901. Championship Mindset Ft. Ryan Hardwick: 24h Le Mans Winner

Yeah, we're sleeping on the floor.

Now my jury box froze.

Fuck a boat, fuck a stove.

Counted millions in a cold.

Bad bitch, booted swole.

Got her own bank rope.

Can't fold.

Just a no.

Headshot, case close, close, close.

What is up, guys?

It's Andy for Sella, and this is the show for the realist sake of eight of the lies, the fakeness, and delusions of modern society.

And welcome to motherfucking reality.

Guys,

today we are doing something different.

We are going to actually have a full-length episode today, which we haven't had in a long time, but I can promise you this is one you are going to want to listen to all the way through.

So with the amount of negativity and stuff going on in the world and crazy shit, we thought we'd take an opportunity to give us a little breath from that and do a full length.

And so that's what we're going to do.

But before we get to that, I'm liking your new hat there, bro.

Oh, thanks, man.

I had a friend gave this to to me.

Yeah, it looks like you got extra brains.

Yeah, is that what that is?

Yeah.

Is that what you're doing?

You're trying to look smarter.

It expands in there.

Yeah.

Got to fill up the hat.

It's all up in there.

Yeah, it looks good.

What's the sticker for there?

Who gave you the hat?

Yeah, a special, special friend gave me this hat, and he's actually our guest today on the show.

We got Ryan Harwick.

Yeah, what's up, dude?

Thanks, man.

Yeah, it's going good.

Ryan, what's going on, man?

Man,

a lot, actually.

Yeah, a little bit to talk about.

Yeah.

So,

yeah, man, dude, we've been talking about this for years.

For those of you that don't know,

Ryan is one of my best friends in the world.

He's also a business partner of mine.

We're partners in the race team.

Fuck, dude.

We've been friends for a long time now.

How long have you guys been knowing each other?

I don't know.

10 plus years.

Yeah, I want to say it was around 2015.

Yeah.

We had

met really through cars, through the car community.

Yep.

Mutual friends like, hey, man,

you know my friend Andy.

And I just, I had found you online.

You know, I was following you.

These were Facebook days, I guess.

But

yeah, I'm like, I know of him.

It's like, oh, well, he's a friend.

You guys should meet.

You guys are both into cars.

And yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah, going on 10 years, I guess.

Yeah.

And then I came down.

Yeah.

I asked you to come down.

Yeah.

You guys had me come down.

Yeah.

And I met you and Dustin and Justin.

Justin, yeah.

And then

had you speak to all our salespeople.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, man.

That was probably 20, what, 16, 17, maybe?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was fun.

I think I was just down there for the day.

Yeah, yeah.

He came down quick.

Yeah, we asked you where I'm in the motorcycle business.

So for those of you that don't know, just real quick,

yeah, Ryan is going to be humble, but Ryan and Justin and the guy, they own what is,

I think it's fair to say, one of the largest, if not the largest, motorsports dealerships in the whole country.

One of the biggest in the world.

Yeah, yeah.

We're in the top three in the world recently.

Yeah.

So how many locations do you guys have?

I have 12.

12.

And these are not like little,

you know, they got a few motorcycles.

These are like motorcycle ATV four-wheeler superstores.

And you guys have every brand, don't you?

Yeah, for the most part.

I mean, there's a couple of small brands, but all the

Japanese motorcycle brands, Hondanyama, the American brands like Polaris, Ducati, a couple of European brands.

So, yeah, they're, yeah, it's a business that we, Justin and I grew up.

Now, you guys started the same exact, the cool thing about Ryan and Justin is they started like exactly when Chris and I started.

Yeah, yeah, 99.

Yeah,

we were about the same age.

Yeah, yeah, about the same age.

We don't have to say what that is, but yeah, that's right.

Yeah, yeah.

No, yeah, we, that's where we kind of hit it off.

You and I had a lot of similarities, you know, and, you know, business.

And probably, I think we both started, you know, probably two.

I know me for one.

I had no idea what I was doing.

You know, I was just, you know, we were, you know, going after it as fast as we could and learning a lot, but making a lot of mistakes.

But yeah, we started in the same years.

And then as the businesses grew, you know, kind of our businesses were close in size, you know, wise, as far as number of employees and things like that.

So we had a lot of common ground and stuff to, you know, we could share and learn from each other.

It's nice knowing that there's someone else out there having a lot of the same struggles

that you're having that's getting their ass kicked the exact same way.

You got hitting the balls, too.

Yeah.

A lot of times it's like they come in waves.

It's like the same day.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, you too?

Yeah.

How old were you there?

That's dope right there.

Oh, geez, man.

I went to the closet.

I went to the closet for hours.

I'm like, damn, all right, Ryan.

Yeah, yes.

That was business, Ryan.

I like that.

LinkedIn picture of it.

So, dude, what was it like, you know, before we get into the, I mean, obviously, most of the listeners here are success entrepreneurial-minded.

I mean, dude, just talk about that.

You know, they've all heard my story, but I mean, dude, you guys have an incredible story.

Yeah, I mean, we, like I say, we, we, Justin and I grew up together.

We were riding dirt bikes all our lives.

My father taught us to ride, and so it was our passion.

And we kind of stumbled into the ability to submit an application to one of the manufacturers to open a dealership.

And we were, gosh, we were 19 years old when we sent this application in.

And,

you know, I spent a lot of time working on it about how passionate we were about the sport.

And it was with American Honda.

And Honda, you know, sent us back, responded, said, hey, man, we really like your application.

It's got a lot of passion behind it.

You got a lot of really cool ideas, but you have no funding and you have no experience.

Two important things to start a business.

And so, you know,

again, we knew no other way than to go and try to solve those two things we were told no, you know, from, so we went out and tried to, you know, borrow money

from others.

And then we went to go find a partner that had experience in running a motorcycle dealership.

And we were, we worked for, gosh, a couple years to find both of those things.

So, yeah, man, back in the late 90s, early 2000s, you could, you could borrow a lot more with a lot less than what you can now.

So I will say the environment was ripe at that time, kind of dot-com, you know, kind of turn of area to really for a bank to loan a lot of money to two kids.

Yeah.

We had one other partner that he had a Yamaha Kawasaki dealership

near our town.

And we talked him into partnering with us.

And that was probably my first really good sales job

trying to talk

this really smart entrepreneur into partnering with two young kids.

And that's how we got our start with a single-line Honda store.

And we opened in 2000.

And fast forward, now it's 25 years.

We're the third largest retailer of motorcycles in the world.

And we sell thousands of vehicles a year.

And

we have,

gosh, now a little over 300, getting close to 350 employees.

And so

it's been a wild, wild, fun ride.

And

there was plenty of times in there when, man, you know, very similar to your sort of what we talked about, you know, wanting to quit, wanting like, man, you know, are we really cut out for this?

Do we really know what we're doing?

And, you know, competitors that were much bigger.

But

yeah, and that's why I kind of, I was drawn to racing at a, at a young age.

And racing's got a lot of similarities with business in that, you know, you're constantly surrounded by chaos in racing.

And business is much the same way.

You know, there's, there's things happening to you and around you that you can't control and you're constantly adapting and evolving and and changing and so

that I think I think that's why I've really enjoyed you know racing throughout my whole life as well as business I mean obviously we're all competitors you know if you're not competitive you have no you have no business being in business yeah do something else yeah do something else if you're if you're not competitive so uh yeah out of entrepreneurship and racing just kind of you know went hand in hand you know me and I've been fortunate to be able to kind of do both.

I feel like at a

decently high level,

kind of at the same time.

Decently high level.

Yeah, he fucking wins Lama.

Wins Lama.

Wins

24-hour, the Rolex 2-hour Daytona.

Sebring.

Sebring.

Stop it.

I'll toot the fucking horn for you.

I want to ask you this.

I've asked Andy.

You want to ask him or do you want to ask?

I'm going to ask.

Did I say ask this?

I don't know what you said.

I can't hear you.

Axe.

Ask.

There you go.

Hey, there you go.

All right.

I'm ready.

ready.

I've asked Andy this a few times, but I mean, 25 years, and I'm not trying to date you at all, right?

But 25 years, that's a long time.

Does it feel like 25 years to you?

Like, when you look back, first store in 2000, everything you've, I mean, did it go quick?

I would say now it feels like it went quick.

There were times, I can really say about 10 years in, that it felt.

I remember looking back at 10 years and thinking, man, I've been at this a while with at that time, not as much growth as what, you know, my partner Justin and I wanted, you know, and that was coming out of the big financial crisis disaster, 08, 09.

I remember around 2010 thinking, man,

we've been doing a lot of work for what at that time was a long time to us without, you know, that level of success and growth that, you know, we kind of thought we would be at 10 years in.

And now, 25 years, looking back, it seemed to all go by pretty, pretty quick.

I remember those first days like it was yesterday, right?

But there were times along the way that yeah man it felt it felt just grinding yeah grinding yeah i think it just depends on when you ask yeah you know for real dude like i i i think it's the same for us you know when when we were 10 years in dude i was looking we almost quit at 10 years in chris and i a lot of you guys know that story um

it was

you i i think the point about this is that entrepreneurship

really like recalibrates your sense of what a lot of time is compared to what you thought it was before you started down the journey.

You know, a lot of people hear 10 years and they think, oh, man, that's forever.

It's a long time.

But then

when you're, you know, 25, 26 years in,

you look at 10 years and you're like, man, I've known you for 10 years.

Like that does, that feels like it was yesterday.

And

I don't know if it's.

The reward that comes with it, but I will, I do echo that.

Like when I was 10 years in, I was like, fuck, what are we doing?

Like, we're wasting our lives.

Yeah.

And then now I look around and I'm like, well, this was fucking worth it.

You know, like, like, it, it, it's just, I don't know.

I think people misjudge the, the amount of time that it actually takes.

Yeah, I think it's easy.

I mean, I know, I know you've said it for, you know, forever and that, you know, it's a problem with a lot of our, you know,

younger people, you know, but guys coming up through the ranks right now, whether it's you're starting your own business or you're working within an organization, it's, I mean, 10 years is, I mean, it's, it's not a short amount of time, but it's super easy to get frustrated around that time, thinking like, man, I've done the work.

I've put, I'm listening to Andy.

I've done, you know, I'm doing the things, but it's still, it takes more time than that, right?

And, you know, it, it,

the analogy of driving a race car, I mean, that's like, like, I get a lot of questions like, man, Ryan, you, you know, won these big races, 24 hours old mile, like the, the amount of time, I just tell you in racing, the amount of cars I've crashed,

okay, like properly crashed.

Yeah,

not a skill.

Not a bet.

Yeah, not a bet.

Like, like, like, throw it away, crashed, right?

You know, lit on fire.

You have to crash the car.

I mean, there's no way if you want to develop the skill, we'll use a racing car for an example to drive a race car like on the limit.

We've just said that to find, if you're going to drive on the limit, you got to first find where that limit is.

And in order to find it, you have to go over it.

You know, this is part of it.

And business is no different, man.

You got to, it takes a long period of time of crashing, of making mistakes, right?

You know, and having that ability to get back up and say, like, I'm going to keep going.

I'm going to take, I'm going to learn why did I crash?

What happened?

There was a reason, whether it's physics, stupidity,

someone else's fault in another car, whatever, whatever it is.

Thinking you could do something the car couldn't do, whatever it is you got to learn from that and then you got to be able to apply it you know really quickly uh you know again and again and again you know and so um there's that there's so many there's so many i think it's why you were first like when i you know when i was starting out in it you know first couple years i brought it to you i'm like hey andy maybe this would make sense if first form was involved and i'm doing this racing at this level and uh you know obviously you're a car guy we're a car guy we like cars but there there's just something about racing and i don't care if it's racing a

you know a motorcycle a foot race a car race i mean what of this competition you know you versus the next person you know right next to you thinking you know i'm better than you i'm going to get there quicker than you better than you i don't know there's there's just some it's like the purest essence of competition to me right you know and then there's so much you know connection to business and you know i think i guess i know it's what drove me into it yeah i mean i think it's 100% parallel.

I mean, I think we just talked about it on yesterday's show, but it's confusing how people could be competitive in other areas, but then not understand it in the business aspect.

You know, I just think a lot of people don't really understand the rules of business because they're so parallel to any sort of competition.

You know, team sports or individual sports.

But yeah, dude,

you know, one of the things that

people, I don't know if people know, but I mean, you were, you were

very, very high-level water sports racer.

Yeah, okay, not swimming, but like,

yeah,

yeah, no, so like the both stand-up jet skis, right?

Yeah, yeah, jet ski, yeah, yeah, yeah, jet ski, my all my like teenage years, I was racing jet skis and um, uh, all around the world, and that was an awesome sport.

I mean, still, uh, I have a lot of friends in that sport, it's kind of what helped really get me, you know, cemented into the motorsport business and met a lot of the manufacturers and the marketing people and stuff.

But

that was a fun sport.

I got to travel a lot around the country and the world doing that.

And yeah,

I'm for sure, I do think I'm definitely the only person that's won the 24 Hours of Lamar and also a Jet Ski World Championship.

So I think I have that one.

That's pretty cool on my own.

