00:00:14 Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukham and this is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Rendered where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast, presented by FHF Gear, American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the place as we explore. 00:00:47 Speaker 2: So we're in Charlotte, North Carolina. 00:00:50 Speaker 3: With Concord technically Concord, North Carolina, about twenty miles northeast. 00:00:55 Speaker 2: Suburb of Charlotte, North Charlotte. Yes, at the track House Race Team Global headquarters. Huge facility. Unbelievable. 00:01:03 Speaker 3: Yeah, for NASCAR, this is where all the magic happens. All of our cars come out of here. We come back with our semi hollers here every week before headed out of the next race. 00:01:12 Speaker 2: Man, I mean we just got here. I've been with you for a few days here. I'm astonished. I'm with Ross Chastain, who told me not to say this, but I'm gonna say it. Six time Cup winner, NASCAR Cup winner. 00:01:30 Speaker 3: Yes, technically, as we were trying to get how you would introduce me, we have won six Cup races in the number one car for trackhouse racing. So that goes back to our very first win as a team in twenty twenty two at Circuit of the America's down in Austin, Texas. And my most recent win was the Coca Cola six hundred this year. I'm Amorial Day Sunday. 00:01:51 Speaker 2: That means these really good folks. Just in case you weren't able to interpret that, that means that you're good man. So Ross and I have been together. We've been deer hunting and Georgia. Yeah, we've had a good time. So so you're a NASCAR driver. But what is the second thing that you would introduce yourself Probably the first thing that you would introduce yourself. 00:02:14 Speaker 3: As is a watermelon farmer. 00:02:16 Speaker 2: There's our watermelon. 00:02:17 Speaker 3: I know we've forgot it. 00:02:19 Speaker 2: It's in your truck. 00:02:19 Speaker 3: It is. 00:02:20 Speaker 2: We we've had a watermelon that we've been carrying around through multiple states that we were supposed to have here it is. 00:02:27 Speaker 3: But you're an eighth generation watermelon farmer. Yeah, so I'm really the son of a farmer. Like I use that as a term of endearment like that is I'm proud to say that. You know, the term son of a usually doesn't have a good ending. Mine is a good ending. I'm proud to be the son of a farmer. I'm the brother of a farmer, the cousin of a farmer. So my job is to tell the story of agriculture. I'm not the one out in the field. I can show you the field. I've grown up in these fields, right But day in and day out, my job is right here at Trackhouse Racing. 00:03:00 Speaker 2: But that would have been your trajectory if you hadn't been a phenom racer as a kid and turned into this NASCAR driver. So there's as I've learned, there's there's a lot of different great ways to get into NASCAR, but at the end of the day, there's only like forty guys in the world that get to race NASCAR. Is that about right? 00:03:22 Speaker 3: Yeah? Guaranteed, thirty six cars are going to start every race. That's part of our charter system, which is a bit of an uproar right now with lawsuits and teams fighting NASCAR and court the courts are involved. But right now, the way it stands, thirty six cars will start every race in the Cup Series, and then there's up to four more spots up to forty a specialty can be forty one. We can run an extra car if the situation's right and everybody agrees. But it definitely is a very exclusive groups. It's similar to a single position in a football team, right, There's only so many quarterbacks really, that's that. Even even though each team has several in the lineup like as backups. We have three cars that operate out of this shop. This year, our reserve driver has been Connor Zilich, who is now being promoted into the third car starting next season for his first full time cup entry. So yes, my path was as a kid, I followed in my dad's footsteps, the sugar sand of South Florida and the watermelon fields that we grow in. You leave a print when you walk. Everything, tire tracks, animal tracks, everything, your boots. So I would as a kid walk and have to jump. I usually had like rubber boots on, those black rubber boots with the orange bottoms. As a kid, I love those things and I would jump to follow my dad. Into my head, I thought that was following in my dad's footsteps. 00:04:49 Speaker 2: You, I wanted heard somebody say that phrase, he's following his dad's footsteps. You actually took that. 00:04:57 Speaker 3: I did it and I jump, and I would jump, and I want to to be like my dad, my granddaddy, my great grandfather's sister before that. So it just didn't work out. I fell in love with racing at twelve years old. Never had a thought. I never had a belief that it would work, that NASCAR would work for me. 00:05:15 Speaker 2: Don't you don't start when you're twelve and have a realistic dream to become one of thirty six drivers in the world. 00:05:22 Speaker 3: A lot of people do, a lot of people that I raced against told. 00:05:25 Speaker 2: Well, a lot of people it's unreally, it doesn't happen right. But they a kid wanted to play NBA and not being able. 00:05:29 Speaker 3: To do it right, But they have that dream and they work towards it. And there was kids working towards that in two thousand and seven racing against me in Southwest Florida. I'm the only one that got here, like some of them were better than me. But the way the business side works, the way I think that the work ethic that my family instilled in me to just keep getting up and going at it. I spent years to get here. When people they'll give me a hard time because like my calendar is pretty full. I'm kind of down to the minute on race day, sket things. Even during the week, there's a lot a lot of nights I'm not at home. I tell them, I worked really hard to be this busy. I wasn't always this busy. I worked and built this brand and built this life and career. But that wasn't at twelve. That really got serious. When I was eighteen. 00:06:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, well, the more I've seen the inside of this, I mean, you are a professional athlete. You're handled like a professional athlete. But I mean, now that I think about it, we're big NBA fans, not big NBA. We're lower tier, serious NBA fans, And at any given time in the NBA, I don't know the a couple hundred players, maybe more than that. And so when I think about what you're doing, you're one of forty thirty six that are in NASCAR. And so I want to explain NASCAR just a little bit because I have not I'm new to NASCAR, new to understanding how it works. And so NASCAR is the North American Stock Car Association something NASCAR senys for North American stock Car Not sure what the ar At the end. 00:07:15 Speaker 3: Stay you're close what is it. It's the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. Okay, NASCAR, Okay, got I also think they went that's a NASCAR, and someone said, let's call it that NASCAR. 00:07:28 Speaker 2: It works, it's a good it rolls off the tongue. 