Speaker 1: Welcome to the Sports Bubble, a production of iHeart Radio
Speaker 1: Entry Fort Media. My name is Jensen Carbon. You know
Speaker 1: what f this. I'm recording this intro on Monday, July,
Speaker 1: hours after the recent announcement that over a dozen Marlin's
Speaker 1: players and staff have tested positive during the first weekend
Speaker 1: of official games. They're canceling matchups. The Phillies now have
Speaker 1: to quarantine because they were exposed. The dominoes have begun
Speaker 1: to fall, and not like the good dominoes where house
Speaker 1: the highlights posted on their Instagram. It's like dominoes where
Speaker 1: they all fall at once and there's no bucket of
Speaker 1: water at the end. I'm nowhere near I told you
Speaker 1: so yet, but I hope everyone in professional sports is
Speaker 1: taking this serious because even though the NBA is pretending
Speaker 1: to be in a bubble, shouts to Lou Williams and
Speaker 1: rapper Jack Harlow, it's not working. And I want everyone
Speaker 1: to be safe more than I want to see a
Speaker 1: cutout of a dog sitting front row at Great America.
Speaker 1: And if baseball is to end this week, please name
Speaker 1: Jackie Bradley Jr. M VP. He went six thirty six
Speaker 1: over the weekend. Anyway, I'm still talking to athletes and
Speaker 1: industry professionals to see what they're doing during this very
Speaker 1: weird time, because someone has to. This is the sports
Speaker 1: bubble with Jensen Cart. Even with baseball's future in jeopardy,
Speaker 1: NASCAR has been driving at full speed. Sure, they had
Speaker 1: a positive test once and had been at the forefront
Speaker 1: of racial tension, but they're still competing, taking advantage of
Speaker 1: the natural social distancing their events allow for drivers. And
Speaker 1: no one has taken advantage of these times more than
Speaker 1: Eric Almola. While most of us have been staring out
Speaker 1: the window, paranoid and gaining weight during the pandemic, this
Speaker 1: dude has been streaking, putting together the most successful run
Speaker 1: of his career. Eric is currently eighth overall in the
Speaker 1: NASCAR Cup Series, his career best position, and in his
Speaker 1: nineteen starts this season, he has eleven top ten finishes,
Speaker 1: five top five, and is the only driver in the
Speaker 1: field who have been inside the top ten at every
Speaker 1: checkered flag, even cross the finish line backwards at the
Speaker 1: Geico five hundred in third place. That's insane. The Cuban
Speaker 1: missile is taking advantage of a predicament where most of
Speaker 1: us feel our physical worst, yet he's one of the
Speaker 1: few in sports having the time of his life, and
Speaker 1: this weekend at Foxwoods, he will attempt to keep the
Speaker 1: streak alive, maybe even with the w he's so intimately
Speaker 1: flirting with. We'll talk about why he's thriving in these times,
Speaker 1: why he sent a text to Bubba Wallace even though
Speaker 1: they aren't quote unquote friends. And we get into bacon,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure you saw coming. Let's ride shotgun into
Speaker 1: the sports bubble from Eric down rolla to accept press one.
Speaker 1: Hello Eric, Hey, how's it going. I'm well man. Thanks
Speaker 1: for doing this, Yeah, you got it. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: First off, I know you have a lot of work
Speaker 1: on your mind nowadays, but for a very long time
Speaker 1: you were home schooling and keeping preteens busy. That was
Speaker 1: your entire schedule. So first let's start with where you
Speaker 1: were quarantining and how you survived. So we started the
Speaker 1: quarantine at home here in Mooresville, North A Lina with
Speaker 1: a seven and six year old seven year old boy
Speaker 1: um and a six year old daughter. So we we
Speaker 1: spent a couple of weeks here and found it to
Speaker 1: be extremely challenging to keep our kids from you know,
Speaker 1: wanting to play with the neighbor kids out in Culda
Speaker 1: back and um, you know, in the street. And so
Speaker 1: we really took it seriously in the beginning, like we
Speaker 1: were like, no, we're staying home, We're staying indoors. And
Speaker 1: we found that to be an extreme challenge, especially when
Speaker 1: they were done with their school work by you know,
Speaker 1: after lunch one two o'clock. So we loaded up our
Speaker 1: r V and drove from North Carolina to Florida, you know,
Speaker 1: And it was nice to have the RV. We didn't
Speaker 1: have to go inside any public restrooms or anything like that.
