Daly Dose 05-14-25 Breaking down the Indy 500 with author Ray Hartjen

Tune into the Daly Dose this week for an insightful conversation with author Ray Hartjen about his latest book, The Indy 500: A Year-Long Quest to Win the Greatest Spectacle in Racing. 
Hartjen shares the personal journey that fueled his book and recounts some of his most memorable experiences at the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing."
Beyond his personal connection, we'll delve into the historical significance of the Indianapolis 500, a monumental event attracting hundreds of thousands of fans to its unique blend of tradition and exhilarating speed. 
We'll also consider the current landscape of IndyCar racing, exploring opportunities for growth and identifying the drivers with the best shot at victory on Memorial Day!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Wednesday, May fourteenth, twenty twenty five. You are listening to
the Daily Dose Sports podcast and I am your host,
Clinton Daily, coming to you from my iiced here in Denver, Colorado,
and we are back for another week of talking sports
with a dose of common sense. Hey, Happy Wednesday to you.
I hope your week's going well. I hope you, your family,
your friends, everyone in your world is staying strong and

(00:27):
healthy right now. And yes, we have a lot of
things going in the sports world right now. It's just
an interesting time of year right now. Look at all
the things happening. I mean, Pete Rose and shoeless Joe
Jackson are suddenly going to be eligible for the Baseball
Hall of Fame. We found that out yesterday. It's a

(00:49):
little bit interesting, isn't it. The Stanley Cup playoffs are
very tight. We do still have two teams from Canada
in it. You know, America's hat would love nothing more
than to win that four team challenge and then pick
up a Stanley Cup. You know, those leevis wearing moose
riding folks are getting pretty excited. And you know, we

(01:10):
move over to the NBA, where we have had a
number of surprises lately. I mean, first, it looks like
the defending champion Boston Celtics are done now. Jason Tatum
is out with a blown achilles. That is bad news
for Boston. Looks like they may go down to the
Knicks the Oklahoma City Thunder. They'll probably advance, but they're

(01:33):
in a dog fight against my Denver Nuggets, who are
just limping to the finish line. See if Denver can
make this go any longer and Ben. On Monday, we
had the NBA Draft lottery where the Dallas Mavericks, remember
a team that made the playoffs as a play in

(01:54):
team with just one point eight percent chance of getting
the number one draft pick, somehow got the number one
draft pick. Now that's just a coincidence, right, I mean,
the Mavericks gave the Los Angeles Lakers Luka Doncic for
like a bag of magic beans, and Dallas fans were

(02:17):
ready to burn the arena to the ground, and then
they just happened to win the lottery. What, no way
that never happens? Actually it does. Do you realize there
have been just recently a few teams that received the
number one pick right after they traded away a superstar.

(02:42):
I mean New Orleans got to pick up Anthony Davis
after they had traded away Chris Paul New Orleans again
got to pick Zion Williamson after trading away. Yeah, Anthony Davis.
And now the Mavericks have the chance to draft Dukes
superstar Cooper Flag after they gave away Luka Dancis to

(03:04):
the Lakers. Huh, the NBA, it's fixtastic now to be fair,
Mavericks GM Nico Harrison says he won't trade the pick,
but I mean, I think we could all kind of
see that idiot trading the pick away for like James
Harden or Bradley Beal at the last second, couldn't we
That would shock me at all. And it does make

(03:27):
me laugh when I hear the NBA and the NBA
pundits act like this league is above reproach when it
comes to the conspiracy theories about the draft, Like, if
you really believe there's conspiracy theories, you're just stupid. I mean,
this league would never do such a thing. Oh you
mean the league that actually has to rig the draft

(03:50):
because teams were cheating and tanking. Yeah, that league wouldn't cheat. Yeah,
of course they wouldn't. They don't have dirty refs either.
I mean, except for that one that went to jail
for actual cheating. But it was just him. It was
just him, No one else. Nothing to see here. Hey,
it is a fun time of year. No, there's no football.

(04:12):
We don't have any college football, we don't have any NFL.
But it is kind of a fun time of year
where we have a number of sports going right now
and a number of stories coming out right now. And
of course one of those sports that is going right
now is auto racing. No, no, don't turn off the podcast.
You're gonna have to trust me on this. Hey. The
one hundred and ninth running of the Indianapolis five hundred

(04:35):
will be taking place the Sunday over Memorial Weekend, just
a little over a week away, and I have a
guest today that is going to get us ready for
the big race. Trust me, you don't want to miss this.
Joining us this week on the Daily Dose, we have
a very special guest that I'm really looking forward to
speaking to the game because Ray Hargen joined the Dose

(04:56):
a couple of years ago after he had written a
book called Immaculate How the Steelers Saved Pittsburgh. It's a
collection of stories about the Pittsburgh Steelers. I promise you
you go read it right now. You'll enjoy it. Doesn't
matter if you're a Steelers fan or not. I'm not
a Steelers fan. I enjoyed the heck out of it.
He also finished another book, Way More Personal in nature,
Me Myself and my multiple Maloma, and he has now

(05:20):
released a book called The Indy five hundred, A year
long Quest to win the Greatest spectacle in racing. Yes,
and we're both going to hold up copies of this
on the screen, in which he follows one full calendar
year of the preparation for what it is to race
at the Indy five hundred. It is a race like
no other. Ray, it is so good to see you.

(05:41):
Congrats on the book and welcome back to the Daily Dose.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
Hey, thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity, Clint,
and I appreciate you looking at an early edition of
The Indy five hundred, A year long Quest to win
the greatest spectacle in racing and writing a Dorseman for it.
So I appreciate that. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Well, Ray, I was absolutely honored but asked me to
do that, you know, to see my name anywhere near
yours is a compliment. So I will absolutely, you know,
take the opportunity to put my name somewhere in a
book that you've written, because that was really really cool
for me. I thought that was really really fun. But
you know, I got this book, you had said it

(06:25):
to me, I knew the subject matter, and I was like,
I can't wait to dig into it, and I thoroughly
enjoyed it. I mean it's I know, you know you
talk about being kind of a Homer fan. I'm a
Homer fan because I love racing and dad was a
race car driver. I have whatever you want to call it,
racing in the in the blood, whatever. But it was

(06:47):
interesting to me, Ray, because you did such a good
job of going inside of Indie and giving a perspective
of a number of different areas that I don't think
people all the time understand. Is there? How how did you?
How did this come about? What did this project come about?