00:07:30 Speaker 3: It does. And that is the premier stock car racing series in the world for fenders, for fendered cars. You have Open Wheel with IndyCar here in America, North America, and then you've got Formula One with races across the globe that is not anything like what we do. We are a Florida owned company. The league is owned by a family and well theyton't to Beach, Florida, the France family. They've built this. I mean they had a lot of help. They've built this sport. They've built their Brandy on the track. On about half the tracks. They worked with the Smith family on the others. There's a couple of private tracks. But they have built a world that has provided a life for so many of us. And I'm selfishly one of them that has benefited from NASCAR Beyond my wildest dreams. This this shop wouldn't be here. This was formerly a different name shop. This was Chip Gannassi Racing. Chip Gannassis, a guy out of Pittsburgh, has an IndyCar team is winning all of the IndyCar Championships right now. Races over there win sports Car Races has over the years operated this team. It was his time to get out and now Justin Marx is our owner in track House Racing. So it's crazy to think about the life I've been able to build in this sport. And I couldn't do it without the league, NASCAR, the France family and their thought process and how they built it decades ago. We're over seventy five years old as a league. But for the chastains, we were watermelon farmers that fell in love with racing at our local short track and we have grown all the way into the Cup Series where we've now won races. 00:09:04 Speaker 2: It's incredible. So you you just were a gifted racer and a driver as a kid, and then you just started winning. Like I heard your dad talking, I met your dad, spend a little bit of time with him, and you you just started winning. And so it was like you just kind of kept inching up in competition until you got to the top of kind of the I don't know if it be amateur, you got to the top and there was nowhere else to go but to the big leagues. I mean, and so, and what's interesting to me is that, as we've seen, there's different pathways where that happens with people. Some people are born into it. I mean, like even I know about Dale Junior and phenomenal racer and everything I know about him, Like he wasn't just given that, but you know, his dad was like one of the most famous guys ever. And but so there's different path pathways to get into this. And and uh, I think your pathway is unique and cool. How many other guys would have been like that in the circuit that would have just kind of started from really zero. 00:10:13 Speaker 3: I mean, there's there's some there's a good mix. Yeah, well we all. I don't think that any driver in the Cup Series just woke up one day and then they themselves if they're there currently, they didn't wake up and say I want to be a NASCAR They were molded by somebody. Somebody introduced them to the sport. It's no different than outdoors. It's definitely not different than agriculture. Somebody has to lay the groundwork for you. And I think that that's a continual it's like a bright spot to spotlight about. Like human beings, we we tried to make it better for the next group. Now there is that cycle of like hard times create hard people, which create soft people, which create bad times, which create hard time. It's like, you know, that could be a cycle. But in the right frame of mind and the right circumstances, people can make it better for the next generation. They can leave a piece of land better for the next generation than they found it. And that's through land management and a lot of stuff on the agriculture hunting side. But in racing, I'd say it's a good mix. There's racers with names Elliott Blaney that you know like you just know that name because there was somebody that raced before them. Nobody knew who the last name Larsen was before Kyle got to the sport. Nobody knew who the last name Chastain was. Nobody knew who the last name Suarez was until he got here, came to the States and chased a dream of racing in the Professional American League of NASCAR, coming in from Monterey, Mexico. So I'd say it's a mix. I don't know what the number with the what the percentages are, but it's a good mix. 00:11:50 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and so part of the reason. Oh man, there's so many different things I want to talk to you about. We're gonna start with watermelons. Your family, the Chastain name, like inside the watermelon World, y'all are supplying most of the East Coast with watermelons that you're brokering, basically growing but also brokering. 00:12:18 Speaker 3: Is that right, yes, sir, Yeah. So our ag story goes way back. The first just like a quick story is the first Chastain came over from France in seventeen hundred on a big ship with a bunch of people. They were part of a religious group, some sort of a Huguenot. I'm a little fuzzy on all those details. But they landed and had a track of land outside of Richmond up the river that they were given if they would come homestead it. And from there they had to start growing food to survive. So they did, and then they started going south. I don't know if it was too cold story as they went into South Carolina and then into Georgia, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, and they were there until the nineteen fifties. That's where it becomes very clear because my grandfather was born and raised in o'clotney, Georgia, near Thomasville. It's kind of due north of Tallahassee, Florida, and that was not a good life. But we can go back eight generations for my brother Chad and I and track the watermelons specifically. They were farming the whole time. You had to. It was just the way the world was, and we've been fortunate enough to stay in it. And my great grandfather sister moved the family to South Florida in the fifties after my grandfather graduated high school. They were down there about a year and my grandfather and my great uncle, his brother, they enlisted in the service because life wasn't even that good in South Florida. Now you traded nats for mosquitoes and it was hot. They went into the service, skinny, came out a lot fatter, they had three meals a day. They had they were like, this is the life amazing. So looking back at that those times in South Georgia, they were going watermelons, but they were not the early ones they want for domestically in the States, water mils were coming out of Florida getting the good market, good price per pound, and then as it would come north, they got paid a lot less. And my great grandfather was looking at that and ended up moving the family south. And so we've got to go for that earlier crop. And that's where it flourished, just the weather, just being able to. 00:14:20 Speaker 2: Grow, chasing the best watermelon crop possible. 