Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of Car Stories.
Speaker 2: With some King and Amelia Hartford, and today we have
Speaker 2: a exciting guest from fighting for our country to becoming
Speaker 2: a professional NASCAR racing driver. We had a great conversation
Speaker 2: about racism and dealing with negativity in the space and
Speaker 2: how he overcomes that.
Speaker 1: With all smiles. Yeah, I call him like the real
Speaker 1: life Superman, Like he is amazing at everything he does.
Speaker 1: He never lets anything hold him down. He's always, like
Speaker 1: you know, aiming for the highest peak and everything he does.
Speaker 1: And he has just such a great, great inspirational attitude.
Speaker 2: He brought some great energy and has some very real
Speaker 2: conversations about anyone aspiring to be a racing driver, what
Speaker 2: it takes, and how it's never too late in your
Speaker 2: career to go after your passions. So, without further ado,
Speaker 2: Jesse wujie everybody.
Speaker 1: How do I pronounce your last name without butchering it?
Speaker 1: E wu g Jess e wougi Jesse?
Speaker 3: Is it Jesse or Jess Jesse Jesse? Some people call
Speaker 3: me Jess, not too many though, because it's so short already,
Speaker 3: they don't leave out the fifth letter.
Speaker 1: Except for me, I just go Jess you can collage.
Speaker 3: If you want. Jay j W that was my jame
Speaker 3: and style. I used to freestyle really back in the
Speaker 3: day in college.
Speaker 2: Yeah wait, don't make me put you on the spot here.
Speaker 3: So I'm not the cleanest on my freestyle, so it
Speaker 3: probably wouldn't be good.
Speaker 1: So where did you go to high school?
Speaker 3: Jess? Yes, so I went to high school. Actually got
Speaker 3: that nickname in college, so high school people that when
Speaker 3: they hear Jay Wo like what he wasn't Jay, he
Speaker 3: was Jesse. But no, I went to high school in Dallas, Texas, Carrollton,
Speaker 3: to be exact, Hebern High School. Played football there all
Speaker 3: four years. It was amazing experience. When I first started
Speaker 3: playing football, really wasn't that good at all. But from
Speaker 3: my parents, everything I've learned from them is at the
Speaker 3: end of the day, in order to achieve anything in life,
Speaker 3: you got to really put a ton of effort in.
Speaker 3: So I figured, Hey, if I don't have as much
Speaker 3: talent as everybody else, let me just out effort everybody
Speaker 3: else and I'll get past them. Because there's a lot
Speaker 3: of people who came into high school with a ton
Speaker 3: of talent. They could catch football well, they could run well,
Speaker 3: run routes do this and that. For me, I couldn't
Speaker 3: do that. But I figured, hey, if I just continue
Speaker 3: to work on it every single day, since they're super
Speaker 3: comfortable with their skills, they won't continue to work on
Speaker 3: their skills and and their abilities, and I'll just keep
Speaker 3: on getting past them. So especially got to the point
Speaker 3: where into high school, I started getting recruited by some schools,
Speaker 3: and one of those schools was a naval academy. I
Speaker 3: was like, this is a great opportunity to go to
Speaker 3: a good place, get a great education, play football in
Speaker 3: college for a great team, and then when I graduate,
Speaker 3: be able to serve as an officer in the US Navy.
Speaker 1: Wow, So you didn't grow did you? Were you born
Speaker 1: in Texas? Your parents aren't from here.
Speaker 3: Though, Me and my brothers and my sisters, Yeah, we
Speaker 3: were born in Dallas, Texas. My parents, though, are from Nigeria,
Speaker 3: Nigerian by trade, first generation here in the US. My
Speaker 3: dad grew up in a very very poor area in Nigeria.
Speaker 3: My mom as well. You know, I draw a lot
Speaker 3: of strength from them because my mom, every time I
Speaker 3: hear her story is just like crazy, because she at
Speaker 3: twelve years old would climb trees to pick fruits off
Speaker 3: of it and go to the market and sell just
Speaker 3: to help her family out with extra money. She would
Speaker 3: go fetch water from rivers after school just to help
Speaker 3: her family have clean water for cooking, for cleaning, for
Speaker 3: whatever they needed it for. Imagine being twelve years old,
Speaker 3: middle school, going to a river and fetching pills of water.
Speaker 3: That's what she used to do. You know, she threw
Speaker 3: all that suffering and through everything she had to do.
Speaker 3: I remember one time she had told me that she
Speaker 3: was walking to the market and saw a group of
Speaker 3: people walking the opposite way and they were speaking English,
Speaker 3: and at that time, she didn't speak English. And she
Speaker 3: got down on her knees and started praying, and she's
Speaker 3: like God, please, like, if anything good ever happens to
Speaker 3: me in life, please allow my children to be able
Speaker 3: to speak English. Because she saw that these other folks
Speaker 3: who spoke English dressed by her, looked less stressed and
Speaker 3: looked like life was just better. So she figured the
Speaker 3: common denominator was that they speak English. So that's the key. Well,
Speaker 3: you know, fast forward later, she obviously got to America
Speaker 3: and we all speak English here and life has been
Speaker 3: better and She's worked really hard to get to herself
Speaker 3: to a better place. You know, a woman of a
Speaker 3: crazy amount of faith and a woman who just works
Speaker 3: so hard. She's owned businesses, she has multiple real estate properties.
Speaker 3: Now she's a nurse. Wow. I used to watch her work,
Speaker 3: you know, one hundred plus hour week. So she would
Speaker 3: literally work seven days a week from seven pm to
Speaker 3: seven am as a nurse, and then from nine am
Speaker 3: to five pm. She had a store that she would
Speaker 3: open and close herself every single day, so she would
Speaker 3: only sleep a couple hours in between that time every
Speaker 3: day for like multiple years. The woman is just wild,
Speaker 3: but she's she's a mom. She's she's given me a
Speaker 3: lot of strength, for sure.
Speaker 2: What a strong role model to have in your life.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, most definitely. My dad's super hard work or
Speaker 3: two did everything he could keep come to America. And
Speaker 3: because he came, he was able to bring my mom
Speaker 3: and yeah, they started her life here in the US.
Speaker 2: I think it's so great that your parents taught you
Speaker 2: at a young age that hard work can out beat talent,
Speaker 2: because I think that's so important. It's so good for
Speaker 2: people to hear that and your proof of that, and
Speaker 2: I mean your family entirely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, it's it's absolutely necessary. And I think,
Speaker 3: you know, in today's world, there's a lot of people
Speaker 3: out there who need like the instant gratification. It's like, hey,
Speaker 3: if I put in a little bit of effort, I
Speaker 3: need to get massive gains. And that's just not what
Speaker 3: it is, right, I mean, in order to get anywhere
Speaker 3: in life, no matter what you want to do, you
Speaker 3: have to put massive effort in. You have to put
Speaker 3: massive crind, You got to put action in towards your
Speaker 3: goals every single day. It's not just going to happen.
