Speaker 1: This is cut to It with Steve Smith Senior at
Speaker 1: production of The Black Effect and I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: Steve Smith Senior and I'm ger Little John and this
Speaker 1: is cut to it. Good do it, Good do it.
Speaker 1: Let's get down to do it. Good do it. We
Speaker 1: asked the questions you always want to know, but no
Speaker 1: one ever asked, let's cut to it. You ain't heard
Speaker 1: about it? Then we're about to left you. Now it's all.
Speaker 1: We got one of Charlotte's own, born and raised in Charlotte.
Speaker 1: He's racing with one of the oldest race teams known
Speaker 1: the mankind, right, the Wood Brothers Racing Team. They have
Speaker 1: been around for centuries. They were racing cars when the
Speaker 1: Roman Empire was still raising. Might as loven you? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So we have NASCAR Cup Series driver the number twenty one,
Speaker 1: I mean could have been a number anyway, number twenty one,
Speaker 1: Ford Mustang. Welcome to the Cut to a podcast, Harrison Burton.
Speaker 1: Let's get to it. I got some goat ones. Alright, Um,
Speaker 1: what three what three places would you love to travel to? Oh,
Speaker 1: that's a good question. I love going to the Bahamas,
Speaker 1: so probably go there be one. Uh, A lot of
Speaker 1: my families from Poland and I went there when I
Speaker 1: was a little kid. Was pretty cool. So I've been
Speaker 1: there pretty neat what what how old were you when
Speaker 1: you went too? Probably eleven or twelve? Oh that was
Speaker 1: like two six months, probably two years, two years at max. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's crazy. That's not that long ago, right, it
Speaker 1: really is, but it is to me. But uh, number three,
Speaker 1: number three probably go to Italy. I've never been there.
Speaker 1: That'd be cool. Check it out. Being a NASCAR driver
Speaker 1: stick shift or automatic, stick shift all the way. Why,
Speaker 1: it's just better. It's just well it's not better, it's
Speaker 1: more fun. It's your store. So so the stick shift
Speaker 1: the automatic nowadays, like if you buy a sports car,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be automatic because it's faster than any human
Speaker 1: could be. Right. Uh, but there's something cool about having
Speaker 1: a tool in the car that you can have more
Speaker 1: control over. Um, so if I was to buy a
Speaker 1: car that was Are you allowed to buy a car
Speaker 1: at this young age? I have I bought a car
Speaker 1: for Yeah, you just bought it to No, I didn't
Speaker 1: just buy it. I bought it two years ago. That's
Speaker 1: just bought. They might not they might not sponsor us,
Speaker 1: So don't say the name that don't sponsor me anymore,
Speaker 1: So I can't then definitely don't sus right, I wasn't.
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna ask um what did they automatic? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It was they didn't have a manual. They didn't have
Speaker 1: a manual. They didn't have So the manufacturer I drove
Speaker 1: for at the time was Toyota, and they came out
Speaker 1: with the Super and it didn't have a manual option.
Speaker 1: So I got the automatic and then now drive for Ford.
Speaker 1: So I have a big f two fifty I drive
Speaker 1: around and that doesn't have that's not a stick show. No, no,
Speaker 1: it's not six shifts. But my race card is I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get with that. Al right, So go ahead, and
Speaker 1: you know, be biased. Does it look like I've ever
Speaker 1: driven a stick shift? Yeah, I'd say so. I feel
Speaker 1: like I feel like I could see it. I took
Speaker 1: my driver's test in with a stick shot. Look at
Speaker 1: that as a Ford Focus Ford Focus. You like how
Speaker 1: I dropped that home? That's nice? It was green green
Speaker 1: Ford Focus. You know, racing green is bad luck, but
Speaker 1: just trying. I'm just trying to be a legal drive racing.
Speaker 1: I don't know no idea. There's a about thirty thousand
Speaker 1: different superstitions, and I've heard them all from the Wood,
Speaker 1: the Wood family, because they, yeah, exactly, they were from
Speaker 1: you know, they started racing in nineteen fifties. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so the Roman Empire and all that was there, like
Speaker 1: you said, and uh, hard to change a granite wheel,
Speaker 1: wasn't it. So the speaking of that, when they used
Speaker 1: to race, you would just buy the car from the
Speaker 1: showroom and then go take it to race. So how
Speaker 1: do you know that? These people, the Woods told me,
Speaker 1: and it's just that's right, Yeah, I gotta listen to
Speaker 1: your elders, right, So, um, they you know, they would
Speaker 1: buy them and then just go race them. And when
Speaker 1: they would have to change parts, they had a an
Speaker 1: old oak tree out in Stewart, Virginia, which is where
Speaker 1: this all started, where they would hoist the engine out
Speaker 1: of the car with an oak tree over the limb
Speaker 1: and pull it out like just crazy stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Where it is it's literally like changing granite wheels like
Speaker 1: they It was from you know, stage one where they
Speaker 1: started it. And uh, now where our sport and motor
Speaker 1: sports in general is pretty nuts compared to that. All right,
Speaker 1: She'll give me one of the superstitious, superstitious that they
Speaker 1: told you thousand. Yeah, the most recent one was fifty
Speaker 1: dollar bills is bad luck. And we had a pretty
Speaker 1: rough start to our rookie season. Was leading the Dayton
Speaker 1: of five hundred and flipped. Uh. The next week got
Speaker 1: into a crash. Someone spun in front of me and
Speaker 1: I hit him. The next week it was Bubble Wallace
Speaker 1: who spun out and lots of smoke and then I
Speaker 1: hit him in the side. Yeah, so not his fault.
Speaker 1: He obviously didn't want to spend out. I'm actually gonna
Speaker 1: text Bubble he's he came up to me after he
Speaker 1: said where are you going? I said, well, apparently into
Speaker 1: your door? But what else? Right? So, uh yeah, a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of bad things happened, right, and uh Eddie
Speaker 1: would one of the Wood brothers. So I'm texting Bubba.
Speaker 1: I just said, hey, Harrison said you left up his
Speaker 1: race the other day? What's up with that? That was
Speaker 1: not what I said, but it was okay, we got
Speaker 1: the recorded one. I want to get my phone out.
Speaker 1: I don't fix this situation. That's why we can edit
Speaker 1: stuff that's true. Yeah, it's true, dang many So all right,
Speaker 1: So what's another So so the superstitionous. Yeah, so all
Speaker 1: this stuff is going bad, and uh, Eddie would just
Speaker 1: one of the Wood brothers, Eddie Eddie Eddie Tobacco. No, no,
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to get it. He's he's pretty tall,
Speaker 1: he's you know, six one, gray hair kind of guy. Right,
Speaker 1: he's uh, pretty country guy. Tobacco though, from a guy
Speaker 1: from Charlotte, but continued, Yes, he's hey, man, you know,
Speaker 1: I know what's going wrong. Why we've had a bad
Speaker 1: couple of races. Why is that founded fifty bill in
Speaker 1: his wallet? And uh so Eddie's the problem. Eddie was
Speaker 1: the problem. He even said. So, yeah, I'll tell you that.
Speaker 1: He's texting me, man, what are you doing that fifty?
Speaker 1: We'll take you. He I don't know what we don't,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know it. I didn't know his bad luck. So, like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's bad luck. He's not have no money.