Speaker 1: We could have sandwiches and all that while we traveled.
Speaker 1: And we went down to Florida. My in laws lived
Speaker 1: down near the Naples area in Florida, and so we
Speaker 1: parked our RV next to their house and basically quarantine
Speaker 1: there for about three weeks. And yeah, it was nice.
Speaker 1: We we could manage who we came in contact with
Speaker 1: way better there, especially with the kids. And we could
Speaker 1: swim in the pool and go out on the boat
Speaker 1: and go in the ocean, and it was there was
Speaker 1: a lot more entertainment there without coming in contact with
Speaker 1: a lot of other people. I don't blame you. You
Speaker 1: have a seven and eight year old. Those are both
Speaker 1: very high maintenance age. I mean, I I those You
Speaker 1: can't just tell them to sit on their hands. That
Speaker 1: is way too hard. Yeah, trying to get them to
Speaker 1: do their school work was hard enough. And by the
Speaker 1: time we got done with their school work, you know,
Speaker 1: at two o'clock the afternoon, the last thing we wanted
Speaker 1: to do is continue to have to to govern their
Speaker 1: every move. So it was nice to be down there
Speaker 1: and we could swim int the pool and goof off
Speaker 1: and and have fun and and actually just be outside.
Speaker 1: I think for us that was the hard part about
Speaker 1: being at home in North Carolina at that time, in
Speaker 1: early March and early April, the weather was terrible. It
Speaker 1: was just rain after rain after rain, and just cloudy,
Speaker 1: gray days. So going to Florida and being in the
Speaker 1: nice sunshine and being outdoors, um certainly helped our sanity. Sure,
Speaker 1: we'll normally be traveling around a ton for work during
Speaker 1: that time. You were grounded recently. So what I want
Speaker 1: to know what's harder is it? Is it competing in
Speaker 1: NASCAR or homeschooling kids. Homeschooling kids down Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: the greatest eye opener for my wife and I. We
Speaker 1: drop our kids off at school and and quite honestly,
Speaker 1: don't really think about it. You you appreciate, you know,
Speaker 1: school and the teachers. But it's normal, right, It's what
Speaker 1: we all do anybody that has kids. But you drop
Speaker 1: your kids off at school, you take for granted that
Speaker 1: they're you know, cared for and that they're learning something,
Speaker 1: and then you pick them up after school, and you
Speaker 1: don't really pay a whole lot of attention to what
Speaker 1: goes on in between. But when you are the one
Speaker 1: that's teaching them, you have a whole new appreciation for
Speaker 1: the teachers in the school. And I know that was
Speaker 1: the case for us. Just I know, my wife and
Speaker 1: I are very very meticulous, and we have very high
Speaker 1: expectations of our children trying to teach them, and not
Speaker 1: having the patients that we probably need to be good
Speaker 1: teachers was was something that we learned. We had to
Speaker 1: navigate that because, uh, you know, we wanted them to
Speaker 1: just get it, come on, like understand like what's so
Speaker 1: hard about this? Like and then just we know our
Speaker 1: kids better than anybody else, so we know when they're
Speaker 1: trying to scape by or when they're giving their best efforts.
Speaker 1: So we're probably even way harder on our own children
Speaker 1: than the teacher would be because we, you know, we
Speaker 1: have such high expectations out of them. Yeah, well they
Speaker 1: are saints, those teachers. I it's always shocking when they're
Speaker 1: not millionaires. You're like, this job deserves more than I make,
Speaker 1: for sure. Obviously a lot of people who just know
Speaker 1: NASCAR from Afar assume you wake up and then go drive,
Speaker 1: which we all know is not the case. It takes
Speaker 1: a ton of endurance training, working outside obviously involved. So
Speaker 1: how do you do that when you're in in RV
Speaker 1: and going to the in laws? How did you how
Speaker 1: did you use quarantine to stay in driving mode? Well, Um,
Speaker 1: fortunately for me, I enjoy a lot of outdoor activity
Speaker 1: for for my training. It's something that I enjoy. And
Speaker 1: so I found that if I enjoy working out, it
Speaker 1: doesn't really feel like working out. So um, so I
Speaker 1: enjoy running, and I really really enjoy cycling, and so
Speaker 1: I took you know, I took obviously running shoes with me,
Speaker 1: and I took a bike with me, and so I
Speaker 1: did a tremendous amount of cycling while I was down there,
Speaker 1: which was nice. I probably rode my bike four to
Speaker 1: five days a week and probably ran, you know, three
Speaker 1: or four days a week. Some days, you know, i'd
Speaker 1: get up in the morning and run super early while
Speaker 1: it was still not that hot it out, uh, and
Speaker 1: then I would take off in the afternoon and go
Speaker 1: ride my bike for thirty or forty miles for a
Speaker 1: couple of hours in the heat of the day, which
Speaker 1: I felt like was going to really help me when
Speaker 1: I got back in the race car, because you know
Speaker 1: that heat training and endurance training at the same time
Speaker 1: is essentially what we're doing in the race car. Our
Speaker 1: heart rates through on average of what a marathon runners
Speaker 1: is for about the same amount of time, maybe a
Speaker 1: little longer. But the inside temperature of our race cars
Speaker 1: is about a hundred and thirty degrees, So it's hard
Speaker 1: to train for that anywhere else but outside in the elements.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah. I mean, people who hear you say
Speaker 1: that you love running, I mean, what what what I mean?