I think I'm the only one on that one.

But

yeah, that was a fun sport.

I mean, that's where I kind of learned to cut my teeth.

But I'll tell you one big difference, like coming from motorcycles and jet skis, I would say those are much more individual, you know, racing type things.

It's kind of, it's really about the, the rider and, and the bike or the jet ski, where car racing, I think, is even much more similar to like a business and an organization.

It is for to me, car racing is like the quintessential team sport.

The only thing even close to me is like football, American football.

Like if, you know, the center isn't doing his job or the guard, I don't care how good your quarterback and running back are, right?

Like it's, it is, it has to be a team.

Yeah, one person has the ability to fuck the entire car.

The entire thing.

Car racing, like drivers get talked about all the time, whether it's the NASCAR driver or the IndyCar driver or the Formula One driver.

All of those forms of car racing is a massive team sport.

I mean, the team that we won Lama with this year, Mantai, you know, Porsche,

we have 62

people within the team that are at the races, all performing different roles, you know, from engineering to mechanics, to car, you know, how is that per car?

This is total over 20 years.

Yeah, so we, we, my car has a touch more, 34 people, the 62.

So running two cars, so 34 people on my car, you know.

And man, one person, I mean, one person doesn't pull their weight, whether it's the preparation of the car before it gets there, the pit stop.

I mean, like in the 24 hours of Lamar, we're doing a pit stop roughly every hour where we're changing tires, filling it up with fuel,

fixing anything that may be

messed up.

It is a wild thing to see.

I had the opportunity of coming down and watching you at the 24-hour Daytona.

And like just the level of like how zoned in everybody was.

Like everybody on the crew was.

Like I remember I got one of your, one of the, one of the crew, he was taking tires to go.

I guess like you guys recycle them, right?

Yeah.

Take them to the tire station, right?

Yeah, get changed.

Yeah, to get changed out, right?

And so I remember riding, like, he's like, hey, you want to roll?

I'm like, heck yeah, I want to go.

Like, this would be cool.

I'm like, what are we doing?

Just dropping them off.

And we got,

we got there, and then we waited.

And then they loaded us back up.

And we just set them.

I'm like, what are you doing?

He's like, I got like 10 more seconds before I got to go because I have to time it up with the next, like, even being early puts the other guy back.

Like, it was, it was a crazy, like, dude.

It's a wild orchestra of just like, everybody's in sync, man.

I'm just like, dude, that's crazy to even think about.

Like, you can't even, you don't even want to show up 10 seconds early because it's going to throw somebody else off.

Yeah, you're in the way.

It's crazy.

Yeah.

And these guys, like, our pit crews, like, I think a lot of people don't understand like how much of an athlete you have to be.

Like, these guys that are, you know, doing the tire changes or, you know, the fuelers, a lot of, they're all, most of them are athletes, you know, from some other sport growing up, whether it's football, you know, soccer, baseball, basketball.

Man, they're, they train like unbelievably, you know, and every like movement is synchronized, right?

You know, from where they place their knee, their hands, you know, the tire placement and all this.

And like at the 24-hour races, these guys are doing this at, you know, three in the morning and four in the morning and five in the morning.

And like the drivers, sometimes when, you know, like there's three drivers on our team, you know, for the 24-hour race.

So yeah, I drive like two-ish to three, two to three hours at a time.

And then I'm out of the car and I get to rest for, you know, four to six hours, right?

While my teammates are going, these guys on the pit crew, they don't get to rest.

I mean, they don't, they don't have backup guys.

You know, they're, they're non-stop, you know, 24 hours.

So

it's just like a well-ran organization that every single person within the organization knows their role.

They're experts at their role.

We have authority as well within the race team.

You have your superior that you're listening to and you report to and right.

And the best race teams have an unbelievable organizational culture.

They have an unbelievable framework of who does what.

And you don't question that person next to you or you know, trying to get to that next level because you play that key role within the team.

And maybe the next season, you can apply for another position, you know, within the organization and train for that.

But when we're at a race, everyone knows their exact job, their exact role, their exact duty.

And, you know, things run very smoothly with that.

There's other race teams where I've been a part of that aren't ran so well, just like businesses that aren't ran well.

And you can see it, man.

You can feel the culture when you walk in the garage, you know, of, man, is everyone not really wanting to be here?

They don't like who they work for.

This is just a job they're taking because they got turned down from that other team.

And

they're really just trying to get to the next thing versus like this team that I won with this year with Porsche.

I mean, this is, they're highly regarded as one of the best teams in the paddock.

And the reason why is every single person, they love what they do.

They love who they work for.

You know, as driver, you know, you want to, as a driver, you want to earn their respect.

Show all the pit crew that you respect what they do, and it goes vice versa, right?

I've seen so many teams where no one respected each other.

You know, the drivers didn't respect the crew members, the crew members didn't respect the driver, and the whole thing, and the results tend to match, right?

You know, that effort.

So, it's

another great example of how culture, you know, in winning organizations versus culture in losing organizations,

it's extremely, it's extremely parallel.

Yeah, I think a lot of people also misjudge

how

fit you have to be to be on one of these teams.

You know, like these guys who do the pit crew, these guys train for that.

I mean, yeah, every day.

Yeah.

Yeah, every day.

And by the way, driving the car is not easy.

It is very, very physically intensive.

I think a lot of people think when

they see a race on television, they think it's like driving their car on the road sort of fast yeah you know what i mean

i won't lie i misjudged it before i got into it you know bro you know i did remember i remember remember my first 10 laps in a race car yeah dude i went 10 laps in the in this uh fucking the ferrari yeah and the ferrari challenge car i think it was yeah and uh

first 10 laps i'd ever been in a race car

and dude I got out of the car.

I had to lay on the fucking ground.

Like I was, it was legit.

First of all, you don't know how to breathe so you're like hold your breath tense the whole time because you've it's i mean dude you're driving

it's it's just so different

to some you have to like do it to understand how different it is even if you're a great driver on the road yeah it's just a different thing like for example the braking the braking you know like when you when you go on the road and you see a light you know, coming up and it turns yellow, you'll start to ease on the brakes, right?

And then eventually eventually you'll come to a full stop racing's the complete opposite you're trying to basically shorten the amount of time that you're on the brakes to save time which means you're going to go as close to that light as possible stand on the brakes as hard as possible hoping that you will slow down enough to stop and and dude it's just a completely different

thing than driving than driving on the road.

It's completely different.

It's addicting.

I I mean, you saw it when

what Andy's talking about, we took him to this racing school in Vegas.

This is what, gosh, what was it?

Oh, this is when you were 17.

2017.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's just, you can, like you said, I mean, you can take like, we all drive cars, right, on the street, right?

So you think, you know, how hard could it be?

You know, you go left, you go right, you know, slow down, hit the brakes.

And one thing, a racing car, like you drove the Ferrari Challenge car,

a racing car compared to to a street car, I mean, the nicest, the greatest streetcar you can make.

I mean, you've driven some of the best cars in the world, right?

They're unbelievable.

They perform really well.

They usually go really well with speed, right?

But with a racing car, the ability to stop at a tremendous, uh, fast, tremendous rate in a very short distance is unbelievable.

And it's not just the brakes, it's the tires.

It's like the down force.

If you, the force that you have to hit to stop a race car,

you know, at speed, at pace, is so unbelievably hard.

I mean, when you know, like, I told Andy, Andy, you got to hit the brake hard.

You know, he was like, okay, you know, you look at Andy, you think like, this guy can hit the brakes, right?

You know, he'll be fine, you know.

And he goes out there his first few laps, and we, because there's a, there's a sensor on the brake pedal.

It mounds, it measures the pressure per square inch.

And we come back and we're like, hey, Andy, the brake pressure, you know, we need, you know, you can hit it, man.

You hit it harder.

He's like, dude, I am hitting it hard.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, dude, you don't know.

Like, you don't understand.

You you don't understand what they're saying yeah like you think they're saying like break it hard on the road yeah it's like dude it's like as hard as you can yeah yeah try to break the pedal off yeah it feels it feels counterintuitive yeah like when you first start everything feels wrong because honestly if you were in a streetcar and you hit the brake as hard as what you have to on the racing car you would probably crash the streetcar it doesn't have the suspension and the down force to just suck to the road it would you know you could lose the car right in a race car it's designed to, at the last possible moment, you go from, you know, zero brake pressure to

it's undeniably and it's not like you're coasting when that happens.

You're at full throttle.

Full throttle.

Okay.

And then you're off the throttle and on the brake, full brake.

And it's, dude, it's, it's aggressive.

It's a thing, dude.

Like you get out of the car and your first time and you're like, it's disorienting.

Well, the most, one of the most things, and you'll see Formula One Indy car drivers, one of the toughest things in training that we're all working on is our necks.

And obviously

there's G-force side to side, but then also when you're racing, you have a helmet on, right?

And this helmet, you know, weighs a decent amount when you're sitting still.

Well, when you're traveling fast, it weighs a lot more.

And the biggest is the g-force you have under braking.

Yeah.

Right.

Let me, and your head is, yeah, you're strapped in with your body with the, with the five-point harnesses, but your head is loose, right?

So the amount of force that you've got to be able to withhold with your neck from your face wanting to slam into the steering wheel it takes some um it takes some time to get them used to it dude it was awesome it's awesome dude like and once you like it's like golf it's like you go out and you play golf and for 17 holes you fucking hit the ball all over the golf course and and you're like this sucks yeah and then like there's like one shot that you hit and it goes straight down the fairway and it's like i'm going pro you're like yeah

you're like this is the coolest thing ever and that's that's how it is with racing.

Like, it's, it's, you know,

I'm very inexperienced in a race car, okay?

But I have enough experience driving, you know, like you said, the best cars in the world to have a good,

you got a great foundation perspective.

You weren't that bad.

No, we did.

It turned out good.

Bro, we got some funny stories.

We got some throwers.

So, so I'm ultra competitive, dude.

Right?

Like, everybody probably guessed this.

So the other thing I struggled with was the fucking spinning of the car.

All right.

Like I think I spun the car over the weekend.

It had to be some sort of record.

Like it had to have.

It was something.

Yeah, dude.

It had to have been.

Remember when we were talking about finding the limit, right?

Yeah.

You got to go past it.

Yeah.

And

what's his name?

Enrico?

Enrico.

Enrico was like.

Hey, man, you know, at least you're aggressive.

Most people are not aggressive.

They drive the whole time.

Yeah.

So, so, dude, we're like at, like

we're at this race and like all these other dudes that are there are like guys who have been through the school already and it's like their year-end race.

I had not been through the school.

So like we just went out there and like I just was with all these dudes.

So I was the least experienced person there.

Yeah.

And

we started doing these.

We started, you know, running these practice laps and I got this coach,

I forget his name was JR, I think his name was,

and bro, he's screaming in my ear, first of all, like, and like, dude, when people scream at me, I'm like, you know, and he's like, gas, gas, gas, break, break, break.

Fuck, like, just screaming in your ear from this far away to telling you what to do.

And from the first second, you pull on the track.

I'm like, bro, can I like go around once?

Like, I don't even know what the fuck we're looking at.

So we go around the track a whole bunch of times for like three days.

And dude, I'm spinning the car.

And we get to like the third day dude and i don't remember what happened but but dude so so there's this guy who was my race partner so they pair you up with a with a yeah another guy yeah all right and they

you're gonna run the first half of the race and they run like the second they paired me up with this dude craig who was you know he was a little bit older than us fucking awesome dude he's from australia still we're still friends on on the internet

In fact, he runs a dream racing in the

Australia.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But

his son was there, and his son's like 12.

Okay.

So, like, do you do you?

I remember.

We ever, what happened?

What?

Well, there was like a qualifying, right?

It's a proper race.

It has to be a proper race at the end of this like week-long deal that you only came for the last few days of.

But, you know,

you had to do a qualifying so each driver could go out to try to set their one fastest lap time, just like we do a real race.

And that would determine how you would start and line up, right?

Well, you had a spin in like the last practice and got like completely down on yourself.

Yeah.

You know, that you were like,

you were ready to go do something else.

Dude,

so

I were the one that was supposed to qualify for you and Craig.

Yeah.

Like if you didn't qualify, then Craig would have to start like dead last.

Yeah.

You know, so then his son comes over to.

So, dude, I come out of the car and I'm like,

this is fucking,

I'm fucking pissed, bro.

Like, you guys see me like when I'm top level pissed, that's how pissed I was.

And I'm, I'm like,

fucking,

uh, fucking Ryan's like, yeah, just leave him alone.

Like, let him leave alone.

So, dude, I go sit by

myself, like, way over there.

And fucking this, this, Craig's son, who's 12 at the time, comes over and like sits next to me.

And I'm like, I'm fucking mad, dude.

And like, and then choke a kid.

No.

But like, how can you be mad at a 12-year-old kid?

You know?

and he's like, he's like, hey, man, you're doing good.

He's like, he's like, no, listen.

No, he gives me like a pep talk.

He's like, and he meant it, dude.

He's like, hey, he's like, you're doing good.

This is your first time on the track.

He's like, you're doing really good.

My dad said you're doing good too.