Speaker 1: That's really bad luck. Yeah, that's really bad. Yeah. Beggars
Speaker 1: can't be choosers, right. I ain't never seen a broke
Speaker 1: brother got good luck. Green peanuts is bad luck. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure why that one. What peanuts like if you're
Speaker 1: eating peanuts before the race, you're gonna crash. Man, this
Speaker 1: this sounds like a lot of excuses. Said how I'd say, California,
Speaker 1: when you crash and I hit you, that's you're a
Speaker 1: rookie though. Yeah, so I don't have that many people
Speaker 1: I don't like yet, that's right exactly. There's a big
Speaker 1: yellow stripe on her bumper. It might as well be
Speaker 1: a target. It's like, hey, kie, you have a yellow stripes,
Speaker 1: two yellow stripes on your back bumper, which those two
Speaker 1: yellow obviously? Yeah, so it's I guess the old tradition was, hey,
Speaker 1: this guy is the beginner, go easy on him now, right,
Speaker 1: But now it's should they should put a student driver? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So now that's hey, there's blood in the water because
Speaker 1: this guy is this first year, so go hit him
Speaker 1: out of the way. It's a complete opposite of what
Speaker 1: the old tradition was. Uh. And now guys when they
Speaker 1: get to cup are ready, right, It's not like, hey,
Speaker 1: you're ready, I hope. So yeah, you know, I think
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get better as time goes for sure, but
Speaker 1: you know you're ready. You know how to drive a car.
Speaker 1: It's really small details at that point. So it used
Speaker 1: to be like I think I'm just guessing. How do
Speaker 1: you know what he used to be? I think just
Speaker 1: because my dad raced for so many years, and uh,
Speaker 1: I heard stories from him, A generation of racing. Would
Speaker 1: you would you would? Would you say you are because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of family members. Yeah, I'd say I'm
Speaker 1: a second generation racer. So my my granddad, my dad's
Speaker 1: dad did some racing locally, nothing too much. Uh, and
Speaker 1: then my dad and my uncle both went the cup
Speaker 1: and made it a cup. You're talking about my you know,
Speaker 1: my grandpa did some You never got beyond local to
Speaker 1: be considered a professional racer. You have to go beyond local?
Speaker 1: Is the standard? I don't know. I don't, I don't,
Speaker 1: It's it's different. I'm always interested in, like the different dynamics,
Speaker 1: the levels of of sports. You know, you obviously you
Speaker 1: have the weirdness you need, so hey, you gotta do this,
Speaker 1: you got, but there's so many other there's so many
Speaker 1: more deep texture to the detail of what's considered a
Speaker 1: true blue racer. Like you know, listening to and this,
Speaker 1: these are my words, and this is some of what
Speaker 1: I heard before when he first came on the scene,
Speaker 1: Joey Logano, he was considered a you know, he was
Speaker 1: not considered a real racer. He was considered a a
Speaker 1: money racer or a video game racer William Bryan or
Speaker 1: or this guy is you know, just not hearing that.
Speaker 1: We've had Jeff Gordon on here and listening to how
Speaker 1: he had to open up the phone book and call
Speaker 1: his sponsors. Right, what's considered the standard to be considered
Speaker 1: a racer? Like, so you're saying the second but technically
Speaker 1: the first guy did a little bit locally that got
Speaker 1: the second guy, which is your dad, the taste of it, right.
Speaker 1: He may not have been as successful, but he got
Speaker 1: he started to taste so and then now you're in it,
Speaker 1: you know, as your first. And there's certainly the local
Speaker 1: guys that like when I was coming up through the
Speaker 1: ranks that I raced with that I'm like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: this guy is so good. A guy named Bubba Pollard's
Speaker 1: one that I think of off the off the top
Speaker 1: of my head. Uh. Race caused super late models. It's
Speaker 1: a local, short trip. So imagine what you see on Sunday, right,
Speaker 1: the cup cars a little bit sleeker, a little bit,
Speaker 1: a little bit lighter, so it is light it's honestly
Speaker 1: one of the fastest cars I've ever driven. Uh it's
Speaker 1: like uh so it's got six d fifty horsepower and
Speaker 1: it weighs under less than three thousand pounds. So it's
Speaker 1: he that's that's pretty light. So for as far as
Speaker 1: as far as the car right now, So it's two
Speaker 1: hundred more pounds. Ye, So why is that significant? So
Speaker 1: any weight that you bring with you is more that
Speaker 1: you have to basically pull when you get on the gas,
Speaker 1: right per driver? Know, how did they adjust for you,
Speaker 1: like say, say like after things given? Yeah, So it's
Speaker 1: actually a big game that gets played. Now. There's a
Speaker 1: way in every every start of the year at Daytona. Hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna wait the drivers. Why because every car passed
Speaker 1: away the same walk off music before you weigh in, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not like us'd be cool though. It's
Speaker 1: in a it's in a little infield care center where
Speaker 1: you go after you crash. So do you bear? Do
Speaker 1: you strip down like the guys in the combine? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And they because there used to be stories of a
Speaker 1: lot of non muscle individual it's all separate. It's all separate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So you don't exactly exactly. You wouldn't want people. You
Speaker 1: guys will flown. You'd be flounders at the if we
Speaker 1: had the combine. Oh dude, can you imagine, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: can you imagine some of these dudes. What's crazy? I
Speaker 1: work out four or five days a week doing what running? Lifting?
Speaker 1: You're lifting uh, base weights like real weights or like
Speaker 1: jazzer size weight. Yeah, tell me show me your workout.
Speaker 1: So a lot of it was was well. So I
Speaker 1: was at a facility with wait moved forward. So when
Speaker 1: I was with Toyota, wherever is that wherever you used
Speaker 1: to being currently, I'm looking at you. I don't think
Speaker 1: you're using either one of those weights. Man, I'm just
Speaker 1: listen this. I'm just having fun with you because you literally, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you're not I'm not a built guy. It's
Speaker 1: not secret. No, no no, no, I was. I was about
Speaker 1: to say, you literally just got on the scene. Right
Speaker 1: as far as what you've been on the scene for
Speaker 1: a long time. Your second I think third generation racer, right,
Speaker 1: you know this this game, you know this sport. However,
Speaker 1: you just have to master your craft. You you know
Speaker 1: all the tricks of the trade, but doing the tricks
Speaker 1: of the trade actually in the trade and doing it
Speaker 1: at the right time and doing it at the right place.
Speaker 1: That's how you master your craft. You haven't mastered it,
Speaker 1: but because you were rased by the the the guy
Speaker 1: who's mastercrafted. Yeah, what's what's crazy is it's changed so much.
Speaker 1: So when my dad was racing, it was, hey, this
Speaker 1: this driver is super smart at knowing what shocks and
Speaker 1: springs and all sorts of measurement, whatever you want to say,
Speaker 1: goes into the car. And now they have engineers that
Speaker 1: are the smartest people I've ever talked to, that you know,
Speaker 1: can do it all on the computer, can say, hey,
Speaker 1: this is what's gonna you know optimal. This is what
Speaker 1: is optimal for this weekend. We think we're gonna go
Speaker 1: try it and then you're gonna feel it, and then
Speaker 1: you're going to relate to us the information. Well, now
Speaker 1: the driver, that driver that hey, I know what shock
Speaker 1: goes in the car, that's sleep Because the engineers are
Speaker 1: so good that you can't keep up with them. You
Speaker 1: didn't go to college and learn what they've learned. And
Speaker 1: so now it's how can I be the best driver
Speaker 1: I can be? Obviously those guys worked on being better
Speaker 1: drivers but now it's Hey, we're watching film of every race,
Speaker 1: I'm watching data on every race I'm working out I'm running.