00:14:24 Speaker 3: Yea too. 00:14:25 Speaker 2: I mean it was financial that. I mean they were trying to make it living, but. 00:14:29 Speaker 3: They were not gonna be able to stay in ag stay in farming in South Georgia. The way it was going that it just wasn't They were not the good old days. And that's where my grandmother and grandfather ended up meeting. And our family has flourished and we're all in a small pocket down there near Fort Myers. It was Florida, and then we've partnered with other people. My uncle decided to you know, partner with like minded people. Met Hamilton dis out of South Carolina and John Lapede out of Northeast up in New Jersey, New York, and they partnered together over thirty years ago, created melon one they wanted to Before that, it was the stories are that it was live loading watermelons into bulk semis with like straw on the floor, and then that semi would drive store to store and out the side door would unload into your pickley wiggley, go over to the Walmart, unload, go over to the whatever food line, unload. And the the grocery store industry was also evolving where their distribution centers were becoming more prevalent. The palette cardboard bins on pallettes were becoming the way things were working. And so they wanted to take my dad's crop, Richie's crop, my uncle even Hammy's crop in South Carolina and say, let's not wait until like the week that we harvest it to sell it. Let's like try to sell it like nine months ahead of time or one year ahead of time. Let's do some somet' Let's let's try to stabilize this a bit. Let's lock in some prices that we know we can survive on. And they did that, and and other people were doing it too. But that changed the game for the Chastains, and that solidified us to where we've been able to grow in the industry, partner with other families. The Green family line Arms who we've been hunting with Daniel. Now seeing Ben grow into that role with his dad is really cool. The pluses they're in cordial Anthony Brown, Darryl lewis that group. 00:16:27 Speaker 2: It's he's named driving Watermelon Farmers. 00:16:30 Speaker 3: Now, people that we met, We're not going to show everybody, but it's it's on camera, but it's it's a it's a network of about thirty farmers. So we can sell watermelons three hundred sixty five days a year. And that's what we're proud of that it's not Chastain Farms anymore. It's bigger than us, and we're proud that it's melon one selfishly for us mel On. The watermelon industry is a big family though, and I do want to say we are competitors with a lot of people, but I promote all watermelons. When I mash a watermelon, I might get it from one of our competitors. I'll have our competitors out of the races. People that my family is directly competing to sell to a produce buyer at a chain store. I'm in the middle. I'm like, yes, of course, I want my family to do good and provide for ourselves. But I'm going to have the Lagiers, I'm gonna have the Gibsons out at races whenever they want, and anybody in the watermelon industry knows they're always welcome. That's it's a unique thing about the watermelon industry. It's a family first. 00:17:26 Speaker 2: Well, I consider myself in the watermelon industry. Ross because of how many watermelons I eat. I've told you this like ten times, but I've got to say it to the world. They've heard about it. My world has heard about the watermelon sixty, which you know, sixty days a year, first of July in August, eat watermelon every day, go through two melons a week. Usually it's like a it's like a it's like a ritual. Use huge watermelon. 00:17:50 Speaker 3: Man. Do you subtract a meal out of your day or is this added? That's a great life you're living. 00:17:57 Speaker 2: It's sort of additive. Man. So Ross and I have been to go for three days, two and a half days, well three days three days now, and I went to town. There's a lot of cool parts of this story. I was at the Talladega Race and the pit all that stuff, YadA YadA YadA. We've been talking watermelon, serious watermelon. I'm like, I went to my first watermelon farm, like big, large scale watermelon farm, super impressed, and then I didn't know what kind of culture there was around watermelons. Pretty cool. Ross represents the Watermelon Association of America, which I'll be vying for some bite in that. Like, you know, we've been talking about national watermelon campaigns that you know, maybe could go on. I told him about Brent Reeves podcast that he did early on on This Country Life of Brenton did an incredible exisd on of watermelons. But so now your story is so cool because it's just so authentic. It is and it's and it's it's uh uh. I'm fascinated with just rural America and farmers are a big part of that. And then what's so cool about your story too, is that you you grew up farming, connected to the land in this like legitimate way, but you didn't hunt, never hunted. But now you're hunting and that's so we've been hunting this week. But tell me a little bit about that, like. 00:19:34 Speaker 3: Like, well, what I think, what my takeaway and what I'm learning is that I've grown up on land, I've been very fortunate. Like I said, I chose racing. Agriculture chose me like I was born into it. And there's pictures me as an infant in the field, my dad hold me. What's so cool is the tractor local tractor dealer for Caboda Creole Equipment Creal Tractor Company down in Fort Myers, Florida. There's a picture of my dad and one of their old hats. They were a different brand of tractor then, and that's how my dad got started, was Mark Creole loan my dad attractor and I'm an infant and my dad's got their hat on. And then we work with them again. Now through Caboda and the racing sponsorship that corporate Caboda sponsors my NASCAR Cup car, I'm able to represent a tractor brand on the race track. It's amazing. But on that land, driving those tractors, driving the old trucks. Way before I was sixteen, right, I was driving on the farm, working a four wheeler, having fun with my cousins old cars, racing them, hitting each other. Our stories are definitely unique to maybe other farm kids or might have a similar story. But I drove at an early age through the woods across the fields. I never looked for animals in the way that I do now. I never looked the land the way I did. I looked at two trees and I thought I could race around those. I looked at a field and thought I have to disc have to plow it or hero it. But not where you're at in the country, you call it all different things, but we call it a disk. So you're plowing the dirt over to get the sand and the grass all gone so we can plant our watermelons. We need dry sand to plant in with some moisture, and now to hunt only for this is my third season fall deer season. I just look at every piece of land, every tree in a It's a new way, and it's what's so exciting. I've look at a watermelon field and I'm looking for things the farmers are telling me about disease. Are we getting white flies in as, there's some sort of fuse, areas spreading? Are we too wet? Are we too dry? What's their layout they're spacing their plant spacing like a lot of things I'm looking at as I go to all these different watermelon farms to see what I think is the best, Like We're going to keep evolving watermelon farming and make it better and grow a better watermelon and cost the farmer hopefully less costs. Input costs are always going up. But now when I pull and I'm looking at the side of the field for a stand, I'm looking at where as you've taught me about pinch points and looking at natural features of the land in ways that I would have never funn looked that. And I haven't had that feeling about anything in years. I hadn't racing when I first got in. But remember I got into the NASCAR world in twenty eleven. I got into a truck justin Marx, my now owner, was getting out of in twenty eleven, and it was all new, and for years I learned the sport from twenty eleven till now twenty twenty five, and a bit of that newness has worn off. And for hunting and me, it's brand new, and I'm just when I climb a ladder, I'm thinking about it because I'm just I didn't grow up doing it, and I didn't grow up walking into the woods to get ready for a hunt. 00:22:50 Speaker 2: Yeah, afternoon, So something that you said to me that I thought was interesting is that you never set still on the landscape or in the woods. So you have been on the land, you would have been working the land. And it's I think it's a common thing, not not all of the there's some farmers that are serious hunters, but a lot of farmers they're out there working when when they're done, they don't want to recreate in that same place sitting there that they want to be somewhere else. And so you said, when you first started sitting in the woods, it was just like a whole different uh consideration of data points, you know. I mean, you're you're needing to learn tree species, and you're needing to learn about what the animals are doing and their travel patterns and wind and it just became this whole new world, which is unique because a lot of people that get into hunting, you know, they're they're getting used to being outside really for like exposed period of time. I mean, it's we live in such a bizarre time period in place where like we rush around from place to place trying to get away from outside. I mean it's like you're standing outside in the parking lot and you're like, let's go inside. 