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah? Well, you know, I've been a racing fan since
I was a little kid, and this is what started
for me. Clint. It's a book. This is a new
edition of a reprint of a book that I bought
from Remember the old Schoolastic America catalogs you had in school,
now your teacher passed them around. And I was like
in third grade and I discovered this great book called
The Indy five hundred thirty Days in May, written by

(07:23):
Hal Higden, and I was it was around nineteen seventy two,
nineteen seventy three, so I was like eight nine years old.
And how Higden's book chronicled the nineteen seventy Indianapolis five
hundred from the day before the track opened on April
thirtieth to the race day on May thirtieth, and so
it was just like the every day going on at Indianapolis,
to practice for qualifications, to qualify for the race, then

(07:46):
to run the race. And you know, as a kid,
it just captivated my imagination and it ignited a passion
in me for the event and for the sport, and
it never left. And for you know, I I got
lucky as a kid. My dad was I was a
career military officer and when I was a geez, I

(08:07):
guess in eighth grade he got stationed at Fort Benjamin
Harrison or what used to be Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis.
I was like, holy cow, man, I just read this book, like,
you know, five years ahead of time. And you know,
my family was from Texas and we'd always been super
texts aj Foyt fans, sort of kind of casual. But
now I had the chance to actually go to the
speedway and check it out. So I already had this

(08:28):
passion about the race and then go into the speedway.
I get it. And some people don't think auto racing
is for them, But if you haven't been to an
auto race, it doesn't matter what auto race you go to,
but it does have to be the Indianapolis five hundred.
Just go to the local bull ring outside of your
town and just go experience and it might not be
for you, it is for me, man, I can tell you.

(08:50):
You know, as a kid's just hearing the sounds of
the engine, smelling the racing fuel exhaust. You know, you
could feel it as the cars go by. You can
actually taste them when they go by. And you know,
just since re overloaded, going to the speedway and watching
those cars, you know, blast around, you know, I just
became a hooked and because of that, you know, the passion,

(09:10):
you know, the Indy five hundred has been a big
part of my life. You know, since I read that book,
you know, I've been I've been a ticket holder for
you know, well over well since almost forty years now.
I think nineteen eighty eighty six was my first one.
My first time I bought tickets. My first race was
in nineteen seventy nine. First time I went to the
track was nineteen seventy eight. You know, It's been a
big part of my life. And I wanted to update

(09:32):
Higden's great book and you know, and tell the story
of a current race. And so, you know, I thought,
you know, one of my mottos is if not now,
a win. So it's like, if not now, a win.
So this book, my new book. It starts, as you know,
with two laps to go in the twenty twenty three race,
and then it ends at the victory banquet at the

(09:53):
conclusion of the twenty twenty four race. And it's a
book I'm proud of. I think it's I think it's
you know cool. You know, Higden's book just covers one month,
you know, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indy five
hundred no longer is a month long event. It's really
just been compressed to a couple of weeks, and I
didn't think a couple of weeks was enough. But you know, then,
you know, it really dawned on me and I was

(10:14):
reminded that, you know, for an auto racer in the
IndyCar Series, it doesn't matter. None of the other races
really matter. I mean, there are some some crown jewels
that you want to do well in the Long Beach
crownd Prix, you know, and things like that, but the
Indianapolis five hundred makes your career. You know, if you
can win that race, you've won the year, regardless of
what you've done through the course of the season. And

(10:35):
it also makes your career. You are an Indy five
hundred champion. They raised one hundred and eight editions of
this race. It's the world's biggest auto race, you know,
and it really is. You know, once one year is done,
all of us fans, all of the racing drivers, all
of the racing teams, they're preparing for the next race, right.
So I thought, well, let's just make this kind of
a year long diary. And so you know, I tried
to you know, all the key points that happened during

(10:58):
the year to get ready for the race. That also
wanted to delve into some of the history. You know,
I can't only talk about the Indianapolis five hundred without
talking about, you know, the creation of the indianpos moder
Speedway and that long history of that and all these
wonderful personalities men and women. You know, just the eight
hundred and one drivers in history that participated in the race,
but also you know the teams that are behind them

(11:20):
and the fans. You know, there are a lot of
stories to share. And I'm glad you enjoyed the book
because it certainly was a passion project of mine.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
Well, the passion comes through because as you're reading it,
you could feel how much you love the race. What
is it? And I'm asking you a question that there's
probably no answer to. Why is Indy different? Why is
the Indy five hundred just different? Because it absolutely is.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah, you know, you know, it's the competition. It's it's difficult,
you know, particularly when there's more cars entered than there
are spots in the race. Only thirty three cars can
run in the race, So you know, it's not like
a typical race. Typical race is a weekend. You know,
you get there and you practice on Friday, you qualify
on Saturday. You race on Sunday at Indianapolis. Back when

(12:08):
I was a kid, used to get there at the
beginning of the month, the races at the end of
the month, you spend the whole month there. But now
you spend two weeks there. So this coming weekend it
will be as as this episode is being recorded, this
coming weekend will be the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, which
is on the road course, and then right after that
they'll start practicing for the Indy five hundred on the oval.
And so you know, the first step of is practice

(12:31):
and just getting up to speed. You have to qualify,
and there's a lot of drama in that, you know,
because you have to make the biggest race of the year,
and so you know there's there's some cars that are
going to qualify rather easily, but if you make a
mistake in qualifying, you know, rack it up against the
wall and destroy your car. Now you've got a big
obstacle to try to overcome. So there's the drama just

(12:52):
qualifying for the race. And then there's once you've qualified
the race, preparing a car that can now instead of
you qualify over four laps, has to race over two
hundred laps right, and you know, for for those of
you who might not be familiar with the five hundred,
you know, a fuel stint is about thirty laps, you know,
and and and your car can change dramatically as your
fuel load lessons, as your tires wear. And also you know,

(13:15):
how your car handles, whether it's in clean air or
whether it's in traffic can be can be uh, you
know a lot of different variables there. So you want
to have a car you're practicing all this time to
not only qualify, but then to develop a car that's
well balanced, that can run well you know out front,
it can well run well behind another car, a car
you know, a well balanced, easy on your tires, uh,

(13:38):
and all that. So it's for me, it's just this
this process and this like you know, two week long
drama at the track of preparing for what turns out
to be five hundred miles on on you know, the
Sunday Memorial Day weekend.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
Great, there were times of reading the book I shouldn't
have been, but I was kind of surprised by the
logistics that you just take for granted, Hey, this team
needs a supercharger. They're waiting for it, they can't get it.
They're trying to get parts for this car. You just
take it for granted. Hey, these guys just go get
whatever they want. They reach into their closet and they
pull out what they need and they put there. That
is not how it works at all. I was kind

(14:15):
of surprised by some of the stories that you do.
You don't really account sometimes for the logistics that go
into this race though.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Yeah, it's so much more than the driver and the
car owner, you know. And then if you know, if
you're just looking at the pit crew, you know, and
you see the you know, the the people just surf
changing tires and putting fuel in the car. An entire organization,
hundreds of people you know, working for a race team
to you know, procure sponsorships uh to uh to build
you know, chassis and to h to as simple cars

(14:43):
you know, back at the factory. Then there's also at
the track, you know, any damage that gets done, any uh,
you know, failures, machinery, uh, you know, components of the
car and so forth needing to be replaced. Just hundreds
of people, you know, working for one solitary goal, and
that is to win on race day and h and
it's just as I find it exciting to be around,

(15:03):
and there's always some sort of story, you know, and
you know, particularly in Indianapolis, you know the I loved
the good old days, and the good old days for
me when I was growing up there in the seventies,
at late seventies, early eighties, you know, there there would
be two weekends of qualifying and at the rules at
the time stated that the car qualified, not the driver.