Speaker 1: How does that play for you to be an optimum Yeah,
Speaker 1: race card, the biggest thing is the more of your
Speaker 1: heart rate is elevated and the worst your mental capacity is. Right,
Speaker 1: So for us, it's a lot of decisions. You were
Speaker 1: saying that as for me to confirm, No, that's that's
Speaker 1: what people have told me, at least that that I've
Speaker 1: worked with. What's interesting about what you just said. The
Speaker 1: people in racing are the smartest people. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: I go to football and their legs people are the
Speaker 1: smartest people. You go to baseball and there you guys
Speaker 1: are the smartest people. But yet you know, not anything
Speaker 1: with you is. But yet it's like, but the other
Speaker 1: two you want the super Bowl? You know, It's just
Speaker 1: like it's the game of sports has made it. Who
Speaker 1: can have as many people that can give them as
Speaker 1: much information? But the end of the day, you have
Speaker 1: to do it right. Yes, yeah, absolutely, and and you
Speaker 1: know that's that's what makes it awesome. At the end
Speaker 1: of the day, you can have Tony Stewart who looks
Speaker 1: how he looked and he kicked everyone's ass like he
Speaker 1: just did. He was awesome. And you have guys like
Speaker 1: Jimmy Johnson Carl Edwards that go run marathons, are ripped
Speaker 1: and they kick everyone's ass. They're not ropped. Carl was, man,
Speaker 1: do you ever see Carl Edwards? Well, I mean he's
Speaker 1: probably not you compared to people you seeing, compared to
Speaker 1: people I've seen. Okay, I just wanted to make sure
Speaker 1: we weren't in that room at Carl Edwards said ripped.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I ain't never seen a rip. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: what do you think my heart rate was when you
Speaker 1: were playing after a different place, or every play, after
Speaker 1: a big play or not that. So that's why when
Speaker 1: you said that, if you go back, if you go
Speaker 1: back and look at any of my pictures. When I played,
Speaker 1: I wear my watch on my right hand, so I
Speaker 1: used to wear a heart rate monitor and you could
Speaker 1: look and see and I could look at see, and
Speaker 1: depending on how my heart rate was going, there would
Speaker 1: be times where I come off the field to let
Speaker 1: it get that calm down. Because when I trained, like
Speaker 1: if I was in off season right now, if I
Speaker 1: was playing, I would train and he would make sure
Speaker 1: based on these numbers, we would phase in the intensity
Speaker 1: of my workout so I would not peek too early.
Speaker 1: It makes sense. That's why sometimes being a gym rat
Speaker 1: in an organized scheduled sport, it's not good because you
Speaker 1: can overtrain, you can you can actually do too much.
Speaker 1: So you probably if you're you're saying that thinking about it,
Speaker 1: you're probably you probably need to, like you're doing m
Speaker 1: M A or some of that stuff, need to add
Speaker 1: something else to it to maybe just kind of push
Speaker 1: or remove something to take it back. Explain to me
Speaker 1: why the simulating part is such a key key component
Speaker 1: to racing. Yes, it's certainly newer. Um Like back in
Speaker 1: the day, they howl, do you one? Okay? Continue? I
Speaker 1: looked twelve one. I'm gonna need some I d Yeah.
Speaker 1: If I were trying to order a beer, it's a
Speaker 1: long process. They gotta scan it, you know. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you look like you don't even you look like
Speaker 1: you have your learner's permit. Yeah, I was racing. I
Speaker 1: have my learners permit that So I was all right,
Speaker 1: look how he's just smile. He's like, idiot, I've been
Speaker 1: doing a lot. I've been doing a lot more things
Speaker 1: than you have. It's a good story because my driving instructor,
Speaker 1: when I was, you know, fifteen or ever get my
Speaker 1: driver's license, fell asleep when I was driving, like driving
Speaker 1: him around because he knew I was a driver somehow,
Speaker 1: and he's like, oh, you're good. You know how you
Speaker 1: know how disrespectful this is that you at your driver's
Speaker 1: permit probably had like you're driving a car like we've
Speaker 1: had a few NASCAR guys now and it's literally like
Speaker 1: guys are driving cars in Nascar, like still in pull ups,
Speaker 1: still still in pull ups, and that's remarkable to me.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. I started when I was five. When you
Speaker 1: look like you look like you wore a night pull
Speaker 1: up to use like seven or eight. That was a
Speaker 1: chuckle of Steve. You're absolutely I love cut to It
Speaker 1: and I love it even more when you that load
Speaker 1: us and subscribe And you can follow us on social
Speaker 1: media too, Smithie where where at that's at? Cut to
Speaker 1: It on Instagram? What about Twitter? At cut to It? Facebook?
Speaker 1: Cut to It featuring Steve Smith singr. What about online?
Speaker 1: And you can follow us at cut to It podcast
Speaker 1: dot com where you can buy merch and you can
Speaker 1: subscribe to us wherever you listen to podcasts. I got
Speaker 1: all my answers questions. Um, yeah, I got all my
Speaker 1: questions answered. That's what I'm here for. A brother cut
Speaker 1: to a podcast dot com. This past weekend was the
Speaker 1: hottest race we've had all year. And there's a lot
Speaker 1: of guys that can You can run different stuff to
Speaker 1: help you stay cool in the race. I ran just
Speaker 1: a fan in my helmet. You can run a suit
Speaker 1: that you plug in that runs water through. You can
Speaker 1: run a fan to your back. So I said, hey,
Speaker 1: it's a little weird. As a little weird. It's like
Speaker 1: when you turn the cool seed on your cars and
Speaker 1: kind of feels like you beat yourself or something. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean. It's not good when you're full
Speaker 1: sweat and you turn that sucker on. It's like yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: so uh yeah. So this weekend I was pretty hot,
Speaker 1: Like the HoTT I've been in a long time. Was
Speaker 1: the temperature I would imagine in the car. It wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to imagine, I just want I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know for sure, there's no thermometer something in the
Speaker 1: old car. Yeah, for sure, in the old car, it
Speaker 1: would get on the hottest, hottest days you could get
Speaker 1: two hundred forty on an average day, you get two
Speaker 1: D inside the car. Okay, yeah, I can see you imagine. Okay,
Speaker 1: so yeah, there's there's no thermometer, right, but uh, they
Speaker 1: did put something in and that's what they came up with. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's it's it's super hot. There's no airflow in there.
Speaker 1: There's so that's why you know, the helmet fan is
Speaker 1: a big deal, because it's just any fresh air. You
Speaker 1: get that air that sits still in the car, and
Speaker 1: it just gets hotter and hotter and hotter. That's when
Speaker 1: you start kind of you know, you'll start having that
Speaker 1: mental fatigue where you can't make good decisions you're just
Speaker 1: focused on Um I just thought about it. People getting
Speaker 1: mentally fatigued. Oh yes, if anybody feigning while driving, not
Speaker 1: while but after pass out after races you just water
Speaker 1: obviously not driving, not driving, not that I know of.
Speaker 1: Have you ever got delirious so kind of like seeing doubles.
Speaker 1: The worst I got I had when I was younger.
Speaker 1: I had asthma really bad, and so I'm allergic to dust.