Speaker 3: Things aren't just going to magically fall in place at
Speaker 3: the end of the day. You know. They talk about
Speaker 3: when you're building skyscrapers, the higher you want to go,
Speaker 3: the deeper you're going to have to dig. And I
Speaker 3: learned that early in life, and that's basically what I've
Speaker 3: been able to, you know, continue to kind of push
Speaker 3: everywhere I go so that I could get wherever I
Speaker 3: wanted to go.
Speaker 1: With immigrant parents, something that I think we can relate to, right,
Speaker 1: did they want you to follow like a traditional career
Speaker 1: path and this race thing is like very foreign.
Speaker 3: To Yeah, anyone who knows any Africans or no African
Speaker 3: parents all know that their parents all want them to
Speaker 3: do three things. It's or one of three things. It's
Speaker 3: either you got to be a doctor, a lawyer, or engineer.
Speaker 3: That's it. You can literally type it in on Google
Speaker 3: and I promise you what's gonna pop up.
Speaker 1: Sam, I think it's every immigrant family.
Speaker 3: Doctor, lawyer, or engineer. That's it. There's no other career path.
Speaker 3: Nothing else makes sense. Like if they're going to put
Speaker 3: the effort to come from their home country to the
Speaker 3: US and all the grind and and everything they got
Speaker 3: to go through to get here, They're like, you have
Speaker 3: to at least be able to do that. So that's
Speaker 3: what my parents pushed on us at first. As time
Speaker 3: went on, they became a little bit more open to
Speaker 3: other things. They saw that, hey, there is more to
Speaker 3: life than becoming a doctor, lawyer, engineer. So for me,
Speaker 3: going to Naval Academy was different, right, That career path
Speaker 3: obviously was different than the doctor, lawyer, engineer thing. So,
Speaker 3: but they were happy with it. They thought it was cool.
Speaker 3: But then going from Navy to NASCAR, I was met
Speaker 3: with a little bit of resistance. My parents, You're like,
Speaker 3: whoa what are you doing.
Speaker 2: What was that shift? Because that's a big shift to
Speaker 2: be like mom, dad, I want to be a race
Speaker 2: car driver.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is a massive shift. Basically, how it happening
Speaker 3: was I've always had a passion for cars and racing
Speaker 3: my entire life. When I was five six years old,
Speaker 3: I used to watch Night Rider and I love that
Speaker 3: show was amazing and that stayed with me for a
Speaker 3: long time going into middle school. In high school, I'd
Speaker 3: always researched things on cars. The Fast and Furious movies
Speaker 3: came out, started watching those in two thousand and one,
Speaker 3: watched every single one of them a lot of times.
Speaker 3: And then going into college, when I would have free
Speaker 3: time from football, I would go on YouTube and just
Speaker 3: you know, type in anything racing, and I mainly watched
Speaker 3: like top gear and stuff. Kim Block when he came
Speaker 3: out with the original Gimkana videos, I would watch those
Speaker 3: and that slowly built up my passion for cars. But
Speaker 3: I never thought I'd get into racing ever in my life.
Speaker 3: I just thought it was just a thing I liked,
Speaker 3: thought it was cool. Whatever. Graduated college, graduated from the
Speaker 3: Naval Academy, bought a Challenger and SrTA and I was
Speaker 3: building that thing, built it up to nine hundred plus
Speaker 3: horsepower after going on a deployment, saving up a lot
Speaker 3: of money and horsepower. Yeah, it is, especially for that
Speaker 3: time we were building healthcats.
Speaker 2: Okay for people listening, that is a crazy amount of horsepower.
Speaker 2: Especially that's like almost ten years ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that car got built originally in twenty twelve, but
Speaker 3: it was on its way getting there, you know, prior
Speaker 3: to that. But yeah, I was. We didn't have Hellcats
Speaker 3: at that time, right. Hellcats came in twenty fifteen, So
Speaker 3: people sometimes hear that number now they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's easy with the Hellcat. There was no Hellcats. Then
Speaker 3: we had to create the first Hellcats. So a lot
Speaker 3: of trial and error and a lot of money went
Speaker 3: on a pretty much almost a year long deployment. Saved
Speaker 3: a lot of money from that and use that to
Speaker 3: do that. But I had made this goal on deployment
Speaker 3: that I was going to get in a magazine. I
Speaker 3: was going to go break some records. I was going
Speaker 3: to go two hundred miles per hour in the mile.
Speaker 3: I made all these goals and then started grinding to
Speaker 3: make it happen. Obviously, it was financial stuff that pretty
Speaker 3: much made that happen. But putting that effort in basically
Speaker 3: kind of got my first taste at racing and competing
Speaker 3: in competitions. Right. But after walle doing that one day,
Speaker 3: I was just like, man, it's fun going fast in
Speaker 3: a straight line, but I want to learn how to
Speaker 3: go fast around corners. So that's when I bought my
Speaker 3: C six Z six back in twenty thirteen and started
Speaker 3: going to road course tracks on open track days. And
Speaker 3: I was at that time, I would fit all four
Speaker 3: tires in the car and then trunk open a little bit,
Speaker 3: drive six. I was living in Monterey.
Speaker 2: Drive me to know you love something six hours down
Speaker 2: with an extra set of wheels and tires in your car, Yes.
Speaker 3: The entire way, And then I would change all my
Speaker 3: wheirs and tires at the track, do all that stuff,
Speaker 3: go do a track day for a whole day, and
Speaker 3: then drive six hours back home.
Speaker 2: And then you made the decision that you wanted to
Speaker 2: take it seriously. What was that next step for you?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So the next step was doing some research, right,
Speaker 3: because I didn't know anything about real racing. I wanted
Speaker 3: to figure out how do I get in? So I
Speaker 3: went on Google, went online started. I literally typed in
Speaker 3: how to become a professional race car driver, and it
Speaker 3: was I was met with a lot of negativity, a
Speaker 3: lot of people saying in the forums, you can't do
Speaker 3: it because you're black, rightcan Americans don't race? Right? You
Speaker 3: can't do it because you don't come from money. You
Speaker 3: can't do it because you didn't start racing when you're five, six,
Speaker 3: seven years old and karting. You can't do it because
Speaker 3: of this that, I mean, all these different things that
Speaker 3: I saw in the forums. Every time I would like ask,
Speaker 3: I was just everyone was telling me that it's not possible.
Speaker 1: You're twenty Where does that mindset come from?
Speaker 3: It's a real thing. And we're with twenty twenty three
Speaker 3: right now, and we're still dealing with those same issues.
Speaker 3: I mean, last year for our race team, we had
Speaker 3: a crew chief that we had hired and he wasn't
Speaker 3: getting the job done. We had to part ways, right.