And like gives me this pep talk.

And like five minutes later, I'm like, all right.

Yeah.

I'm good.

Let's go.

You're like, dude,

yeah.

So like out of all the pep talks I've given in my life, I get the best one from this, from a 12-year-old kid.

Yeah, you went.

If I remember, don't be wrong, but I remember we won qualifying.

Yeah, you qualified.

You went out, you won qualifying.

So you beat all the other uh cars.

Oh, there's like eight cars or something, and then um, yeah, you got you started the race.

No, I finished the race, you finished it, you qualified, then Craig started from your position, then you finished, but yeah, and I remember you telling me, like, man, dude, I took the kid came over and was like, Mr.

Andy, you know, you're doing good, and like, then I realized, like, man, I can't let this get like, yeah, I can't get mad and leave you now.

Dude, and so in the actual race, bro, like, I don't remember how many laps we run or whatever.

I think was it timed?

Was it an hour?

Yeah, probably.

I don't remember what it was.

It started in the day, but finished into the night.

Yeah.

So, but dude, I hadn't gone that long the entire weekend without fucking spinning the car.

Like,

so somehow

I went through the whole race and didn't spin the car and we won.

Oh, fuck you.

Yeah, which was

cool.

Yeah.

But,

dude, dude, the best laps I ran that race were when we went,

I don't know if I should say this or not, but we were at the bar drinking, like having a couple drinks.

And then we had to take a helicopter from the hotel to the racetrack for like a night event there.

And then they let you like drive a take a couple laps.

Yeah, whatever car you want for a couple laps.

And I had a GT3RS at the time, so I was familiar with the car.

Fuck, dude, I did fine in that car.

I was, I had a couple whiskeys in me.

But, you know, there was nobody else.

Nice and loose.

Nice and smooth.

I was.

I was nice and relaxed.

Don't recommend this.

Yeah, don't anyway.

I don't even know if I should say that.

He's a professional.

It is true.

But,

yeah, man.

I'll never forget that weekend.

I didn't know when you were so upset after the qualifying.

You know, we were just starting out.

Like, we were racing together that year.

It was your first year sponsoring.

We were doing Lamborghini.

Lamborghini.

Super Trafea.

Super Traffea.

Yeah.

So it's the first time we had first form on the race car.

And I was sitting there thinking, like, man, this is probably going to be the first and last time I have a First Forum sponsorship.

And

he's going to hate cars so much.

No, it was awesome.

Dude,

you did great, man.

That was a good time.

Yeah, it's great, great business out there.

We were at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Yeah, dude.

And remember,

I don't even know if I should tell these stories, dude.

Enrico renting those two Jettas.

Oh, yeah.

So, dude.

Learning car control.

Yes.

So Enrico is like former F1.

Yeah, he drove it.

Okay.

So, this dude, I don't know.

What do you think he is?

60s?

Yeah, probably, probably,

early 60s now.

Yeah, he's late 50s, early 60s.

Italian guy.

Awesome guy.

Super awesome guy.

Super cool.

Like, exactly like every other race car driver that's like just fucking.

He owned the racing school.

Yeah, he owned the whole thing.

And he's like, you know, hey, no big deal.

Like,

just not, doesn't give a fuck.

The only thing he gave a fuck the entire time was when we were,

he goes and he rents these jettas bro and he's like all right uh we're gonna go do uh what do they call it cha uh where you follow him yeah lead follows lead follows lead follows so him and i went out on the track together and like raced each other you're trying to learn how close you can be to another car in front of you or beside you like we all drive on the road and you think oh i'm i'm close to the car in front of me you when you really learn how what close is you know like

close means they touch you they touch you

well don't hit you know yeah or rub is racing

that's right you know you know where the movie that's from yeah days of thunder yeah the greatest movie ever

that's right uh but yeah so you are learning um you know car control and car proximity yeah with lead and follow with two rental cars so we're so we're driving

i'm just trying to picture andy in a jettison no bro

this is awesome some of the most fun so we're racing these fucking jettis around the racetrack.

And the coach is like, you can get closer, get closer, get closer.

We're like,

like bumping each other and shit.

And like, we get done.

And I'm like, the only thing he got mad about is we were going down the, we were going down the street and I like, like, fucking faked.

And he's like, can't do that.

That's against the code.

Like, he got super fucking pissed.

But, dude, so we got done.

And I'm like, so, so, dude,

I'm like, so

how come you don't use your own cars for that?

And he's like, well, because we beat them up.

And I'm like,

so

like the rental place doesn't care?

He's like, no, we just get the insurance.

He was dead serious, dude.

He was dead serious.

I'm like, so they haven't caught on.

He's like, no, they don't care.

Like,

no big deal.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

Learning to drive a race car.

But yeah, man.

That was good times.

That's what we should honestly do that again.

Dude, what we should do is get like some of our guys here that, you know, make them like, we'll do a contest or something and take them and get them in a race car.

Yeah.

Because, like, dude, you cannot appreciate racing.

Cause here's the best thing that came out of that.

It wasn't what I learned about driving, which I did learn a lot.

I mean, you want to learn how to drive, you'll learn a lot in a very short amount of time in a race school.

But it's when you, it's like playing a musical instrument.

Like when you start to play a musical instrument and you realize how hard it is, and then you see like, somebody who's really good at it and you can appreciate it's the same with racing.

The best thing that that came out of that race school for me was how much of a fan it made me of racing.

You know, because now I'm like, dude, these guys are really good.

Like, where you, you know, we watched, if you've ever been through that and you watch racing, you're like, I could probably do that, you know, and it's like, dude, it's a different, it's a totally different thing.

Different.

Yeah.

I mean, if anyone's ever, you're into cars, I mean, going out on a racetrack,

even just completely by yourself, it's, it's awesome to learn.

You're, you know, you think you have limits, right?

And then if you ever get a chance to be around a professional driver, and as soon as you start thinking, like, man, you know, like I'm doing good here, you know, I'm really killing it.

If you ever get a chance to ride like passenger seat with a top-level driver, your eyes will really get open

about what's possible, right?

You know, in terms of braking.

Yeah, and where the limit really is on a car.

Like,

dude, I need, you know, so far past

what people think it is.

When everything's right, like when your tires are right, and

like

what that car will do

is

like almost double or triple what you think it'll do.

Yeah, like what you feel when you're in the car.

It's yeah, it's what takes people so much longer.

Like, I remember telling you the one of the wildest corners in all of racing anywhere is turn one at Sebring in Florida.

Um, the race of the car here that we won, this corner is like you enter the corner in fifth gear on a car.

We do have one more gear, but you enter it at around 150 miles an hour from a really long straightaway before it, and there's bumps all the way through this thing.

And this, there's a concrete wall that

marks the apex of the corner on the inside.

And

it's a virtually a 90-degree corner.

So you're going straight, and it's a hard left that's a 90-degree.

And this corner, our minimum speed in a GT3R is about

miles an hour.

That's the slowest that you get in the middle of the corner.

And I remember walking you through that one and doing like, no, wait, 134 is like the slowest.

And like, believe me, when you first go at it and you're, there's also a concrete wall that you're staring at down the whole straight away.

On the outside and kind of like try to cross it straight, almost across.

You do.

Yeah.

You start,

any high-speed corner, you want to start as far to the outside of

the corner and make the apex and then utilize all all the track on the exit.

You try to open the corner up as much as possible.

And that one's just wild because it's basically a hard right.

There's a concrete wall on the inside, a concrete wall on the outside.

So if you mess up, there isn't like a sand pit or some gravel or everything.

If you mess up, like you mess up really bad.

And like I say, the slowest, the slowest you get down to is roughly 130 miles an hour.

And like that one, when you can wrap your mind around, like when you actually do it once, you have a whole new understanding, you know, of what's possible.

And then, like, that's probably one of the gnarliest ones here, but I'm sure you guys, like, I know you and Formula One, big fan of Spa in Belgium.

Yeah.

This is the greatest racetrack in the world.

Like, there's no question.

And there's a corner there called Eau Rouge.

It's actually a series of corners that are all tied together.

And it's that, that is without a doubt, like the craziest thing I have ever done.

That's the downhill one, right?

No, you go uphill.

So you, you enter this this section of corners at top top gear so six six gear as fast as the car will go um and it's a series of corners that you first go left is that it right there though yeah like all of these corners are it yeah this is all it so um

there's

it's it's a combination of like

four corners tied together and it's if you mess up here again there's no like runoff there's no mistake this is it's also like this is like the deadliest corner in racing.

More, it's a more, more drivers have died at this one corner than like anywhere else in the world

because it, it can be done, like in a GT3, it can be done flat without lifting, but this is like perfect weather conditions, you know, perfect grip from the tires, perfect weight balance with the car.

And then if you, where most people make a mistake, if you lift, you know, your heart and soul and everything in your body says, hey, man, we should, we should back off here a little bit.

If you lift, you actually take down force off off the car and make the car

squirrely and move.

And if you lift at the wrong moment in this series, there's no saving it.

I mean,

there's no catching it.

And it's a really bad crash.

Now, I say all these bad things.

When you do it the first time wide open without lifting, it is the most exhilarating feeling.

on planet earth.

I don't know anything any better.

And maybe it's like, oh, you cheated, you know, this, you've seen all the massive crashes and stuff, but there's nothing that I can even like closely describe to it.

And like when you first arrive there, you can watch it on TV as much as you want, but when you first arrive, one, it's going uphill.

This hill is like you're climbing like three stories.

And it is, I mean, it's a hard left, a hard right, and a hard left back again.

And you're like, wait a second, this is flat?

Like, we don't, my first thought approaching it was, we need to not only lift, we need to probably break and maybe consider a downshift.

We should consider all of the above.

But this place, like, I've been telling you, like you've got to go to like watch a race there, one.

And then they have like driving events.

Like you can go and like, like Porsche and Mantai they do like track days where you can turn up and drive like a GT3 RS or whatnot.

Like you got to go drive at this track.

And you don't have to do O-Rouge flat, but just to go up it, it's an experience in person.

Like as a car person, I regularly, like anyone, if you're ever into it, like go to Belgium, go to Spa, watch the F1 race.

They have a 24-hour race there as well.

um i've won that race i've uh probably one of probably my some of my best driving ever done i was on pole uh position there um for the european lamas series championship one year and that was that was probably the best lap i've ever done in my life but uh that place is cool so dude let's let's kind of shift a little bit and let's talk about moving you know through the big races um

You know, we started it with

Lamborghini's series race.

Yeah, Super Trefez, a single make series where all the cars were exactly the same.

And that's a great place to start as a driver because as a driver, you're the only difference.

I mean, everyone's car is exactly the same with the rules.

And teams can make small adjustments like the rear wing angle and the ride heights, but not really a lot.

So it's truly a competition of the driver.

Where now, and just like Formula One or

what we race now in GT3, you're racing against other manufacturers.

So, you know, there's always differences between a porsche and a ferrari and a lamborghini so there's more variables but single make series like the super trefeo for lamborghini that was that was awesome because you know there's no excuses man if you're slow you're you know and every major manufacturing for those of you who are uh you know not familiar with this so porsche has one of these single makes ferrari has one of these single makes there's basically one for every major manufacturer and that's where most

uh like what we would call

gentleman racers that end up doing what you've done

come from.

Yeah, that's where you go.

I mean, it's it's one of the least expensive, you know, forms of racing.

Um, a lot of a lot of guys that do it for fun, they like that part of it, that hey, you know, the driver's only difference.

But

yeah, it's where you go to kind of get your get your start, I would say, you know, and in racing, if you do well, like they have a championship with Lamborghini's here in North America.

Um, in our second year of racing, that we won the North American championship.

And then you go to a world championship where they have a series in Europe and they have a series in Asia and America.

And all those drivers come together at one race.

They change the location.

And this is the same with Ferrari.

This is the same with Porsche.

And for Lamborghini in our second year, we won the World Championship.

So once you do that, they kind of kick you out.

Because

they want it to be like

a place for

drivers that are coming up to go to.

So, yeah, that was.

Well, plus, you got to realize these are their best customers.

Yeah.

So, like, there's,

you want to keep, yes.

Yeah.

You can't have one guy there winning all the time, and they kind of politely ask you, hey,

it's time to move on.

So then we moved in.

It was 2018, right?

It was 2018.

Yeah.

And then we moved into

IMSA.

Yeah, yeah, the IMSA Weather Tech Sports Car Championship.

We moved there in 2019, which here in North America, that's kind of like our top level of sports car and endurance racing.

It's owned by NASCAR, so the France family and all.

And that's the home of our biggest races, like the 24 hours of Daytona and the 12 hours of Sebring.

And that's where all the manufacturers come to compete against each other.

So, you know, the Lamborghini races against the Porsche and against the Corvette and against the Ferrari.

And so,

yeah, that's

our first year racing there was in 2019.

And then

we won, that was what, 2021?

The portion of

20.

That was 2020.

2020.

Yeah, we won

the 12 Hours of Sebring, you know, and that was our first like

big,

well, it was, I mean, that was our first big, you know, kind of marquee, you know, race.

The 12 Hours of Sebring is one of the

triple crown of sports car racing, which is, you know, Sebring, Daytona, and then obviously the 24 Hours of Lamar being the biggest.