Speaker 1: And so I was at a road course and their
Speaker 1: sand on either side of the course and so they
Speaker 1: get kicked up, and so I had an asthma tack
Speaker 1: in the car. So about two to three laps ago
Speaker 1: it was bad. I had kind of fallen out of
Speaker 1: the car or deal and then uh finished the race
Speaker 1: and got out got my tailor. I don't know, I
Speaker 1: just kept going. Yeah, I don't remember, you know, it
Speaker 1: was probably I was probably fifteen sixteen, but yeah, it
Speaker 1: was just you know, a race that got had had
Speaker 1: gotten really spread out. So I was thankful I wasn't
Speaker 1: really racing hard with anybody, and I could just kind
Speaker 1: of pace myself. Uh and uh, I still finished like
Speaker 1: third or something, So it's okay. It was only with
Speaker 1: a few laps ago that it happened. So so stuff
Speaker 1: like that that will jump up on you. And I
Speaker 1: think if you're I think if you're prepared physically for that,
Speaker 1: it affects you less. Let's get into a little funny stuff, right,
Speaker 1: you're a family history, Yeah, man, what is the dinner
Speaker 1: table looking like? What things given? With all of that
Speaker 1: race knowledge. It's funny because we don't really talk racing much.
Speaker 1: Um me and my dad in particular drew up loving
Speaker 1: sports and and he we obviously both love racing. So
Speaker 1: when I was at the racetracker he was, we would
Speaker 1: talk about racing a lot of time. We just like
Speaker 1: to watch basketball or football together. What's just what's what's
Speaker 1: what's she? What's your dad's team? My dad's. My dad
Speaker 1: likes the Horntson Duke, so I'm the same way. I
Speaker 1: like the Hornetson Duke and the Panthers obviously really like
Speaker 1: the Panthers. Yeah, no, you can't tell. You could not tell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love it though. Yeah, I had this one since
Speaker 1: I was like thirteen, so two months ago, up some
Speaker 1: paper route money, yeah, yeah, throwing off my huffy bike, yeah,
Speaker 1: the whole deal. So yeah, I always wear it to
Speaker 1: the stage. So what about things giving on? Like grandpa, cousin,
Speaker 1: you gotta you got a cousin, brother, everybody's who? First
Speaker 1: of all, who does not like race? Who is there
Speaker 1: anybody in a family that does not like racing? My
Speaker 1: mom certainly doesn't like that. I do it. I don't think, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's safety and that's safety mom, right, But she loves
Speaker 1: she she likes. But there's always there's always one family member,
Speaker 1: Uncle Leo, like no, I don't think no, like everyone
Speaker 1: does it? Like well, We've got four people that have
Speaker 1: done it professionally in our family. My cousin who yep,
Speaker 1: Jeff Burton, he races right now in Xfinity. Um my
Speaker 1: uncle Ward, Uncle Ward, Uncle Ward was in cup for
Speaker 1: number number years one the Dayton of five hundred. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's pretty legit. And then uh, my dad was was
Speaker 1: in cut for twenty years. And now yep, Jeff, yes, sir,
Speaker 1: Jeff Burton, and uh and then you and then me yep.
Speaker 1: So four of us have done it professionally. How many
Speaker 1: of how many have tried it and not succeeded for
Speaker 1: various reasons. Uh So, the only one I can think
Speaker 1: of is my there's two brothers. There's three brothers. There's
Speaker 1: three brothers. So the two everyone in racing knows of
Speaker 1: his Ward and my dad. And then there's a middle brother, Brian.
Speaker 1: Brian was the man in go karts one more State
Speaker 1: champ Aint been chips and everybody and go karts. And
Speaker 1: so when my dad and my uncle tried to go
Speaker 1: racing to do it as a job, he said, you're dumb, like,
Speaker 1: what are you guys doing? So he went and he's
Speaker 1: he's running. Our family comes from a really small town
Speaker 1: in South Boston, Virginia, and they run a construction business
Speaker 1: up there. So he took that over and then my
Speaker 1: to my my dad and my uncle went racing and
Speaker 1: it worked out for him. But he was rumored to
Speaker 1: be better than both of them, which is pretty crazy
Speaker 1: that he decided. Yeah. So, but he's done awesome with that. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's pretty cool because that's kind of some of
Speaker 1: our family legacy that he's carried on as well. So
Speaker 1: at the family table, when you all when when your
Speaker 1: hand and stuff is it only left? Only left? I
Speaker 1: only left cassing master potables on the left. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a long way around the table. There's a lot of us,
Speaker 1: but left only Man, how many people? How many people
Speaker 1: are your family? Oh gosh, so I've got on my
Speaker 1: my dad's side, I've got well just big one side,
Speaker 1: one side because not both sides mingles, no, yeah no,
Speaker 1: But so like what side do you claim? Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: that's a heart that's a loaded question. Man. I don't
Speaker 1: like any no kid, but I dad's side of your mom.
Speaker 1: So I'll say if I go from my dad's side,
Speaker 1: he's got obviously two parents, he's got a step mom,
Speaker 1: he's got three brothers who have one of them has
Speaker 1: three kids, one of them has one kid, and then
Speaker 1: my dad has me and my sister, and then my
Speaker 1: my dad ward his daughter has two daughters and that's
Speaker 1: the only grandkids so far. So yeah, something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I haven't really, I don't know the number off the
Speaker 1: top of my head, which I guess is bad. But
Speaker 1: so I spent a lot of time with my my
Speaker 1: dad's family, my grandma and so he was one of four.
Speaker 1: But then my mom so during the holidays, but like,
Speaker 1: so I went up over my dad's and spent with
Speaker 1: my grandmother and stuff. Holidays, but like summer and all
Speaker 1: that stuff, you know, spent with my mom. My mom
Speaker 1: is one of thirteen kids, like brothers and sisters. I
Speaker 1: have thirteen aunts and uncles. And then it's so it's
Speaker 1: like you have a giant family. It's like sixty of us.
Speaker 1: That's really it's terrible. You think, so it's terrible. I think, no,
Speaker 1: here's why it's terrible. When there's so many people and
Speaker 1: so many adults. People are coming and going, so when
Speaker 1: you see them, it's a great reminder that maybe you
Speaker 1: haven't followed up. It's like, damn, I haven't talked to
Speaker 1: my my my cousin Evett, but Evett has like two kids. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you feel bad because you're like, well, I haven't
Speaker 1: talked to my my my cousin, but I'm kind of
Speaker 1: looked at it like they're my nephews. But then there's
Speaker 1: my my uncle Tim, who's more like my brother m right,
Speaker 1: and who is I think a eight years older than me.
Speaker 1: I have an uncle who's eight years over right, So
Speaker 1: so it's just kind of you know, So it's it's
Speaker 1: like when we have a family reunion. There's times I
Speaker 1: have I have seen people I probably haven't seen, like
Speaker 1: especially I imagine when you were playing too, it was
Speaker 1: I was much busier, and you know you had to
Speaker 1: pick and choose, like you know, which events are we
Speaker 1: going to because we only have this amount of time.
Speaker 1: Like for you, your off seasons, how many six weeks?
Speaker 1: I believe three weeks shorts, like six weeks in the winter,
Speaker 1: six weeks in the winter, so you've got six weeks
Speaker 1: to also stay in shape, train and also dollar back
Speaker 1: to relax, relax, Like that's that's counterintuitive, Like how do
Speaker 1: you stay in shape and then get away and clear
Speaker 1: your mind? Yeah? What do you do for that? Uh,
Speaker 1: he's still trying to figure it out. Rookie season busters
Speaker 1: are like, yeah, last year I was BBNJ party. What
Speaker 1: do you do to boys only seventh grade party in
Speaker 1: my house? You know? Yeah? So they were they were
Speaker 1: dancing like they got COVID six ft oh man? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so what do you do before relaxing? Oh man? And
Speaker 1: the winner? This winner was the least relaxing off season
Speaker 1: I've ever had, because there wasn't. This is actual. All
Speaker 1: the other ones weren't off season because you weren't. You
Speaker 1: weren't a professional. You were a professional, but you weren't.
