019: Inside the World of NASCAR - Strategy, Speed, and Danica Patrick

Think NASCAR is just fast cars turning left? Think again. We're diving into the high-octane world of NASCAR, where strategy, precision, and athleticism collide at 200 mph. From the adrenaline-pumping pit stops—to the intensity of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs and the grueling physical demands drivers endure in 130°F cockpits, there's more to this sport than meets the eye. Plus, we spotlight Danica Patrick's groundbreaking career, from her historic success at the Daytona 500 to becoming the most successful woman in NASCAR history. Whether you're a die-hard fan or new to the track, this episode offers an insider's look at the speed, strategy, and spectacle that define NASCAR.

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Chapters

07:47 - NASCAR’s Appeal: Speed, Strategy, Spectacle
15:02 - How NASCAR Playoffs Actually Work
21:58 - NASCAR Drivers: Yes, They're Athletes
29:00 -  Inside the Precision of Pit Stops
36:11 -  Crashes
43:41 -  Danica Patrick’s Impact on NASCAR

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00)
So in car temps can hit 120 to 130 degrees, especially in summer. Oh, listen to this. They wear a flame retardant suit. Great. They also wear flame retardant undies.

Speaker 2 (00:15)
Yeah, do not want the baby makers to get burned. I don't want to burn my bits.

Speaker 1 (00:21)
Yeah. Let's keep those bits intact. yeah, fire retardant undies.

Speaker 2 (00:27)
Obviously, protect the part of your body.

Have you ever wondered why people get so hyped about their favorite sports teams? Well, it turns out it's not just about the game. It's about the community. My name is Teryn.

Speaker 1 (00:46)
And I'm Ambre. Welcome to Almost Fans, the sports podcast that's fun, a little bit educational, and will give you plenty to say when you're trying to keep up with those diehard sports fans in your life.

Speaker 2 (01:02)
Welcome back everyone. Today's episode is something a little bit different. We're taking it to the racetrack. We're talking NASCAR. Whether you're already into it or just curious about how it all works, we're breaking down the basics. What makes it such a huge deal for fans and why it might be more interesting than you think. But first we're jumping into this week's hat trick. Our top three of the week where we're sharing each of our

athletes we'd most want to go grab a drink with. Not just because they're talented, but because they seem like they've got the best stories, the best energy, or maybe just order around for the whole bar. Ambre, you go first.

Okay. I think this dude would totally order around for the whole bar. And I also think I'd be falling off of my bar stool laughing their entire time. It's Charles Barkley. Of course. really thought about Shaquille O'Deal, but you know, I choose him for everything. But I think that Charles Barkley would be absolutely hilarious. And I think he probably has a huge variety of different stories. Also, he's brutally honest.

So I think he would be a party in a nutshell, would buy around for everybody and also would be incredibly entertaining the whole time. So Charles is my first.

Speaker 2 (02:23)
Totally. And I'm going to keep it in the big men in the NBA and I'm picking a Milwaukee favorite, Gianna Zonda Tecumpo. I love that. Love him just because he is unintentionally hilarious. He probably ordered dessert with his drinks. I mean, I would too. ⁓ I want to hear him tell dad jokes in his charming accent for hours and hours. I also feel like he would just hype.

anyone up he went out to drinks with in the most like wholesome way. I love the way he not only talks with that great accent, but I feel like he's just super wise and probably has some amazing stories like growing up and all kinds of things. ⁓

Speaker 1 (03:06)
I he has a bunch of really cool life anecdotes. For sure. Love that. I'm taking it to the track next. We've talked about her before, but she just sounds like such a cool woman. It's Alison Felix, one of the most decorated female Olympians, Olympians of any gender of all time, but also super strong in her advocacy, a sassy mom.

Speaker 2 (03:10)
Yeah. think he would be so fun. ⁓

Speaker 1 (03:33)
So I would love to grab a drink and the drink could be like coffee or tea. This might not be in a bar. I feel like with her, it would be like a comfy couch in a swanky but polished coffee shop. Yeah, Alison Felix.

Speaker 2 (03:48)
like it. Yeah, that sounds great. Okay, my number two, I don't know what it is about me, but I just love basketball and I pick Caitlin Clark. Because I truly feel like her humor is my love language.

Speaker 1 (04:04)
It's so sharp and blunt.

Speaker 2 (04:07)
It is. I actually feel like we could be friends and we would just roast each other for hours. I love that I'm a friend, probably competing at everything that we do. But obviously on the more serious side, I want to know how she handles all the pressure without totally combusting. ⁓ Plus I obviously got to give her a cheers for bringing women's basketball to the spotlight. She's so amazing.

She's so young, but I feel like she's very mature and yeah, we just love to talk to her and be best friends with her mostly.