But yeah, we won that race in 2020.

It was the last race of the year that year.

And,

man, that was an awesome time with Andy.

Andy was going to come to that race.

He had something come at the last minute.

He couldn't come.

And I had a feeling we were pretty competitive in the championship that year.

We had been on the podium a couple of times, but we hadn't won a race

at this high level.

And

we were, it's a 12-hour race, and we qualified well.

I think we were in the top three or so in qualifying.

So I kind of knew we had a decent car and all.

Started the race off.

We were always kind of around the top five.

We got up to the lead for a little bit.

And, you know, then you kind of fall back.

You know, it's, you know, obviously there's lots of chaos.

But I remember about halfway through, we were somewhere in the top five.

And I'm out of the car at this point.

My teammates are in and I'm texting with Andy.

He's back here watching it.

And, you know, he's what he watches like every minute.

He knows everything going.

Like, you ask, like, why are we pitting right now?

Like, is everything okay?

You know, like, yeah, like, I'm definitely that guy.

Yeah, you know, and it's like, dude, when they're racing, it's on TV.

I don't sleep.

Yeah, he gets the, he wants to know, like, the inside, like, well, we're pit now because we're saving some fuel.

So I have to explain to him the strategy, what's going on.

And I remember it like with six hours to go.

He's like, dude, we're going to win.

And I'm like, ah, you know,

it's a long way to go.

There's a lot that can happen.

He's like, no, man, I feel it.

We're going to win this one.

And I just dismissed it.

I'm like,

okay, I'll keep you posted, you know?

And I went in for like another stint or so.

I come back out.

There was was like two hours to go or so, and we're in the lead.

You know, we're going.

It's getting, it's dark now.

Sea Ring always ends at night, and I'm done with my drive time.

My teammates are going to end.

Patrick Long was our teammate that year,

who's in the new F1 movie.

You get a chance to see.

He's got some plays himself in the movie.

Is it Corey on the team that year?

No, Corey wasn't on.

That was the

next year.

But yeah, no,

we were leading and we were in this battle with the Ferrari.

I remember.

and the Ferrari was faster than us that year.

They just had pace on us, and

we were scrappy, you know, and Andy's texting with me.

We get down to

the hour that's left, and he's like, dude, I'm telling you, we're going to win.

And I'm like, don't say it.

Just don't

jinx us, man.

Like, you know, you never know.

And,

man,

there was a yellow flag because there was a crash with like 15 minutes to go.

And so that bunches the whole field back up.

So now it was just kind of us and the Ferrari up front, but then now there's like the whole field is now bunched up and they clean the wreck up and then you, it's green flag again.

There's like 30 minutes left in the race.

And man, we had a, we had an awesome battle, but we won the race, crossed the line finish.

It was a super close race.

And man, I just, I can't, you know, it was like, I'm not a guy.

Your tech said something like, I'm not going to say I told you so, but I did tell you so.

Dude, what was that race that we won that?

Fuck, there was like a, was that the one, was that the race where there was like a wreck right at the end like right at the end that was sabring yeah and that's what that the amg car fucking wrecked i think so yeah yeah i think so maybe it was uh mercedes i can't remember i just remember this ferrari battling and now you guys recycled that engine because that car is sitting in the lobby then that that yeah the same engine went to next year and won the 21 days home no it's like we no the no different engine the car that engine is in his house is in my house

yeah

portia did a cool gift andy we got to keep the car you know from portia it's here at first forum headquarters uh but they had told us at the time like hey we have to take the engine out to do some maintenance before it like goes into you know storage or you know display but uh yeah portia made a really awesome gift for me they they took the engine out that we won and they made the engine the whole block and everything into a coffee table and they gifted it to me and they took the six uh pistons out and they gave like the two other drivers they made the piston with like a frame and everything and like our lead engineer and the lead mechanic.

So six.

Everybody's got a piece of it.

Yeah.

Like a piston, you know, and the rod.

And then they gave me the, it's still in my basement, my man cave today.

But

yeah, that, that was, that was, I had one other time that Andy had a, you know, I told you.

So when we won Daytona two years later in 2022, won the 24 hours of Daytona.

He was again like during the race like, bro, I feel we're winning this.

And I'm like, oh, God, not again.

We had the text to prove it.

Yeah, yeah.

We got the text.

And we were like, dude, we're, we're going to win.

Like, I'm telling you, we're going to win.

And, you know, every time I'm out of the car, I'm.

No, we were talking about that before the fucking race.

We were.

Because remember, we put believe on the back of the car.

On the back of the car.

Yeah.

I had this whole, yeah.

That was a FaceTime call, too, in the locker room before that.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, with the team.

Yeah.

We had Andy called to the, we always have a.

a team meeting, you know, before the race, you know, day.

And Andy called in on FaceTime.

He'd spoke to all our mechanics, all our, you know, guys and gathering around.

And and he said, guys,

you got to believe.

He said, I already believe.

I already believe we are going to win.

We are prepared.

We're ready.

And we are going to win.

And it got everybody pumped up.

And yeah, we had, out of that, the team made a little sticker right on the back of the bumper.

We just put believe.

And that was kind of our inner mantra that before you can do anything great, you got to believe.

And that all came from Andy.

And, you know, the race went up and down again.

And we had tried to win that race a number of times before this.

Oh, yeah.

And it was Yeah,

four times before it.

Yeah.

And,

you know, I'm like, Andy, this is one of the hardest races in the world.

You know, I'm just.

Some dudes will race their whole lives and never win that race.

Say will Lamar.

Yeah, yeah.

In fact, most people.

Most people.

Most people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's, I mean, the guy who owned the team that we were racing with that year, John Wright, he spent his entire career.

Yeah, awesome, awesome guy, owns Wright Motorsports.

He started as a mechanic for a team for Porsche, worked his way up, got to own his own team.

And I mean, mean, he's been racing professionally as a mechanic and team owner for 30 some odd years of his life and done Daytona every one of those years.

He never won.

And, you know, I'm telling Andy, I'm like, hey, man, most people spend their career trying to win this race.

And he's like, well, we're going to win.

And, dude, and I'll never forget, we still have it to this day.

We crossed the finish line, we won.

And I was, you know, obviously it's very hectic and all of this.

And

we were going up to the podium.

I checked my phone.

Andy had text.

He goes, Hey, man, I love you, brother.

And I want you to know I always believe in you.

And one other thing, we're going to win the 24 Hours of Lamas.

Like immediately, we hadn't even gone to accept the trophy from Daytona.

And Andy's already telling me, We're going to win the 24 Hours of Lamas.

And again, I'm like, oh, Andy, you know,

which started a whole new journey.

A whole new journey.

Yeah.

So next year, off we went to Europe trying to start to qualify for Lamas.

It took a couple of years.

Yeah.

The first two Lamas did not go very well.

Did not go very well.

What happened, Ryan?

I mean,

you know,

a lot of shit can happen in 24 hours, let me tell you.

Or the first hour.

Yeah, yeah.

Gosh, the first year we crashed out.

I mean, I think I made it into like hour two or something, but I was in the car.

We crashed.

And actually, another guy crashed out.

See what happened.

I arrived at another crash going on, and I joined that crash.

It looked like a good time.

Thought we would all, you know,

things happen.

Like, that's why these 24-hour races are so difficult to win.

I can't explain to you when you put, there's this year at Lamar, there were 62 cars in the field.

We're in a couple different classes, but there's 62 cars out there running around.

And you put 62 cars with type A personality drivers who all think they're the best best in the world and are all, you know, trying to win the biggest race in the world.

And man, shit happens.

You know, and you're, you're constantly in this environment of chaos that is uncontrollable.

And, you know, it's so easy for you to do everything right.

Like our first year at Lama,

like I was at the right spot on the track.

I was looking, I did the right thing.

And just this other guy, he crashed literally right in front of me.

I mean, there was, and everyone's like, oh, Ryan, don't take it so hard on yourself.

Like, no one could have done anything.

Max Verstappen couldn't have avoided that crash.

You know, you always think that there's something better you could do, but a lot of times, you know, you can be prepared and something happens out of your control.

And that's it, man.

You know, I think people, you guys got to understand: like,

you, you can literally, like, to finish a 2, even a 12-hour race or a six-hour race, much less a 24-hour race

without a car, without the car breaking,

without you slipping on something on the track, without

flat tire, flat tire, without,

you know, I mean, dude,

there's so much shit that has to go right.

It's, you know, like you said, somebody could crash in front of you.

Somebody could make a stupid move.

Oh, by the way, you're in GT3 or GTD class, which is the slowest class out there, but also the hardest class to win in.

Yeah, biggest class.

Yes.

Because

you've got all these other other cars like the prototype cars that are ten million dollars a piece

flying by you and

like it's

dude you there there is an element

and i hate using this word but there is an element of pure luck there to get through without a doubt i mean without a doubt you have to we say all the time like these big races you have to be prepared yeah right i mean and because you're going into this uncontrollable situation, you have to execute on every single thing you can control.

Like for the driver, like my fitness, I can control that.

I can, I have to execute.

I can't be fatigued.

I can't be overweight.

I can't be, you know, I have to be perfect.

I can control that.

We can control our pit stops, right?

We can control if we make sure that the wheelguns are working properly.

We can control that if we practice that and choreograph that.

We can control that the tire pressures are set correctly and the tires.

There's lots of things we can control and we have to execute on all those things because you're going to go out on track with these 61 other idiots

all that you can't control, right?

You can't control the weather.

You can't control track conditions.

You can't control

safety cars when they come out.

So there's all these things that you just have to focus on the things that you can control.

And so you can be perfect on all those things and have a run of bad luck.

People don't understand, dude.

Like there's guys out there, like there's a, you can basically buy your way into these things.

So in every race, and this is no knock, but I mean, this is just the way racing is.

Like you're going to be on the track with guys who are super professional, F1 champions, the best drivers in history.

And you're also going to be on the track

with the dude next door that has a medical device company that fucking has enough money to run the race,

who doesn't know shit about racing.

So it's like dude it it really is chaos there there's there's there's always you know a handful of those guys yeah you know um you know that you know that's what a lot of it it takes to win i get i get a lot of those questions you know what what what does it take and like how do you pull it off and honestly you got to have the thing that i think is rare is one they're definitely better teams than others so you've got to get to a position as a driver that you're um on the radar of some of the best teams if your shit's slow or you don't have fun.

There's a funny, there's a financial element.

For me,

the rare combination that I've been able to spend the time to develop the skill set in order to drive the car fast, that's one thing that is rare.

And then also I've been able through my business life, through my relationship with you, sponsorship.

Some driver has to bring financial element to the deal, whether that comes from your own money, whether that comes from outside sponsorship.

You can find either of those two.

You can find super talented, fast drivers that don't have a penny to their name or no sponsorship or no connections, right?

They're not that valuable because someone has to pay for the car to go around.

Or you can find guys that have tons of money.

They can't drive

that out there.

A bit of a liability,

a bit not with this skill set.

I've been able to devote a lot of my life on the business side of things to be able to bring some of my own financial means to a team, been able to make great relationships with guys like Andy and have bring sponsorship to our team.

Our team first forms the title sponsor.

And still, you can have all that.

You can bring all that stuff, but someone has to drive the car at an extremely high level for hours and hours on end without a mistake.

So like the first year when we arrived, I had all this.

We had the fun, everything was there.

We had a good team.

I felt like I had done the work.

The car crashed with me in it.

So I you know, I can't, it wasn't my teammate's fault.

I got, you know, and yeah, you can say, oh, wrong place, wrong time.

I was in the car, man.

What's that like, dude?

Like, how's that feel?

Like, for real?

It's because I mean, when you do it, when you crash, it feels bad, like, when your team, I've been where my teammate crashed, and you're like, dude, I didn't even get to drive.

Like, you know, so, like, I wouldn't have crashed, yeah, yeah, I wouldn't have crashed, you know, there's easy that, then that feels bad, yeah.

But, dude, when you're when you're at the wheel, dude, and like you crash it, not like, oh, we got to come in and fix it, like, you're out.

Like, I've been, I've been, because that's the first radio call, is

we're out yeah you're you're because the engineer they don't know they have sensors and stuff on the car they can tell the car stopped right you know but they don't know what happened they're like oh maybe he can get it back yeah like when you properly crash it yeah it's not like how you see on f1 tv on the mo on the show where they the guys have so much data they know they they they know yeah they i mean our guys have a tremendous amount of data but they they know if you stop it's not good can you get the car back is you you know can you get it back to the pit lane but when you're sitting there and like the whole front is smashed off or whatever, and you got to tell them, like,

we're out.

And all this work, all this money, all this time, all this preparation, it's all, you know, dude, and the preparation is for a year.

Like, that's like you start prepping to run the Daytona

the minute after the Daytona finishes or the Lama finishes.

Like, obviously, we have other races throughout the year, but like, it's all tuned up.

That's right.

I mean, everyone wants to win.

Lamas for sure is the biggest race in the world.

I mean, like,

you can ask like any driver, any Formula One.

I mean, look, right now the talk in Formula One is like McLaren is making a new car to come to race at Lamas.