(15:25):
So you know, you know, if your car got bumped,
you know, it turned out to be too slow, you
qualified for the race. But then somebody qualified fast, that
car was gone. And so if you're in a car owner,
you know, if I like Clint's my driver, I'm like, well,
I need to have a car for Clint. I need
to back up car for Clint, you know. And they
would called T cars and so like you know, AJ
Foyt would show up with three cars, the fourteen, the

(15:47):
fourteen T and eighty four, and so he'd be by himself.
He would be the driver on the team, and he
was always good and he would qualify the fourteen car
on the first weekend. And so now the horse trading
came about. So the foe been qualified. Now, if you've
got money out there, here's a great race car, the fourteen.
Te come over to Super Texas Garage. Maybe we can

(16:08):
work out a deal. And then of course it's eighty four.
Since the fourteen was already qualified. He'd led his good
friend and a great race racing driven in George Schneider,
he'd let him race the eighty four. And but you know,
it was like in between weekends of qualifying all these drivers,
the Patrick team, Pat Patrick team would have you know,
it's their t cars a lot of times available. It
was just all this horse trading, you know, drivers who
had shown up with just a helmet and a driving

(16:30):
uniform the week before. But now it's like, well, how
can I put together some sponsorship package to you know,
get in the car for the biggest race in the world.
And you know, it was a great developmental series back
in the back in the day too. The Indie five
hundred had a lot of different chassis, a lot of
different engines, and then the mix and matching of the
chassis and engines and that was always you know, fun
to follow around. And you know each year had you know,

(16:51):
there was you know some you know matches and mixes
that were better than than others, and it was like,
you know, who had the who had to Lowell, who
had to March, who had to you know, the Cosworth
of the Chevy or the Mercedes, and and so lots
of fun. It's changed over the years. Now there's just
a single chassis manufacturer of two different engine manufacturers. But

(17:13):
still the excitement for me, you know, someone who's been
hooked for you know, since seventies, it just hasn't ended.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
Ray you said your your first India that you actually
attended in person was I believe nineteen seventy eight.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
Nineteen seventy eight was the first time I went to
the track for practice flying, but the first first race
day was nineteen seventy nine. Rick Mears' first vicarity.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
Oh yeah, just one thought year. What do you remember
from that first day, that first brace you went to.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
You know, the crowd, you know, the speedway is enormous,
right and you know, and so you know, going there
for practice and you know practice you drive underneath the
track and you come out of the infield and you
know you're right there along pit pit lane and and
you know that's that's a different type of perspective then
for qualifying, we had been along the front straight, you know,
sitting up on the upper deck watching it. But you know,

(18:03):
come race day, you know, four hundred thousand fans descend
on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. I mean when I was
my first race there, that was bigger than the city
of Cincinnati, you know, and it was just around a
two and a half mile oval trap. And so the crowd,
the sunshine and you know, my biggest memory of that
day is my favorite car to this day. It was

(18:26):
the pins Oil the Chaparral. It was driven by Alancer Senior.
At the time, it was just Alancer. Nobody had heard
of the.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
Sun Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
And he started third outside of the first road. He
led easily the first hundred laps. And this this Hall
Jim Hall design car. Jim Hall is a legendary call
car designer, came up with the chaparralle It's kind of
invented the ground effects race cars and in the can
Am Series. Being with this revolutionized indie car racing. That year.

(18:59):
There was a transmit seal that broke on the back
of his car about halfway through the race and it ended,
you know, he out of the first hundred and some
odd laps. You know, he had led almost all of
the laps out answer. He left that team at the
end of the year. Johnny Rutherford got into that car,
ended up winning the nineteen eighty two race basically in
the same car that raced in nineteen seventy nine. This
beautiful chrome yellow Tinzoil sponsored Chaparral two K is what

(19:23):
it was called. Still my favorite car of the day.
I just look at that thing at the Indianapolis Motor
Speedway Museum and it just looks fast standing still.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
So it's so funny you say that, because there are
cars that I can still go back to and just go,
that was one of my favorite cars. There are cars,
and we'll talk about drivers, but there are cars that
I still can look back at and just go that car,
Gordon Johncocks car, the STP kind of baby blue and
red and nighty twoish. It's just it's gorgeous. It's just

(19:56):
a beautiful car. And I'm not even a huge fan
of the spaceship looking cars. I understand it. I'll take
a J sixty one front engine roads for us. Gorgeous,
just absolutely beautiful white with the red and blue number,
just perfect gorgeous car.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
When Jimmy Clark came over from Formula one with the Lotus,
you know, rear engine cars, green with yellow stripes. I
remember that eighty two car for high school graduation. My
parents gave me tickets to the race right on the
front stretching held on to win that race from Rick
Mers and they're coming back here time. Yeah. They were
both beautiful cars. At the Penske car it was the

(20:32):
PC seven h that Rick Myers is driving, white and blue.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
You know it is funny. You know, us fans, you know,
we we have favorite drivers. We also have favorite cars,
you know, and favorite liveries. You know, it's like that's okay, was.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Cool, you know, Okay. I've got a few questions here
for you. There are no wrong answers. If you had
to pick a particular year, a particular race that was
your favorite, what's your favorite race? Oh man, what a
I know it's gonna be tough. It's like picking your
favorite child.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
You know. Ninety one was a great race, is unbelievabally
good between Rick Mears and Michael Andretti. Nineteen ninety two
is another one for me. Is that was Alanunser Junior.
He was my favorite driver at the time, and he
won by about a half a car link from Scott
Goodyear and that was a super exciting race. I think

(21:27):
that's probably the most memorable moment for me. I was
sitting along the inside of the front stretch, you know,
behind the pits, so we got to watch this whole
thing coming through. The race was really dramatic at the end,
but it hadn't been leading up to its. Mikel Andretti
dominated that race. Then I, you know, had a fuel
pump problem with just a you know, not that less
than twenty blocks to go, and all of a sudden