Speaker 1: They're probably like rolling their eyes, But what how do
Speaker 1: you make running enjoyable for you? So I make running
Speaker 1: enjoyable for me by the fact that I don't you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to set land speed records. So I'll
Speaker 1: go out and I'll run. I'll go run three to
Speaker 1: five miles. I don't run any more than that. I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to run a marathon or you know, an
Speaker 1: iron Man. Yet maybe I have aspirations of doing that
Speaker 1: when I'm not racing anymore, because it's gonna take a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, time and sacrifice to do that,
Speaker 1: and I don't have the time right now. But for me,
Speaker 1: I love to run. I go go run three to
Speaker 1: five miles and I can start out at a you know,
Speaker 1: ten minute pace, which is relatively slow for me, and
Speaker 1: then I can run one or two miles like that,
Speaker 1: and then I can you know, try and run eight
Speaker 1: minute or seven thirty pace mile and then flow it
Speaker 1: back down for another nine minute mile to close it out.
Speaker 1: And it feels good, it doesn't hurt, and it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's a great way to get a good workout in
Speaker 1: to start your day. Well, I wanted to kick this
Speaker 1: off with you know, saying you're my first driver on
Speaker 1: the podcast. I've been so impressed with NASCAR. We had
Speaker 1: on Brianna Daniels, who was incredible and and after a
Speaker 1: stop down in March, you you're now back in your
Speaker 1: car's racing. I think the sport itself is done a
Speaker 1: good job with with getting you back into action. And
Speaker 1: I guess what are the biggest difference you see in
Speaker 1: the sport now because of COVID nineteen. What are the
Speaker 1: changes that that affect you the most? For me personally,
Speaker 1: the biggest change that that has affected me is just
Speaker 1: the lack of human connectivity. You know, I am very
Speaker 1: much a hands on person just with the race car,
Speaker 1: but especially with people. I enjoy shaking people's hands, I
Speaker 1: enjoy patent you know, my team members on the back.
Speaker 1: I enjoy talking face to face with my you know,
Speaker 1: with my crew guys and my team members and smiling
Speaker 1: and laughing and joking and having that human interaction. And
Speaker 1: for me that has been the most challenging part is
Speaker 1: you know, flying to the race tracks alone, getting to
Speaker 1: the race track and being in my RV alone, and
Speaker 1: then when it's time to race, walk out to the
Speaker 1: race car alone, uh, stand next for my race car
Speaker 1: for the national anthem alone, and then getting my racetrack
Speaker 1: to go race alone. And you know, all of my
Speaker 1: human interaction is through a telephone or a video screen
Speaker 1: or a computer, and it's just not it's not the same.