Speaker 1 (04:40)
Yeah, mean, mostly that. This next person I also want to be best friends with and I can see us being best friends. It's Alex Morgan from the US national team, soccer. I think she'd have some amazing stories from World Cup. same kind of thing as Olympics, like world stage, best in my sport in the entire globe. ⁓ But also I think she's just super down to earth and I love soccer and she loves soccer.

and she was sort of at the helm of a lot of like the evolution of the sport. So ⁓ I think we would be besties and that would be like a glass of wine situation. Charles is a beer or maybe like a Long Island or something. I don't know. It feels like he does liquor, not beer. ⁓ Alison would be something caffeinated and Alex would be some sort of lady drink like a martini or a glass of wine. That's what it looks like in my brain.

Speaker 2 (05:35)
You know what the first thing I think of when I think of Alex Morgan is? When she did that photo shoot where she had body paint, she had no clothes on. It was just painted on like a bikini. was just like painted onto her.

Speaker 1 (05:47)
Yeah, I totally forgot about that. I should ask questions about that too when we have our glass of wine martini thing. you should. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:53)
How many layers of paint did they put over?

Speaker 1 (05:56)
How long did it take to remove the body paint? How warm was it in that studio? There's a lot of places you can go.

Speaker 2 (06:05)
Oh, you better.

At a hot 73 degrees or something like that. 75. OK, my number one athlete that I want to go get drinks with is Serena Williams, because she's not just a tennis legend. She's a force in every single thing that she does. I want to sit down with her and hear how she balances being a powerhouse entrepreneur, a mom, someone who is just raising the bar constantly for

every woman to do every possible thing and I want to absorb her power and magic through osmosis.

Speaker 1 (06:43)
Osmosis, yeah. mean, naturally that would happen if you're sitting with somebody having a drink. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:48)
Yeah, totally. Just naturally. think about what kind of drinks I'd have with these people, but I would have any drink with any of them.

Speaker 1 (06:54)
Yeah, that's fair. What a fun list. We should put them all, we should just start, you know, like reaching out. Hey, Charles, you free this weekend? I see you're in Chicago.

Speaker 2 (07:05)
No

kidding. Yeah, had a fourth one because just, you know, you have to. I could have had whatever you do the same thing. I could pick a hundred million people, but the person that was like I just had to leave off my list is Travis Kelsey. He would be fun. Yeah. And maybe he'd bring Taylor.

Speaker 1 (07:10)
course you did.

Yeah. Okay. I'm in it for that. There's something about his voice. I don't know. I've told you. just can't. I don't know. I like him until he opens his mouth. Yeah, exactly. My number four, by the way, was Chloe Kim, the snowboarder. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:38)
So great. Okay, we're done here. Everybody, we're done. We're done. We hit slash four.

Speaker 1 (07:42)
Okay, that's enough.

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All right, it's NASCAR time. For the uninitiated, it's totally easy to think of NASCAR as a bunch of good old boys driving cars plastered with ads and advertisements, taking left turns for hours upon hours, wasting fuel. But if you look closer, it's actually an incredibly well-orchestrated athletic endeavor. It is so complex.

I am fascinated. I was not a NASCAR fan, but I am fully prepared. I've only seen a couple of races in my entire lifetime. I'm fully prepared to pick a driver and back them this year. I haven't decided who yet. I know who I'm not going to pick, but there's a couple of others. Anyway, so considering. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's, mean, it's an incredibly complex sport. I can't wait to dive into this. But first, Teryn, tell me what you know about NASCAR.

Speaker 2 (09:08)
Talk about that off the air.

What do I know about NASCAR? ⁓ They drive in cars, they take left turns around a track. I did know that ahead of time. ⁓ know that there is a ton of nepotism in race car driving. It's very like if your father did it or whoever, guess it's not just a men's sport, but if they did it, you're lot better chance of getting into it yourself.

Speaker 1 (09:25)
I just thought.

Speaker 2 (09:47)
And I mean, what else is there to know about it? There's pit crews, there's, it's like they drive like in the hundreds of miles per hour. So it's like getting hit by a bus while you're driving. I don't understand it. And I also don't know how these people drive in real life.

Speaker 1 (10:05)
Okay, let me ask you this. What is the fastest you've ever driven a car probably in the interstate? Like what is the miles per hour?

Speaker 2 (10:11)
Okay, when I was in high school, shout out, I was on homecoming court. So we had to go in the parade, right? And so you had to get like a convertible car. Most of the like car dealerships in the area would let you just like rent their car for the day to take through the parade. Yeah. Cause they got a big sign, you know, this is from X. Advertising. Right.

and we had this really cool car for like a whole day and I think we took it like 120 miles per hour.

Speaker 1 (10:42)
Holy crap, that's crazy. 120. Did it feel like your life was about to end?

Speaker 2 (10:50)
No, it doesn't. It doesn't feel like that as much as you'd think because it's so smooth. Those cars are just so smooth that I didn't feel like that. But and also it gets so fast, so fast.