(21:48):
we had this two car duel between Unster Junior and
Scott Goodyear.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
Well and if I remember right, Goodyear had started thirty third.
He was dead last in the back and I think
he just about won that he.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
May have and uh, you know he got he got
the short end of a stick Jesus a couple of
years later losing out to Jacquesville. Know if he got this,
he actually finished. He crossed the finish line first. I
got disqualified for passing the pace car coming to coming
to the green flag on a late yellow but yeah,
you know, Scott could here's a great racer, but that
ninety two race I think is probably the most memorable

(22:22):
for me, just from the pretty good Alser junior fan
and and watching him you know, you know, win the
race rip there on that last lap.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
Okay, we we talked about it. Maybe you just gave
your answer. But here's another question. There are no wrong answers.
I give you one driver all time at the five hundred,
who are you taking? Who do you trust the most
to bring home a win for you? Who's going to
come home with the checkers?

Speaker 2 (22:46):
I think of that even today. If I was a
car owner and I wanted someone to drive it, I
would pick Halio Castro Nevis. He's he's won four of them, yeah,
which is as tied for as many as it as anybody.
There's been four drivers who have won four each so
also finished second a few times as well. And he
has a way if he knows that, he knows how

(23:07):
to get around the track, knows how to qualify. He's
been there and done that. Even today, if I was
starting up a race team, you know, I brought a
two car team. I won Halio being in a being
the veteran driver, and then I put a young driver
in there as well, and and I let him go
at it. But yeah, Haylo Kester Nevis.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
He's pretty good. Yeah, he's pretty good.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
Man.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Well, there are four drivers now that have won, you know,
the five hundred and four different times. He j Foy,
Rick Meer's Allencer and of course Helio Castro Nevis. Why
were these guys special? Was it? Was it just right place,
right time? Was it just lightning struck? What made those
four guys that good? Because it didn't just happen once
or twice, they kept doing it.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
Yeah, you know what you know, I think some people
look at aj Foyd and they're like, yeah, you know,
you racing thirty five races? No wonder he won four?
Stop there, you know he won. He's the only driver
who's ever won in a front engine car and a
rear engine car. He won three five hundred in sixty one,
sixty four, and sixty seven, so three of them were
in't just with just within you know, six years and

(24:05):
then ten years later nineteen seventy seven, he won another one.
You know, the tail end of his career when you
know he was an older driver, you know, he didn't
win races there. So you know, Aja was fast in everything, right,
you know, this is a guy who who won La
Mam it was only time going to Lamont, So you know,
this is like and he has raced in everything, you know, dirt, pavement, OVAL's,

(24:29):
road courses. It doesn't matter if it was on wheels
and had an engine. He was super fast. Rick Meers
was like this wonderful technician, you know. You know, Rick
Meers was like the guy who didn't care how fast
he went. He just happened to be really fast, you know,
he was. He was like maybe the ultra competitor. All
he wanted to do was finish the race ahead of you,

(24:49):
and it didn't matter how fast he was gone. And
he was a brilliant racer. He was injured, you know,
in the middle part of his career, almost lost his
feet and a crash up in uh In, Canada, you know,
and so I think a lot of people forget the
fact that, you know, he had to overcome a serious
injury to his feet, hustle, some serious burns he suffered
Indianapolis and and they fire on pit lane one year.

(25:12):
You know the fact that he won his four I
think we're you know, was was amazing. Alanser Senior one
of the best racing drivers ever for one of the
best racing you know families ever, his brother Bobby Hunter
and then his son Al Unser Jr. Between them they
have nine indy five hundreds victories. Uh, not too bad,

(25:32):
but Al was great. He won he won it consecutively
in seventy and seventy one uh and uh and was
competitive all the time when he was there. And then
Caster Nevis. Caster Nevis has been super strong. So you know,
I don't think it was in the right place at
the right time. You know, they all had different types
of characteristics of how they raced. I think, you know,
a lot of times a J. Foyd just how a
sheer will, you know, particularly those front engine in roadsters

(25:57):
where I mean it was super dangerous, but also had
to be a big, strong guy to drive those cars
around right, you know. And and then you know, you
get into the cars of today where you don't need
to be big and strong, although they don't have power steering,
you know, you know, it's a lot more finesse and
a lot more precision and a lot more fuel for
the car. You know, the eye hand coordination certainly, but

(26:19):
just the feel of it and the seat of your
pants of what the car is doing, and then making
those adjustments with your hands, and you know, and a
person like you know, Kester Nevis has been fantastic at
doing that. So you know, I don't think it was
in the right place at the right time. Certainly, you
need a good car to be able to compete, but
those those four guys are all special, all special in
their own way.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
I answer your question, yeah, yeah, I think did we
talked about a little bit, maybe maybe that was your
favorite era? Do you have a favorite era that you
just look back on, Man, this block of years. I
just I love that era because I've got three or
four of them, so I don't know if I can
really pick well.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
I mean I do like, like, you know, the seventies
because that's when I was first introduced to it, So
that just brings there's so much sentimental value to that.
I got Teddy Clinton in the late eighties to the
early nineties. I thought KRT, which is the sanctioning body
for IndyCar racing the United States Championship Auto Racing Teams,
I thought KART was the best auto racing in the world,
and that includes Formula One. I've been a Formula One

(27:18):
fan since the seventies, right, And in the mid eighties
Formula One was really you know, I still watched every
single race, but it was very predictable. The McLarens dominated
in early in the late eighties and nineties, it was
the Williams cars, and you know, you pretty much knew
who was going to win the race even before the

(27:38):
friday started off. Whereas in kart you had an unbelievable
amount of competition. They were racing on big ovals, small ovals,
road courses, natural terrain, road courses, street courses. Fans are
showing up like crazy. And then Ego ruined the sport

(27:58):
for the longest time, right, you know it. You know,
Tony George, the owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, he
wanted to see more American racing drivers and wanted to
see more ovals than what cart and so he broke
away and formed a different league. It was called the
Indie Racing League, and and it, you know, it's you
can hope and wish for more American drivers, but that's it.

(28:22):
There's not a there's not a lack of desire from
Americans to race cars. It's a lack of money. You know,
it's auto racing. The question, the answer to the question
is how fast do you want to go? Is answer
with another question, and that is how much do you
want to spend? It is an incredibly expensive sport and
you need to have sponsorship and you need to have money.