Speaker 1: I'm very very much a person that enjoys being around people,
Speaker 1: and especially my team. I love that camaraderie. And you
Speaker 1: know I missed that. Yeah, and you know, dumb question,
Speaker 1: but do you notice the fans in the car? Like
Speaker 1: it's a totally empty and quite stadium right now. NASCAR's
Speaker 1: hinted to bringing some people back down the road, But
Speaker 1: do you notice any noise or anything when you're in
Speaker 1: the car. Is that sort of the same. You know,
Speaker 1: you you notice the lack of fans when you walk out,
Speaker 1: you know, to your car to start the race. There's
Speaker 1: just that lack of energy, that lack of electricity because
Speaker 1: you don't have you know, a hundred thousand fans and
Speaker 1: the sands and yelling or cheering or booing or any
Speaker 1: of those things. Um, you're not walking through crowds to
Speaker 1: get to drive introductions and you're not signing autograph and
Speaker 1: all those things on pit road before the start of
Speaker 1: the race. So that is that's very awkward. But once
Speaker 1: you strapped in the race card to start the race,
Speaker 1: you don't really notice the lack of fans anymore. You know,
Speaker 1: when I'm when we're all in the race car. We're
Speaker 1: so focused and concentrating on the competition around us on
Speaker 1: the racetrack, and then you know, just focused on the mark,
Speaker 1: hitting your marks and racing the race track that you
Speaker 1: don't really notice that there's no fans in the stands.
Speaker 1: You know, the race cars are so loud inside, um
Speaker 1: you can't really hear even when fans are there, you
Speaker 1: can't hear them. But then when the race is over,
Speaker 1: that's the next awkward part. You know that there's no
Speaker 1: there's no fans cheering or booing or any of those
Speaker 1: things when you know when the race is over, and
Speaker 1: it just there's just the overall lack of energy, you know,
Speaker 1: with without the fans. And you know, I know that
Speaker 1: they have sort of really drastically cut the number of
Speaker 1: personnel that's allowed on site during the race weekends. Like
Speaker 1: you said, you can't really stand next to your pit
Speaker 1: and your crew. I mean, have those configurations and guidelines
Speaker 1: negatively affected the job itself other than just maybe your
Speaker 1: psyche about about working. No, you know, I I think
Speaker 1: for us. I can't speak for everybody, but I can
Speaker 1: only speak for myself. I grew up racing as a hobby.
Speaker 1: It was something that I did because I loved it, right,
Speaker 1: that's what That's how everybody becomes a professional athlete, Like
Speaker 1: they all started as a hobby. It doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: you're a baseball player or football player or whatever. You
Speaker 1: do it for for hobby, for sports, and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you get good enough, and then you
Speaker 1: grow up and then next thing you know, you've become
Speaker 1: a professional and you start getting paid to do it.
Speaker 1: So that is, you know, essentially my story. And so
Speaker 1: I never did it for the fame. I never did
Speaker 1: it for the money. I've always done it just because
Speaker 1: I love to drive fast things. Um, whether it's a
Speaker 1: go cart or a race car or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: I love to race and compete against other people in
Speaker 1: machines and I like to try and go faster than
Speaker 1: them and to pass them into race with them. And
Speaker 1: so I missed that so much when we weren't racing
Speaker 1: while we were shut down because of the pandemic. Uh.
Speaker 1: That that was the one thing that I realized that
Speaker 1: I really miss. Like I don't miss the money, I
Speaker 1: don't miss the same I don't miss any of those things,
Speaker 1: but I missed that adrenaline rush of driving the race
Speaker 1: car and competing. Yeah, and how were you able to
Speaker 1: keep in touch with your crew? It was it just
Speaker 1: zoom calls and stuff like that, because they're so crucial
Speaker 1: to your prep and success. Yeah, we used zoom and
Speaker 1: there's other forms of meeting teams and spacetime and depending
Speaker 1: on how many people were on the meeting. And we
Speaker 1: used every resource and still to this day or continuing
Speaker 1: to use every resource available just to constantly stay engaged
Speaker 1: with each other. And I asked this purely for one
Speaker 1: big reason, which is that you have somehow been able
Speaker 1: to take coronavirus and COVID and the stopdown and all
Speaker 1: these all these changes to your sport, and you're having
Speaker 1: the best run of your career. Very odd time in
Speaker 1: history to decide to do that. But top five finishes
Speaker 1: in your last five races, eight consecutive top ten's, while
Speaker 1: most people have felt rusty and out of sorts, you
Speaker 1: are killing it. Why is that? Um? I just attested
Speaker 1: always to people, you know, I think, UM, that's the
Speaker 1: one thing that I think it's overlooked about most sports, UM,
Speaker 1: but especially about ours when you look on TV or
Speaker 1: if we can ever have fans back and you can
Speaker 1: look at the race track and you look at the cars.