Speaker 3: We tried to do it in a very calm, cool,
Speaker 3: collected way. He decided to fire back. He dropped the
Speaker 3: end bomb multiple times on his exit interview, multiple times,
Speaker 3: and he ended up getting suspended from NASCAR and all
Speaker 3: that stuff, and it was all bad but anyways, that happened,
Speaker 3: and this is twenty twenty two. I mean he's working
Speaker 3: for a minority owned team with me EMMITTT. Smith. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 3: so anyways, that's our fault for not screening him enough
Speaker 3: to really know his true nature.
Speaker 2: But it's not your guys's fault.
Speaker 1: You know, NASCAR has a bad stigma that it's a
Speaker 1: bunch of good old boys that drop the N word
Speaker 1: and they don't want anybody that doesn't look like them.
Speaker 1: Do you feel that they're still today?
Speaker 3: You know what, I think it's gotten a lot better.
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously that has happened probably, you know, obviously,
Speaker 3: you know, people have dealt with different levels of it,
Speaker 3: you know, over the years, but it has gotten a
Speaker 3: lot better. I mean I felt comfortable enough to pursue
Speaker 3: going into the sport. I didn't go into it because
Speaker 3: I wanted to think that I was going to go
Speaker 3: against the grain. I wanted to get into it because
Speaker 3: I felt like there was opportunity. I felt like I
Speaker 3: actually was welcomed. I didn't feel like I've had a
Speaker 3: lot of resistance going in. I felt like there was
Speaker 3: a lot more people who wanted to help versus people
Speaker 3: who didn't want me in right now, there's always going
Speaker 3: to be your bad apples who are out there who
Speaker 3: either whether you know who they are or their fans
Speaker 3: or whatever it is, who just don't want you to
Speaker 3: do it right. They they're jealous, they're envious, they don't
Speaker 3: like you for whatever reason. That's just always going to
Speaker 3: be it no matter where you go. I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: sure you dealt with it too, you know, just getting
Speaker 3: into all the stuff you've been doing, I mean, killing
Speaker 3: it grow and growing, growing, and I'm sure you see
Speaker 3: it on social media and negativity people who don't want
Speaker 3: to see female succeed.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's still very prevalent. And although you know
Speaker 2: different sides of the spectrum. I can relate in the
Speaker 2: sense of being a female, and I'll be able to
Speaker 2: relate in what you're going through. But there's unfortunately, you know,
Speaker 2: you'll have one hundred or thousands of positive comments, but
Speaker 2: sometimes or just interactions, but sometimes it really just takes
Speaker 2: that one or that few, and then it's hard not
Speaker 2: to focus on the few. Even though you know, I
Speaker 2: do see the shift, I do see positivity and light
Speaker 2: coming into the industry, but unfortunately, you know, it's it's
Speaker 2: hard not to focus on the negative at times. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but you didn't let that happen to you. You you
Speaker 2: saw these negative comments, what these people were saying on
Speaker 2: the internet, and and you what did you do from there?
Speaker 2: You're just like, I'm going to prove these these people
Speaker 2: wrong that I can do this and I don't need
Speaker 2: to come from money, and I don't have to be white.
Speaker 3: All the above. You know, I listened to a lot
Speaker 3: of motivational speakers and one of my favorite ones was
Speaker 3: Less Brown, and he had something he said that was
Speaker 3: super powerful that really helped drive me in the right
Speaker 3: course so that I was going in the right direction
Speaker 3: and could grind the way I need to grind to
Speaker 3: get past the negativity and stuff. And he has said
Speaker 3: someone's opinion of you does not have to become your reality.
Speaker 3: And when he said that, I was like, that is
Speaker 3: so powerful, because there's so many times we box ourselves
Speaker 3: in these small boxes because we let everybody else's opinion
Speaker 3: of us become our reality because they can't see our
Speaker 3: goals and dreams, like our goals and dreams are put
Speaker 3: in our minds. You know, I'm a super religious person,
Speaker 3: so God puts it in my mind that I'm supposed
Speaker 3: to go somewhere, become someone, do something right. Nobody else
Speaker 3: has given that vision. You weren't given my vision. You
Speaker 3: weren't given my vision, so you might not be able
Speaker 3: to see it for me. I have to see it
Speaker 3: for myself. So just because someone has an opinion of
Speaker 3: where I should be or what I should become, it's
Speaker 3: not for them to know where I'm supposed to go.
Speaker 3: Only I do. Only I was given that roadmap and
Speaker 3: I got to go after it myself. So I basically
Speaker 3: took that on board and everything I've done, whether I've
Speaker 3: been met with negativity or met with positivity, I just
Speaker 3: continue to remind myself at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: I'm the only person with my vision. Nobody else has it,
Speaker 3: So no matter what anyone else says, don't listen to them,
Speaker 3: and at the end of the day, to stay strong enough,
Speaker 3: long enough, you'll get there.
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's powerful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I got to tell myself every day
Speaker 3: because you deal with a lot of stuff every day.
Speaker 2: I think that's kind of where and correct me if
Speaker 2: you guys feel otherwise. Imposter syndrome can come from is
Speaker 2: when you're listening too much of what other people think
Speaker 2: of you instead of internalizing it and being like, no,
Speaker 2: this is my path, this is what I'm here to do.
Speaker 2: So you start questioning where you want to go or
Speaker 2: the position that you're currently and even though you worked
Speaker 2: hard and you're there for a reason.
Speaker 1: I think everybody to a degree have imposter syndrome, right,
Speaker 1: Like it comes from the insecurity of who you are
Speaker 1: until you have a solid definition. What takes time and age.
Speaker 1: Like I've always felt, man, they're going to find out
Speaker 1: that on set, I have no idea what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: They're kind of someone show.
Speaker 3: Up, you don't know, why are you? That's funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't celebrate when I found out about Grown
Speaker 2: Turmo because I was too scared. They're going to be like, wait,
Speaker 2: why why is she here? What's going on?
Speaker 3: It happens. It happens because there's so many voices out there,
Speaker 3: no matter what we think, they're just always going to
Speaker 3: seep in, no matter what. And then those voices are
Speaker 3: sometimes we internalize them and think they're our voices and
Speaker 3: they're not our voices. Like if we only listen to
Speaker 3: ourselves and nobody else, we will all go accomplish the
Speaker 3: biggest and best things.
Speaker 2: So too, You're supposed to talk to yourself like you
Speaker 2: would talk to like five year old you. You know,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't say, oh, that sucked. You messed up there.
Speaker 2: You'd be like, no, it's okay, keep trying.