And like Lando Norris and Ostagar Piastri versus Stappens talking about he wants to come to Lamar.

Like every driver, I don't care who you are, you want to win the 24 Hours of Lamas.

The Indianapolis 500 is up there, you know, the biggest race.

The Monaco Grand Prix and F1, but it is, Lamas is one of, I would say, the top three races in the world that everyone wants to win.

It's the most viewed.

Yes.

The most viewed motor race ever.

So that amount of pressure, you have like everyone from F1 to NASCAR to IndyCar, like everyone wants to be at this race.

So the preparation that goes in, if you have, and one, you can't just sign up to come to Lamas.

You have to be invited.

So even as a driver or a team, there's only so many slots that cars can physically fit into

the pit lane.

So you have to earn an invitation.

And so even then, to earn the invitation, the amount amount of preparation that goes into being ready, you know, for the race, both from a personnel standpoint and the car, like I can tell you our car at Porsche, they work on that car.

I mean,

every single part of that car has been gone over time and time and time again.

And like, we have like a splitter, like the front splitter that's in the front.

And I can't talk to you about a lot of the secret things, but I can tell you like

the front splitter we have, the rear wing that we have, there are certain parts on the car that are Lamas only.

And I mean, they are designed exactly for this one race right to make lamas is kind of interesting because we have these super long straightaways like the mulsan straight where we're going top speed for a really really long time and then there's also super high speed corners and then some very very tight first gear corners so the track when you first look at it looks kind of simplistic when you're there it's like the combination of everything you have to have a car that's fast on the straights because if you're not you're just going to get past and it's the easiest place to pass you have to have a car that has enough down force to be stable in the really high-speed corners, like these ones down here at the end, corners like 20 and so through here.

Those are called the Porsche curves.

Dude, you enter those cars, like those corners in fifth gear, and you're going through there at 140 to 130 miles an hour.

And then you have corners like the final chicanes, those are called the Ford Chicanes.

You're in first gear.

In first gear, you're barely crawling.

There's these huge curves that you got to climb and go under.

So the car has to perform at low speed medium speed high speed and it also has to be fast right so it's from an engineering standpoint it's super hard to have a car that's good at all of those things and you'll never have one that's perfect at all of them you'll always have some you know inadequacy but yeah that's what's so kind of special and unique about you know uh developing the car that you know can be good around that track but if you can be fast here you can be fast anywhere let me let me ask you this how how hard was it for you to learn that skill of just trusting

your other teammates, right?

Like, whether it's pit crew, whether it's like your engineers, like having to have that faith, trust in somebody else to control something you can't control.

I mean,

I think

I'm going to beat the business analogy, horse, but I mean,

I've been a part of large organizations for so much of my life that you have to trust the if anyone think if Andy Frisella can run all of first form completely by himself there'd be no need for these hundreds of employees here right you know so no one can do anything this complex and great you know on their own um in the racing car there is something that is just

i don't want to say it's balls or blind faith like when the engineer is telling you hey um the porsche occurs you can enter that you know at 140.

And you're like, okay, that sounds good.

And then you arrive there in the real car and you're, or I'd say even first on the simulator.

We do try things first on the simulator.

And like, okay, the engineer says 140 miles an hour at this corner.

And you arrive there and you're like 160, 170 flat.

And you think, oh, my.

And let me tell you, it's a hard corner.

And you break and you down shift twice and you turn, you look down, you're like 110.

And you're, and you're thinking, oh, gosh, I'm on the limit here.

And you go back to your notes and goes, wait, 140, he said.

Okay, let's try again.

You know, and

you crash and you crash and you crash.

And you're like, call the engineer back, like, hey, man,

questioning.

I know you said, I know you said, you know, so the simulator helps with these types of things.

Then you arrive to Lamar and you get there for the first test day because this track is mostly country roads.

It's, there's, there's only a small bit of it that's like a proper racing track.

And then you're using the rest of the country roads in France.

And this, again, the race is 100 years old, right?

But 100 years ago, they only raced on the country roads.

So you can't just go here and practice anytime you want they they only close the roads for this you know one race a year and so you're flying down the road the first time like the first practice day and the and the track's always dirty at the first time because it's a it's a it's a normal highway there's trash on the sides and stuff right and you go flying towards that corner and man let me tell you you know you yes you do have to have a lot of faith in in your engineers and what they tell you is capable of the car and and uh that takes some time i mean that that takes you gotta you gotta make like is he lying to me is he sure?

Like, how sure is he?

Dude, it takes a little bit of time.

From an amateur, very amateur perspective,

I found it very helpful to have someone telling me what to do when I was.

Because, like, dude, for me,

at a very,

very, very amateur level.

Now,

I.

You almost have to have someone telling you what to do because you have no idea what the fucking car will do.

And if you trust them, you'll be fast.

We we have a ton of data.

You know, these cars collect like you at all when you and I drive, you can, I'm, I'm just like you.

I'm much more comfortable if I can see that, okay, another driver on the same day on the same car, he broke at this point.

I'm breaking earlier.

The guy didn't crash.

He made it.

You know, I'm a, I'm, I've been able to just get myself wrapped around really quickly.

What one man can do, another man can do.

Right.

So, but I'm usually not the first person to go do it.

In some of these situations, I let, you know, my teammate does it.

And now, the good thing is there's a lot of like amateur drivers that you can show them the data over and over and they'll spend a week, a day, like going there, and they'll never make it to the breaking point.

Right.

I've been really quick.

I like I'm real quick.

If you show me, hey, Ryan, your teammate breaks here at the 50, it doesn't take me four laps or three laps.

Like, I go the next lap.

I will.

The learning curve is short.

It's very short.

I inherently know what one man can do, another man can do.

So that's whether that's stupidity bravery you know i don't know but i've just i've arrived wouldn't you say though like that's one of the most important elements to in i mean

to in to becoming a great driver quickly it's it's easy to say it's right yeah let me tell you when you like on the like in this world of simulators right um they're awesome by the way i mean these simulators are actually really really good um but there's always that element on the simulator you can always just hit that magic reset button after you crash and it costs no money.

You don't have to go to the hospital, you know, and you, you know, you can reset.

When you arrive at the real car, there's real consequences, you know, and you're, that's real speed and that's a real concrete wall right there.

You know, that's the difference.

Everyone can say, oh, yeah, break at the 50-meter mark, no problem.

You know, easier.

Some people can do it and some, some people can't.

I mean, dude, it's a parallel to business, too.

I mean, how fast can you learn?

How fast can you learn?

How fast can you, can you watch someone else do something and then know that you can do it too?

Or do you say, oh, but he's an anomaly or that's a special circumstance or we're not them?

You know, because none of that shit is true, dude.

It just isn't.

You've got to be able to learn quick.

Another thing in business that relates is a lot of people don't realize a race car, if you drive it for one hour on one set of tires and you see a racing driver who can run virtually the same lap time for over the one hour or very, very close to it, that is such an unbelievable skill set because the tires are consistently wearing out every lap that you go the tire has less grip and when you go for one hour let me tell you those last five laps at the end is so incredibly hard because it's like driving on ice there's literally like no grip left in the tire and for you to achieve anywhere close to the lap time that you did at the first of the few laps is really really hard it is possible because when you start at the first lap you have a full tank of fuel fuel weighs a lot when you know you have it all

the fuel is burning off over the hour so the car is actually getting lighter as the time goes on but the grip is going away so you start with a lot of grip super security but you're just slow because it's kind of heavy and sluggish then the car gets super light and nimble but you have no grip towards the end the best drivers can achieve a similar lap time all the way across.

There's a big parallel

in business and right when the conditions are perfect and everything's fine and everything's and you can achieve one result and you're in sales in the month of May and you can achieve a good result.

Being able to achieve that same result maybe in the month of January

or when it's a different trend.

This is more difficult in takes a skill set.

So there's the only constant is change.

Right.

And that's for sure in racing and for sure in business.

You know, it's just another reason why I love it so much in life.

Right.

What you can do now doesn't mean you can do it later.

And if you really, if you really develop the skill set, it is possible.

But man, it takes.

And the really, the really, really great

championship people actually perform much better when the circumstances are much more difficult.

So, dude, the best drivers,

when it rains, they're great.

Everyone talks about Ayrton Senna.

Yeah.

Man,

I don't care what driver you ask, driving a race car in the rain with like slick tires.

We do have rain tires you can put on, but a lot of times it's dry and then the rain comes, but you have the dry tires on.

Let me tell you, dry tires on a wet track, I can't explain to you how slick it is.

I mean,

you can think to touch the gas pedal.

You don't actually do it.

Just your brain thinks, I wonder if I should hit the gas now.

Bam, you're spun out backwards in the wall.

I mean, it's so difficult.

And Artin Senna was like, he was the man, you know, in the rain.

And the, the, the feel that it takes, I don't know, he was unworldly, okay.

But man, that's a, this is also like a, you know, another analogy.

Like sometimes,

I mean, out of the blue, it can, it can rain.

Yeah.

You know, and there's chaos.

It goes from fucking

perfect conditions.

Everything's good.

Yeah.

And then it's chaos.

And a lot in the driving world, a lot of drivers are so,

oh, God, it's raining.

And we have to pit.

We have to pit now.

And, you know, the pit crew is like, dude, you can pit.

We're going to go to last place.

Like, survive, you know, can you survive?

In Lamas, it's super specific.

Lamas, the racetrack is like over eight miles long.

It's almost nine miles.

All the time, when it rains in Lamas, it very rarely rains the whole track.

The track is so big, it can usually rain only in one section.

And the pit crew, they all know that.

They have radar and everything coming.

So you arrive and you're like, I've done it.

I've arrived like, oh my God, we have to pit now.

It's like monsoon.

They're like, ah, you got to survive, Ryan.

If you can make it past Tetrouge or the next sector, it's actually dry.

And you're like, fuck you.

And I remember this was last year.

It came huge rain towards the end of the lap.

And I mean, I was surviving, I was surviving.

And a lot of the guys I was racing with, they all peeled into the pit lane.

And our guys told me to stay out, like, it's going to dry up.

And I mean, I didn't question them, but I did ask, like, are you sure?

Like, everyone's going in.

And they're like, no, trust me.

And sure enough, we cycled to the lead.

Everyone came in for wet tires.

I made it, you know, several corners later.

And then it was the sun.

So we kept going.

And man, we made a big lead right then because all the guys that came for wet tires, guess what they had to do?

When the rain stopped, they had to come back into the pits again to get dried.

It's such a good parallel for business.

Because life can change.

Yeah, dude, because the people who truly get ahead in business and who win are people that when the chaos comes, They don't freak the fuck out.

Stay the course.

Yeah, they keep moving.

And actually,

you know, if they're, I think, you know, there is an element of being wired for that.

But the best operators that I've seen and probably the best drivers that you've seen are very similar in that they will make a mat, like

it's kind of, it's kind of a paradox.

People who are truly great at what they do when things are perfect, will usually be hyper, almost

insane about how much better it should be.

But then when shit gets fucking crazy, those people calm down, dude.

They're like, I'm super calm.

Chaos is happening.

Tragedy happened.

The storm came out of nowhere on the racetrack.

The storm came out of nowhere in your business.

But it's here.

And those people, they go from being

like almost

hyper aggressive and like annoying and intolerable in terms of like their aggressiveness and their you know like yeah fuck we gotta look out for this or that or this to like hey everything's good yep we're good

we just got to do this and this and this and I think that's a trait I don't know if that's something that

I don't know if that's something that people can learn but I do believe you can get better at it yeah because it takes an actual effort yeah everything in your body what I mean

yeah like you I don't know if it's something you can become great great at without having it be wired into you but i do think it's something that people can get better at yeah i would agree i mean i would agree there's like um like you know we all airtin senna for sure this guy was born with some things that that other humans just haven't been born with um i tell you like and i'm this way in business on the racetrack when it starts raining i immediately get excited yeah deep in i know this yeah it's about now i can make a difference yeah dude And the business is the same.

It's the same.

Like fucking, everybody's getting, like, dude, in a bad economy or a, you know, like, like COVID, like COVID comes, everybody freaks the fuck out.

What are we going to do?

My main thought when COVID happened, and I know it was yours too, because we talked through it, was like, all right, dude, everybody else is going to fuck up.

We can jump miles ahead.

Yep.

We can pass a lot of it.

And by the way, both of us did in our businesses.

Right.

Yep.

It's, it's,

man, it's, it's, there's, we always talk about there's two types of drivers.

I think there's also two types of entrepreneurs.

Yeah.

When the rain comes, it's either, oh shit, we have to pit, like, oh, God, what are we going to do?

And then there's those that smell the blood in the water.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And let's be fair, we, we both have tremendously talented and skilled people around us, too, that are also that way.

Yep.

You know, there's, there's,

you got Justin, I got Sal and Jason and Chris and

each other.

A common trait amongst all those people.

Yeah.

They're all great operators that I think they also, if they were on the racetrack and it started raining,

they'd be like, this is it.

This is it.

I've heard Chris is a terrible driver, though.

Chris is,

I don't know, I can't tell if Chris is a great driver or a terrible driver, but I know this.