00:24:05 Speaker 3: When the park is close to the front and everybody piles up. 00:24:09 Speaker 2: Like if you were just a bile just looking at humans, you'd be like, man, they're just always wanting to get inside. They're wanting to get away from outside, you know. And so you wouldn't have had that, like you would have been a farmer. You would have been exposed to a lot of it. But but it's just a different a complete different set of considerations when you're hunting. And then what's so fun? So I was with you yesterday when you killed a deer and uh, so Ross, I mean, we could go into the story, but like, he shoots this deer, and it was kind of stressful. The deer came from a position we weren't expecting it really at a time we weren't. I mean, it's like right a dark, right it dark, and you get situated and we finally get everything set up, and uh and I mean it's like I could just feel the adrenaline pumping like right beside me. I kind of had to duck down into the blind when he turned and laid a gun over this rail and uh and I asked him, I said, we were at Talladega two days ago, and I was like, were you ever this excited at Talladega on Sunday? And your answer was. 00:25:17 Speaker 3: Hell, well, yes, about my heart rate And it was a heart rate ever that high? 00:25:20 Speaker 2: Like no, and you were shooting a doe deer too. 00:25:23 Speaker 3: Yeah with a rifle. No, not at all. And if it would have won, heart rate would have spiked. I mean that if you're in contention for the wind. But I got shuffled back. I'd made some bad moves at Talladega. But yeah, getting turned around my knee on the chair had been sitting on in the chair, almost almost knocked the chair over. You got her to stop in that moment, to exhale and pull the trigger. I mean it just it's only that that is that is my fourth dear that I've ever harvested, and and I respect that, and I have I let deer walk, But that was a cool moment to do it with you there. Of course I want the big buck to walk out, But for that land, that was the first year of harvested on my land that wasn't ertilize. That so really cool to see that that's our first dear season hunting on that property, and the group I've got down there that I do it with on we you know they've they've already harvested some. But for me that was my first, So it was that was a big moment, my first piece of land down there, an area of the country that I've grown up going to know, a bunch of families there and that's why I'm down there. 00:26:31 Speaker 2: So yeah, it was such a cool group. 00:26:33 Speaker 3: But shaking. 00:26:37 Speaker 2: And what's so awesome is that it really doesn't go away. I mean it it, I hope not. To some degree it does. I mean there's times when I take an animal, you know, the like heart thumping adrenaline is is less. I mean, there's certainly times when it's higher than the others based upon the circumstance. But to this day, I will at times get very nervous at a dough deer with when I've got a bow. I mean, for reals. That's kind of the cool thing about about this is it that can never Sometimes it never goes. 00:27:14 Speaker 3: Away, I hope not. And and talk about a bow. I remember growing up some one well, my best friend growing up was Cody Singletary, Singletary's Big Hunters best friends. Me and Cody and his older brother Matthew, and then our dads have been best friends for a long time. Our grandparents knew each other in all farms, so watermelon farmers. We all grow from melan one. I say we. I lightly insert myself into that. It's really my dad, as you can, I think. But to grow up with them, I remember standing there, sitting on the ground watching them shoot their bows ross you and try it. No, I want to go ride the four wheeler. Well, we're gonna shoot bows until dark. We're shooting at the block, shooting at the decoy. We're like practicing. They're practicing. They're practicing, And I could have been doing that at ten years yars old, and I never had any interest. And now I've asked you, like, all right, guide me on how to buy a boat, Like where should I go? So we've talked about that and yeah, find somewhere, and it'll start that process sometime soon. I'm not saying I'm gonna go today, but that's exciting for the next step, and to be able to get more intimate and understanding then the different positions I'm gonna need to go sit and hunt from with the bow versus the rifle is exciting because now that's like a whole other chapter of this book. 00:28:31 Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think I heard you say this, but there's something about the natural world that you can't control. And the exposure that I've had to the inside of inside looking too NASCAR just the last couple of days, I have been amazed at the control that you guys have over that car. I mean, just phenomenal. I mean I could do this whole podcast just telling you what I've seen, just like the the micro adjustments that they're making on these cars in the fly. Your your job is so, I mean, you have a race on the weekend, Monday, you have this big meeting where this huge team comes in and you analyze the car, the data, how you did. And then today is a Tuesday, and so the guys have your car in there and they are tweaking on that thing, getting ready for next week. Ton of control is the point of that story. When you go into the woods and you're hunting the deer, white tailed deer or turkey or whatever, that control is completely different. I mean, does did you identify with that as something that's that's that's uh compelling about going into the woods, like it's it's it's kind of like a relaxation, just like I'm this is not nobody's asking me what to do here? 00:29:54 Speaker 3: Yeah? Is that? I mean absolutely? And that's what I love. I don't my life and calendar is is I'm helped by a lot of people. I've got We use Apple Calendar, and I think there's nine getting ready to be a tenth person added to it that input things. And they're all talking, and they're all guiding me on where I need to go. And a couple work like almost a month out on stuff, and sometimes longer. Stuff comes on the calendar for like already next race season. We haven't even finished this one, and we're already like locking in dates down to the minute of things next year. And so when I get to the woods, I am not making a decision. When I get away from the racetrack and away from work, I don't you saw. I don't want to pick where we go to breakfast. I don't want to pick where we go to dinner. I don't care what we eat, I don't care what time. I'm just along for the ride. I want everybody else to guide us. And I'll be a I'll paddle the boat, but I'm not steering it. And so I feel like when I get in the woods and the natural part of animals, and what I've learned is they're not going to do the same thing every time. There's gonna be some wildness to it. And so not expecting that dough to walk out directly behind us. We had picked our quadrants. Yeah, a game you had us play. Picked of the four quadrants we picked. I would think I was closest. Ish you picked opp. 00:31:12 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd say you because the dough came from the quadrant. So we were sending in a box line looking three hundred and sixty degrees and I said, let's let's play game. Pick which quadrant we split it into, you know this three sixty into into four. And so we guessed and both of us were wrong. 