Speaker 3: You got this speaking of kids, right, what age you
Speaker 3: start walking to? I don't know, two years old, I
Speaker 3: can't remember whatever age you start walking. We all felt
Speaker 3: hundreds and hundreds of times at any point. Did we
Speaker 3: ever be like, you know what, walking's not for me,
Speaker 3: I'm just not going to do it. No, We kept
Speaker 3: on pushing no matter what, because we all that it
Speaker 3: was possible. Somebody else did it, why can't we. Right,
Speaker 3: we've seen people do all the things that we're probably
Speaker 3: going after and trying to achieve. If they can do it,
Speaker 3: why can't we do it too as well? If you
Speaker 3: have the vision you see yourself doing it, just put action.
Speaker 3: You might fall a little bit more times than everybody else,
Speaker 3: but it's all right, Like you can continue to fail forward,
Speaker 3: Like at the end of the day, failing is just
Speaker 3: your first attempt in learning. I mean, just take that
Speaker 3: in every single time and you'll be all right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when you get to meet your heroes and
Speaker 1: like a true hero and you see them fail, it
Speaker 1: actually inspires you. You go, well, it's okay they do.
Speaker 1: I remember Denzel Washington had hired me on his first
Speaker 1: directing job. There's a film called Antoine Fisher, right, and
Speaker 1: I was so nervous, Like I was nervous, going, oh,
Speaker 1: they're going to find out I don't know what I'm doing, right,
Speaker 1: And he was directing and acting in it, and so
Speaker 1: I had this scene with him and the makeup artist was,
Speaker 1: you know, coming up to me to like check my
Speaker 1: face and egene, and he goes, are you all right?
Speaker 1: And I go, I'm so nervous, man, I'm gonna mess
Speaker 1: this up. And then he goes over to Denzell like
Speaker 1: he's nervous, nervous, he's totally ratting me out. And I
Speaker 1: hear he's nervous. What do you mean he's nervous?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: And then we're doing the scene and I had like
Speaker 1: one line it's like uh wait right there or something
Speaker 1: like that, shaking and sweating.
Speaker 4: I'm like and writing the line on my hand, right,
Speaker 4: I can't forget this one high, right, And then he
Speaker 4: comes over to me and he holds my hand right,
Speaker 4: and he goes, hey, don't worry about it, Like, if
Speaker 4: you mess up, this is film, will do the end.
Speaker 1: We'll do it again. Don't worry. And he goes, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna mess up. He goes watch right, he goes watch
Speaker 1: me today, and then I would see him do his
Speaker 1: scenes and he would mess up here and there, and
Speaker 1: you know, forget a line here and there, and then
Speaker 1: you know, he looks over at me. It kind of
Speaker 1: gives me this wink and I realized. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're there's nobody. No one's perfect. I mean, we're we're
Speaker 1: all gonna fall. And it's and it's your attitude on
Speaker 1: how you get up. And for me, it's really important
Speaker 1: like mentorship, you know, like meeting these like heroes of
Speaker 1: ours and and seeing that they are human too. They
Speaker 1: have to get up, they have to eat, they fall,
Speaker 1: they mess up. I think we're so afraid to fail
Speaker 1: or to fall on our face, right, Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that that's what makes you better. I mean it shows
Speaker 1: who you really are in the sense of like if
Speaker 1: you're able to get up and thust yourself off and
Speaker 1: continue exactly.
Speaker 2: So, what was the first I guess professional series you
Speaker 2: ran afterwards, when you started taking things more seriously than
Speaker 2: you already were.
Speaker 3: So twenty fifteen is when I decided, Hey, I'm going
Speaker 3: all in. I'm going to become a professional race car driver.
Speaker 3: I had just came off deployment. I was I spent
Speaker 3: like five months of my life out in the Middle East.
Speaker 3: I was on a ship. I was dreaming this whole thing,
Speaker 3: trying to figure out how to do it. Quickly realized
Speaker 3: racing costs a lot of money. I wasn't rich, so
Speaker 3: I had to start my own small business is just
Speaker 3: to make extra money to support myself in racing. And
Speaker 3: I did that once I came back from the deployment and
Speaker 3: lately yeah, oh yeah, that's a very important thing. Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: So I started putting on these drag racing events in
Speaker 3: Bakersfield for most of Raceway. They're awesome. I've been doing
Speaker 3: this with them since twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: Now that's my home dragstrip.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, it's it's the best one. Actually, it's
Speaker 3: the best one in California. It's the best one in
Speaker 3: the West actually. But I started putting on these events there.
Speaker 3: Basically I would use my knowledge of like Instagram, Facebook
Speaker 3: and social media and stuff to basically promote the crap
Speaker 3: out of these events.
Speaker 2: Were you scared you were going to lose money and
Speaker 2: not make your return on that?
Speaker 3: I was so afraid. But for whatever reason, I had
Speaker 3: the vision that I was going to become a pro
Speaker 3: driver and I wasn't getting any sponsorship during that time,
Speaker 3: so this was the only way to get money. So
Speaker 3: I remember I was in by rain in the Middle
Speaker 3: East when I first got this company. Going my first
Speaker 3: ticket sales, I was still on deployment. I was like,
Speaker 3: I had put it out on social media and I'm
Speaker 3: putting this event on in one of my friends he
Speaker 3: has his nicknames Nacho, but he has a twins Turbo Camaro,
Speaker 3: and I told him, hey, I'm putting on this event, dude,
Speaker 3: I would love if you could come, and he bought
Speaker 3: his first He was my first ticket sales ever. I
Speaker 3: think he bought like two hundred and seventy five dollars
Speaker 3: worth of like spectator tickets and racing tickets and all
Speaker 3: that stuff. I was so pumped then I was also
Speaker 3: so scared because I'm like, holy crap, I just made
Speaker 3: a sale. I have to have this event. Now there's
Speaker 3: no quitting. There's no going back. Eventually got enough people
Speaker 3: out there which covered my track rental, covered all the expenses,
Speaker 3: and then made a few bucks right enough to basically
Speaker 3: pay for my first race I did, which it was
Speaker 3: only a few grand, but it was enough. Right. It
Speaker 3: was a lot of stress, but it was enough. And
Speaker 3: did that, and then I needed more money to get
Speaker 3: to my next race. I did a crowdfunding campaign, made
Speaker 3: some extra money to do that, ran out of money
Speaker 3: right after that. Again, I was like, Okay, I need
Speaker 3: more money to get to my third race. Got my
Speaker 3: credit card, maxed it out to get to my third
Speaker 3: late Model race, and then after that literally had no
Speaker 3: more money. And once again, this is that point where
Speaker 3: everyone quits because they're like, I ran out of resources,
Speaker 3: it's time to quit. I was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: I saw myself becoming a pro driver in NASCAR. It's
Speaker 3: going to happen. Just don't quit. So I got on
Speaker 3: the phone and called and called and called, kept on networking, networking, networking.