(28:42):
And at the time, in the late eighties and nineties,
there weren't Americans with the financial backing to be able
to break into the you know, indy car racing. So
you were seeing a lot of you know, people from
around the world because they wanted to be in KRT
because cart was the best racing in the world, and
you know, so branching off that was that, you know,
historians call it the split. So you had championship all

(29:02):
racing teams and then you had the IRL and they
each went off and went their own separate ways, you know,
driven by ego. It took a long time for him
to come back together and the sports has suffered. It
still suffers today. The indianapo's five hundred doesn't suffer, but
all the other races, you know, it's slowly trying to
get back to where it used to be. And you know,

(29:24):
in indie cars is the the ovals I think suffer
maybe the most. There's even though a lot of fans
like to see the Ovals, they just don't show up
like they do to a road course or you know,
like a like the lom Beach gongd Prix will have this,
you know, unbelievable crowd. But you can go to Milwaukee
for Novle Race and the crowd will be a bit iffy,
you know, the crowd might Iowa might be a bit iffy.
So but yeah, I think my favorite era late eighties,

(29:46):
early nineties, before the split, that was the best racing
on the planet.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
So so good. Okay, I see there's a new racing
movie coming out f one with Brad Pitt's Coming to
the Ars. I think next month. It has Hollywood ever
made a decent racing movie ever, because I watch him
and every time I just go, oh goodness, this is
not there.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
There's two of my favorites.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
Okay, what do you got because I'll take whatever you have.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
I love the Steve McQueen movie Lamar.

Speaker 1 (30:13):
There you go. That's probably better than anything coming out today.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah, if you've not seen the movie out there in
the audience in the first forty five minutes. There's no dialogue.
It is just like PA announcer and stuff like that.
And the first one of the first words out is
Steve McQueen meets this, you know, a wife of another racer.
They're talking about something, and he issues this great quote

(30:37):
racing his life anything before and after. It's just waiting,
and I'm like that, that is beautiful. I also like
an old Formula one movie James Gardner. It's called Grom
Yeah that's cool too, you know, but yeah, you know
the there's an indy car movie a handful of years ago.
What's that called. Renny Harlan directed it. I think it's

(30:59):
called Driven with Sylvester Stallone, Yes, yeah, and she Stallone
wanted to make a Formula one movie and he just
couldn't get the backing. Fort said, oh, just do the
next best thing. We'll do this, Uh, we'll do it
in an Indy car. And it was cool just to
see your sport represent it, you know, in a movie.
But f one movie. I mean, Brad Pitt's like, what
is he? I think he's I'm sixty one. I think

(31:19):
he might have been older than me.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
He's getting up there. Yeah, it's not the young the
young guy anymore. I'm not sure he's getting in a
in an F one car right now.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
Yeah, you know, and you know that while Fernando Alonso
drives a racing car and the Lewis Hamilton's in his
young forties as well, Yeah, he grives a Formula one car,
those two are a breed apart, you know. So the
believability of Brad Pitt, you know, coming in there, you
know it's good for Formula One, it's good for a Yes,
welcome the new fans into the sport, you know, and

(31:51):
you know with the Formula one success recently from that
drive to survive you know, mini series every year, you know. Yeah, well,
you know it's about time people, you know, welcome to
the spart.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
Of most party. Yeah, way to catch up. You know,
we've currently got a very strong group of young drivers.
You cover him in your book. We've got a group
all under like the age of like twenty six, twenty seven,
Christian Longuard, Pado Award, Centina Ferrucci, Colton heard his baby,
and you've got that kind of next generation of guys.
We've got veterans, We've got Scott Dixon, we've got Will power.

(32:24):
You've got some characters with like Joseph Newgardens, Scott McLaughlan,
and of course you know my cousin Connor Daily. Is
this a group that could maybe put Indy back on
the map a little more because I really like some
of these drivers we've got running right now.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yeah, you know you mentioned Scott Dixon, you know, the
I think he's I think he's arguably the greatest IndyCar
driver of all time. That's just the greatest IndyCar driver
of all time right now. His teammate Alex Palo, he
keeps this up, He's gonna be the greatest.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
It's unreal.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
He is an unbelievable talent. You know. Who knows if
he'll have another dalliance with Formula one or not. We'll see.
But yeah, these these young bucks and uh, you know
coming up. You know, It's what's interesting now is that
they're all friends. You know, they're all hanging out on
social media and they're all playing golf together and stuff
like that. You know, back in the day, I think
that's kind of true of all sports. You know. Now

(33:14):
everyone you know players they go to Las Vegas and
hang out and do things like that. But back in
our day Clinton, you know. Uh, but you know, back
in the step of these racing drivers didn't befriend other
racing drivers because they got killed too often. Yeah, No,
nobody wanted to lose nobody wanted to lose a close friend.
So you know, people kind of kept to themselves a
little bit because these catastrophic injuries and these fatalities would happen,

(33:37):
you know, kind of on the rag right, you know.
And uh, the sport has really gotten so much more safe,
and sometimes we get anesthetize to that, you know that
it's still dangerous. These these cats are going around the
Indian that was going to speedway terminal velocity at the
end of the straight aways two hundred and forty miles
an hour, you know, and uh, and you're surrounded by
by concrete walls. Uh and uh it's uh, it's things

(34:00):
happen in the flash. They go well over the distance
of a football field in a second, you know, and
that includes the end zones, you know. So you know,
the speeds are there, but you know, thankfully the injuries aren't.
But there's still you know these you know, you know,
the crashes, there's still you know, the propensity for injuries,
head injuries. In particular, Simon Passion know, through no fault
of his own, had a break failure, you know, almost

(34:22):
two years ago. Now he hasn't been in a race
car since, you know, suffered a head injury concussion. He's
getting along fine, right, but you know his career has
been interrupted. Maybe his career has been ended, you know,
forming a former Indy five hundred champion and a series
champion as well. And but yeah, these these young cats.
You know you mentioned Connor daily. You know, he's just
he's just a cool dude. You know I mentioned this

(34:43):
in the book. You know, he on social media, these
two kids in Indiana. You know, like, hey, the new
Star Wars movie's coming out, do you want to see
it with us? He's like, yes, I so totally do
you know. So there's a picture everyone on Instagram with
you know, you know, two kids in him, uh, you know,
going to the Star Wars movie. And it's those types

(35:04):
of people that you know, it's kind of like hockey
players too. Yeah, the racing drivers are not these you know,
these like football players, these big freaks and things like that.
You know, they's just like normal guys. In fact, you know,
you look at racing drivers. To fit into a race car,
you've got to be kind of a smaller type of
dude to begin with, you know. And uh so you
know they're they're they're not these you know, big you know,