I hate riding with him.

I fucking hate it.

There's something about his

casual nature of driving very fast

that almost, I'm like,

yeah you don't know what you're doing here do you like yeah i'm not a good passenger almost with anyone yeah no

do you drive like okay like how how how hard is it for you to leave the track at the track when you're you're driving down i'm i'm i'm always pretty good i i know i'm always pretty good i i tell you i there's there's two people around me uh they're usually with me at the racetracks all the time one's my father he's uh comes to a lot of the races and he's the worst at this uh the other's justin he's there they'll be at a long race, you know, whatever, eight-hour race, 24-hour race.

And no matter what the situation is, usually I'm a bit tired afterwards.

And so I'm not driving the rental car back to the airport or wherever we're going.

All right, or this is going.

My dad, my dad is like, when he gets to the rental truck,

it's like, it's his stint, man.

He's in.

Like, he is fired up, dude.

I mean, we are like breaking every traffic rule.

He slams on the brakes.

I'm coming into the corners, you know.

And we're like, dad, bro, like,

it's like, oh, it's fine.

I've just, you know, I've been, and he says that.

He goes, I've been watching racing the last 24 hours.

Like, I'm ready to go, you know.

She just took a turn like this.

Oh, dude.

That's hilarious.

Apexes, you know, I'm like, dad, bro, like, the race is over, man.

We're all good.

That's funny.

That's hilarious.

It's a good looking car, though, man.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, well, dude, that's a whole nother thing we could talk about.

We developed that.

That was our, that's been our strategy.

I mean, the blue, you know, obviously this is the first form blue and our panto, but I mean, I'm sure everybody that drives any kind of race car says, oh, mine's the best looking car.

But I mean, we had, we get so many compliments from fans that this is the baddest ass looking race car.

And we get so many comments on like how bright it is and the sun.

It shows up so bright.

You can see our car like on TV, it just, it picks up the light so well.

And you could definitely see, even when it's just panning across.

Yeah, you can always see.

You can see the first form car, you know.

This year, my wife and son got the opportunity at Lamar to ride in the Goodyear blimp.

They got to go up during the race that's going on and they have these videos from the blimp of the cars coming by.

And dude, you can see

our car coming like all the way down the moles line.

It's so bright.

But it's become iconic now.

I think we're building something

that'll be looked back on, especially now.

We're going to have three different Porsches that have won the three largest races in the world.

And the fact they were all blue, they're all slightly different in design.

We changed the design a little bit, but they're all the blue first-form Porsche, you know.

Well, dude, it's like we talked.

You know, when we first started, the first few years, we switched the livery every year.

Yeah.

We were kind of trying to find our way about, you know, where we wanted to be.

And then I can remember you and I talking extensively because we're both hyper-detailed about this.

That like

we wanted specifically to develop a look and feel to the car

that would be lasting and iconic.

So for

Richard Petty's car.

Yeah, yeah.

So like if you know NASCAR, everybody knows the number 43 STP car

from all the way from the 60s till now.

Yep.

And that was kind of our goal is to create a livery that, yeah, it might change a little bit,

but, you know, 20 years from now, they're going to have hot wheels and models.

And, you know, right.

Everybody knows that car, dude.

Yeah.

No matter what driver ever drives that car in livery, that's a Richard Petty

STP car.

But I think we're doing a good job.

I mean, I can tell you now we're racing.

We raced in Asia this year.

We raced in the Asian Lamas series.

We raced in Abu Dhabi in the Middle East and in the World Endurance Championship, which is what Lamas is a part of,

which that's the next goal, by the way.

Ask what we're doing after Lamas to win the World Championship.

But in this championship that we're in, we're racing in Europe.

We race once here in America.

We race in Japan.

We race in the Middle East.

And this car, even when we arrive, even if people aren't as familiar with first form or they know, they're like, oh, that's the blue first form Porsche.

They know about it.

That's the first form Porsche.

That's what, you know, fans, Japanese.

It's so cool to be in Japan or to be in the Middle East and people associate it.

You know, that's why I knew that, man, we've created.

You know, we're not done.

No.

But we are doing a good job along the way of creating a brand and an association.

Porsche is a big part of it.

But we're creating this association of the bright blue.

Well, dude, and what a better, I mean, there's not a better brand to be attached to.

I mean, Porsche is the world's most valuable luxury brand.

A lot of people don't know that.

Yeah, you know, to me, they're, I mean, obviously I have a biased opinion, but

you and I are both fans of lots of cars.

Yes.

But I don't think we would, I don't think either one of us would debate over who makes the best car.

I mean, for me, from line to line, if you were going to only have one car,

there could only be one.

I truly think a Porsche 9-11, we can all we would, we, you and I would disagree on which one, which one, yeah, there's a lot of different versions, but if you had to, you know, go to the grocery store and you know, maybe, you know, and also turn up at the racetrack and do a good lap time and drive a back country road and somewhat be comfortable, drive across country.

What I would, I would choose a 9-11.

There's no question.

The design hasn't changed since the, since the early 70s, late 60s.

People like our racing car, I mean, it's still,

it's gotten longer, wider.

There's some different things, but yeah, it's the same formula basically.

Now, just while we're on the topic, because you've owned all the 911s, I've owned most of the 911s.

Which one's your favorite?

That's a tough one, but if I had to pick one,

I do really like the 997

model, which was my favorite as the last year it was made, 2011, 2011.

I like both the GT3 RS 4.0 that year and also the GT2 RS has the turbo, but those two cars, the physical size of the car was much smaller than what we have now.

And to me, it was just the most balanced, you know, the 2RS with the turbo is the fastest.

It has the most power.

The 3 RS that's naturally aspirated.

I just either one of the, I would say that's my favorite.

I think they're, I mean, those are both justifiable as top picks.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

They've gotten more comfortable, bigger, but to me, that was the best.

I've also owned both those cars.

And

I, I, yeah, so what's yours?

Dude,

you know, I, I, I think the 991 2RS, my, you know, my acid green car, yeah, that, that, to me,

even though, you know, the purists will say, oh, it's PDK, it's not manual.

Yeah,

the amount of power that the car makes and the nimbleness of the car

for me feels right.

You know, the other cars

They can be underpowered.

That's what I'm saying.

They feel slow to me.

And, you know, that's not, that's just because of the other shit that we get to drive.

Yeah, yeah.

Right.

Like we both have the fastest cars in the world.

You've got a Super Sport Chiron.

I've got the Pure Sport.

You know, everything feels underpowered.

Like once you're, once you've driven a P1 and once you've driven a Super Sport or a Pure,

everything feels slow, like slow, slow.

But that 9-11 still feels quick.

And

that's what I think I like about it.

Because even with the 2RS manual, the 997, it still felt, you know, people are like, oh, the Widowmaker.

Yeah.

To who?

You know, like, that's how it felt to me.

At the time, maybe.

Yeah, right.

I still like them.

I think they're great cars.

But yeah, that's what I would pick.

It's impossible.

I get that question all the time like what's your favorite or can you only pick one i mean that's what's so great about cars they're all they're all so different and hopefully no one has to pick just one you know or whatnot but it's a great question you know yeah man they're just they're they are so different there there are so many i think we both agree on what the greatest portion is though yeah i mean

probably the greatest carrot gt i mean which is cool because i actually own His old Carrera GT.

That's where I got mine from, and then he got a different one.

I had to get a different one.

Yeah, I made, you know, we all make mistakes.

Right.

You know, I made a lapse in judgment once.

No taxi vaccies.

Yeah.

No taxi vaccies.

Yeah.

But I was fortunate to be able to, you know, years later, get another one.

I realized, you know, how great of a car.

But yeah, you call me like, man, I'm wanting to buy a Carer GT.

You're like, oh, you know, shit, man.

I was thinking about selling mine.

I'm like, done.

Done.

Yeah.

Shortest call.

Yeah.

Because, dude, it was the color I wanted and everything.

Black, yeah.

Black on black.

Yeah.

No,

that car is special.

So, dude, you know, switching from you know, really what we what we came here to talk about, um,

let's talk about Lama, dude.

You know, this, yeah, a week, two weeks ago.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah,

so this was our third year, you know, attempting it.

And I say, I came in to this race.

I don't think you ever expect to win a race like this.

I mean, you, you know, we surrounded ourselves with what I think is the best team.

They were the defending champions from Lama the year before.

Did the Grello car win last year?

No,

it was just, it wasn't the Grello.

The Grello car only, they run with only top factory drivers, like at the Nürburg ring.

So, no, it wasn't the Grello, but it was their team.

I was with a different bronze driver who was the best.

Last year, they won the championship,

Mantai, Porsche, and they also won Lamas.

And so my teammate, Richard Leitz, who was also my teammate in Daytona when we won the 24 Hours of Daytona, he won Lamas last year with Mantai.

And when I came back, had the opportunity to come back with Mantai and bring first form,

Richie was available to come be my teammate.

So he's won two in a row.

Yeah, so he's won Lama two years in a row.

And Richie's the guy in the middle there.

He's now one of the winningest drivers ever at Lamas.

He has won Lamas six times.

Holy shit.

Won it six times.

He's been on the podium several other times, but I think the winningest driver has won it seven times.

So he's one away from tying that record.

But yeah, he's won two years in a row.

So anyway, I knew like.

How old is he?

Richie is just about

our age.

He probably won't like me telling it.

He had a great response in the press conference.

Like, Richie, what do you have to be to, you know?

win Lamas six times in a row.

And he said, well, the first thing you have to be is very old.

Be doing it so many times.

But

no, man, Richie, you know, having him is special, you know, where I one day tona with him.

And then I was able to have him as my teammate, you know, come in here.

Man, I knew I had the co-drivers.

Also, the third driver we have on our team, his name's Ricardo Perra.

He's a silver-rated driver.

I mean, dude, we went after this guy trying to get Ricardo as our third driver, you know, pretty ambitiously.

He's been the last couple of years, he's been one of the fastest drivers at Lamas specifically.

So, like he's a bit of a specialist.

I mean, he's a great driver.

He's Italian, won many races and championships around the world, but at Lamas,

he's like the man on sheer speed.

So

we put this team together with this race specifically in mind.

Richie's won it the most.

Ricardo's one of the quickest.

And then me coming in, as bronze drivers go, I've been one of the top in the world the last few years.

So

any team, I don't know if you know, in the rules in Lamas, all drivers are rated by a category and it's based on experience, right?

You know, we're all professionals, but it's based on experience.

You got to have one

gold or platinum-rated driver.

It could be either one.

Platinum is reserved for like Formula One drivers, or if you work directly for a manufacturer, Richard Leitz is platinum.

You have to have one silver-rated driver, and you have to have one bronze-rated driver.

And they're exactly what you mean.

I'm the bronze-rated driver.

I would have the least experience of these guys on the team.

Ricardo's a silver.

and the trick in racing is we're all trying to be the absolute best in our category, right?

If I get a little too, like for me, if I were to ever become silver one day, I would not be very valuable as a driver because there's lots of really, really great silvers.

Same with Ricardo, like when you go kind of, you step to that next level,

you kind of could be on the bottom tier of the next level.

So every team's trying to get the absolute best bronze and the absolute best silver and the absolute best platinum, you know, at that specific time.

And I think we achieved that.

I think my performance, I've been right up there in the top three or so bronzes in the world last

few years.

And Ricardo, I think, is definitely on that verge of probably becoming a gold real soon.

And so we got a good combination here.

But yeah, the week started like we...

We were decent.

And our class is the largest category.

There's 24 cars in the class, all different manufacturers.

And we were kind of in the practice sessions, hovering around the back half of the top 10, really.

We were each time between like fifth to 10th

better than the average, but dude, we were like, everyone knew it from the start.

The Ferrari and the Lexus, which actually a Toyota, but the Lexus were just like so fast.

I mean,

they had more top speed than everybody else.

Their lap times were the best.

Like everyone was talking about it through the practice sessions.

And I mean, they were a a lot faster than us and we were pushing i mean we were all out you know and you kind of can never tell in practice or or everyone just are people holding back they don't want to show their whole cards just yet you know and so you don't really know we were kind of leaning we were we were kind of showing it and we the talks just went into hey this might not be our year you know Porsche won last year.

This year, let's get good points for the championship.

Even though these guys are fast, like we said, in 24 hours, a lot of shit can happen.

A lot of fast cars can have issues and break.

But our goal for sure was the podium.

We thought if we executed perfectly and we made no mistakes, we would have a shot at the podium.

But that was realistically the goal.

I definitely wasn't calling you or calling homes like, hey, man, this is a year, but we're going to smoke these guys.

So that, I mean, that was our mindset, you know, going in.

And we got to qualifying.

We had a good qualifying.

Each driver has to qualify.

The bronze has to qualify, then the silver, then the gold.

And you kind of, it's an elimination style, kind of like Formula One.

I qualified P3

and was really close to the top, you know, a bit surprising, you know.

Ricardo did the same.

He qualified P3 out of the silvers.

And then Richard went with all the platinums and golds, and he was P5, but they were all like

super, super close.

So that was actually like the closest we had been, you know, to the to the front.

So that's where we started the race was from fifth.