Speaker 3: One person led me the other to the other, to
Speaker 3: the other, and then I eventually landed my first big
Speaker 3: sponsorship of twenty fifteen, which covered the rest of my
Speaker 3: late Model racing at Erwindale Speedway. And what he did
Speaker 3: was he had a son who ran a nonprofit organization
Speaker 3: and he was like, Hey, I'm going to sponsor your races,
Speaker 3: but I need you to work with this nonprofit because
Speaker 3: I need you to help them continue to get more awareness.
Speaker 3: And also you're also an arm that they can use
Speaker 3: to help with their veteran programs because they have a
Speaker 3: lot of stuff where they're doing these veteran experiences for
Speaker 3: those who have been wounded in combat. So I was like,
Speaker 3: this is perfect. I'm racing. We go to these tracks.
Speaker 3: We can bring these vets and their families, wounded vets
Speaker 3: and their family to the track. That's great, put them
Speaker 3: in suites, put their name on a race car, all
Speaker 3: that stuff. So we were doing all these cool things
Speaker 3: for these wounded vets and they were absolutely loving it.
Speaker 2: So for the Late Model, did you win your first
Speaker 2: few races?
Speaker 3: Now, if I would have won, and I think there
Speaker 3: have been something completely wrong. Most of the Late Model
Speaker 3: races that I ran, I was like midpack. So for
Speaker 3: me that was a positive sign because I'm like, Hey,
Speaker 3: I've never done this before and there's all these people
Speaker 3: here from racing. Yeah, like I'm like, I've never done
Speaker 3: this before, and these folks have been racing five years,
Speaker 3: ten years, twenty years some of them. I'm like, if
Speaker 3: I'm out running half of the field, that means like
Speaker 3: this is meant to be.
Speaker 2: Why did you go from road racing, let's say, to
Speaker 2: circle truck driving opportunity? Okay?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So if you look at all the different forms
Speaker 3: of racing in the US, right, the one that gets
Speaker 3: the most attention is NASCAR. It's been around a long
Speaker 3: time and it's just the most popular motorsport in the US.
Speaker 3: So for me, I looked at it as if I'm
Speaker 3: going to go up any motorsport route, I need to
Speaker 3: go up the route where it's going to be, I
Speaker 3: would say the easiest to find sponsorship, right, and sponsorship
Speaker 3: really comes with just viewership, and NASCAR got the most
Speaker 3: out of all the different racing forms in the US,
Speaker 3: So I figured that's the route I'm going to go through.
Speaker 3: And also I was different, right, I'm African American. I'm
Speaker 3: in the military active duty at that time. I'm in
Speaker 3: the reserves now. But to couple me being this naval
Speaker 3: officer racing and NASCAR, I felt like it was a
Speaker 3: great story, a lot of people could rally behind it,
Speaker 3: and I felt like a lot of companies with all
Speaker 3: their different military programs and their support, it would be
Speaker 3: something that they could help support.
Speaker 2: You look at it as a business, which is very smart.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you probably get the question all the time, Hey,
Speaker 3: how do I get a sponsor or I'm getting in
Speaker 3: the racing? You know, just the people ask that question
Speaker 3: thinking it's just go ask a company and they're going
Speaker 3: to fund your dreams.
Speaker 2: Probably one of the number one questions.
Speaker 3: No one wants to fund your dream If a company's
Speaker 3: going to put money into your racing, it's because they
Speaker 3: see some type of return on their investment. They're using
Speaker 3: you as a tool to basically get to where they
Speaker 3: need to go. Right, It's just straight business. It's nothing personal.
Speaker 3: That's just how it is. If they want to use
Speaker 3: me to advertise, well, it's going to also help me
Speaker 3: in racing too. So you have to look at it
Speaker 3: on both sides, where it's like if they put a
Speaker 3: thousand into me, ten thousand, a million, five million, six million,
Speaker 3: that I'm doing everything possible, So every single dollar actually
Speaker 3: makes sense for them and they're getting something out of
Speaker 3: it or else you will never see that smontship again.
Speaker 2: Did you always think this way or is this.
Speaker 3: Something you learned does since the beginning? Because I was
Speaker 3: fortunate enough to not come from the racing world, right,
Speaker 3: So I didn't come up just thinking, Hey, just be
Speaker 3: a really, really good driver and it's just all going
Speaker 3: to take care of itself, because it's not. I've seen.
Speaker 3: I've seen. I've watched drivers in NASCAR win a championship
Speaker 3: in the very next season be sitting on accounts because
Speaker 3: they ran out of funding. They don't they don't have anymore.
Speaker 3: So when I saw that, learning the marketing side, learning
Speaker 3: how to fund raise, learning how to give a good
Speaker 3: return on your investment to the people that are funding you.
Speaker 3: Doing all that will keep you in. You can get
Speaker 3: good at racing. You can learn over time. You might
Speaker 3: suck at first, but it takes understanding the marketing side
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, walk us through. Then your first NASCAR race, did
Speaker 2: a team reach out to you? What was that next
Speaker 2: step for you? So?
Speaker 1: Are you winning?
Speaker 3: No? No? It wasn't winning. No, No, I know. So
Speaker 3: that's the crazy thing about racing, right, So you can
Speaker 3: win all the races you want. There are short track
Speaker 3: guys who race late models all around the country who've
Speaker 3: won so many races and never made it up to
Speaker 3: the next level. There's multiple levels of NASCAR, right, So
Speaker 3: you have your late models just local LASCAR, weekly NASCAR,
Speaker 3: it's not on TV or anything like that. You have
Speaker 3: your ARCA Series. Now you're not on the national stage.
Speaker 3: You're just regional stage down. Once you get up to
Speaker 3: the national series, that's when you have the NASCAR Truck Series,
Speaker 3: Xfinity Series, and then the.
Speaker 2: Cup Series, and Cup is the highest you can go.
Speaker 3: Cup is the highest you can go. Yeah, I haven't
Speaker 3: run any Cup races. Not there yet. I gotta get
Speaker 3: better and find more money. But I've so far run
Speaker 3: ARCA trucks and Exfinity.
Speaker 2: So you're working your way up there pretty well. Yeah,
Speaker 2: considering you start in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's incredible.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And I still have a long way to
Speaker 3: go and no way to say or form. Am I
Speaker 3: the best out there at all? Like I'm still learning
Speaker 3: a lot. I have good days and I have terrible days.
Speaker 2: They changed everything of this year, right.
Speaker 3: Everything for Cup. They changed the body, they changed the chassis,
Speaker 3: they changed the drive train, like from the motor transmission, everything.
Speaker 3: I mean, even wheels now they got I think eighteen
Speaker 3: wheels eighteen months.
Speaker 1: So where the changes for safe? Their quickness, that's.
Speaker 2: Safe, the modernization, I think, and I'm you know, I
Speaker 2: this is just what i've what I've read, what I've heard.
Speaker 2: I don't know why they change. I think just to
Speaker 2: grow and scales of business and keep things fresh and fun.