Speaker 1: They all look very similar. You know, obviously they have
Speaker 1: different paint jobs and stuff like that. From the in
Speaker 1: the grand scheme of things, they all look relatively the same, right,
Speaker 1: And we have rules that govern us to be equal,
Speaker 1: but they're not equal. And what makes the difference is
Speaker 1: the people. The people that put the cars together, the
Speaker 1: attention to detail that they put into their specific job,
Speaker 1: those are what makes the biggest difference. And so you know,
Speaker 1: I've just been so fortunate and blessed to be with
Speaker 1: a great group of people, and you know, they make
Speaker 1: me look good. Yeah, And and I mean, even through
Speaker 1: these sort of challenging times, it's been awesome to see.
Speaker 1: And and I guess too with the way the sport
Speaker 1: is going with Jimmy Johnson testing positive for coronavirus last
Speaker 1: week and the NASCAR announced just a few days ago
Speaker 1: the two negative tests will be back racing. I listen,
Speaker 1: I'm not one to bust anyone here, but that hasn't
Speaker 1: sad right with me. It's only two tests a couple
Speaker 1: of days. I assumed he had to quarantine. I thought
Speaker 1: it was for two weeks. Do you know what NASCAR's
Speaker 1: rules are for that when there's a positive test, and
Speaker 1: how often are you guys being tested? Yeah, so we
Speaker 1: are being tested to enter the racetrack, They've run us
Speaker 1: through a testing station, and then we are we are
Speaker 1: admitted um into the infields to our our motor homes
Speaker 1: and campers, and then we're you know, we're we're ready
Speaker 1: for the race weekend or the race that weekend, and
Speaker 1: then if we do test positive, we have to go
Speaker 1: to a secondary screening station to further evaluate what's going on.
Speaker 1: He uh, he had a positive test, and then so
Speaker 1: they they've told him that he's got to have a
Speaker 1: negative test, two negative tests within twenty four hours of
Speaker 1: each other, and so I guess, uh, he tested positive
Speaker 1: early of a week ago, and then this Monday he
Speaker 1: had a negative test, and then Tuesday he also had
Speaker 1: a negative test. So you know, the doctors and CDC
Speaker 1: and state health officials all agree and and that SCARS
Speaker 1: reinstated him. So I'm glad. I don't I don't I
Speaker 1: think uh, I think that's probably the way it should be. Personally,
Speaker 1: I think it's extremely detrimental to a guy that you know,
Speaker 1: would have no symptoms and have a positive test, and
Speaker 1: Lord only knows if it's a false positive. There's no
Speaker 1: way to prove that. But you jeopardize not only somebody's season,
Speaker 1: but you jeopardize their career. I mean, you talk about
Speaker 1: missing fourteen days. If you test positive the day before
Speaker 1: an event and it's a week where we're gonna run
Speaker 1: a double header race and a Wednesday race and a
Speaker 1: double head of the next week like we're gonna have
Speaker 1: coming up pretty soon, you could potentially miss five races,
Speaker 1: four or five races, and if if you miss four
Speaker 1: or five races, your season is over. And then once
Speaker 1: the playoffs start, if you miss one, your season's over.
Speaker 1: And so not only does that have an effect on
Speaker 1: on your season, it has an effect on your career
Speaker 1: um and it has effect on you financially. So I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, I think that NASCAR has gotta
Speaker 1: gotta do the best job that they can to navigate
Speaker 1: all that. Yeah, especially with it possibly being Jimmy's final
Speaker 1: season as well. Uh and because of the stop down
Speaker 1: in NASCAR, the schedule has been adjusted, like you said,
Speaker 1: ton of doubleheaders things like that, and one big thing,
Speaker 1: and I know we're all voting for Bacon to make
Speaker 1: it happen, which we'll get to a little bit later.
Speaker 1: Is the July fifteenth All Star Race. They're letting in
Speaker 1: thirty thousand fans. Obviously, they're going day by day to
Speaker 1: figure out if this is even humanly possible. But are
Speaker 1: you tep it? I'll be honest, I'm I'm going to
Speaker 1: be your most pessimistic interview wher. I think we should
Speaker 1: be overly careful. I know a lot of you've seen
Speaker 1: that way as well, but thirty thousand fans to me
Speaker 1: sounds still like a lot of people, and and I'm
Speaker 1: still nervous with with numbers raising. Yeah, I I don't
Speaker 1: make the rules, man, I just I just go show
Speaker 1: up and go drive the race cars. So to be honest,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not even really going to comment on that
Speaker 1: because I don't have a dog in the sight. Like
Speaker 1: I'm they're not going to come in contact with me.