Speaker 1 (11:01)
Yeah. All of a sudden you look down and... Yeah. Okay. Well, in my 15-year-old Toyota Highlander, I hit 85 and I'm sweating. And I'm a little bit worried if we're going to make it. And like what? If I'm trying to pass somebody on the interstate or something, I don't know. But yeah, so these race car drivers, it's like 200 miles an hour are a lot of times the speeds that they're hitting. Okay. Before I dive in further, I've got a quiz for you on... I know you love quizzes.

So this quiz is on the colors of the flags. So at the start or the finish line, there's a person, usually a dude, he's up there and he's got an arsenal of flags that he's using to signal different things to the drivers. So tell me, what does the green flag mean?

Speaker 2 (11:52)
Does that mean like one lap left?

Speaker 1 (11:54)
means start. Green is start. Yep. ⁓ what about yellow? Green go.

Speaker 2 (11:56)
green is dirt.

Was I on the right track? that one of them?

Speaker 1 (12:06)
Yeah,

yeah, it is. Yeah. So hold that in your brain for a minute.

Speaker 2 (12:09)
Okay, great. So yellow would mean, gotta get off because you've got something going on with your car.

Speaker 1 (12:18)
Kind of, it means caution. So maybe there's a crash, so everybody needs to slow down because the tow truck or whatever are taking care of it. It also ⁓ might mean there's maybe a weather concern, but basically be careful. Slow down and be careful is yellow. Got Okay. What about red?

Speaker 2 (12:37)
Stop where you're

Speaker 1 (12:38)
Yeah,

yeah, because the crash that just happened is so bad you can't even go near it or, you know, like the rain is coming down so hard that it has made the track unsafe. What about?

Speaker 2 (12:50)
White, white, that's gotta be one lap left.

Speaker 1 (12:53)
Yeah. What about black and white checker? Finish. Yeah. Checker flag. Okay. Well done. So all of these mechanics, right? They have the microphone in their head. There's lots of different ways that, you know, they can be communicated with.

Speaker 2 (13:08)
in

their head? Do they put it in their brain?

Speaker 1 (13:11)
I mean, well, maybe someday, not yet. All right. ⁓ It's in their helmet. So they're communicating and surely they're

Speaker 2 (13:20)
We

have new listeners that don't know anything. They might take that to heart.

Speaker 1 (13:25)
Okay. They've got a microphone in their helmet. They're pitchy. You probably can tell them this is your last lip, but or, know, like whatever, but stuff malfunctions. If there's anything I've learned, you know, and researching NASCAR is that there's a really high chance that stuff is going to malfunction. Okay. I want to dive into this topic and here's where I'm going to take you. We're going to talk about what the season is like, what one race is like, kind of dive into what that

looks like and feels like. And then I was really fascinated to learn about how athletic are they really? They're sitting down for four hours, three hours, whatever. Like how athletic are they really? Spoiler alert, like super athletic, like elite athletic. I'll get to that. Okay. I'm going go into the anatomy of a pit stop. I'll let that sink in for a second. Yep. What's happening. And then crashes because I I picked out basically

Aside from how athletic are they really, the topics today, I'm trying to just go for all of the drama. The crashes and the pit stops and the places where all of the things that are being talked about happens. What's the season like? There's 36 total races in the NASCAR season. It's a long season. Starts in February, March and goes all the way through until November. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:52)
question about that. it's like I would have never thought that it's like a season like an NBA season. There are actual just races that everybody goes to. You don't just like pick the ones you want to go to.

Speaker 1 (15:02)
You have to qualify and you want to go to as many of these regular season races as possible because at each of those races, you pick up points or ways that can get you into the playoffs. So in those 36 races per year, the first 26 races are regular season where you're getting points, you're trying to qualify for playoffs. The last 10 races are the playoffs.

Speaker 2 (15:26)
Mind blown. had no idea.

Speaker 1 (15:29)
Yeah, so 36 total races over the course of most of the year, frankly. The first 26, you're working, working, working, trying to qualify, earn points. And then the last 10 are the playoffs themselves. Okay, so the playoff format, I'm just gonna jump straight into that, because that's again, where all of the drama is happening. So there are 16 drivers who qualify for the playoffs. And this is based mostly on those first regular season races.

If you won one of those, you're going to be in the playoffs. If we hit 16 drivers based on that, then great. We've got our playoff number of 16. If there aren't 16, maybe some dude is on a really hot streak and he won a bunch, then they go off of points and you can get points like winning different parts of a given race. I won't get more into that, but basically you can win points and you can also use that to qualify and to get into the playoffs.