You start where the final,

where the platinums, you know, qualify.

So yeah, we started from fifth.

So, yeah, that was our goal.

I mean, we just, we thought the, the podium would be kind of the goal, but I would say we spent the first six hours of the race.

Well, how, how close,

just so people understand, it's eight mile track.

Yep.

Okay.

How close are the times from qualifying first to third to fifth?

Oh,

I mean, we can pull it up, but just off the top of my head, a really fast qualifying lap time, if you're going under four minutes

is really fast.

I want to say our poll laps were in the close to 355.

Yeah.

Okay.

And the, I mean, the top, I know in my qualifying that I was P3, the top 11 or 12 were all within the same second.

Okay.

So we're within tenths, sometimes hundredths.

Okay.

of a second.

So that's what I'm trying to from the perspective I'm trying to let everybody understand.

Yes.

You're talking about an eight-mile course.

There's 32 corners.

So 32 opportunities to break and accelerate, you know, or not.

Right.

And the top 11 cars are in the 355 mark.

Within the same second.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we're,

we, I got it right here.

We're constantly pushing for

tenths of a second.

Yeah.

So that's, that's just so you guys that don't know racing,

that's how close it is.

And we get a lot of questions.

I get a lot of guys like, hey, what's the difference in a bronze like Ryan versus you know a platinum like Richie?

And Lamar is a bigger track, obviously.

Most of our tracks are much shorter, right?

But you know, the difference from me to Richie was probably one

second.

What is this hours?

Mantai, I did a 357-2

and Richie did a 355-1.

Yeah, Richie's the last.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah, within two seconds.

That's crazy.

Yeah, it's because most tracks, I'm within one second of Richie, but that's also about a two-minute lap time.

So this is a four-minute lap time.

So here I was under two seconds.

I was 1.9 seconds from

the guy who's one of the greatest drivers in the world.

So that's what it takes to be a...

be the least experienced guy.

You got to still be within like one second of the top, you know?

Yeah.

Oh, bro.

And but here's the thing.

How long has Richie been racing?

Oh, his whole life.

Okay.

Yeah, really.

So you got a guy, just so we understand, just, I think this is important to point out.

You've got a guy that's probably been racing since go-karts, okay, his whole life.

And you have a guy who's been racing for less than 10 years,

nine years, who's one within, you know, right there next to him.

So like,

most most guys will spend this is the point that needs to be made most guys will spend their entire life

trying to make that time up that gap between richie and ryan they will spend their entire life to get to make up that less than a second or or one second or two as most most you know never will uh that's how close that's how that's how precise and close racing really is what what i've found what's so crazy what i've found is you know through like you know nine years yeah you can get, I mean, I can get within a second.

Okay.

Over two minutes.

And, and, dude, we're talking one second spread out over 20 corners.

Yeah.

I mean, bro, it's

less than like hundredths of a difference in the braking and the acceleration right in each corner, right?

Less, obviously, less than a bin Lincoln.

If you were watching a video of their feet right next to each other, it would look virtually identical.

It would look identical.

Yeah, look identical.

And then what I've found is you can get within that second, but let me tell you, the last half a second, the last five tenths, this is what takes a lifetime.

The guys that

do this

that have dedicated their life, they dedicated their entire life to a half a second.

A half a second more than what someone who could come in much later in life could do it.

And let me tell you, that last half second,

it's hard.

It's very hard.

It's very, very hard.

I just think it's important to point that out.

Because as an average,

I flip on the television and then there's a race car going around the track.

You don't think about it like that.

Yeah, yeah.

A lot of times, you know, you watch the video back and you look at the data and you're like, golly, I'm, you know, one second or nine tenths.

Like, where could it be?

It's never in one spot or two spots.

It's, it's fractionally around, you know,

each corner.

And then to be able to do that and execute it, like we said, over an entire hour with tires changing, fuel changing, weather changing, temperature changing, That's one hour.

Yeah.

Then times 24.

Yeah.

In the middle of the night.

Yeah.

That's where the skill set comes in.

So

we start the race.

Isaiah, I can break down pretty soon.

This was honestly a pretty straightforward race.

You know, when it's kind of going your way, it's kind of going your way.

We spent the first six hours, I would say, in the top five.

And

kind of, kind of, I don't want to say you ran four-hour stint.

Yeah, I said

four, four hours in a row.

I did the only quadruple stint in the entire race.

No one else did a quadruple stint.

I'll say it wasn't planned.

The plan was for me to run a triple, which that's about

that's pretty hard.

A lot of guys, most guys will run double stints, so like two hours at a time.

It was planned for me to do a triple.

My physical fitness has been strong, you know, I'd say, compared to most other drivers.

So, you know, it's been a strength of ours.

And they knew the more I could drive towards the start saves our fastest drivers for the end and saves them more fresh right so they called me at hour three and i was we were hanging around that top five you know and like hey ryan you know how are you feeling in the car i'm like man i'll be honest with you like i'm feeling pretty good like we're and i you know it's fun when you see the you know you see the leaders and we're doing well and and i'm like man i feel great you know if you guys if it helps like i'm good to do another one and they they said let us come back to you and they rummaged around i guess for a little while and they came back like hey man if you're okay like it would be a big advantage if you could do, you know, four.

And so, man, if it's an advantage, let's go.

And I did it.

It was awesome.

We gained a lot of space there.

And what that did, that set off, I think, what eventually helped us win the race.

A lot of the other teams, as we got towards the night, they had to put in their bronze drivers in because they were running their faster drivers early, where we had saved, we put in our

platinum and silver drivers against a lot of their bronzes.

So

that enabled us to jump up quite a bit.

And then the next thing that did a big difference was the nighttime.

I mean, the night at Lamas is some of the most difficult.

You can ask any driver.

I mean, it's not like Daytona, the 24 hours of Daytona, I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's easy.

It's not easy, okay?

But as far as driving in the night, it's extremely well lit.

It's damn near the daytime.

I mean, all the big, you know, from the speedway, you've got all the lights from NASCAR, and it's basically like driving in the day.

day let me tell you something the backcountry roads in uh the midwest of france uh are not well lit

like my first year when i went out for the first night practice i came out of the pit lane the pit lane it's all lit up so it's like the racing track there so it's like daytona it's all lit and you go the first three corners it's all lit and then you you merge out onto the mulson strait and this is where you leave the the racing track and go on the go on the country roads and i was you know radio silence for a little while.

And I'm driving down the Mulsan Strait.

I went to the first Chicane, and I'm on my way to the second Chicane.

And I called on the radio, and I'm like, guys,

it is dark.

I can't explain to you guys.

Is it supposed to be this way?

You can watch all the video.

Like, we have video.

You can go on YouTube and watch.

My videos are on YouTube right now.

You can watch my laps and stuff at night.

And you have a like, oh, yeah, it kind of looks dark, but it'll probably be okay.

Like, bro, what

got me is that, you know, we have headlights, but the headlights, obviously, they shine in front of you, right?

Well, when you're on a racetrack and you're about to come to a corner, the front of you is fine.

You can see out there, but all the time, like during the day, you need to see where you break, but then your eyes are going to the corner.

So let's say it's a right-hand corner.

Your eyes are going over to the right, looking for the apex.

Well, bro.

It is, it's pitch black, dark, you know, so you're, you're breaking and you look and you're like, um,

I think we turn now.

So you turn and then the headlights move and they're like, nope, too early.

You know, further.

So you have to, it's nothing but time.

You have to develop time and you have to look at things on the road that you can see like right in front of you to give you visual clues of where the turn in spot is.

You can see the break points.

Like there's, you recognize signs and different things on the road to where you know where you have to break.

But the turn in point, this has to come from just muscle memory and feeling and stuff.

So

anyway, back to my original story.

Driving at the night is very difficult.

Most bronze drivers don't drive at night.

Most teams, they drive their bronze drivers a little bit in the day at start, and then they put in their silvers and their platinums to go back and forth, back and forth all night long.

And then when the sun comes up the next day, the bronzes go in, you know, when it's the sun is back out.

I drove those four hours to start that helped get us ahead.

And then I drove, it gets dark kind of late there around 10 o'clock at night.

Actually, it's pretty it's the summer solstice so longest day of the year I drove going into the night so as the sun was going down I drove from 10 to about midnight where no other bronze driver was out there then and I came out for just a couple hours and I went back in at 3 30 a.m and I drove from 3 30 into the sun coming up some comes up kind of early around 5 30 so I did like a

It was a triple stint that went into the sun.

And again, no other bronze driver was out there.

And we were in the top three.

both those times.

We were in third, second, first.

And like the team was on the radio, like, Ryan, your pace is doing great.

Like, the Ferrari had caught me.

We were in second.

The Ferrari caught me.

It had their platinum driver in it.

And they're like, Ryan, this is the platinum.

Don't, don't fight.

Like, no,

don't risk anything.

If he's faster, just don't fight.

Let him go because they still have to do like four hours of their bronze driving.

And you're done in the next hour.

Like, you're, you know, so I did the most driving at night, which ended up being like a major step forward because then when the sun came up, I was done.

Like I had completed all my, I have to drive like seven and a half or eight hours of the 24.

I was done.

And every other team still had their bronzes, had to come in.

And bro, we went straight to the front.

We passed for the lead when the sun was coming up.

And then we led the entire rest of the race.

Which is a huge advantage because it keeps you out of the shit.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, leading is always better.

Yeah.

And in the back, but yeah, that's pretty much how the race went.

So, dude, what was it like, you know,

when we won?

I mean, I know what it was like because for me, but like, I mean, what was it like, dude?

Man, that, dude, the, I mean, I had a similar feeling in Daytona, you know, but when, you know, we were leading, we had a big lead, but you're constantly counting down every minute, every hour.

And the, the, the factory Ferrari was in second, and they were the only car towards the end of the race that really had the speed.

They were, again, they were the fastest since we had turned up.

And man, I'm like, golly, if anything happens to the car, and this Ferrari is super fast.

But we had this kind of manageable, about one-minute lead, you know, that we just kind of managed all the way through.

So you're obviously worried about something just like by chance happening to the car, a flat tire, a mechanical issue, but our car was perfect, you know, the whole time.

Again, back to that preparation work.

But, dude, I would say

the last

stint for Richie, which was right at an hour, like probably 50 minutes to go.

We did our final pit stop, and our engineer was super good on the team.

He's talking to the pit crew before, you know, Richie was coming in for the final pit stop.

He's like, guys, this is the last one, you know, for the whole 24 hours.

Make sure every wheel gun is perfect.

Fuel man, make sure test the fuel, the fuel flow.

Make sure it's perfect.

Take your time.

We're normally trying to do it as fast as we can, right?

He's like, we have a one-minute lead.

We gave up at like what 23 seconds?

We gave up almost almost 25 seconds because we re

He said take your time make sure the wheels are torque We even added a bit of oil to the engine just we didn't have to just just a precaution, you know took our time with the fuel flow looked over the car just and then set him out, you know, so we we lost some of that minute lead, but on purpose, right?

Just keeping everyone calm.

But

yeah, I was there with my son was sitting right next to me, my oldest son,

and my wife, you know, know whitney was there my dad was in the garage justin and man dude i was like i was i mean you know i couldn't stop shaking my feet i'd stand up sit down walk around go back up drink an energy drink i mean like on that basic because that always helps yeah yeah

this will calm me down you know definitely not an ass yeah yeah um but dude it was it was it was awesome i mean i you know yeah i i never thought you know we could win this race i mean just just to come and compete in it you know is one thing but uh yeah when he when he crossed the line I mean, dude, it just, the garage erupted,

you know, I lost it.

It was ugly, my son and my wife, you know, it's just, it's, you know, for me, it's like, you know, you dedicate your life to, you know, perfection.

And we all want to be perfect, right?

You know, we're all trying to leave a legacy.

And, you know, and for me, having my son there, that I, I, it's my hope, like seeing his dad.

do something at that level.

I mean, dude, as a dad, you know, it's, you know, it hit me.

And like, no one, no one can ever take that away from us, right?

We're in the history.

No, bro, you're etched, and you're etched, your name is etched in history.

Yeah, all those posters, like you have in your garage, yeah, we'll have them.

There's going to be a poster of our right, you know, now.

So, um, yeah, man, it's hard, hard to put into words, but it's fucking awesome, dude.

Yeah, and you sent me the screenshot.

You were like, oh, by the way,

from back in, however, me, three years ago, we were going to win Lamont.

You were right again.

Yeah, dude.

Well, I mean, look,

winners winners fucking win, bro.

And, you know,

I think people think

there's a magical

element to it.

And I don't think that's what it is at all.

I think it's being meticulous

and relentless towards whatever it is you choose that you want to go towards.

And I don't think

that success in business or success in racing or

obviously there's limitations.

You know, a five-foot one person is highly unlikely to be the MVP of the NBA, right?

But outside of that, I really think it comes down to like just an obsessive commitment

to achieving whatever it is that you've decided you're going to achieve.

And it's not,

it's not a, oh, I'd kind of like to do this.

It's, it's an obsession.

Yep.

And for you guys listening, you know, I can't, I can't articulate the amount of hours that Ryan and I have spent on the phone talking about winning this race.