Speaker 1: I'm not doing any engagement. I'm not going out shaking hands,
Speaker 1: they're signing autographs or kissing any babies. Um. From that point.
Speaker 1: From that standpoint, I'm gonna do everything I can to
Speaker 1: make sure that I stay safe. And that's really all
Speaker 1: I can worry about. After this more with NASCAR driver
Speaker 1: Eric al Marola. Right now, Feeding America is working tirelessly
Speaker 1: to ensure our most vulnerable populations, like students who are
Speaker 1: out of school, the elderly individuals whose jobs are impacted,
Speaker 1: and low income families continue to have access to food
Speaker 1: and other needed resources during the COVID nineteen pandemic. The
Speaker 1: Feeding America Food Bank Network is committed to serving communities
Speaker 1: and people facing hunger in America, and their greatest need
Speaker 1: is donations and support of local food banks. This podcast
Speaker 1: is committed to donating a portion of the proceeds from
Speaker 1: the show to Feeding America, and we hope that you
Speaker 1: can join us in this effort to find out how
Speaker 1: you can help Feeding America dot org. Backslash COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: and now the rest of my conversation with Stuart Hoss
Speaker 1: racings Eric al Marola. Luckily, like I said, you've been
Speaker 1: on a streak and you had a wild finish at
Speaker 1: the Geico five hundred third place. You you basically finished,
Speaker 1: spun around backwards. You were like a real ricky Bobby.
Speaker 1: Has that ever happened to you? And you have you
Speaker 1: ever had to practice at No, I've never practiced that,
Speaker 1: but when I got home, my kid did tell me
Speaker 1: that I was like to Mader from the movie Cars
Speaker 1: and that on the World best back in the Driver.
Speaker 1: So you did kill it. I mean it truly was remarkable.
Speaker 1: You know, it made mainstream news, hit pop culture even
Speaker 1: outside a NASCAR and I guess it's a Mario Kart move.
Speaker 1: I mean it truly was like I've never seen it. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I do have a fair amount of experience playing Mario Kart.
Speaker 1: My son loves Mario Karts, so that's one of the
Speaker 1: ways that we've spent some of our quarantine was playing
Speaker 1: Mario Kart, so I did have I did have a
Speaker 1: chance to brush up my skills on Mario Kart quite
Speaker 1: a bit before we went back racing. Who do you pick?
Speaker 1: I'm just hoping you don't say Bowser. Do you have
Speaker 1: a regular racer? Yeah? Yoshi? Okay, good, very good pick.
Speaker 1: I like that good, good, middle good middle run speed.
Speaker 1: Yoshi on a motorbike is tough to beat. It is
Speaker 1: tough to beat. So beyond golf carts on Mario World,
Speaker 1: I've been impressed with NASCAR over the past few months.
Speaker 1: It started, obviously with the banning of the Confederate flag
Speaker 1: at races, and then the swift message they sent out
Speaker 1: regarding Bubba Wallace. I know he mentioned you specifically during
Speaker 1: a press conference as someone he's not necessarily pals with,
Speaker 1: but was so impressed and felt it was so important
Speaker 1: that you texted him, and he said it meant a lot,
Speaker 1: and you also publicly tweeted. But but why was reaching
Speaker 1: out to him personally? Why was that important to you? Well?
Speaker 1: For me, I just knew that he was going through
Speaker 1: a lot, and you know, I know when you feel
Speaker 1: like the world's crashing in around you and all those things,
Speaker 1: you can you can live in your head and you can,
Speaker 1: you know, you can just get in a bad place.
Speaker 1: And so I just I just messaged him and said, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine what you're going through. I don't even
Speaker 1: pretend to understand, but I have empathy for you, and
Speaker 1: I you know, care about you as a human being,
Speaker 1: and I am going to stand with you and and
Speaker 1: stand by you and support you as a as a brother.
Speaker 1: Uh were. I know we're not friends. You know, he's
Speaker 1: got he's a very different personality than I am, and
Speaker 1: we don't you know, he's young and not married, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm older, married to kids. Um, so our lives just
Speaker 1: don't you know, really coexist. And so you know, he's
Speaker 1: somebody that I see around a lot at the racetrack,
Speaker 1: but we just don't have a lot of interaction. But
Speaker 1: something inside of me was just saying, like, man, reach
Speaker 1: out to the guy. He's probably just dealing with so much.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how many people he has that
Speaker 1: reach out to him that just give him some encouragement.