So picture this, you're a driver and you're in the playoffs. Hooray, that's a huge accomplishment. So many things have to go right to get you into the playoffs. You have 10 races in which to work toward winning the NASCAR Cup. Every couple of races based on points, based on a couple of different parameters, they cut people out. So by the time they get to the final race, so number 10 out of 10,

There's only four more drivers who are still eligible to actually win. Here's the weird thing. All 16 are still racing. What? So like there's, there's one little strategy here. A lot of times, you know, so one racing company might have two drivers in the playoffs, say one is out, shoot, you know, just didn't have the points to move on. But his buddy, the other person in this company is still in the hunt.

then the buddy who's been removed could maybe help strategize, maybe bump him from the bet, kind of help like black out the field. Yeah. There's some strategy that can come into it. Yeah. So the playoffs are super fascinating. ⁓ It's high stakes. Every single one of these races, these guys are going into it like it is the Superbowl is what it sort of seems like. I want to pause really fast after each of these sections. I'm going to pause for Teryn's hot takes. So.

Here's the first question, 10 months of racing, is that commitment or is that overkill? What do you think?

Speaker 2 (17:57)
10 months of racing, that's commitment.

Speaker 1 (18:01)
Yeah, fair enough.

Speaker 2 (18:03)
You're saying like, it like, yes, you had to be committed to working for 10 months out of the year. Yeah, you do. Sorry. The rest of us have to work 12 months out of the year.

Speaker 1 (18:13)
That's a good point. Okay. Next question for this section. Say you're in the playoffs and you get eliminated. Would you still try hard or just like have a cough?

Speaker 2 (18:25)
⁓ I don't know how to do anything but compete hard.

Speaker 1 (18:28)
You're in it to win it no matter what. You're just going to screw up somebody's day, right?

Speaker 2 (18:33)
Yes, I'm here to screw your day up.

Speaker 1 (18:35)
I,

if it's not me, then I'm just gonna make it hard for everybody else.

Speaker 2 (18:39)
What happens if someone who's not in the last four actually wins? just like, let's.

Speaker 1 (18:44)
They just don't count. They're just kind of like, that guy's there.

Speaker 2 (18:47)
So then like whoever got third, second, third, fourth and is qualifiable.

Speaker 1 (18:52)
I mean, so they're getting points, right? So maybe they didn't win that race, but if they were the, you know, the second or the third, they get higher points based on their standing. Yeah. Yeah. Then the guys who are not or girls who are not eligible to actually win the cup would just not count. It would be the first.

Speaker 2 (19:00)
I'm talking about in the very final race.

So you could get fourth place and still be the winner.

Speaker 1 (19:16)
you could get, what is it, 12th place or 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th. I'm sure that has never happened before. Sure. Those dudes just don't count. They're out there for funsies.

Speaker 2 (19:23)
I'm sure.

Yeah, I'd be like, see me out here trying to win.

Speaker 1 (19:31)
Hey, sponsors, see me? Yeah. Love that. Okay. So let's dive into one specific race. Races vary in length. Most are around 300 to 500 miles. Three to 500 miles. It depends. You know, a lot of them are very different.

Speaker 2 (19:33)
I'll take some more monies

big is the track.

Speaker 1 (19:54)
And racers will talk about like, oh, Talladega is like, and then Bristol is like, you know? And like, for example, they talk about Talladega. I don't know exactly the lengths of all of them, but they talk about how Talladega is so unpredictable and how when you go to race at Talladega, especially in the playoffs, you better be really in good standing already because it's a total

wild card. There's just a lot of crashes. I can't remember exactly why, but certain tracks have different personalities and all the drivers just know it. Yeah, it's really fascinating. Yeah, I know. I tried to watch that and I guess they don't have it.

Speaker 2 (20:35)
Ricky Bobby out there.

some really good insight from that movie.

Speaker 1 (20:42)
I could have learned so much. wouldn't have had to, you know, like, I could just watch that and be done, you know? ⁓ freaky booby. How is the French guy?

Speaker 2 (20:53)
⁓ yeah, that's right. Yeah. I just, on the court that just came to my head was, Jesus is a baby.

Speaker 1 (21:03)
Will Ferrell bless you. Yeah. So races usually it's between 200 and 400 laps depends on the length, depends on how many miles they're driving. And usually a race takes sometimes between two and a half to four hours. Also depends on how many red flags stops there are, depends on how many yellow flags slow downs there are.

Speaker 2 (21:29)
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Speaker 1 (21:58)
So there are three stages in each race and here's where the points come in. You can win points from winning the first stage of the race, which is the first quarter of the race. You can win points for winning the second stage, which is the second quarter of the race, or you can win points for winning the third stage, which is the last half. Why didn't they make it easy for us and just do four quarters? That is such a great question. I don't know the answer.