Speaker 1: I wasn't at the top, right, So this is actually
Speaker 1: that wasn't at your off season. That was you thought
Speaker 1: of the off season. It was actually your transition to
Speaker 1: become actually so so I ended my season last year
Speaker 1: on an affinity team, right, which is the middle level,
Speaker 1: the step right below cup, which is where I am
Speaker 1: now at the top. Yeah, yeah, no more. I haven't
Speaker 1: one yet or won a championship yet, so I'm not
Speaker 1: I don't see myself as at the top. But you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying that the top level. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wasn't calling you that. I appreciate you. Yeah, I wasn't.
Speaker 1: I was just talking about the Yeah, I'm with you, yep.
Speaker 1: So I mean I'm in the top series for congratulations,
Speaker 1: thank you. Yeah. I take a lot of pride in
Speaker 1: it because four year old. Yeah exactly, And it's crazy.
Speaker 1: I do feel like a four year old. These guys
Speaker 1: are like, man that's watching the hundred year old dudes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is not a hundred but you know there's guys
Speaker 1: that are in their forties and that's cool though. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really cool. The transition was crazy because I had
Speaker 1: a new manufacturer, uh, so meeting all those people. I
Speaker 1: had a new race team, uh, which is part of
Speaker 1: an alliance. So I'm racing for the Wood Brothers, which
Speaker 1: has helped from Team Penskey, which you can see Ian
Speaker 1: has a Team Penskey sweater on. It's not on my
Speaker 1: podcast right now. Well he's over there, you know, beans
Speaker 1: behind the scenes. No no free take shirts and hats. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. You come here, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: largest you see these mediums. Dr dude. Yeah, we actually
Speaker 1: talked about that. We were like, damn, we forgot what
Speaker 1: you did. Now we didn't just on the probably bottom
Speaker 1: tier your guest list, now didn't taking notes were good? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: what's the address? Will say no. But but the all
Speaker 1: the people I would imagine is um, you know, it's
Speaker 1: hard to understand for a lot of people that haven't raced,
Speaker 1: But there's like a million engineers that worked just for Ford,
Speaker 1: and then there's a ton of people that work just
Speaker 1: for the Wood Brothers, and a ton of people that
Speaker 1: work at Penske, and so I had like three new
Speaker 1: companies that yeah, and so I spell before you even
Speaker 1: got hid in the wheel, before I got anything behind
Speaker 1: the wheel. And then this offseason NASCAR went to our
Speaker 1: next gen car. So it's an updated car with a
Speaker 1: new a new transmission, a new whole new chassis, whole
Speaker 1: new engine package, whole new arrow package. Everything's new on
Speaker 1: this car. The only thing that you could change was
Speaker 1: that you could bring from the old car to the
Speaker 1: new car was the seat and the steering wheel. Everything
Speaker 1: else was new components. So learning that car and then
Speaker 1: learning how to drive that car. We had some tests
Speaker 1: over the offseason. Like I talked about, NASCAR had banded well,
Speaker 1: since this is the first year of that, we got testing.
Speaker 1: So it's traveling all over testing this car. Uh, and
Speaker 1: then we just traveling all over different different racetracks so
Speaker 1: you can start it. So so NASCAR, since it's the
Speaker 1: new car, NASCAR allowed the teams to do it with
Speaker 1: their They were there watching with their superission. So we
Speaker 1: were in Charlotte, Phoenix, Daytona, all kinds of different tracks
Speaker 1: trying to learn how this car was gonna raise what
Speaker 1: you got. They fly out there and test them on commercial, private, uh,
Speaker 1: commercial for a few of them, private on team Pency
Speaker 1: playing first. Yeah. Just a fan just listening like you're like,
Speaker 1: oh man, I get to draw a car like private
Speaker 1: commercial first coach. Yeah yeah, no, yes, I flew a
Speaker 1: commercial quite a bit. So okay, question here's the veteran
Speaker 1: in me, right, yeah, so do you have UM when
Speaker 1: you fly? Do you use your frequent fire mills? What
Speaker 1: about when you stay at the hotels? Do you get
Speaker 1: to pick the hotels? So so it's all booked through
Speaker 1: the team, So can you tell the team what you prefer? No,
Speaker 1: who's the big name in your on the on the
Speaker 1: team on the like on the Wood Brothers are in
Speaker 1: the whole Lion Steel because we've as far as like
Speaker 1: the I got you, I'm sorry. So okay, Wood brothers.
Speaker 1: So Wood brothers. It's Lynn and Eddie Wood are the
Speaker 1: two guys in Leonard Wood? Who's I'm talking about the racers?
Speaker 1: Like in your group? Oh, I'm the only driving? So
Speaker 1: who who? Who? Who designates the hotels in not me?
Speaker 1: Have you? Have you ever? I haven't asked no talent? Well, man, yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys needed Yeah, talk to him. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: I'm stay in great hotels. By the way, what do
Speaker 1: you consider a great hotel? Give me a go on?
Speaker 1: That's great to me, man, I mean, yeah, we stayed
Speaker 1: in terrible. Yeah. The nicest one I stayed in was
Speaker 1: the Venetian in Vegas. That was pretty sweet. That's nice. Okay,
Speaker 1: that was pretty nice. Well, I was just gonna say, man,
Speaker 1: make sure you're getting your get your memberships rewards. That's
Speaker 1: a lot because at some point, oh, this is gonna
Speaker 1: go away, young man. And so right now I'm knocking
Speaker 1: on lifetime platinum with a marry with a Marriott. What
Speaker 1: is what's you gotta stay there a couple more times
Speaker 1: and you've got lifetime platinum. Well, because so I've I
Speaker 1: have stayed, I still got to talk to them too,
Speaker 1: because Marryott did not award on my thing. It says
Speaker 1: um eight days, but I went and physically counting my
Speaker 1: state eleven days in the Marriott day. I gotta get
Speaker 1: your days. You gotta get you do. You want to
Speaker 1: know why? Why is that? Because at some point when
Speaker 1: it all shuts down and I'm no longer Steve Smith,
Speaker 1: the media guy, I gotta pay for my own stuff.
Speaker 1: But when I pay for my own stuff, I'll be
Speaker 1: lifetime this so I get it out of sea, getting
Speaker 1: free life lessons and heart rate rate and so I've
Speaker 1: been fifteen years as silver or higher. Okay, so right
Speaker 1: now my lifetime status is as silver. I'm on my
Speaker 1: way to go to elite slash platinum. The way things
Speaker 1: are going back, I'll be right there, so I should.
Speaker 1: I'm on pace with Marriott, American and Delta to have
Speaker 1: a pretty good like. I won't be like there, but
Speaker 1: you know, yeah there. Yeah. Did they give you wings
Speaker 1: when you get on the plane, the pilot or anything. Yeah?
Speaker 1: They give me a little pilot hat with a glass
Speaker 1: of milk in my hand. Yeah, Harrison, you cannot sit
Speaker 1: on the pilot's lap, not just stop. Can you flyplane?