Speaker 1: And so I just wanted to encourage him and tell
Speaker 1: him that I was thinking about him and caring about
Speaker 1: him as a person, as a human being, and I
Speaker 1: just feel like that's the right thing to do. I mean,
Speaker 1: for me, I'm a devout Christian and I feel like
Speaker 1: that plays a huge part in my daily life and
Speaker 1: the way that I want to interact with people and
Speaker 1: treat other people. And for me, it was just something
Speaker 1: that I felt like I needed to do. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think that as a casual NASCAR fan who is
Speaker 1: now getting much more into the community, I have loved
Speaker 1: it seeing people like you and Tyler Reddick and ty
Speaker 1: Dylan and the legend Richard Petty. I mean seeing all
Speaker 1: of you guys stand up for each other as brothers.
Speaker 1: Like you said, competitive but still brothers has been really inspiring.
Speaker 1: Did you did you know that community existed before it
Speaker 1: was tested, you know, on a national scale. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I've been around our sport for long enough
Speaker 1: now to know that we as much as we want
Speaker 1: to crush each other on the race track, when we
Speaker 1: are away from the race track, we are a family.
Speaker 1: Like we we are really a community. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I think that makes our
Speaker 1: sport unique to other sports is that every single team
Speaker 1: competes against each other every single weekend, right. There's no
Speaker 1: other sport like that, where you know, it's either one
Speaker 1: team against another team and then the next week they
Speaker 1: play a different team. We compete against the same group
Speaker 1: of people and teams every single week. And when we
Speaker 1: traveled to these events, we're all going to the same
Speaker 1: event together. We traveled together. Our motor homes are parked
Speaker 1: in a lot inside the racetracks together. So each one
Speaker 1: of those drivers, you know, albeit I want to beat
Speaker 1: them on the race track, they're my neighbors at the racetracks,
Speaker 1: you know. Their their motor homes are right next to
Speaker 1: my motor homes. The guys that have kids, Their kids
Speaker 1: are playing with my kids on the playground, but why
Speaker 1: they're talking to each other. You know, we sit outside
Speaker 1: on picnic tables by our motor homes and and eat
Speaker 1: dinner outside, you know, together. So there's just a lot
Speaker 1: of community and a lot of family that goes into
Speaker 1: our sport. Uh. And lastly, you were part of the
Speaker 1: Drive for Diversity program that Bubba and Brianna Daniels was
Speaker 1: also part of, and it's really started to change the
Speaker 1: face of the fort incredibly. How how important do you
Speaker 1: think that outreaches for NASCAR as they try to define
Speaker 1: themselves moving forward to a larger audience, because, as I
Speaker 1: like to point out, ratings have been up over the
Speaker 1: past few weeks. Yeah, the ratings have been incredible. It's
Speaker 1: so fun and exciting to see, you know. Of course,
Speaker 1: we want people to come back to the racetrack and
Speaker 1: experience it live and in person, which I in my
Speaker 1: own opinion, which I'm biased, is the best way to
Speaker 1: experience their sport. But I think the divers Day program
Speaker 1: and everything that NASCAR has initiated is so important for
Speaker 1: our sport. I mean, forever NASCAR has been a quote
Speaker 1: unquote all American sport. And it's no secret that over
Speaker 1: the last fifty plus years, America has changed and changed drastically,
Speaker 1: and so for our sport to continue to be the
Speaker 1: all American sport, we have to look like all of America,
Speaker 1: you know. And I think that that is so important,
Speaker 1: just you know, that ability to have more diversity and
Speaker 1: more inclusion and make sure that it doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: color your skin is, or what language you speak, or
Speaker 1: what you look like, or whether you're you know, a
Speaker 1: man or a woman, whatever it is. If you have
Speaker 1: a passion for horse power cars that go fast, competition
Speaker 1: on a race track, seeing cars beaten bang running two
Speaker 1: hundred miles an hour, we want you. We want you
Speaker 1: as a competitor, we want you as as a fan,
Speaker 1: we want you as a mechanic, we want you as
Speaker 1: a race car driver. We want you, We want you
Speaker 1: to be included in our sport. And I think that
Speaker 1: that's uh, I think that's so important. Well, I've loved
Speaker 1: watching it. So we talked about Bacon a little bit.