Speaker 3: They're probably thinking long term vision too, you know, nascars
Speaker 3: really trying to open up its audience. Even I feel
Speaker 3: like F one has grown in popularity now in the US,
Speaker 3: so with more street courses probably coming for F one
Speaker 3: in the US and all that stuff, NASCAR is also
Speaker 3: doing more street course stuff. So all these different changes,
Speaker 3: I think they just want to make sure that these
Speaker 3: cars can run not only just on the ovals, but
Speaker 3: really well on the road courses as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's important because a lot of people when they
Speaker 2: hear NASCAR, they think oval track, But NASCAR does a
Speaker 2: lot of road courses. Yeah, they do.
Speaker 1: Could you explain how a race team could justify having
Speaker 1: four hundred million dollar budget or a thirty million dollars NASCAR,
Speaker 1: because there used to be this like you win on
Speaker 1: Sundays and you sell the car.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right, so I got to
Speaker 3: grow from that to yeah, where it's at now. Competition. Right,
Speaker 3: So you're a team. Let's say you have you know what,
Speaker 3: forty teams or whatever. You got all these teams, right,
Speaker 3: and you see your neighbor team and they're like, Hey,
Speaker 3: we're going to go test this new idea. We think,
Speaker 3: you know that we can use on the car to
Speaker 3: make it faster. Right. They're like, well, if they're testing that,
Speaker 3: then we need to create something like that and test it.
Speaker 3: And they're like, okay, if you create that, then I'm
Speaker 3: gonna go spend ten more dollars to create this. For
Speaker 3: the big teams. If Joe Gibbs is doing X, then
Speaker 3: Hendrick and all them they're gonna try X as well
Speaker 3: because if that gives them the advantage, then they can
Speaker 3: go win and be on top. It's just a competition.
Speaker 1: That's car. The NASCAR Cup Series cars look kind of
Speaker 1: all the same.
Speaker 3: They look yeah, they're not they're not, they're not. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there is innovation and maybe it's some funny
Speaker 1: business that can happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's there's some there's some documentary stuff on that
Speaker 3: like on how people try to script by the rules.
Speaker 3: But yeah, all of the cars do look very similar
Speaker 3: on the outside. It's not that they're doing anything majorly different.
Speaker 3: It's just like, how can I get an eighth of
Speaker 3: inch here, a quarter of inch there, an eighth of
Speaker 3: an inch there, Because all those little minute details end
Speaker 3: up adding up in the long run. You might you
Speaker 3: might not see it with a car standing still, but
Speaker 3: once you start moving you're going one hundred and eighty
Speaker 3: one hundred and ninety miles per hour, every little thing
Speaker 3: you just did at zero miles proor now gets amplified
Speaker 3: to a lot more. All of a sudden, you are
Speaker 3: a tenth quicker, and that tenth that you're quicker, after
Speaker 3: two hundred, two hundred and fifty laps, you're how many
Speaker 3: seconds ahead of your competitor. So that's all you're looking
Speaker 3: for is these minor, minor, minor details which puts you
Speaker 3: just a little bit ahead. And at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, you only have to win by point zero
Speaker 3: zero zero zero zero one to win a race.
Speaker 1: In your experience, when you meet all of these great drivers, right,
Speaker 1: what makes a good driver? What are the character traits
Speaker 1: that you see?
Speaker 3: What makes a good driver to me someone who one
Speaker 3: has all the patients in the world right, because you
Speaker 3: can't win the race on the first lap. In order
Speaker 3: to finish first, you must first finish, so patients is key. Focused.
Speaker 3: I think the most elite drivers have the most insane focus.
Speaker 3: They're able to get on the track and just hit
Speaker 3: their line every single lap, over and over and over
Speaker 3: and literally get to the same point, are within a
Speaker 3: few inches of the same point every single lap, and
Speaker 3: then as their car is either falling off or getting
Speaker 3: better throughout the race, they can adjust their lines to
Speaker 3: make it work, but they find the ragged edge and
Speaker 3: they stay on the ragged edge every single lap as
Speaker 3: much as possible. If you are driving a car and
Speaker 3: it's way too comfortable, then you're probably not going fast enough.
Speaker 3: You got to find where that line is, find a
Speaker 3: way to maybe barely overstep it a little bit, bring
Speaker 3: it back just a little bit, and do that every
Speaker 3: single lap. And the drivers that can do that the
Speaker 3: best are the ones who end up having the best
Speaker 3: races and usually usually will win as long as you
Speaker 3: don't get taken out. You know, there's some drivers who
Speaker 3: have terrible races or the car feels horrible and they
Speaker 3: only have to lead one lap, which is the last,
Speaker 3: and then they win.
Speaker 2: Do you have like a routine before every race, something
Speaker 2: that you have to even superstitious, or like a workout
Speaker 2: routine or something that has to be done, and then
Speaker 2: also how do you prepare for a race?
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely don't do a workout before the race. I
Speaker 3: see other drivers do that. They go like on these
Speaker 3: multi mile bike rides, and for me, I'm like, aren't
Speaker 3: you like sweating too much? You're gonna be dehydrated before
Speaker 3: the race. For me, my routine each day on race
Speaker 3: day is to figure out a way to stay as calm,
Speaker 3: cool and collected as possible, because you got to be
Speaker 3: able to focus. When I played football, I had to
Speaker 3: get as hyped as possible before a game because you're
Speaker 3: like a human being about to put your body through
Speaker 3: another human being multiple times. Like that's not like normal,
Speaker 3: so you got to get like hyped up for it.
Speaker 3: Whereas for racing, I'm like, hey, I gotta be calm
Speaker 3: because I don't want to make any mistakes. And for me,
Speaker 3: my routine is really just dangkom cool and collected, drinking
Speaker 3: a ton of water. Right. Designing water all day, and
Speaker 3: I want to make sure that my car is as
Speaker 3: fast as it Sminity Tenji, and also make sure I
Speaker 3: have my phone on me, which is AT and T
Speaker 3: the largest nature ye network with the fewest drop calls
Speaker 3: and also an LT network you can trust at and
Speaker 3: T the News Singular. They're not sponsoring me though, but
Speaker 3: that was so good.
Speaker 1: This is something that the listeners need to learn from you, Jess,
Speaker 1: is that at the end of the day, you can't
Speaker 1: take it personal. It's like even in Hollywood, if you
Speaker 1: see yourself and you understand the business that you are
Speaker 1: a product. At the end of the day, if you're
Speaker 1: the buyer, why am I going to choose you this
Speaker 1: product at and T over T Mobile?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Right now you have to be able to pitch that yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, it's it's absolutely you got to be
Speaker 3: ready at all times to be able to just drop it.
Speaker 1: But a lot of yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 3: I always make sure I pray, you know, before the races.
Speaker 3: Got the end of the day, it's in God's hand.