Speaker 1: Can I flyplane? I think you could. So. Actually, in
Speaker 1: Daytona this year, we I flew with the Thunderbirds. Did
Speaker 1: you fly to the plane? I flew the plane. I
Speaker 1: did a loop? Yeah what aileron role? What? What aileron role? OK?
Speaker 1: So that's the two flaps on the way. I learned
Speaker 1: this all from the guy that was fighting the plane.
Speaker 1: I say, no, nothing about good. Let's getting down to
Speaker 1: do good. Hey Gerard, why did you get that T shirt?
Speaker 1: You mean this thing? Oh? Yes, I got it from
Speaker 1: cut to a podcast dot com where we have exclusive merchandise.
Speaker 1: Shout out to our guys at seven or four shot.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you can go on, buy you a T shirt,
Speaker 1: subscribe to us wherever you listen to podcasts. What are
Speaker 1: some of the tips that your dad has has taught us?
Speaker 1: I think that's worth that's worth trying. Is there something
Speaker 1: like with all that all that knowledges has is no
Speaker 1: way some of the things that he's probably told you
Speaker 1: be like, man, I can't well a lot of it.
Speaker 1: It's all different for every driver, right, And so he's
Speaker 1: helped me a ton, Hey, this is how to attack
Speaker 1: this and that as a driver. But I think the
Speaker 1: biggest thing he's helped me add out with is the
Speaker 1: mental side of the sport. And and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of opportunities to do things, um that could have short
Speaker 1: term help you, but maybe long term hurt you, right, Um.
Speaker 1: And so I think my dad has always kind of
Speaker 1: helped me with like you know, say, yeah, so say
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say I'm racing this guy for third and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hit him out of the way and then
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pass him and I'm gonna get third place.
Speaker 1: But then the next time, maybe I'm leading and he's
Speaker 1: in second, what is he gonna do to me? But
Speaker 1: you should ram the body somebody anyway to get first
Speaker 1: because you're right there to be able to get first.
Speaker 1: So so that's what I mean, is it? Is it?
Speaker 1: There's a there's a total that you're right. It's true,
Speaker 1: like there's there's a line where it's like, hey, I
Speaker 1: just gotta win, right, But there's also a line of
Speaker 1: knowing that there's you have to race against the same
Speaker 1: guys every week, Yes, exactly. And so when you're first
Speaker 1: starting out, you have to earn respect to those guys.
Speaker 1: But you have to do it. You can't do it
Speaker 1: by being a pushover, right because if if they're going
Speaker 1: to see blood in the water when they see your car,
Speaker 1: so I think recently so if they see blood, what
Speaker 1: is blood in the water? Actually mean this guy, if
Speaker 1: I get you know, he's easily intimidated. If I get
Speaker 1: bumped out of the way, he's gonna let me go.
Speaker 1: There's no repercussion for that stuff like that, where there's
Speaker 1: guys that you know will be taking advantage of that,
Speaker 1: And as a rookie, you're like, oh, I don't want
Speaker 1: to hurt anybody's feelings, but you kind of have to to.
Speaker 1: You're going to It's it's competition, right, It's you have
Speaker 1: to go and try and take it from these guys.
Speaker 1: So recently it's been that, right, Hey, just go attack
Speaker 1: these guys like it's nobody that anybody you normally would um.
Speaker 1: But always doing it to where when you lay your
Speaker 1: head down at night you feel like you did the
Speaker 1: right thing. I think that's been the biggest thing for
Speaker 1: me and and I feel like I've kind of ran
Speaker 1: my whole racing career like that. And I don't really
Speaker 1: have many things I regret. Obviously made mistakes, but I
Speaker 1: don't have any decisions I regret. Have you ever. Have
Speaker 1: you ever laid your head on a pillow at night?
Speaker 1: I'm not able to sleep well for sure. What was that? Uh?
Speaker 1: You know a lot of times it's easy. It's like,
Speaker 1: oh I just made a mistake and this gonna bother
Speaker 1: me in the race, or say you did kind of
Speaker 1: just wreck somebody. Uh, sometimes it doesn't sit right. I've
Speaker 1: gotten into fights on pit road. Like I've heard about
Speaker 1: the fight. Oh no, this isn't a push fight. We
Speaker 1: were swinging and stuff did so, so here's so, here's
Speaker 1: what happened. We It was a kind of the worst.
Speaker 1: It was. Hey, at least we threw something at each other.
Speaker 1: Now I'm friends with the guy, but at least we
Speaker 1: threw stuff with each other and we both missed. So
Speaker 1: you so you threw it through what like did you
Speaker 1: throw like that? Did you throw it knowing you didn't
Speaker 1: want to connect? Or no? You like I gotta do something?
Speaker 1: So so so like was it the old school? Like
Speaker 1: you know you're going to circle shoulder to shoulder? Yeah,
Speaker 1: like Manama, Yeah, so you know it started like little
Speaker 1: Harrison really don't want to fight Steve right now, he
Speaker 1: really don't want you. I wouldn't have walked up there.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, like you or they or they push
Speaker 1: like like like, so so this I'll tell you the
Speaker 1: whole story, tell me the whole I gotta push. It
Speaker 1: was too so this is kind of a pushy story.
Speaker 1: So two weekends in a row, we got together, crash.
Speaker 1: I was piste off. I went over. He was mad,
Speaker 1: he took his crust. Yeah, so I went up to
Speaker 1: his car. Uh guys know, Gregson is his name, friends
Speaker 1: with him now, so, uh, you know I was mad.
Speaker 1: So I was talking to him. So you you were yelling, cursing, cursing, talking,
Speaker 1: you know, you get mad and big words. That's right,
Speaker 1: as twelve year old me, arm Did your mom here
Speaker 1: you talking like that? No, she probably would have said
Speaker 1: the same thing though if you knew her, she's pretty feisty. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so your mom's got a potty mouth. No, not,
Speaker 1: because she's just she gets angry about racing. So so
Speaker 1: we start talking back and forth. This is not a
Speaker 1: good fight. We start talking back and so we're like
Speaker 1: chirping at each other, right, and then I'm like he's like,
Speaker 1: all right, we'll just do something about it. I'm like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: get out of here, shove bad deal. And then he
Speaker 1: swung at me. Did you duck? Went around my head
Speaker 1: and you got mm, so you slipped it and then
Speaker 1: went for the takedown. Didn't do it? Oh? We went
Speaker 1: down to the ground. You left this straight tackle form?
Speaker 1: Really yeah, but it didn't work out because my head
Speaker 1: underneath his arm not facing the concrete the whole deal.
Speaker 1: And then we were just like punching each other on
Speaker 1: the ground. Then they pulled apart and punching each other
Speaker 1: like in a rib shot. Yeah, that's how I could reach.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he was hitting me or not,
Speaker 1: but so that was that was it. And then and
Speaker 1: then I regretted that because I felt like, yes, I
Speaker 1: needed to, I needed to take a stand and say, hey,
Speaker 1: I can't be race like this anymore. But I also
Speaker 1: regretted the way I handled it. Uh. I felt like
Speaker 1: I could have not done a little push that would
Speaker 1: have instigated a fight and probably got the same point across.
Speaker 1: So I regretted that. And then that was something that
Speaker 1: it didn't sit right. I wasn't upset, like, oh, I
Speaker 1: didn't mean to fight with this. It wouldn't. It wasn't.