Speaker 1: You are infamously sponsored by Smithfield Bacon. It as so
Speaker 1: much so that last week your car was wrapped with
Speaker 1: Vote for Bacon, which is something I think all of
Speaker 1: the nation can agree on, no matter what race, or
Speaker 1: gender or religion. So I think it's the most delicious
Speaker 1: car wrap in the business. And we know how much
Speaker 1: people love getting creative with the pork products. So I
Speaker 1: want to play a game with you where I mentioned
Speaker 1: some bacon flavored products, some recipes. They're all real. You
Speaker 1: will grade them on a one one to five lap scale,
Speaker 1: five laps being the best. You tell me, I'm going
Speaker 1: to give them to you. They're all real. Okay. Bacon
Speaker 1: peanut Brittle. This is meaty, smoky bacon chopped up, then
Speaker 1: tossed in with peanuts and spices, and then sign kind
Speaker 1: of mixed in with maple syrup. Love it. Five laps.
Speaker 1: Perfect bacon brownies. Okay. This is a recipe I found
Speaker 1: on the internet. It's basically just as it sounds, delicious,
Speaker 1: brownie bacon pieces cooked into the middle, sweet and savory.
Speaker 1: My wife makes those and I love them, So I'm
Speaker 1: giving those five all right, we I'm seeing a pattern.
Speaker 1: Let's move on. This one is a little more controversial.
Speaker 1: This is bacon sushi. This is a real niche item,
Speaker 1: but it is real. Instead of wrapping a hand roll
Speaker 1: in seaweed. We wrap it in bacon. Oh for me.
Speaker 1: So I love sushi, and so this one's hard for
Speaker 1: me to grade because it would be very very dependent
Speaker 1: on the fish. Right, So it shrimp or like yellowtail
Speaker 1: or something like that, like a light fish. I think
Speaker 1: I'm totally in. But um, like a piece of a
Speaker 1: piece of tuna, right, I don't know? Salmon? Salmon? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna go into three three laps right in
Speaker 1: the middle, dependent on what is inside. Very good answer.
Speaker 1: Double decker mac and cheese stuffed bacon taco. Now it
Speaker 1: is a lot to take in. It's not just bacon
Speaker 1: in the taco. This is a taco filled with mac
Speaker 1: and cheese, lettuce, and also shredded cheese, because boy, they
Speaker 1: need to make sure they have their cheese there. The
Speaker 1: taco shell, though, is not made out of any sort
Speaker 1: of dough or it is fully made of bacon. You're
Speaker 1: holding a bacon shell. There is a taco inside of it.
Speaker 1: What do you think? Oh? Man, So that one's gonna
Speaker 1: take about five miles of grown in before and about
Speaker 1: bike riding after. But I'm still gonna give it. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna give it a four. Okay, very good lastly, our
Speaker 1: last one chocolate dipped bacon roses. Now you brought up
Speaker 1: your wife. This could be for Valentine's Day or a
Speaker 1: date night, what ever you feel romantic. It is a
Speaker 1: slice of bacon swirled up nicely to look like a flower,
Speaker 1: kind of like what a hotel will do with your
Speaker 1: towel on your bed. You top those off with chocolate.
Speaker 1: You put them in a box and willah. It is
Speaker 1: true love. Where are we on this? That's a five
Speaker 1: cis down. I love chocolate and I love bacon, and
Speaker 1: I love chocolate and bacon together. Absolutely well. You got
Speaker 1: me voting for bacon love. Seeing the streak you're on
Speaker 1: during a very hard time, I think it's kind of
Speaker 1: awesome to see someone flourishing in it. And we'll be
Speaker 1: rooting for you on the track. All right, Thanks man,
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. The Sports Bubble is produced and distributed
Speaker 1: by tree Fort Media. The show was executive produced by
Speaker 1: Kelly Gardner, Lisa Ammerman, Matthew Coogler, and me Jensen Carr.
Speaker 1: Tom Monahan is our senior audio engineer and sound supervisor,
Speaker 1: with production and editing by Jasper Leek. Additional production help
Speaker 1: from Tim Shower, June Rosen and Haley Mandelberg. Our theme
Speaker 1: music is composed by Focus. If you've enjoyed what you've heard,
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