Speaker 2: Do you do you eat the same breakfast every day? Like,
Speaker 2: is there something that has to be the same every day?
Speaker 3: You know what I don't, but I usually love eating
Speaker 3: Chick fil A, So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: A sponsor, it's not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one of the one of these days I need
Speaker 3: some Chick fil A in my life.
Speaker 1: I love Chick fil A. It's so good, it's so.
Speaker 3: Good, like amazing. But yeah, I try to eat that
Speaker 3: usually on race day because it's like, for whatever reason,
Speaker 3: it's like a light enough meal to me, plenty enough
Speaker 3: calories and it's like not.
Speaker 2: Calories, protein, good immediate sugars.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, Chick fil A.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not healthy.
Speaker 2: Not healthy. I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's healthy.
Speaker 3: Healthy, I'm saying.
Speaker 2: I'm saying because you have fast when it comes to carbohydrates, No,
Speaker 2: you have your fast releasing and you're in your slow
Speaker 2: releasing and fast is you know, like your your white
Speaker 2: white rice versus you know, your complex carbohydrates soutrition. So
Speaker 2: I can see why that's a good go to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I eat. And like I said, hydration
Speaker 3: is key, right, We lose a lot of water in
Speaker 3: these race cars. So everybody out there who's like I
Speaker 3: want to be a race car driver, you better be
Speaker 3: ready to sweat your butt off in a race car.
Speaker 3: Any normal hot race day, I will lose five to
Speaker 3: six pounds of water in one race.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so are you putting like electrolytes in your water?
Speaker 2: Are you like eating straight sugar after the races to
Speaker 2: replenish glycogen levels?
Speaker 3: Like so yeah on the electrolytes side, No need to
Speaker 3: put it in the water, right, because all I do
Speaker 3: is just go grab a power aide, right, But they're
Speaker 3: all far Cocacola. This is great, grab a power aid,
Speaker 3: a drink, a power aid because that's plenty of electrolytes.
Speaker 3: Because it's not just only water that's going to get
Speaker 3: you buy. You can have all the water in the world,
Speaker 3: but if you don't have all the right ingredients that
Speaker 3: are keeping your body going, you're gonna cramp. And I've
Speaker 3: never cramped playing football in my life, and I've played
Speaker 3: at the highest level of college football. I've cramped in.
Speaker 2: A race car during a race.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's not good. It was my right leg too,
Speaker 3: so my gas pedal leg, my hamstring. Have you got
Speaker 3: a Charlie horse before, Yeah? Yeah. Imagine getting one in
Speaker 3: the race car and you can't move around. You can't
Speaker 3: there's no stretching. So imagine getting a Charlie horse and
Speaker 3: just taking.
Speaker 1: It, so elect your lights help them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you have to have plenty of
Speaker 3: it leading up. You can't wait till race day. You
Speaker 3: have to start at least two to three days beforehand.
Speaker 3: Some people will say you gotta start seven days. You
Speaker 3: don't need to start seven days at least, I don't
Speaker 3: have to start.
Speaker 1: And want to ask the scientist what electric lights are
Speaker 1: and he goes, ah, that's good for you.
Speaker 3: It's just the minerals your body. Yeah, yeah, so potassium,
Speaker 3: and I don't know what the other ones are, seeing
Speaker 3: as it is different. It's just ingredients that your muscles
Speaker 3: need to operate, right, So you need water for sure,
Speaker 3: but there's also these other little ingredients that it needs,
Speaker 3: like the salts and all that stuff. To make sure
Speaker 3: that they do with it, because if they don't have it,
Speaker 3: they will cramp. I've seen people go full body cramps
Speaker 3: on racing, but in football, and it's not cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that happens in swimming, right, Yeah it was a swimmer.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you ever got a cramp in
Speaker 1: the water, if you feel like you start drowning, Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all about I would load us up with bananas.
Speaker 3: Yes, bananas, are a great way too.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, do you practice on the truck before the
Speaker 2: actual events.
Speaker 3: They do not let us practice at all. You cannot test,
Speaker 3: so your only practice you get is race day, like
Speaker 3: the set practice that NASCAR has. It's just twenty minutes.
Speaker 2: Would you get in trouble if you just run out
Speaker 2: of the track.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, like yeah, I mean if you could. Yeah,
Speaker 3: if you get caught, it's massive penalties. You cannot go
Speaker 3: testing because that's how they help us. That's how they
Speaker 3: help us save money is by making it to where
Speaker 3: they don't let anyone test, because if they.
Speaker 2: Do, like yeah, that's fair, then be an unfair advantage
Speaker 2: and someone would just run it out for.
Speaker 3: Weeks before yeah yeah, yeah, they do that, and they
Speaker 3: spend all the money. And what about the small teams.
Speaker 3: We don't have the money to go rent tracks and
Speaker 3: for multiple days. It's just too much. So that's how
Speaker 3: they help us save some money. But it also makes
Speaker 3: it harder because let's say you've never been to this track.
Speaker 3: You get twenty minutes when you get there to practice
Speaker 3: twenty minutes. And by the way, these laps are, depending
Speaker 3: on the track, anywhere from thirty seconds to road course
Speaker 3: tracks sometimes two minutes, so you might only get five
Speaker 3: six laps of practice period and now you have to
Speaker 3: go race on national TV. So even though we can't
Speaker 3: test at the tracks running, you can't test anywhere, so
Speaker 3: it's not really any anywhere. The car does not turn
Speaker 3: on to drive until you are on track for practice pretty.
Speaker 2: Much, so they'll fire the car, make sure it runs
Speaker 2: and yeah that's yeah, So they run on a dynam
Speaker 2: make sure it goes through the gears properly. But when
Speaker 2: it comes do actually cornering, like.
Speaker 3: Not to the first corner and your first laps on track,
Speaker 3: I mean, you're the moment it hits green flag for practice,
Speaker 3: you are wide open hauling the mail into the corner
Speaker 3: and you better hope it sticks and you better hold
Speaker 3: everything works.
Speaker 1: So days have done. There was misleading.
Speaker 3: Time because times have changed. So back then you used
Speaker 3: to be able to test and like so that's why
Speaker 3: NASCAR got away from it because they're like, hey, this
Speaker 3: is costing these teams a lot of money, like they're
Speaker 3: running these tracks doing you know, imagine someone going to
Speaker 3: renting Daytona to go practice. You know that's just crazy. So, yes,
Speaker 3: you used to be able to test back in the day,
Speaker 3: but I think I can't remember when they changed the rule,
Speaker 3: but over the last few years they basically cut down
Speaker 3: to where at first they're like, okay, teams can only
Speaker 3: test like a couple times or so. Then it make
Speaker 3: it's where only rookies can test, and now it's just
Speaker 3: like basically only people can actually go do a test.
Speaker 3: Is a rookie, you have to be a real rookie,
Speaker 3: like never race that series before.