(35:28):
bigger than they might be bigger than life personalities, but
they're not bigger than life physically, right, you know. And
and they're there. They tend to be just a bunch
of good dudes that like to hang out well.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
And and you know, it's funny that you that you
brought about Pool cuse he's the next guy I wanted
to ask you about. He's already won three of the
first four races this year. This kid is talented. You
cover him quite a bit in the book, and just
to see the success that he is having already this year,
this kid might he might be special. He might be

(35:57):
that kind of guy.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yeah, he's uh and uh, I mean it's been identified
right away. You know, he raced some as a rookie.
Chip Ganassi, one of the biggest teams in the sport.
You know, said, this guy's got some talent, signed him up.
His very first race with chip Ganassi, he won, and
he hasn't really slowed down much since he's a super
talented driver. He hasn't had a you know, he hasn't

(36:19):
had you know, the breaks fall his way. At Indianapolis.
He has finished up high on a couple of occasions,
and one time he got taken out on Pitt Lane
in an accident with Renus Vick. He was able to
continue in the race and he recovered. But you know,
he went from you know, a car that was running
one or two in the race to you know, ended
up finishing the top ten. But he had you know,
that's quite a drive back from you know, being last

(36:41):
you know, you know for a while there. So super
talented driver. He's got a great team behind him with
Chip Ganassi. He'll be one of the favorites in a
couple of weeks.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
Hey, just a quick reminder, make sure that you are
stopping by dailydosports dot com every week, as we do
have new articles going up over there. We do you
have links to the podcast, We do have links to
the videos over there. You can of course find information
on the host as well, and you can also find
links to get Daily dose Gere. Maybe need a T shirt, sweatshirt, hoodie,

(37:12):
even a hat in your life, make sure you're stopping
by Daily Dosports dot Com each and every week. Now
let's get back to our interview with author Ray Hartgen Ray,
We've had back to back winners multiple times. I mean
you look back Mari Rose, Wilbershaw, Billy Vukevich. Of course
you mentioned Alancer Eliokastro Nevis won it back to back recently.
Now we are looking at Joseph Newgarten. He's won two

(37:34):
in a row. Is there any reason he couldn't do
it a third time in a row this year?

Speaker 2 (37:38):
Because you know, he drives to Roger Pinsky, who owns
in the Applis Motor Speedway. Now, Roger Pinske has won
twenty Indy five hundreds, including the last two with Joseph Newgarten.
So you know, to say, is there is there a
reason he couldn't win, Absolutely not. There's a lot of
reasons that he could win. He again is a super
talented driver. I love, you know, the the Indy Car

(37:58):
Series has moved their television package from NBC to Fox.
You know, and one of the first commercials this year
came out for the IndyCar Series featured Joseph Newgarten. I
really love the way that you know, Fox is promoting
their drivers. They have commercials also featuring Padlo Ward and
Alex Plow. But these these cool kind of edgy, you know,

(38:19):
I think you know they're good for good for the sport,
drive attention. Hopefully people will tune in. But you know,
if you've not watched the five hundred before, you're looking
for a favorite. Uh, you know, we've mentioned a couple
of them below, Chip Ganassi, his teammates Scott Dixon's only
one once, but he has always been strong at the speedway.
And Joseph Newgarten, who took them twelve years to finally

(38:40):
win one, but he's won the last two in a row.
I did want to add if you are new to
this sport and you want somebody to cheer for, and
but you want a dark horse, because we just talked
about some favorites. My favorite dark horse is an Indianapolis
based team called Dryer Rhinebold Racing. They race exactly one
IndyCar race a year, and that is the Indianapolis five hundred.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
They enter two cars and they always qualified so far
for over twenty years. Uh they've qualified for the race,
always run strong. And this is these are a bunch
of guys that don't do this full time. You know
this is this is a part time job. Crew, the
whole thing, but preparing these cars, racing up against the
big boys and giving the big boys all they can handle.

(39:22):
So if you're if you're out there, one of the
drivers this year is Ryan Hunter Rey, a former Indianapolis
five hundred champion and Indie Indie Car Series champion as well.
So check out Dryer Ryan Bolt. There are always stuff
on Underdog Team to watch.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
Now. If you're listening and you sit there and you go,
I'm not interested in auto racing. I'm not interested in India.
I know nothing about it. Trust this, you're gonna be
just fine. There's a couple of ways you can kind
of catch up. One know this, Ray mentioned it. Penske
and Ganassi are the Yankees and the Dodgers. They run
everything right now, but every year there's always someone that

(39:56):
seems kind of sneaking there and kind of mix it
up a little bit. I will say this, if you
need a prep before the race, which is coming Memorial
Day weekend, go watch the Netflix series one Hundred Days
to Indy. If you haven't watched a couple of seasons
of that, It is phenomenal. You get to know the drivers,
you get to know a little bit about what all
goes in and you know what you get to know,
You get to know the passion that comes through because
those drivers they want to win an ultra competitive And

(40:19):
if you need a prep you go pick up Indy
five hundred by Ray Harjen because I'm telling you it's
going to give you a prep. You're going to understand
it a little bit more when you watch it. And
when you watch it, you suddenly have a vested interest.
It's funny because I have a bunch of you know,
sports friends, and we have different friends and they follow whatever, basketball, football, whatever,

(40:40):
you know. We started doing Ray. We started saying before
the before the race season, at the beginning of the day,
I send out a text, Hey, this race is going,
and everybody puts in who they who they pick, is
gonna win. It's what we would do. If you and
I went to the races tonight, we would say, well,
I'm gonna pick the seventeen, I'm gonna pick the twenty four, whatever,
and then you cheer like crazy. These people, well they

(41:00):
don't they don't know anything about racing. They don't have
to Suddenly they have a vested interest and they're rooting
and going crazy when when the races are playing on TV,
and I'm like, for me, this is kind of downtime
of year. We don't have the NFL, NBA is winding down,
NHL is winding down. Suddenly I have racing fans that
are like, I'm all in because you have a vested interest.

(41:21):
Ye trust me, you will have fun if you go
check some of it out. Ray, I'm gonna put you
in charge of Indie Racing. I'm gonna make you el Presidente.
You are right now, Ray Penske, and and I'm gonna
put you in charge of all things. You are king
of all things. How do we bring Indie back to
the forefront of the American conscience? Is that too? Is

(41:43):
that too big of a task because it used to
be the biggest thing. Everybody kind of had an idea.
Maybe they aren't glued to it, but they kind of
watched it. How do we get Indie back?