But there's three stages. And so during the regular season, that's part of the way that you can earn points. And again, it's not non-step driving. You're stopping at pit stops. There's caution flags, weather delays, all sorts of different things. Okay, I want to dive into the people here. How athletic are these dudes and gals in the cars, sitting still, turning left for four hours? Turns out crazy freakishly athletic. So listen to some of these stats. We're talking about

Hot cars, high speeds, and hours of deep focus because you're traveling somewhere between 150 and 200 miles an hour. You're traveling at that speed for multiple hours within inches of other vehicles also traveling at that same speed and you're trying not to die. You're trying and you're trying to win and you're trying to be strategic and go around people.

know, and anticipate the way that people are going to take corners, et cetera. So ⁓ in-car temps can hit 120 to 130 degrees, especially in summer. Wouldn't you think? But I mean, the brakes, so some drivers have shoes where there's sort of like a heat shield on the bottom because the brakes get incredibly hot. And then so do the actual engine of the car and the machinery that is directly behind the driver is

Speaker 2 (23:35)
conditioning.

Speaker 1 (23:52)
crazy, crazy hat. Okay. Drivers can lose between five to 10 pounds of water weight in one single race just from sweating. know. I don't want to see, I don't want to be that person who's doing the laundry. Yeah. ⁓ listen to this. They wear a flame retardant suit. Great. They also wear flame retardant undies.

Speaker 2 (24:14)
Yeah.

Do not want the baby makers to get burned. I don't want to burn my bits.

Speaker 1 (24:21)
Yeah. Let's keep those bits intact. yeah, fire retardant undies. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ the mental strain needed for this. I kind of mentioned, you know, like driving that fast inches away from somebody. The mental strain is intense. They need to have really good focus, spatial awareness to be able to know what's going on around them. Quick reflexes.

Speaker 2 (24:27)
obviously to protect your own part of your body.

Speaker 1 (24:50)
for three hours straight in 130 degrees with fire retardant undies on. I mean, it's basically like chess. I'm going to reference these undies at least five more times. So prepare your.

Speaker 2 (24:59)
can't.

I cannot imagine being that hot. Like I'm cranky thinking about it.

Speaker 1 (25:10)
Yeah. And you're sealed up. mean, your helmet, right? Your helmet is all over and then you have a piece of plexiglass in front of you. You are in a spacesuit in 130 degrees. mean, so you have fans and you have air conditioning and whatnot, it's like, ⁓ how can that even make a dent in that sort of environment? Anyway, but the mental side of things is really taxing. Plus you're bouncing in the car.

You're shaking at these G-forces for, again, multiple hours. ⁓ The strain on your spine, your neck is intense. The muscles that you use most in this sport are pretty much your core, your arms, and also your neck for stability, basically. Most drivers train like athletes, like really intense workouts. They're hitting the cardio, they're hitting the strength, they're doing some reaction drills.

You don't want to be super bulky and heavy in the car and not able to be flexible and move your arms and whatnot, but you do have to be able to have high endurance. Your heart rate is going to be up over 100 for a good portion of this. So your body's got to be able to endure this. their workouts are really well-rounded, all those different things. Core, they do a lot of planks and holds to sort of simulate how their body has to

brace itself in these environments. It is so fascinating. I told you before that I did ⁓ some internships in strength and conditioning. And I always thought that that was fascinating to train athletes for a sport. Like there's this specific function your body is going to perform and let's figure out how to make it do that as well as possible. I always thought that tactical strength and conditioning could be cool, like training the seals or firefighters. But this is like a whole different

element here. Anyway, I find it super fascinating. ⁓ So I've got some hot take questions for you, Teryn. Race car drivers, they train for endurance, strength, balance, and reaction time. Which of these is your biggest strength and which is your biggest weakness?

Speaker 2 (27:26)
⁓ I'm pretty good at balance. got a good balance. used to be a gymnast. So I'll go balance number one and then worst, probably reaction time.

Speaker 1 (27:33)
Okay.

Only because vertical jump is not here, right? Right.

Speaker 2 (27:43)
No, there's lot of reasons why that is probably ADHD.

Speaker 1 (27:47)
Yeah, we'll go with that. Okay, picture you're in a car that's 130 degrees for three hours. What snacks are you bringing?

Speaker 2 (27:58)
Oh my goodness. Snacks for a hundred and I only need, I'm going to need something fresh. Like I need fresh fruit popsicles popsicles. You know, those like the ones that are all fruit in the popsicle. Those are delicious. I don't know. It's like so much water. I am, but like also I need protein because I am thinking about how hangry I'm getting just imagining being in that situation.

Speaker 1 (28:07)
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:28)
but also don't want too much food because also it feels like I'm gonna vomit.

Speaker 1 (28:32)
Yeah. Driving in a circle at 200 miles an hour. So popsicles. All right. Conclusion, popsicles. That's great. Specifically get the free ones. Okay. Staying with the theme of athletes, let's talk about the anatomy of a pit stop. I want you to think about a NASCAR team. So a lot of times we think about NASCAR, we think about the driver in the car and think about that like a quarterback.