Speaker 2: Fortunately, though modern technology, there's sim racing, so you want
Speaker 2: to get familiar with the track. I'd imagine you have
Speaker 2: a simulator that you practice.
Speaker 3: On, YEP. So that's what helped me a lot to
Speaker 3: get into racing. So when I was even getting into
Speaker 3: late models, I was like, I've never driven a late model,
Speaker 3: and even though I went and tested the late you
Speaker 3: can test late models. So it's just once you get
Speaker 3: to a national series you can't test anymore, but stuff
Speaker 3: below that you can do some testing. And so I
Speaker 3: got on my simulator and trained because in the Navy
Speaker 3: we trained on simulators before we got to the real thing,
Speaker 3: So I learned how to drive a ship on a
Speaker 3: ship simulator. Yeah, so when I was getting the racing,
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, we got ship simulators in the Navy, Like,
Speaker 3: I wonder if they have racing similarities in racing. So
Speaker 3: I got a racing simulator trained on there used you
Speaker 3: know I Racing, I Racing, you know, one of the
Speaker 3: better ones for NASCAR stuff. Did that and then that
Speaker 3: helped me out a ton. Once that helped me, I
Speaker 3: knew that it would help other people. So I actually
Speaker 3: started my own sim racing league called E Racing Association.
Speaker 3: And if you have like I Racing or even some
Speaker 3: other platforms. We even do Mario Kart events and stuff
Speaker 3: like that. Yeah. Yeah, So we put on events and
Speaker 3: people can win real cash money.
Speaker 2: So how does someone join that?
Speaker 3: If they go to www dot e r a gaming
Speaker 3: dot gg they can register for our events. And we
Speaker 3: actually just had one last night. The winner of our
Speaker 3: event at home, they're sitting in their home on a simulator,
Speaker 3: won four thousand dollars to win the event. Four thousand
Speaker 3: to be at home and playing on the SIAM.
Speaker 1: Jess, I want to talk about a lot of kids today.
Speaker 1: They're opting out not to go to college because it's
Speaker 1: so expensive. But if you were to talk to your
Speaker 1: younger self today and where you are you know, in
Speaker 1: terms of like your career choices, do you think going
Speaker 1: to university is important today? It's so expensive?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know it is expensive. I can tell people this.
Speaker 3: You don't need universities and colleges to go make it
Speaker 3: in life, right, but I highly suggest it because it
Speaker 3: teaches you a lot of things. You can go to
Speaker 3: school and yeah, like the the I don't know calculus.
Speaker 3: I did a lot of classes at the academy. The
Speaker 3: negus do Calculus one, Calculus two, Calculus three, Physics one,
Speaker 3: Physics two. I got through algebra, thermo dynamics, all that stuff.
Speaker 3: So all that is great and all, but I'm not
Speaker 3: really using those things I learned in there in my
Speaker 3: normal world. Right now, you are going to learn how
Speaker 3: to critically think past what you learn in high school.
Speaker 3: Right They're going to give you problems. It doesn't matter
Speaker 3: what the problems are. They're giving you problems, and you're
Speaker 3: gonna learn how to solve problems and not complain about it.
Speaker 3: Right now, the formulas and the theories, who cares about that.
Speaker 3: That's not the point of college. A point is to
Speaker 3: go learn how to critically think and solve problems and
Speaker 3: do it with your peers because you're gonna have a
Speaker 3: lot of group projects. You're gonna learn how to be
Speaker 3: how to live on your own and be away from
Speaker 3: your parents. Right. You got too many people who you know,
Speaker 3: they never they never leave their their nest because they're
Speaker 3: too scared or whatever it is. And it's just like, hey,
Speaker 3: you can and you can leave, you can go, you
Speaker 3: can be on your own. That's what college taught me,
Speaker 3: how to be on my own and how to critically think.
Speaker 3: And I don't remember half the things I learned in college,
Speaker 3: but I do remember those two things, and that's what
Speaker 3: basically helped me get into everything else I've gotten to
Speaker 3: in life because I learned how to critically think at
Speaker 3: a younger age. You can go learn how to critically
Speaker 3: think and a lot of other things. But if you
Speaker 3: do have the opportunity, go do it. Don't get in
Speaker 3: a lot of debt to do it though, So I
Speaker 3: high they should just get in scholarships and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: But you know, just be smart.
Speaker 2: I can't ask you a weird question, what time do
Speaker 2: you wake up at every day?
Speaker 3: I'm not like a crazy early riser, so I would assume.
Speaker 2: So I don't know why yeah, No.
Speaker 3: I'm not. I'm like, like usually, yeah, seven to seven
Speaker 3: thirty or something.
Speaker 2: In the navy, what time do they make you guys
Speaker 2: wake up at.
Speaker 3: It depends right what you're doing. So on the ship,
Speaker 3: we all had weird hours because we're on watch at
Speaker 3: different times. You know, there is a time where the
Speaker 3: ship goes into working hours, you know, at seven am,
Speaker 3: so you know, depending on what you're doing, yeah, you
Speaker 3: got to be up by six something, but it's not
Speaker 3: that we got to every day be up at like
Speaker 3: five am, four am or something crazy like that.
Speaker 1: You'll start waking up really early, both of you and
Speaker 1: you get older.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's going to.
Speaker 1: Get older because you guys are young when you get older.
Speaker 1: Because I used to be able to sleep till two pm.
Speaker 2: So I can't do that, but I still need like
Speaker 2: my eight hour.
Speaker 1: Special skill on my resume was sleeping, right and now
Speaker 1: for me, yeah, now I wake up at four am,
Speaker 1: like yeah, four, and I'm up and sometimes I wake
Speaker 1: up at two up at two twenty and then I
Speaker 1: have to I sit there and I'm like, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I wish I could go back to bed. What time
Speaker 1: do you go to sleep at though I try to
Speaker 1: go to sleep around like ten eleven. You don't need
Speaker 1: a whole lot of you do I do.
Speaker 2: I just can't sleep.
Speaker 1: It's I prefer eight hours. Then I feel really healthy.
Speaker 1: But you get older and just I think it's because
Speaker 1: as you get older, we have less time on this earth,
Speaker 1: so something kicks in your body is like, no, you
Speaker 1: gotta you don't have much time left go do something life,
Speaker 1: so just just enjoy it. You guys enjoy like, yeah,
Speaker 1: really enjoy it. But Jesse, we could sit here and
Speaker 1: talk to you for hours.
Speaker 2: This has been such a joy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, learned a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: No, this is great. I think it's great. Great for
Speaker 1: the audience to listen to this, to learn from them,
Speaker 1: because you can apply your lessons to anything.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I think from here on, I'll like approach me as
Speaker 1: like a product within the Hollywood system. It's like very clear,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't feel like I'm alone in my thinking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for coming on.
Speaker 3: Definitely, thank you for having me.