00:31:32 Speaker 3: Yeah, the first one take that our caravan read was wrong. Well he just copied you because you know, I went with your But yeah, you were closest. 00:31:39 Speaker 2: Yeah, so we we didn't know where the steer was gonna come from. 00:31:42 Speaker 3: So yeah, that was that's cool. And yeah, excited to learn that land more it's new and continue to learn land. 00:31:49 Speaker 2: You know, everybody's got a different angle for why they do something. And I think, uh, as long as that and I think They're all valid really as long as I mean, as long as the hunting that the person is doing is is inside the limits of the law and you know, is aiming towards some conservation goal, you know, you know what I mean. I mean, like there's people that go to the woods to relax. There's also people that go to the woods not to relax. And in many cases ross my hunting is probably like you're NASCAR racing in a way, and that like I go to the woods oftentimes to to test myself in a while place, if I'm being honest, I mean, that's part of the fun of it. Is just you know, more these more difficult, strenuous hunts or more technical hunts that require a lot of time, a lot of getting stuff right, you know, the hard stuff. But I also do a lot of hunting that's just pure, just a pleasure hunt for like we use that term in the coon dog world always like that since I was a kid, they were like, you pleasure hunting this weekend. Like it's an interesting way to say it, but yeah, I guess so, you know, so there's different I don't go to the woods necessarily to I do go to the wood because my job in some way revolves around hunting. But also that's my hobby too, like I really don't do anything else. 00:33:12 Speaker 3: I think that's for me is what racing is. It's it's a hobby that's turned into profession. But if if the right circumstances, and it would have to be a social thing with with buddies, with other racers, if we were going to go and have a track day, call it where we're not getting paid, we actually probably have to buy the tires and pay for the fuel and on the cars and have our own Like if we were going to go do a track day with some cars or something, I would do that for fun, so you would pleasure. I pleasure race, pleasure race. But then thirty eight times a year, I'm racing the cup car not for pleasure. I want to win. I am there only to win. I bring my friends with me at trackhouse and we go try to win, and uh, it is pleasurable to do, but it is not pleasure racing. So I think it's similar for me in racing, you to hunting. For me to hunting, and honey, I want to go hunt now. If it was going to be more strenuous, I'd have to know that ahead of time and right where the right gear and be ready and prepared. But most of mine is so I mean, I'm very very new, and I think what is so cool is you can always like every day you could be your first day to go hunting, is what I've learned. Like my first time was with Adam Will who you met, and David set me up with that, and they were hunting and Adam took me and just talked me through everything, and I'll always remember that first staying. We sat in me trying to be still, and a buck did walk out and I was like, I couldn't shoot it. I couldn't. I couldn't get the scope anywhere close to that buck. He was moving back and forth and rut chasing a doe. And that was a couple of years ago, three seasons ago now and just like Adam, like I never even got close and he was gone. So like I remember that in that adrenaline rush, Mine's definitely gonna be more pleasure, say, because I'm trying to relax. Yes, it's what I want to do. 00:35:04 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And those those like hard hunts, I mean they're fun. Yeah, I mean we're not doing it because it's not fun. It's fun. If you're not familiar with Ross Chastain, go type into your computer Wall the Wall Ride, Ross Chastain Wall Ride. So something happened with Ross three years ago. He was in a race and this, this event has will will probably outlive him in terms of its legacy. And NASCAR tell me about the wall Ride. So we've had this conversation before, but it's it's I had to bring it up on this podcast. 00:35:53 Speaker 3: Yeah. So I went into the thirty fifth race of our thirty six points races, eighteen points above my competitor. I need to beat the eleven of Denny Hamlin, not let him gain eighteen points on me. Nineteen we could tie and I would win. So at eighteen positions over the course of the race. Now we'd had a long history that year. I had ran into him at Saint Louis, he didn't. I ran into him again Atlanta, and then he ran into me at Pocono. So we had had this on track, hurting each other. 00:36:23 Speaker 2: Is this I'm not sure if I can bring this up or not, but it's kind of out there. Is this the guy you punched? 00:36:27 Speaker 3: No? No, no, no, definitely not, definitely. 00:36:31 Speaker 2: Not that that video comes up too. 00:36:32 Speaker 3: Yeah, that one does. 00:36:34 Speaker 2: And before I even knew you, I knew it wasn't your fault. 00:36:36 Speaker 3: Oh well had I had a large hand to play in it well as well as he and he started it. He started it, and yeah it was it needed to be ended. So and we were Noah Gregson and I we walked in the gym Monday morning after that punch and shook hands and worked out together. Is that what done? 00:36:55 Speaker 2: Is that right? 00:36:56 Speaker 3: Yep? He was good. I was good. 00:36:57 Speaker 2: Is he still race? 00:36:58 Speaker 3: He does? 00:36:58 Speaker 2: He was at the race Saturday. 00:37:00 Speaker 3: He was in it. 00:37:00 Speaker 2: He was a leader. 00:37:02 Speaker 3: We're good. Yep. He texted me last week. They were in Nashville. Everybody thinks because of the track house that were in Nashville a lot. Yeah, And we're over here in Concord. This is where our workforce is. But our kind of soul and the foundation of the company justin lives in Nashville, So we do a lot there with Tutsi's so anytime any of the other drivers that I'm buddies with or they're they're like, send me a picture on Broadway, like where you at? Like I'm in North Carolina and where you live? 00:37:26 Speaker 2: Yeah? We all live every year, so yeah, you could have come over to my house. Yeah, where we left. So the wall ride distracted, but you could also the last last getting. 