Speaker 2 (28:35)
Popsicles it is.

Speaker 1 (29:00)
And I'm not going to go any further with like, you know, who's the whatever, who's the whatever. But what I want you to picture in your mind with a football team, the quarterback is the one who's getting the majority of the focus and a lot of the kudos, you know, a lot of times when a team does well, but it's very clear there are more people who are on the field with him. Same thing goes here. It is very clear. It's a huge team effort when any of these folks were the driver.

the pit chief, the owner of the team, somebody from the pit stop is talking about success. They're saying we, we did well or our failures or things we need to work on. So it is very much a team effort and the pit crew is so important. Okay. So think of a pit stop, like controlled chaos. One 10th of a second is never. Yeah. Okay. So think of it like this. It's like a brutal.

hot, oily ballet, except there's fireproof suits instead of leotards, basically, is what it boils down to. with fireproof undies. Well, the pit crew, well, they might be. don't know. If it was me.

Speaker 2 (30:10)
I'm trying to be safe from my lady bits.

Speaker 1 (30:12)
Yeah, might as well protect the treasure. So, but one tenth of a second could make or break you. Yeah. I mean, some

Speaker 2 (30:21)
Sometimes

when I see those replays of them, I'm like, that didn't happen.

Definitely not a normal time. Yeah, it's insane.

Speaker 1 (30:35)
It is so insane. Okay. So drivers hit pit stops between four and 12 times per race kind of depends. Like if you're having a lot of issues with your car, you got to stop a little bit more often. The goal is as few pit stops as possible. Also, if you're say in the playoffs and you've already clinched a spot in the next, you know, like level or whatever, you might be little more conservative here. You might take a couple of extra pit stops, take care of your car, take care of yourself, et cetera.

maybe if you're really gunning, it's your last chance to qualify for the next. You might skip a couple of pit stops, try to be a little more risky. But yeah, okay. So these cars are racing hundreds of miles, so they've got to get new tires really often. Obviously they need more fuel. There might be bent or broken parts, ⁓ rear view mirror, bumper, like the parts on a car that could be damaged. It's a huge long list.

In NASCAR, each team can have six mechanics in their pit crew. They've got to be fast and super efficient. Here's how this goes. Okay. Are you ready? Picture this in your brain. 0.5 seconds into the pit stop, the crew jumps over the wall and moves into position as the car comes up. Two seconds, the jack man raises the right side of the car.

while the fuel man sticks the can into the fuel filler. Five seconds, so three seconds later. Two tire men remove the wheel lug nuts and then also the wheels. Seven seconds, new wheels go in place. They roll the old ones over to the wall. At 12 seconds, the jack man drops the right side of the car, runs to the opposite side of the car while the tire men remove those lug nuts, those tires and put on new tires.

and the driver screeches away. And that is if nobody screws up. Yeah. Like nine to 12 seconds is how fast.

people total. Yeah. And they have between nine and 12 seconds to remove and replace four wheels. And those suckers have got to be screwed on tight. It takes a second to get them off. You got to screw the new ones on tight because we can't have those rolling off in the middle of, you know, and we're going 200 miles an hour for, I mean,

Speaker 2 (33:01)
I can't even get in and out of my car in 12 seconds.

Speaker 1 (33:03)
No, no, just so, so impressive. There's all sorts of different rules. know, each pit crew, can't go over the wall until, you know, the car is this close, et cetera. They have a video camera trained on every single pit crew. So they get assessed fines and docked, you know, time if they violate different rules. The pit crew has to be super athletic and strong, good core stability. A lot of them, or at least some of the best ones are former.

collegiate or pro athletes. I heard a lot about football players, even some retired football players who won the Superbowl. can't remember his name, but there was one dude who had won the Superbowl. And now this was his, you know, like his retirement gig. Crazy as that. Yeah. But you know, these pit crew recruiting former athletes, it feels like a competition, right? Like the Friday night lights, they were talking about how it feels a little bit reminiscent of football, you know.

Speaker 2 (33:49)
retirement ⁓

Speaker 1 (34:02)
⁓ But just crazy, get the adrenaline going. Yeah, they do a ton of practice with ⁓ practice rigs like daily. They're going through different exercises and training drills, choreography. They're studying film of themselves and other pit crews.

Speaker 2 (34:04)
going

have a question about this. there like, how many different pit stop areas are there on the track? So does like everybody have their own area or do you have to be in the same area as other people sharing equipment and stuff?

Speaker 1 (34:34)
You get your own equipment and your own space for your car, at least in NASCAR. I imagine on some of those smaller tracks, maybe there has to be a little bit of a different setup. But in NASCAR races, your pit crew has their corral, let's say it, their own space where they get set up and they have all their equipment set up. Yeah, that's a good question. Quick pause for Teryn's hot takes. Would you rather be a driver or a pit crew member?