Speaker 1: It wasn't quiet in a senior spirit. Right. It didn't
Speaker 1: feel like it was something I would have done. So
Speaker 1: I regretted that that had That was hard to sleep
Speaker 1: on for a little bit m them on Instagram. So
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I wasn't sorry for what I said or
Speaker 1: what I did. I just felt like I handled it poorly.
Speaker 1: And uh and uh yeah. Now every buddys we hang out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know it's a competition and tempest flair. And is
Speaker 1: it fair to say that most racers are from now
Speaker 1: from Charlotte or quite a bit of them or have
Speaker 1: to move to Charlotte. Yeah, most of them live here
Speaker 1: for sure. Almost all of them live here. Now are
Speaker 1: there any racers? I mean, yeah, well you in Virginia.
Speaker 1: Who where's a Georgia? Right? We heard an interesting story
Speaker 1: and we had Jeff Gordon being from California. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he actually had to come south, you know, did in
Speaker 1: Indiana first and then you know, I had to hook
Speaker 1: up with Mr Hendrick come here to Charlotte. So that's
Speaker 1: a pretty unique story. Yeah. Yeah, he came from a
Speaker 1: completely different path than most guys did at that time.
Speaker 1: It's pretty neat. How now, there's a lot of talent
Speaker 1: that comes from different racing disciplines, the dirt racing, short
Speaker 1: track racing, what about the IE racing? Were you ever
Speaker 1: in so I have, I have a ulator. I was
Speaker 1: never into it until after I started racing. So like
Speaker 1: William never was racing until after he was already a
Speaker 1: similar not necessarily true. He actually was racing. He just
Speaker 1: didn't get a lot of He's kind of lived up
Speaker 1: to him. But he was racing a little bit. Oh
Speaker 1: was he? I thought he had just started on the
Speaker 1: computer and then went to let's let the podcasts. But
Speaker 1: also I talked to Dale, who told me to okay, yes,
Speaker 1: Dale knows more than well. He was just saying that
Speaker 1: he it isn't he wasn't just learned how to race
Speaker 1: and then went to the big league and went to
Speaker 1: the big league. He he was going to He was
Speaker 1: doing the NASCAR on a video game and I and
Speaker 1: the simulator. However, that led to is this for real?
Speaker 1: Can he really race? Or is he just really good
Speaker 1: on the simulator? So at some point you gotta see
Speaker 1: it is a similar later numbers accurate, Yeah, to what
Speaker 1: he's doing, And he did okay job racing. And I
Speaker 1: think they went to a simulator, and I think the
Speaker 1: simulator enhanced it to where the the next time he
Speaker 1: was in there he was able to apply. So it
Speaker 1: was pretty cool. It was pretty cool story to hear um,
Speaker 1: but to just say that he went from simulator all
Speaker 1: the way to write like so he so I was
Speaker 1: I was racing when I said that, man, I had
Speaker 1: raced for in lower levels. Well, a lot of fans
Speaker 1: think you just go to the top. Yeah, a lot
Speaker 1: of fans think that, just like they think that he
Speaker 1: was he never raced other than a simulator and then
Speaker 1: he went the cup Like yeah, so that's a great story,
Speaker 1: but that's little bit you're leaving out a stepper two. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and I raced with him when he was first
Speaker 1: getting into like real stock car racing, and uh, he
Speaker 1: was really fast. He did a great job. I lost
Speaker 1: to him a couple of times and oh for sure,
Speaker 1: Yeah that's all right, and and uh and yeah, so
Speaker 1: but I had I had raced before, and so my
Speaker 1: when I did it, it was kind of just I
Speaker 1: didn't do it as like this is work. I did
Speaker 1: it as fun, like I'm gonna get all my buddies
Speaker 1: and we're gonna go race at whatever racetrack with whatever
Speaker 1: car we want to, We're gonna have fun. And and
Speaker 1: I think when he started doing it he used it
Speaker 1: as it was his gateway into racing, and then it
Speaker 1: turned into a Legend car, which is a small car
Speaker 1: that he started, and then to late model, then the
Speaker 1: Cannon and then the trucks and the Xfinity. So there's
Speaker 1: obviously a ton of steps after the simulator. But I
Speaker 1: think I have one and I use it, but it's
Speaker 1: more and I use it now as a tool. But
Speaker 1: when I first got it, it it was like, Hey, this
Speaker 1: is fun. I can go race on the internet with
Speaker 1: my friends. And it wasn't. I didn't use it like
Speaker 1: he did. I don't think so do you do you
Speaker 1: think that utilizing the simulator, um, obviously on a rainy
Speaker 1: day now here, and that that's kind of really the
Speaker 1: only way you can stay sharp. Yeah, um in racing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's crazy. It's crazy when you think about it,
Speaker 1: because almost every other sport you can go practice it
Speaker 1: somewhere and do something, But to never be able to
Speaker 1: get behind a realistic car, it's against the rules. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's super tough. You know, you get now. You
Speaker 1: used to get a lot more practice than you do now.
Speaker 1: To now you get the way it works. There's twenty
Speaker 1: minutes of practice. You go run for twenty minutes, you
Speaker 1: come in, make a change, qualify which is who you're
Speaker 1: talking about? Real racing or simulating real racing? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's confused, back and forth, get lost. I've been in
Speaker 1: a simulator so long that you start driving your car
Speaker 1: home and you're like, is this real or not? Like
Speaker 1: what am I doing? But no? But uh yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: So that you have twenty minutes, and if you spend
Speaker 1: the first five minutes of the twenty minutes off the pace,
Speaker 1: well the car doesn't react the same way as you
Speaker 1: do when you drive it at its limit, And so
Speaker 1: it's really hard to go out there, no practice, no
Speaker 1: real world experience, especially now with this new car, and
Speaker 1: go on the first lap and go drive it as
Speaker 1: hard as you can and be aggressive, knowing that you
Speaker 1: might crash and the backup car is not as fast,
Speaker 1: and so that's a really hard challenge. How many cars
Speaker 1: do you, guys, uh transport for each particular driver. So
Speaker 1: so with the new car, for a while it was
Speaker 1: there was four guys in our team and there was
Speaker 1: two cars. So say all four of us crashing practice.
Speaker 1: Who's gonna have what car, who's gonna race, who's gonna not? Well,
Speaker 1: now it's starting to catch up. The inventory is getting
Speaker 1: better because the new cars getting farther along and we're
Speaker 1: able to build more of them. Uh. But yeah, for
Speaker 1: a while it's pretty sketchy, and and now it's every
Speaker 1: driver has one backup car basically, Um, so you have
Speaker 1: one that needs to use a backup car in the
Speaker 1: middle of a race? No? Yeah, no, so once you
Speaker 1: once you qualify, you're oh, you qualify that vehicle. Yep,
Speaker 1: So you qualify like with your primary cars. Yes, you
Speaker 1: can't go qualify with your primary car and then run
Speaker 1: it back up and let and if you do, you
Speaker 1: have to go to the back and starting last, and
Speaker 1: then once the race starts, if you do it, you can't.
Speaker 1: You can't do it. How difficult it is it to
Speaker 1: to get in top three starting off a racing last?