00:37:34 Speaker 3: A little scuffle the last lap, I needed to gain two spots and I was far enough away I couldn't catch them. So in the final corner I held it to the floor. I ended up up shifting to fifth gear. Normally we run fifth gear all the time, and at martin zilt's a unique small track, so we run third and fourth. Uh, and I shifted the fifth and ran the wall and I gained like three seconds on my competition, and that put me right ahead of the eleven, which moved me on to the champion ship race the next week. So in our first year as a team twenty twenty two track Houses second year of existence, my first year with the team, we're able to go fight for a championship in a four car playoff at one race and we'll ultimately finished second two hundred and thirty five feet. We lost the championship by two hundred thirty five feet. Wow, So that was a bummer. 00:38:20 Speaker 2: He kind of didn't give the full drama version, but the wall ride was imagine an oval track with concrete walls, and in the corner you have to slow your car down to go around the corner, and the guys are cutting the corner as tight as possible to make the shortest line, And so if you go wide slower, it's slower and you're taking a longer route to get to the finish line. So on the final lap, ross is like ten or eleven and he knows it just like fifteen seconds before you did it. You kind of thought about this, but. 00:39:00 Speaker 3: I had accepted defeat and then off turn four taking the white flag the last lap to start the five hundred lap, it popped in my head to run the wall. And what's scary, I honestly, is that I couldn't think of a reason why not to do it? Why not? I kept why not? Why not? And I thought wall, fine, fence, fine, gate, fine, all things that should have been like red flags. You know. It's like I just ignored all of them and held it, and I ended up letting go of the wheel because it was shaking so violently. So we have aluminum wheels and really low sidewall like low profile tires. Our sidewalls are very short so they don't bubble out the year before twenty twenty one, and all the way back in time, we had a smaller wheel and bigger tire, fatter tire, just the way the evolution of our car went to a single lug nut aluminum wheel versus steel, and that aluminum wheel the sidewall pressed in flat and like just straight up and down, and the illuminum wheel slid along the steel wall. So on the concrete. Then we bolt steel with foam, and that steel just as smooth, and that aluminit wheel is actually like a castor tire, like a castor wheel and a dumpster like you can roll it. You know, it's rough, but a steel wheel rolls on concrete, it rolls on on asphalt. It's rough, but that's what it felt like, was a steel wheel. 00:40:17 Speaker 2: So he used centrifical force to basically, when these guys were slowing down to take a shorter route around the corner, you went faster and the wall kept you in line, and basically you were going twice as fast as that. 00:40:30 Speaker 3: Basically normally it's like one hundred and thirty on the straightaways down to seventy five in the corners. Yeah, constantly accelerating and slowing down. I went one hundred and forty five ish. I don't have the exact number off the top of my head to say I sped up an extra fifteen miles an hour than our normal top speed because I had more straightaway to keep going. They hit the brakes. Sin took a shorter distance. 00:40:51 Speaker 2: But you went. 00:40:52 Speaker 3: I just shot it around and I couldn't see anything. That's the G forces were high. It was a couple seconds doing it. It took a couple to get around there. And the car with the independent rear suspension the transact so it kept driving the car like it kept the wheels on the ground. The rear tires the left front did pick up off the ground a little like the G forces pulled it up. But it destroyed the car. It bent the chassis, it broke the suspension. My brakes weren't working very good at the after, so I kind of hit the wall after the finish again, but it accomplished the goal. We went from tenth to fifth place and that got us in the. 00:41:27 Speaker 2: Chair and then they outlawed being able to do this. 00:41:29 Speaker 3: They left it for one more week, so the championship race, we were allowed to do it if we wanted. Unfortunately, Joey Logano for teen penske. He won the championship and won the race. His teammate Ryan, who wasn't in the final four, was right behind him, so I already knew if I did it, Ryan would just pull up and block me. So I didn't do it, and Joey won beat me fair. 00:41:50 Speaker 2: And square, beach, fair and square. Well, I thought it was pretty cool that they outlawed it after that. I mean, just you know, so nobody's gonna like, nobody's gonna do it any better than you did. 00:42:00 Speaker 3: It, not better. It has been done again on accident. Chrisopher Bell did it. Happened to him last year twenty twenty four, and he didn't mean to do it, but he did do it a little bit and they pulled him out of the finale for doing it. He had made it in and they pulled him. 00:42:17 Speaker 2: So that was bad, completely disqual. 00:42:19 Speaker 3: That was disappointing because that he didn't deserve that, Like, there was a lot. 00:42:22 Speaker 2: Of disciplined him. They didn't just like say that race. 00:42:26 Speaker 3: They disciplined him and that took him out. 00:42:29 Speaker 2: Oh that's that was bad. 00:42:30 Speaker 3: I didn't I don't love that because he didn't do it with my intention, My intention for fifteen seconds was to do that. No, there was no rule. They created the rule athlete legal, What you did? I asked NASCAR. They'd add my initials in to the rule and it told me to get out, go on, come on, get out, go get out here. 00:42:48 Speaker 2: I thought that was I thought that was pretty cool. 00:42:52 Speaker 3: Yeah it was. It gets talked about as much as each win. What's I'm proud of? We won two races before that, two then we won or then we did the hell Melon. Then we've won four more times after. 00:43:04 Speaker 2: We call it the hell Hell Mary, but it's the hell Melon. 00:43:09 Speaker 3: Yeah, I like it. I like it. We've won more race, We've won more races after which I'm proud of. 00:43:15 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:43:16 Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't want that to be my last thing. 00:43:20 Speaker 2: Well, and you said that in NASCAR, that was like one of the most watched video clips of all time. 00:43:27 Speaker 3: Yeah. I think I've seen some reports and the best they can capture from all social media and all impressions and right clicks and everything. I don't really know what I'm talking about here, but there's been no no thing right when you when you pile it all together. From the winner of the Daytona five hundred, the winner of the Coke six hundred, the championship winner. Like those videos, none of them add up to anything close to what Because it went worldwide, there was people chiming in other racers from other Formula One series a right indy car because a lot of us had done it as kids. So the best I can tell you, the only way it popped in my head was as a kid. I probably did it on the game cube, and I know I did. You turn around and go backwards on those games, right video console games, hold it wide open, turn the automatic brakes off on the video game and just let it go into the wall and it'll flip or whatever, and not not like, Oh, when I get to NASCAR and I'm I'm racing for a championship, I'm gonna do this. No, definitely, that's cool. 00:44:26 Speaker 2: I like it. Man, Have you ever been in any bad recks? 