Speaker 2 (41:54):
Because yeah, I want more development in the series, and
I think a lot of people do too, you know,
I want I want, you know, them to issue a
set of rules and then say, hey, if you want
to go out there and build a car, build a car.
Uh and uh and and uh. You know that's the
way it used to be. But there were there were
factory teams, right, you know, you know, like you know,

(42:14):
not that long ago to be a Lola Chassis and
a March Chaessis. But Roger Pinskey would build his own,
you know, out of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Rick Dallas built
his own, the Galmer chassis that that Chessis won the
ninety ninety two. I like that ability where if you
want to invest the money, you can do that. So
I would like to see you know, like an open

(42:35):
uh you know, rule book where you establish rules, build
a chassis to the rules, and if you think you
can build a better one than the currently ingenuity.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
I like that idea, yes and uh.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
And then it would be great to be able to
entice another engine manufacture into it. You know, there's been
a dalliance with Ferrari for a number of years. Currently
is a Chevrolet and UH and Honda, but it would
be cool to have at least another in I also like,
you know, back in the days when you could build
your own engines. You know, one of my favorite stories
is and it's in the book. It's in the about

(43:08):
the nineteen eighty race and a racer named Roger Rager
and Roger Rager he had this idea. He thought, you know,
I'm going to get a stock block, shaggy engine of
a school bus in a junkyard because this this engine
has been working overtime hauling these heavy loads these kids
back and forth to school. His philosophy was, well, you know,
the the heat cycles that went through this thing is

(43:29):
going to make this block pretty much impervious. Right nineteen
eighty he outqualified a lot of big boys. Tom Sneeve
a AJ Foyd, I believe you out qualified Gordon Johncock.
He was running well in the race but got caught
up in another person's accident. Jim Maclawrith's spun in front
of him. He spun, missing him. But you know, here

(43:50):
was this guy who you know, just built a built
an engine in his garage, put it in a car.
Chassis was a couple of years old, and gave people
a run for the money. So yeah, you know, kind
of cool to see some ingenuity come back into the series.
Let's get some you know, diversity of chassis, diversity of engines,
and get that mix and matching approach together again. And
you know, if you've got the investment, if you can

(44:11):
make that investment to do it, I'd like to see
people give it a try again.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
I love that idea. I love that a lot, and
I absolutely agree with you. It's funny because a few
years back I did a daily It was top five
when it came time for the Indy five hundred, and
I said top five ways to improve the Indy five
hundred and just Indie racing in general, And that was
exactly one of the things that I said, bring back
the ingenuity it used to be creative minds could go

(44:35):
back there and compete, and they've kind of banned everything
coming in. You know, they've kind of ruled everything like
that out. I don't like that. I also do like
and I know it's a Netflix series whatever, who's gonna
watch it. But when you kind of get to know
the drivers, it kind of you have a rooting interest.
We used to know the drivers. We used to know
almost every driver when we were younger. You knew almost

(44:58):
that maybe you didn't know him personally, but you a
little bit about him, kind of worries from it gives
you a rooting interest at least, I like when we
know the drivers a little bit more. And that's where
I think right now NASCAR has an advantage over India.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
Yeah, and I think the sport that does it better
than anybody else is the NHRA. In other sports, every
ticket in the NHR is a paddock pass, so you
can walk around to the garages and they're they're not garages,
they're just like roped off little tent areas where they
are tearing down the car and rebuilding the car after
every run. And you are right there. Like when I
was a kid, we were called knucklers because that's what

(45:32):
you would see between you know, we would have our
fingers on the chain link fence and you know, the
driver on the other side would see our knuckles. And
you know, us race fans were called knucklers. They're not
even knucklers in the NHR. They're I mean, you're right there.
You're chatting up drivers, you know, and and chatting up mechanics.
A NASCAR think, you know, does a really good job
of you know, promoting their people and uh and you

(45:54):
know having access to it. I mean, you see the
beginning of the daytail in the five hundred and just
so many many people are in the on pit lane
and in the infield, and you know, on the trioval
and and and you know, being part of that spectacle,
uh and being part of that sport. You know that
I watched some NASCAR. You know, NASCAR kind of confuses

(46:15):
me in a way, and that there's doesn't confuse me.
But you know, if you're just kind of casually glanced
at a at a NASCAR race, there's a lot of
one and a half mile ovals, right, and you know
there's you know, what's the difference between Chicago, Land and Kansas,
And you know you just kind of you know, you know,
you see a lot of them that seem to be
the same. But uh uh, you know that that sports
got some I mean they've got some they've got some

(46:39):
problems they need to overcome. I mean, it wasn't that
long ago they'd have forty three cars at every race.
Now they're more like thirty seven cars. So beginning to
lose some uh some cars, losing some interest, uh, but
still racing is racing. When February comes around, you know,
February is you know, in the day two to five
hundred is I'll watch it just because I'm racing for
a couple of.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
Months, I've watching pre stason football. I'm going do it for.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
You.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
Absolutely love it because it's finally back. No, I agree
with you know so many of the points that you
made there. And you know the other thing that NASCAR
has done is they've really tried to legislate let's get
more crashes. And they can pretend it's not what they're doing,
but it's one million percent what they're doing. They're trying
to get crashes. They they want crashes, they want fights.
They're still showing Kelly Yarborough getting out and fighting Allison,

(47:23):
so you know they want they want that stuff. They
act like they don't, but they do, or they legislated
out they don't want to get rid of it.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
Yeah, there's a you know, there's a race that then
last year with some of bumping and grinding rags.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
You love it.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
What type of you know, what type of decisions do
you want to to make there? You know, very there's
a for those of you who are are more than
casual race fans and NASCAR. There's the right rear hook
and that is turning left into somebody's right rear on
an oval, and that just sends them straight into the wall.
Super super dangerous. That still happens with far too much

(47:59):
regular They have at times sat some people down. They
sat you know, Chase Elliott out of a race a
couple of years ago for doing that. He's the most
popular driver in NASCAR. So you know they are trying
to get some like the right rear hook out of
the sport because that's that can be just flat out nasty.
So uh yeah, it's crashes are you don't want to

(48:19):
see him happen, but if you if they happen, you
want to see him. You know, it is right, you
know it's the it's part of the spectacle. But you know,
at the speed, you know, even with Nascar, I mean
you look at a crash like Dale Earnhard Seniors crash
at Dayton looked kind of relatively you know, run of
the mill, and so it's a crash that ended up
killing him. Uh you know, so you always got to

(48:41):
be careful with with with racing.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
You just you just never know. Right, I'm going to
put you on the spot. I got one last question
for you, and if you if you need to take
a minute to make sure you get get it right.
But I I told you before I I enjoyed the book.
I I wrote a little bit for it, and it
was just it was such an amazing read. Is there
a story that you would like to share with listeners