Speaker 2 (35:01)
pick, remember for sure. I'm, I can't get over how hot it is in there. I like being part of a team too. I feel like that's also part of me that I would rather be. I feel like the driver feels like if they're a little bit on an island, they are by themselves a little bit, but the other people are team focused.

Speaker 1 (35:04)
Yeah.

Yeah.

You know what's fascinating too is some of the communication that's coming from the driver to the pit crew. They're saying things like, this feels a little this, or I just noticed this sound, or so they're in constant communication because the pit crew is not only changing tires and refueling, they're doing some of those other repairs, but the driver is the canary in the coal mine. The driver is the one who is experiencing the car, reporting things back, having conversations, trying to triage.

Trying to triage what might be going on. A space off of the feel and the sound. So amazing, amazing athletes all the way around. Okay, last topic I've got is the most dramatic of all of NASCAR and that is crashes. So crashes are actually pretty common. And this is when the yellow or a really severe crash would happen, would be a red flag to come out.

Speaker 2 (35:46)
It's the feel and

Speaker 1 (36:11)
So then the whole field, all of the cars have to slow down if it's a yellow flag or come to a total stop in the formation they're in. I don't know a questions about that. Like that'd be the perfect time to like. Yeah, they've got to be in exactly the format or, know, exactly the placement that they are when the yellow or the red flag came out. These track safety crews, everybody here is athletic. Yes. And the track safety crews are no different. They jump out on the track.

Speaker 2 (36:22)
to stay.

Speaker 1 (36:38)
like so fast within seconds to be able to clear up, you know, whatever debris, fire extinguishers, whatever is needed. They're on the spot super duper fast. I want to talk really fast about the safety of these cars. It's constantly evolving. NASCAR is always working really hard to put different measures in place to protect the athletes naturally. So here's a couple of things that are implemented in the cars, the driver's suits, et cetera.

There's reinforced roll cages. So sort of the infrastructure that goes over top of the driver. It's steel plated in some places and super duper strong. There's a hands device, which is a head and neck support system. So it keeps your head from snapping forward. If you rear end somebody or the car comes to a sudden stop really fast. There are energy absorbing walls on the track. So if you were to hit the wall and

sort of absorbs some of the impact of that. The driver's side I mentioned has a steel door. That's where the steel plate is. There's special glass in the windshield that's made to not splinter but be just a little bit flexible. We already talked about the fire retardant suits, but way more importantly, the fire retardant undies. There's a seven-point harness seatbelt. This guy or gal is, yes, they're permanent. They're in that car.

Speaker 2 (38:04)
of the car.

Speaker 1 (38:05)
They are part of the vehicle. But the hits, despite all of these different safety measures, the hits and the crashes are still, you know, brutal, really painful, a lot of injuries, some deaths. I don't, that doesn't happen as much now as it did, you know, years ago when some of these measures were not in place. Crashes do happen really often. If I'm being honest, it's sort of like kind of what you, you don't want anybody to be hurt, but it is exciting when it happens. And there's all sorts of strategy in that.

You know, drivers will talk about how a crash happened and they got caught up in somebody else's mess. Somebody else was, you know, doing a risky move and then people behind them had to pay for it. They'll talk about giving some space to drivers who are known to be a little bit more risk taking or maybe who are in a position, say in the playoffs where they need to be taking risks. Drivers are constantly aware of the driving style of the people around them, you know, what's happening.

Speaker 2 (39:04)
That's such a super interesting thing too, because you have to know the person by their car, not by their body. know, like you're, it's like a weird thing. And then you have to, it's like watching film probably, right? Like you're looking at what do they do and knowing that ex driver is going to be more aggressive today because they are, it's their last chance or whatever, you know.

Speaker 1 (39:27)
Yeah, exactly. And you know what, despite it being something that requires you to be a very solid athlete, a lot of these drivers can play this, they can do this sport for a long time because their bodies can take it as long as they're taking care of themselves. And so a lot of these dudes and gals, but at least, as I've been researching, a lot of these dudes have been in the sport for a long time. So you know them, you've been racing with them for five, 10,

Plus years, you know their style, you know their personality, you know what they do when their back is against the wall and this is the last chance to make the cut to the next level of playoffs. So you get to really, you know, just sort of know the players and anticipate what they're going to do.

Speaker 2 (40:15)
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Speaker 1 (40:46)
Okay, I've got two hot take questions for you. Would you rather crash during the first lap when everybody's watching or crash in the last lap when you're in the lead? First lap.

Speaker 2 (40:58)
because then you can hopefully get, can they come back from that or are they probably done? Okay. Then first lap still, because then I didn't have to waste that whole time on that race. Three hours straight to my shower, get to my massage and my ice bath and my popsicles.

Speaker 1 (41:03)
Depends on the crash, but you're probably done.