00:44:29 Speaker 3: I have California twenty twenty two Spring practice, a track that's now closed down. We've lost it. They developed that land, but yes, bottomed out new car. The Gen seven car was brand new, bottomed the left ear frame out and over corrected. It got started to get loose and slide. The rear and I turned the wheel to the right and lifted and it caught. And it comes back to that low profile tire. It acts different than our old tire, and the suspension acts different. So I hit at an angle, but pretty much head on at about one hundred and forty miles an hour into the wall to the wall. Came off the wall seventy, so it was like hitting a wall at seventy and stopping. 00:45:12 Speaker 2: So you hit this wall going seventy. 00:45:16 Speaker 3: One hundred and forty, one hundred and forty, and when I came off of it, I was still going seventy. I like it like redirected me, you know, at an angle. I hit it and then I went. 00:45:25 Speaker 2: So did the car catch on fire? Did it tumble? Did it just crumple up it? 00:45:31 Speaker 3: It did not flip, And at the time it didn't absorb much, so I took the energy. The energy the G forces was up in the I don't know, mid fifties, sixty sixty g's of impact. There's some discrepancy on their data calculators and they're capturing at the time. Some math doesn't add up back then when you look back at it, the cars were very stiff. Everything all the frame rails on the new car very horizontal. Everything's very block, I'll call it. There's no real curves to the frame a Monte Carlo that Chevrolet would have produced in the eighties. Everything's very rounded because when it hits, they want stuff to move. They want the frame horns, frame horns to crush, bumpers to come in. We had just foam and the way it was all built was very stiff, and we hurt some drivers. Kurt Busch has retired, and he took hits his whole career. It all adds up. He took a hit at Pocono that year, backed it in the wall, and he never raced again. We've learned from that. We've evolved this car. I'm proud to drive this car. I was proud then, I'm proud now when I took that hit. I believe if I took that same hit today, although the cars the same, technically, we have modified it, the sport has, the league has, it would feel better. I would take less impact than my body. So I had some pull muscles in my back, in my neck, had some pain that I raced the next day. So I did I scare you? It did? It did? That was the only one I've ever had that scared me. Scared. Yeah, and I've never had any like, you know, broken bones or surgeries. An ice bath that night got the swelling down in my back, a lot of stretching to get in the car. I was still really stiff though, getting in really sore, and I was able to go race and I ultimately worked my way up into the top ten. Late in that race, and then I spun out in the same spot, but instead of over cracking and hitting the wall, I just held it left and spun the car out and ultimately cost us to get finish. But it it was at least I learned my lesson because I hit the same bump I'd avoided all race and I was trying to gain some more spots at the end, I thought I'm gonna go on that line again, and it bottomed out the same. 00:47:48 Speaker 2: Way, and really it was a bump in the track. 00:47:50 Speaker 3: Yeah, that track was really bummy. It was an awesome track. I hate we lost it. It was super wide. It's unlike anything we have. And they ultimately sold the land and there's some distribution centers or something there now. 00:48:01 Speaker 2: So when when I was at Talladega, the other day in your pit, like watching the start and just being there. I was thinking it was scary is probably the wrong word, but it was intimidating it clearly it would be that someone who's not been there before. But after the race we met you, Like after the race, he's two and a half hours, like white knuckle driving this car one hundred and ninety miles an hour, bumper to bumper. I mean you're touching the car in front of you sometimes going one hundred ninety miles an hour. Yep. Like the intensity level of it, I mean, just even as a fan was over the top. And so you like crawl out of the car and then we drive to go deer hunting. I didn't know what to expect from you, Like would you be like like you just got out of an MMA fight, you know and you or would you be like super tired or would you I had no idea, and you were just like you are right now when you got out of that car. That was my perception, and I think I ask you, was that scary? 00:49:09 Speaker 3: Yeah? 00:49:10 Speaker 2: Because in my mind, you know, Ross's race his whole life, and I'm like the one race I see. I'm like, man, I hope he's okay. I mean, I hardly know this guy, and I'm like, man, this is this is dangerous. I don't know about this, but you said that you're you don't like, you're not afraid at all. You're more scared climbing a deer stand than driving in the that Taladan for any race. Yeah, absolutely, that's astonishing to me. 00:49:34 Speaker 3: I have respect for racing. I don't. I don't. I know. I know that I will not always race. I know one day I'm gonna stop racing. Now. I hope it's on my own terms. I hope that I'm able to decide that and plan that out. I don't want it to be taken from me, but I respect that it could. Like I'm not guaranteed to race this weekend, Like, yeah, we're back from deer hunting. I'm gonna prepare now the rest of the week, I'm not gonna you know, I'm really not gonna think about hunting other than maybe some memories from the week. But I'm going to focus now for several days on Martinsville and Phoenix, and that's what I'm gonna roll. Right out of Martinsville and no nothing ahead of the ahead of Phoenix, well straight into our finale in a week and a half. So I respect racing from that aspect, just like I respect climbing a ladder in a tree or climbing up into a box blne. I just I don't. I don't. I don't lose sight of like one slip off that ladder and it changes things. One bad wreck and it changes things. Like we're human. This is not nobody's getting out of this live. And I respect that in all aspects of things I do. When I get on the highway to drive home, like I have a respect that and a feeling that like that I could be my last time. I don't. I'm not like a morbid I'm not saying it in a morbid way. I'm just that I respect this so I enjoy the time here. I don't take it for granted. Walking in these front doors, walking in your eyes were big to this shot, right. I've now walked into this building since twenty eighteen. I was first invited here and hired here to drive for zero dollars in their Exfinity car. I got an opportunity as like a three race tryout, and I was able to win one of those, finished second in another and crash for the lead in the third one and that got me And I'm still here. That was twenty eighteen, and I've made a home here. The name has changed, that people have changed, but some of us are still here and that's really cool. And I wouldn't do it want to be doing it right with anybody else. So I just have a respect that, like, one day's going to be my last day walking in here. Now. I hope it's when we moved to some bigger shop and we're in this better situation and track House has grown. But yeah, I don't I appreciate that the race was over. I think I had a bush light in my hand when I walked up to you had had a bowl of chicken and rice. I think I had some broccoli and chicken and rice and had a meal and had a beer and was ready to jump in the truck and I had the deer camp and then we had a good couple of days. 00:52:02 Speaker 2: Yeah, you know when you told me that, it reminded me people not it's not hunters that asked me this, but people that just don't understand much about hunting or bears in particular, and people here that we bear hunt and The first question that people want to ask me is are you not afraid? You know? And I respond the exact same way that you do about your car. It's like no, and it's not bravado or something. But people that hunt bears aren't afraid of bears, like bears are not. You should be much more afraid of driving down the interstate. And we had this conversation. I mean, like, it's probably more dangerous driving down the Interstate than it is you driving out there one hundred ninety miles an hour in the car that you're driving. 