(49:06):
that you're like, if you don't hear anything at least
here this It might be one in the book. It
might be one that maybe didn't make the book. Is
there a story that you think of and you go,
that is a story that people that people should hear.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
I'm just one of those indie five hundred nerds that
I like, love them all, and you know, I love
the little tiny things that have just become traditions, you know,
over the years, right, you know, and so like, you know,
there's a there's a chapter in the book called Got Milk,
you know, so the you know, the you know, the
famous victory circle photograph, you know, the wreath over them,

(49:41):
you hold up the number of fingers of how many
races you've won, and your bottle of milk, you know,
and you chug it and lately it's been pouring it
over your head. You're throwing them around it like that.
But just you know, just sharing with people, you know,
through the book, the story of the milk, the story
of the creation of the borg Warner Trophy. You know,
the Borgarner troph He's iconic. If you haven't seen it,

(50:01):
check it out. It's got the faces of every winner
on the trophy in a three D relief, right, you know.
And so you know, writing the chapter about, you know,
the the BorgWarner Trophy getting updated with Joseph Newgarten's picture
from winning his face from the twenty twenty three racing.
I like sharing that story. I mean, I think it's
it's those little ton of things I love in the book,

(50:23):
sharing the stories of some of these racing drivers, you know,
like the Andretti family, you know, and you know they
are their Indie car Royalty, despite the fact that only
one Andretti has won a race, and it only happened
one time. You know, Mario Andretti won the race in
nineteen sixty nine and it became famous being at the
racetrack and hearing the track announcer Tom Carneige yell out

(50:46):
and Thenretti is slowing down. You know that would that
would of course he was slowing down. That's what happened,
just this hardlock. His son, Michael Andretti, one of the
best IndyCar racers of all time, never won an Indy
five hundred, came very close a couple of times. He's
led more laps at Indianapolis than Rick Mers. Rick Meers
has won four races. Now that's how good of a

(51:07):
race drive. Michael Andretti was then Mario's grandson, Marco Marco's
in a car entered this year. You know. So I enjoyed,
like you know, taking readers through this, like this royal
family of auto racing, you know, and talking about A J. Foyd,
talking about you know, Roger Pinsky. You know, I just
I hope, I hope I did this the sport justice,
you know, I had I have a big barred overcome.

(51:30):
You know, I want to do what this book did
for me as a kid, right Higgins book. You know,
I want, you know, somebody it's not a children's book,
you know, my book. It's a it's almost three hundred
pages long, but you know, I want to inspire the
passion uh for the event and a reader, you know,
and hopefully it sends them on a lifelong journey. With
the Indianapolis five hundred, this thing that you look forward

(51:52):
to every year, the drama you know that that goes
around it, you know. But yeah, great question, Clint. But
I think there's a lot of these little nuggets in
the book that I'm proud of, and you know, I
want people to experience and look back and say that
was a cool little bit of information. They'll follow that
thing away.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
Well, I know that I read it. I'm a racing fan.
I read it. I still learned a lot from it.
It was such a great book. I truly truly enjoyed it. Ray,
Where can people find your work? Where can they keep
up with what you have gone? Where's the best place
to go? Purchase the five?

Speaker 2 (52:24):
Yeah, you can purchase it anywhere fine books are sold.
It's published by Morgan James Publishing, So you don't pick
it up Amazon, Barnes and Noble anywhere, or you can
pick it up at my website, Rayhearschen dot com. If
you do order it from Rayharchie dot com, it ships
for free. But just you know, be sure to put
a note. I'll sign it to whomever you want me
to sign it to, and maybe that might be something

(52:45):
kind of cool. And if you ever anybody else that
ever wants to chat with me about auto racing or
anything else for that matter, hit me up on social
media at I'm at ray Harchin at everything, So just
hit me up at ray Harchin. My email address is
ray Harschen at gmail dot com. Be happy to chat
you up, particularly as it comes to the Indie five hundred. Geez,
we'll just talk forever, like Clinton and I do all

(53:05):
the time. Clinton, I talked about the Indie five hundred
for about thirty minutes before this episode started.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
That's absolutely correct, or we'll probably talk for a thirty
after right. I cannot thank you enough for coming in.
I genuinly, like I said, I was honored to be
able to contribute in any way that I could. I
loved reading the book. I love the other book that
you sent as well. I need to go out and
put down some reviews for you to tell me where
to do that when we Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
Yeah, anybody out there who reads the book, if you
could just please leave your authentic review at any bookseller site,
be appreciated it. It helps trip algorithms, of course, but
also helps readers decide if they want to take a
dive in the book. It's the most important thing for
us authors is to get reviews and I'm not pandering
for the five star review, and I'm just I just
want you to give your authentic review. If it happens

(53:50):
to be five stars, that's great. Now, if you think
it's a one star review, you might just want to
kind of keep it.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
To yourself yourself.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
We don't need it.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
We don't need the negativity in our lives. We've got
enough things in life going on right. I cannot thank
you enough for spending some time with us today on
the Daily Dose. I genuinely enjoyed it. I would encourage
you if you're a racing fan. If you're not a
racing fan, you're going to learn a ton from it.
It is highly highly readable, though you're not going to
be reading it going this is over my head. I
didn't understand it. It doesn't matter if you're if you're

(54:17):
a huge racing fan or you're just someone that's going on.
I'm just kind of passing by and thought i'd check
it out while I was on the beach. You will
enjoy it. Ray, I can't thank you enough. Thanks for
joining us again on the Daily Dose. Thoroughly enjoyed your visit,
and again, don't be a stranger. You got anything else
coming out. You got to be sure to let us know.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
I appreciate the opportunity, Clint, It's always great speaking with you.
I love what you do, so you know, thank you
so much and looking forward to talking about anything. Man,
We've got lots to talk about. We did like football,
we like all sorts of stuff and yeah, so yeah,
we'll definitely talk.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
Again absolutely, Hey next week on the Dose. I know
we've missed a few big NFL events lately because we've
had some very special guests. Never fear. Next week we
will be catching you up on both the NFL Draft
and the NFL schedule release, which is coming out tonight.
You will not want to miss it, so be sure
you check out the Dose and be sure you let

(55:11):
a friend know to this able. Hey, I want to
say thank you so much to author Ray Harjen for
spending some time with us today. We always enjoy your
visits to The Dose, and I want to say thank
you to each and every one of you for listening
to the Daily Dose every week. Thank you for the emails,
thank you for the text thank for the tweets, thank
you for going over to Dailydoor Sports dot com each
week and checking out what we have going on over there.
But more than anything, thank you for sharing the podcast,

(55:32):
for sharing the videos, and for sharing the articles with
something that you know. We absolutely love it when you
do that. Have say thank you to JESP. Could not
do any of this without you. I will see you
all next Wednesday. Have a great week, everybody,