our passion or desire, which is the motorsports community. But
you know, we do have a time during the day

(01:02:17):
when we will work with the general population. Super cool stuff.
Congratulations on the success, and we wish you nothing but
more of it in the future. But I think it's
safe to say the foundation has been late and uh,
and you're making huge strides and thank you for all
that you do for all all the race car drivers
you know and and the people outside of the industry
as well, to keep them as healthy and strong as

(01:02:38):
they are. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. I
appreciate you, guys, ladies and gentlemen. Jim Leo of pit
Fit look him up at pit fit dot com. Thanks
for being with us here on the Skinny. This episode
has been brought to you by Toyota. Rhino classifies dream
giveaway and general tire for the latest and sunglasses, optical frames,
accessories and apparel. Be sure to cup bathheads dot com.

(01:03:01):
That's Batheads with a Z. Production facilities provided by Fatheads
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and Kenna is a production of I heart Radio. For
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