Speaker 1: Extremely difficult. Why so the farther back in the field
Speaker 1: you get I can tell that by eyesight, But tell
Speaker 1: it tell Layman's terms. Kiss, keep it simple, Steve, Well,
Speaker 1: how like like I understand you got how many racers racers'
Speaker 1: carte d you can bump, at least some of them,
Speaker 1: some of them. Yeah. So so the farther back you get,
Speaker 1: the more turbulent the air is. So the less there
Speaker 1: the air, so you have less down force. Black folks
Speaker 1: getting back all the time. So it's the it's it's
Speaker 1: the worst the farther back you are, because it's it's
Speaker 1: whoever your one their their car has no so every
Speaker 1: car leaves awake. Yes, yeah, the heat. Yes, So the
Speaker 1: the air. If the guy's leading, he has all just
Speaker 1: normal air, clean air, clean airs, the most wonderful thing
Speaker 1: in the world. And then second is probably a little
Speaker 1: bit worse. And then third's a little worse, and it
Speaker 1: forced a little worse, and it feels a little all
Speaker 1: the way back to fort So so why is that
Speaker 1: clean air? Why is that bad air? Bad for your car?
Speaker 1: So the way the cars are shaped, imagine whoever the
Speaker 1: folks in the back just getting crop dust is brutal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the way it's the way it the cars are shaped,
Speaker 1: there's a pocket of air that gets left behind, like
Speaker 1: a neutral zone here. Right, So say you have my
Speaker 1: fist is in the wind and this one has less
Speaker 1: wind on it. So when you're going in a straight line.
Speaker 1: That's awesome because there's less drag on your car and
Speaker 1: you can draft up to him Ricky Bobby style, shaking
Speaker 1: bake deal. And then when you get in the corner
Speaker 1: and your grip limited and you're kneading down force, you're
Speaker 1: needing grip, then all that stuff that was helping you
Speaker 1: on the straight away is now hurting you because you
Speaker 1: don't have the same amount of weight pushing down on
Speaker 1: your car, smushing your tires to the racetrack and giving
Speaker 1: you grip. So on the on the straight away you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is awesome. Then you get to the corner and you're, oh,
Speaker 1: my gosh, this car is really loose or tied or
Speaker 1: whatever because I have no down force. Um and and
Speaker 1: that makes it super hard. And you'll see guys playing
Speaker 1: games with that, like to keep a guy behind you,
Speaker 1: you can look up in your mirror and say, oh,
Speaker 1: he's running the second lane. I'm gonna move to the
Speaker 1: second right in front of him, and he's gonna get
Speaker 1: all this dirty air in front of him, and he's
Speaker 1: gonna get tight and I'm gonna drive away. And so
Speaker 1: there's a lot of of mind games you can play
Speaker 1: with that or not my games, just technical games. You
Speaker 1: can play with that to keep guys behind you or
Speaker 1: or try and pass. Should thirty seven, thirties five through
Speaker 1: forty that dirty air? Is that also restricting speed? Um
Speaker 1: you know, or just or just a gravity of force
Speaker 1: pushing you just more or less the force pushing you down.
Speaker 1: It should be best for your top speed to be
Speaker 1: in the very back, but you get to the corner,
Speaker 1: you can't do anything with it. So it almost compounds
Speaker 1: the issue, right, because the one thing you can do
Speaker 1: to keep grip in your car is to modulate your
Speaker 1: speed to take speed out of the entry of the corner. Well,
Speaker 1: when you're in the back, you get all this giant
Speaker 1: run into the corner because you have no friction on
Speaker 1: your car and you drive off in there and you
Speaker 1: can't do anything with it, so you get tied or
Speaker 1: whatever happens. So um, yeah, you end up almost compounding
Speaker 1: issues that way. Um. So yeah, the back is not
Speaker 1: a good place to be. There's guys that are super
Speaker 1: talented at using the air or finding clean air in
Speaker 1: the middle of the pack and they can pass guys,
Speaker 1: and there's guys that that don't do it as well. Um,
Speaker 1: And it's definitely a skill you've got to learn. As
Speaker 1: we'll say, is that where the more you do it,
Speaker 1: the more you learn tricks and tips for sure. And
Speaker 1: and it's crazy how every car will handle differently in that.
Speaker 1: Uh So there's a truck series, right, which was the
Speaker 1: first like top three series of NASCAR. That's the first
Speaker 1: step into it. Yeah, so I started. That was my first.
Speaker 1: That's like the first time that you're like, car have
Speaker 1: you not driven in like a stock car in general?
Speaker 1: Over your over your young twenty one years of life?
Speaker 1: What car have you not driven? I've driven the truck,
Speaker 1: I've driven stock car, truck, stock car, go kart, moped.
Speaker 1: I've driven a TV, a TV four wheeler, four wheeler, scooter,
Speaker 1: elect your scooter or razor scooter both burst. The razor
Speaker 1: scooters are rough on your shins, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like when you try and whip them around here, think
Speaker 1: you're getting fancy. We're not talking about do you think
Speaker 1: this brothers driving razor skins or they weren't They weren't
Speaker 1: out When I was younger, I had a duke. Duke's
Speaker 1: a hazard, uh big wheel that's bad at Big Will
Speaker 1: and the car they had there no Daisy was ever
Speaker 1: in the hood though, but there's some pressure on you
Speaker 1: and you don't know this as we start to wind
Speaker 1: this thing down. So we had William Byron on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very next race he won, Oh boy, he had he
Speaker 1: want a cop race. The next race, very next we
Speaker 1: had Chase. We had Chase Elliott on and the week
Speaker 1: after was the last race of the championship. And what
Speaker 1: happened talk about it. So now we're I'm just saying.
Speaker 1: And when we were in California, William Byron's people did
Speaker 1: they come down, absolutely came down and say hello, we're
Speaker 1: all standing in the saying I won't tell you at
Speaker 1: this j W aren't you Ah? So as I past
Speaker 1: your curfew though, it's like, yeah, I was probably sleepy.
Speaker 1: So folks came down, dapped him up, said hello, Chase.
Speaker 1: He didn't come down, and then what happened got hit
Speaker 1: in the wall. You say, So it's saying we have
Speaker 1: an impact on this. I'm saying also, and I know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got a reputation to hold not the same team.
Speaker 1: So earlier that day, who whose team we're talking to
Speaker 1: that the morning Joey Logano who won that race boom talk, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll try my hardest. That's you know that. I know
Speaker 1: you'll try your hard There's nothing that says you won't
Speaker 1: try your hardest, is what we've learned from this podcast.
Speaker 1: There you have it, man, Well we really appreciate. Hopefully
Speaker 1: I didn't geek you out, but I like I like
Speaker 1: to learn very quick. Yeah, I love I love telling
Speaker 1: people about it. Yeah, that's what I love. So it's
Speaker 1: easy for me to talk about it. That's for sure.
Speaker 1: You are a unique person. You are well worth it,
Speaker 1: you are competent, and most of all, your lovable. I'm
Speaker 1: Steve Smith Singior, I'm Gerard Little John and this is
Speaker 1: cut to It. Cut to It with Steve Smith Senior.
Speaker 1: That Is Me is a production of Cut to It LLC,
Speaker 1: Baal Tool, Creative Media, The Black Effect, and I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcast from I Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows from Cut to It. Executive producer Steve
Speaker 1: Smith Singor, co host Gerard Little John, talent and booking
Speaker 1: manager Joe Fusci, Social media team Wesley Robinson and John
Speaker 1: Show from Balto Creative Media. Cut Too It is produced
Speaker 1: by Brian Baltaschevic and Meredith Carter, with production assistance by
Speaker 1: Alex Lebrek, Production coordinator Taylor Robinson. Theme music by Alex Johnson,
Speaker 1: Lyrics and vocals by Anthony Hamilton. You ain't heard about it, then,
Speaker 1: we're about to let you. Now it's all