00:52:45 Speaker 3: You know. 00:52:47 Speaker 2: So Yeah, to the uninitiated, everything seems unusual or you're you become like hyper aware of the of the of the danger of it just because you're like just not you just haven't been there before. Yeah, but but now I had such a good time. I was amazed at the access. I've heard it said before this week that the cool thing about being a NASCAR fan is the access that you can get. I mean there were fans like the minutes before you get in your car, like swarming you, getting pictures. Yeah, if you've never been to a NASCAR event, you you should go. You should go before we close? What what do you want to do inside of hunting. I realize this is your third season, you're new to it. You probably you probably don't know all the options, nor do you need to like you could, you could. You could hunting Georgia for the rest of your life. Deer hunting at that camp with those friends and like have a very very rich component of your life. That's honey, that's the cool thing about it. You don't have to do anything. But what what do you have any goals? I mean, even like deer hunting on your land, Like, do you have any goals? 00:54:12 Speaker 3: Well, I know an area that I'm gonna spray and burn because it's a little thick. Yes, it's a little thick. So that is on the docket. David la we. 00:54:23 Speaker 2: Had to track his deer a little bit last year, pushed a little bit good gear habitat though. 00:54:29 Speaker 3: You know, I know, I know it, I know it. I was all in it. Well you were in it, yeah, yeah, uh yeah. I want to work that land. I want to continue to learn it. Like I told you, I had hunted the gilly, but I had not hunted that tower blind. So I like to add some bird like little things, like I want to add some bur Lab. I didn't like that we were so exposed. They liked it. 00:54:53 Speaker 2: You want to learn how to hunt your land. 00:54:55 Speaker 3: I want to do it a bit my way, and I want to be a little more more covered up up and blend in a little more. So. 00:55:02 Speaker 2: I don't know, but you like whitetail hunting. I think that's kind of what you're focused. 00:55:06 Speaker 3: I do know it. And yeah, hunting hogs is something that we do in South Florida, so I've done that before, but that's a that's not a sitting thing as much where those are now since they're eating the watermelons. That's a more of an ag hunt. Totally different atmosphere when we do that. So have met a friend in Kansas, his daughter actually works here at track House, and then met her dad and mom and so it been out to his place last year. I'm going to go again this year with a farmer from Florida. So mine is definitely if I'm going to my land, I can go by myself and sit and I don't you know, text them, text the group, chat a picture or something, but my hunting buddies. Other than that, if I'm going somewhere, I want to it's social for me, I want to do it with pool that want to go to deer camp and have that experience. Justin marks no different. Him and I got into hunting on the same day. Neither one of us had ever done it. He's hiked mountains right like climb He's a climber. I've been in fields. He's been in the wilderness. He never and I never, like we never looked at the woods like we look at it now. And for him and I, it's been so cool to have this, this professional relationship we've built after over a decade of a personal friendship and now we've grown it in a hunting so I kind of have three different parts of Justin that we've and he has three different parts of me that we've grown through and to get to go race and win races together and see what he's built a worldwide brand now where track House has won. Now in Moto GP in America, Motor GP is not what it could be. It's not nearly as popular as NASCAR motorcycle motorcycle racing on circuits, so it's the fast motorcycles where the riders are leaned over on the racetrack that a Formula One car would race on and their elbow me touching the ground. They have pucks on their elbows and Rowell was able to get his first win from self and trackhouse. So I look at that like we were just a couple of years ago and I met Rowell. He's been here to America, came to the shop and to see his struggles and now see his success and see Justin Who's I think, by the way I know it, one of his first loves was Motor GP racing, even before NASCAR, So to see that come through for him, to get to see him Sunday after his team won all the way in Australia, he wasn't there. It's a bummer. I wish he would have been there, but he was with us in Talladega getting ready to go to Deer Camp. Yeah. You got a guy that has built a race winning NASCAR team, has won a race in the Nationwide Nationwide Series, in now Xfinity Series, getting ready to be O'Reilly Auto Parts Series. It's stepping through some names and has built this winning organization here with all of his drivers winning and now winning in Australia in Motor GP. It's just incredible. And the fact that he wants to go to deer camp with me for two days. Is so cool. Yeah, and we have learned it together. We're learning about ammunition together, We're learning about guns together. You know, everybody in both of our families are not hunters like we. We both are catching some flak for it. You know. We we have to have both have hard conversations with our family that can be tough about why we want to do this and the respect we have for it. Right. So doing that together has been really really cool, and I think it's very unique. I don't see that in a lot of Nascar, and I I want to do this with my people. I want to go hunt with my people. I want to go racing with my people, and Justine my people. So we have we have a good time. 00:58:41 Speaker 2: Man, That's cool, very cool. 00:58:43 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:58:44 Speaker 2: Well, ross Man, for for a guy that has been on a super Bowl commercial, on the halftime super Bowl commercial, you're you're incredibly humble and been really genuine and fun to hang out with. And I hope we get to do something together again at some point inside of hunting. I want to bring my wife to a NASCAR race. She wants to come, come on, she does, but it's been a pleasure. Thank you for the hospitality. Yeah. So we're at the now we're going to go to the track house facility. 00:59:23 Speaker 3: All right, we're here at the cup shop. This is where our cars get assembled. Nearly one hundred and ninety employees, nearly two hundred, right around one hundred and ninety, and a lot of them live right in this area, come to this shop right Their careers, their lives, their families all revolve around these three race cars going and trying to win every Sunday. We've been able to win six races as a team this year. I've got one. SVG has got five last five road course races, so definitely a lot to celebrate as we wrap up the year. 00:59:52 Speaker 2: Awesome man, cool, Keep the wild pless as wild because that's where the bears live. 01:00:01 Speaker 3: Nine