I mean, over the years, it's,

I wouldn't even know where to start.

Yeah.

Yes.

And

to see, to see you do it, bro, it's just, it's one of the coolest, it's one of the coolest moments of my life.

I can't imagine what it's like to actually have done it, you know, and to stand out there on that podium with, fuck, what, 100,000 100,000 people?

I'll never forget that.

I mean, I hope I haven't re-watched the TV yet.

You know, I hope they showed it and I hope it did it justice.

When we walked out on the podium, it's an F1 style podium that's elevated, you know.

And when we walked out, they opened the track up after the race for all the fans can come down like on the front stretch.

There was no end to them.

Bro, it was as far as I could see

wall-to-wall people.

I mean, the race is one of the most highest attended sporting events in the world right up there with Indy 500.

And I think it's like 370,000 people or something.

And it looked like they were all right there.

I mean, you know, for

you and this company, you guys, you know, believed in me like at a super early stage when I was just starting out and racing into, I can't tell you the amount of pride to stand up there.

We had some screaming freedom, you know, energy drinks with us.

And we didn't know if like the officials were going to try to take them from us or whatever.

So we kind of snuck them in our suits as we went up.

But to stand there with the can, you know, wearing our hat, you know, with our logo on top of the podium at, without a doubt, one of the world's largest, take out racing.

Yeah.

It's one of the world's largest sporting events.

You know, it's, it, for me, it was that Super Bowl.

type of moment, right?

You know, and to be able to do that, when I walk back in this building, you know, too, and see all these employees and all these team members, same with Mountain Motorsports, our motorcycle dealerships, the amount of pride, you know, that we were able to, you know, help create for all of these employees, customers, how many customers that have reached out and like, dude, we've all loved First Former, we've loved Mountain Motion, but like now we know someone who's won.

I mean, that's just, it's a tremendous amount of pride.

Well, dude, and I, you know, we haven't ever talked about this publicly, but in 2022.

2022, was it 2022 or 23?

Was what?

That, you know, there was an opportunity for you to invest in the company.

And Ryan's actually, people don't know this, but you own

a small portion of the brand at this point.

So

to get up there and be a part of the brand after all these years of being a fan of the brand

had to be fucking, I mean, dude.

Yeah, I mean,

it means a lot.

I mean, to be able to, like, say, you gave me that opportunity a couple of years ago.

You know, I'm a small part, you know, yeah.

It's a big, massive thing that you well, actually a really big part because, you know, having you as a partner for the, for the, the knowledge and the experience and the strategy and all of those things is, is invaluable.

So, you know, it's, it's, uh,

for us to go from, you know, where we are now to where we're going, it's

fuck the skills needed.

Yeah, well, we're, we're, uh, yeah, this, there's, uh, there's going to be a long story, you know, written about last form one day.

Yeah.

Where we still have many more chapters in that story to write.

But yeah, no, I'm super gracious of

mostly the friendship.

You and I were friends before anything else.

And Sal and

Jason and Chris, I mean, all you guys give me the opportunity to be more involved with the business.

There isn't a business

that I believe in more outside of the one that I started with Justin.

But

if I could have,

if you asked me a question, hey, Ryan, you have the opportunity to invest in any company in the world, any company.

Man, there's not one that I would want to and see more promise and upside than First Farm.

I mean, I.

Well, dude, it wouldn't feel right.

It wouldn't feel right doing it without you at this point.

I mean, that's what it comes down to.

You know, we've been, I mean, fuck, how many conversations have we had over the years about the company strategy, not just the race strategy?

You know, I think, I think people, you know, like you've been one of my biggest, you know,

I don't know, you know, sounding boards, advisors, you know, partners without officially being part of the company for a decade.

Yep.

You know, and people, people,

you know, people don't know that, but,

you know, I wouldn't feel right.

I don't think anybody here would feel right doing it without you.

Well, that means a lot.

I'd say I get one question all the time about,

you know, we have so many fans and people that look up to First Form.

And I get a question like, Ryan, how, how on earth did you get First Form as a sponsor?

And I have the same

answer back to them.

And I think this is a great thing for a lot of young people to hear.

If you're ever looking to get investment or a sponsorship from a company, the number one way you can do that is to give more than you're asking to receive.

And you've said this a lot.

I've always tried from the first time that you and I became friends, and this is in any friendship that I have, I try to give and share more than I asked in return.

And I do it in a way that I'm not even hoping or expecting or I do it just

selflessly.

And I think if you can truly master that ability to, in any relationship you have, whether it's, you know,

friendship, whether it's business related, or whether you're trying to build some,

attract a sponsor, you have to find ways that you can give.

A lot of people say, I don't have money or I don't have, you know, giving is a lot of ways.

Like you said,

I was there as a soundboard a lot of times that you just needed somebody to talk to or somebody to bounce somebody's ass off of.

And that was valuable at the time.

And yes, eventually you decided to invest in racing with me.

But hopefully it was always, and I think that's what

there was, yes, I received, but I always felt that I was I was giving in a company that made it made

awesome for a lot of you.

I know that, but I don't think

it's never been talked about in public.

You know what I'm saying?

Yep.

I mean, it's look, bro.

It's pretty awesome to see

it come.

It's the coolest thing ever.

I thought this was six ago.

I just found this online.

The video game Gran Turismo.

Yeah.

Somebody has that livery in the game.

Yeah.

Oh, it'll be

already everywhere.

Yeah.

Yeah.

People are making it in Gran Turismo and all the Cert Fours.

And I get all, you know, know, because these are individual designers that

make the graphic designers in the game.

They sell those skins, like you buy the skins.

Some guys make them in the game, some people just open source it.

Yeah, most people, it's free.

They build them.

For

it'll be a very widely used

game skin after this win.

It's freaking sick, man.

But I want to ask you this, Ryan, because

you put them all together.

You got Sebring, Daytona, Lamont.

Like, that's the pinnacle.

Like, so what, what's next?

Like, how do you, how do you reset a standard?

How do you not celebrate too long?

What's the next?

What's next?

Like, I mean, how do you, how do you top that?

That's a great question.

I mean, without a doubt,

any competitive person, you know, I think no matter how big the mountain is that you climb, you know, there's always another mountain, right?

You know, you start thinking about, you know, what, what else is there to achieve?

For me, I got a short-term and a long-term answer.

You know, the short-term is simple.

We're currently leading, after the win in Lamas, we're leading the World Endurance Championship, which is ran by the FIA.

And that's the highest form of sports car racing in the world.

There's Formula One.

FIA runs two series.

They run Formula One and they run the World Endurance Championship.

Every manufacturer is involved with the World Endurance Championship.

So we are racing with the factory effort from Porsche.

We race against the factory efforts from Ferrari, from Corvette, from BMW.

So it is the top level, you know, sports car racing.

And it's a series.

It goes all around the world all year.

And the best,

the team that has the most points at the end of the year is world champion.

So outside of the Formula One World Championship, this would be the next highest level

of a season-long championship in the world.

So that's the goal.

We're currently leading the championship after Lamar.

Lamar is worth a lot of points.

We've won one other race.

We won in Italy.

We're the only team to have won two races so far this year.

We're in a pretty close battle with the factory Ferrari, as it was probably the Dicks, I would say, strongest team.

They're good, man.

They're strong.

I mean, without a doubt, they're the next.

They're a big brand.

Well, bro,

I mean, that's their whole thing.

The two of us.

I mean,

I would almost say head and shoulders, but there's great competition amongst Corvette has a strong racing team.

Toyota,

BMW, there's a lot of great teams, but Ferrari and us are

the leaders.

And we have the lead.

And so that's the short-term goal.

I want to be world

um, and have that as a title, you know, here.

That's the short-term goal.

Long-term, I just start now.

I always say my whole goal was to win Lama, you know, to try to win that race and win the trifecta.

Believe me, my wife is asking, like, hey, so you know, you've won Lama.

Now, like, time to retire, yeah,

well, dude, it's a big commitment from the family, like, people, people,

yeah.

I mean, look, yeah, it's sacrificed just a lot, you know, and um, I'm super fortunate, you know, so you know, with with her, my kids, it's a lot of time away from home.

But

to answer your question, my long-term goal is legacy.

I'm starting to think about legacy and

I look at,

is there, you know, how many times could I win this or how many championships could there be?

And

so I would like to leave a lasting legacy, both in the racing world and as well as the business, you know, community world.

And I think

obviously associated with

think because we have to continue to grow the brand if we're going to continue to have the legacy in racing.

Yep.

Yeah.

So

I think about legacy, both for the brand personally.

And, you know, so that's.

It's actually pretty cool because when we talk about when Ryan and I talk about the business, like it's

funny because a lot of it correlates to.

And if we could do that, we could do this.

Yeah.

Let's do this over here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If that's possible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, my long-term goal.

Like, we're going to be in F1.

I was about to ask.

I didn't want to

see

them, but like, that's where you're going to ultimately see our car, our livery, everything that we're doing.

You will 100%

eventually see that in F1.

We're making all the right headways.

We, we, we know the right connections.

Yeah, let me tell you, we are

first form in like that blue livery.

We are, we are on the world map.

That's what it takes.

I mean, you can't just turn up and formula even to a team.

Obviously, these teams want to be associated with great brands.

And

yeah,

we're on the way.

Yeah,

we will be owners.

I don't know if Ryan will be driving the F1 car.

I think we may need to find

a guy who's 20.

I may be like the Brad Pitt character in the new F1 movie.

I mean, we might sneak in a couple laps.

You know what I'm saying?

We can go do some test.

Boy, that'll be an expensive

lesson if we don't cross that.

Don't cross that line.

But yeah, man.

Well, dude, look.

Fuck.

It's been awesome.

It's, dude.

It's been awesome.

Yeah.

There's no other way to say it, man.

You know, the whole thing, dude, like our friendship,

seeing, you know, you guys grow your company,

our company, now our company.

You know, the partnership with the, with AB and Dana and the guys, like,

super fortunate.

Yeah, the rate.

Text all the time, like, man, it's pretty good life.

It's weird.

It's fucking surreal, bro.

It's like, it's like, you know, and we were, it circles back to the thing that we were talking about, you know,

what,

you know, the time, right?

Like 10 years in, you're like, fuck.

Like, it would have been so easy for you or me to both been like, yeah, I'm going to do something else.

Yeah.

You know, and now here we are

fucking doing it like for real doing it and it's just uh i know for me dude like as much as i expect to win you know because people ask me a lot personally they're like dude did you ever imagine and i'm always like yeah dude i fucking wanted to be here 10 years ago

but like now that it's like real real

it is kind of surreal like it's like to stop you know just for a second and be like yeah the the brands summer smash at Anheuser-Busch at the distillery, yeah.

You know, we've we've tried,

we've transformed more lives than any other company ever, yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

Like,

it's just it's surreal, dude.

It's a surreal thing to sit to sit and think about and look at.

And the time invested, you know, it's not like we're 70 years old, bro.

You know, we're,

you know,

early side of 40s, not back side.

And

it's just,

it's, you know, I think you guys should all remember that.

I think you guys who have the dreams and have the goals.

And I think you guys got to, you know, not, don't get caught up in the short money.

You know, think about the big picture, what you can do.

You know, the one thing that these guys have, turning it back to entrepreneurship for just a second, that we didn't have is they had the ability to generate capital doing side hustles that were not available to us and what i see from a lot of the young guys is they get addicted to this side hustle

and never actually build it into a real

brand and dude

i hope you guys remember like it's not just about the money it's not just about you know making a few dollars and and making some cool instagram posts like the journey, the time, the friendships, the stories,

that's your life, dude.

Like, it's not a balance statement.

It's not a number.

It's the story created through that journey.

And,

you know, when I stop and think about it, dude, I wouldn't trade that for anything.

Yeah,

that's it.

That's very well said.

It's all in the journey.

That's where the magic happens.

It's not at the finish line.

No.

Well, bro.

Fuck, man.

I couldn't be more proud of you, dude.

And I couldn't be more proud proud to see you do that.

The whole thing, you know, everything that we've done, everything we're doing, and just, fuck, it's

one of the coolest things of my whole life, man.

So proud to do it with you, buddy.

Yeah.

So,

yeah.

I love you, man, for real.

That's real shit.

Same.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

All right, guys.

I know that was a little different for a...

for a Tuesday show, but I thought you guys might enjoy it.

A couple car guys just walking cars.

Yeah, and a story.

And there's so many parallels for any of you guys trying to achieve anything.

You know, the endurance, the persistence, the perseverance through the hard shit, you know, the time that doesn't go fast enough.

And then when it does go fast enough, it goes too fast.

Like, it's just such a,

it's, it's just, it's,

it's a fucking crazy way to live your life, but I wouldn't trade it, man.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So,

all right, guys.

Well, Ryan, thank you, bro.

Thanks for coming on the show.

It's been a long time.

Yeah,

yeah.

It's been awesome.

All right, guys.

We will see you later on this week.

And don't be a hoe.

Let's try the show.

Counted millions in a cold.

Bad bitch, booted swole.

Got her own bank rope.

Can't fold.

That's a no.

Headshot case clothes close.