You can go.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And not have to be tortured by like replaying. I was in my last lap. could have won. Yeah. Okay. Although

Speaker 2 (41:26)
Although I guess if we're being strategic here, could win points still for winning stages. So maybe that was a bad choice.

Speaker 1 (41:31)
Right.

So the answer is probably, depends.

Speaker 2 (41:37)
Yeah, competitively probably later, but personally at the beginning.

Speaker 1 (41:42)
Yeah,

popsicles, priorities. Let's say your position is safe in the playoffs and this particular race isn't going to sway you one way or the other. What is your driving style? Are you conservative or are you a risk taker?

Speaker 2 (41:56)
Hmm, probably gonna be conservative most of the time, but don't catch me in a bad day or be rude, because I'll get around ya.

Speaker 1 (42:07)
I'm coming for you. I've got a grudge. Yeah, you're going to know about it.

Speaker 2 (42:12)
Yeah, exactly. But also I don't want to die. let's just say probably conservative. That's the boring answer.

Speaker 1 (42:18)
Yeah, cause crashing looks like it really hurts.

Speaker 2 (42:21)
I don't want to do that. It's expensive too. I wonder who pays for that.

Speaker 1 (42:25)
I mean, probably not the driver, but like it looks really painful.

Speaker 2 (42:29)
Yeah. Maybe you get a bonus for not crashing.

Speaker 1 (42:33)
Maybe. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (42:38)
I was thinking outside the box here.

Speaker 1 (42:41)
Yeah. Anyway, so that is NASCAR in a nutshell. There's so much more to it than just the crazy fans and crashes and the car is turning left for hours. There's so much more to it. I cannot wait to choose my driver this year. I think maybe Christopher Bell. He's so cute. He's just like really nice and consistent. Yeah. Look him up.

⁓ It's really interesting to kind of get a feel for the personalities of the drivers. Who's cocky, who's always in the top, who's kind of a wild card could go either way. So anyway, that is NASCAR. I hope you learned a lot today.

Speaker 2 (43:22)
Learned so much. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (43:30)
All right, now we are on to my favorite segment. Teryn makes fun of me when I say it too often, so I haven't said it the last four episodes, but I'm it now.

Speaker 2 (43:40)
You've earned your right to say it.

Speaker 1 (43:43)
it.

She just tells me I have to use it sparingly, but it's my favorite segment and she's got game. Listen, this is so expected, but I just had to go with Danica Patrick. I know, not cliche, but just so expected, but she's amazing and I cannot wait to tell you more about her. I want to open with this quote that she said because it hit me in the gut in a good way, but also a tough love way. Listen to this.

She said, I've become much more positive as the years have gone by. I'm over worrying about things so much. You can't have the family and the job and the respect and you just can't have it all. It's not possible. The best you can do is when you see something needing a little balance, you pull it back in and then you pull something else back in and you keep doing things that make you happy. And at the end of the day, who gives a crap what anybody else thinks?

Speaker 2 (44:42)
Love

that quote.

Speaker 1 (44:43)
I love that because sometimes as a working mom, there's so many things to juggle and you just can't do it all really well. Your focus just can't be split perfectly evenly all the time. So what I took from that is you just do your best and when you mess up over there, just try to repair it. And when you mess up over there, you just try to repair that. So anyway, I just wanted to start out with that quote. I thought it was really awesome. Danica Patrick, she is a retired race car driver.

She started out as an Indy car driver, which is different, and then switched over to NASCAR. We didn't get into Indy car today, maybe some other episode. She's a really intense personality. She's very driven, very goal oriented. She loves her checklists, which makes me love her even more. She's in her early forties right now. She retired from racing a couple of years ago and she grew up in Beloit, Wisconsin.

which is about 30 minutes from where I grew up, which makes me love her even more.

Speaker 2 (45:45)
Wait, is that why her and Aaron Rodgers dated?

Speaker 1 (45:49)
I didn't know they dated first off. Wait, you didn't? No.

Speaker 2 (45:53)
You did not know? They were together for a long time.

Speaker 1 (45:56)
You...

I...

Okay, well, it's just, it must have been a really long time ago because I did not find that. So we'll just say it was a little while ago.

Speaker 2 (46:08)
He wasn't quite so weird back then, but all the things you're using to describe her are kind of like him. So I'm surprised that they even were together because they're like too similar.

Speaker 1 (46:17)
Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, interesting. mean, maybe, maybe she went to a Packers game and she met him and I know who knows him. Yeah. Um, I mean, probably. Okay. So early racing life, her sister started racing go-karts and she didn't want to be left behind. So she's just like, yeah, okay. I think I'll do that too. Her dad is a super curious guy, somewhat of a dreamer. So he was always asking, how can we tinker with that and make it better? How can we

Speaker 2 (46:26)
Maybe she's a Packer fan.

Speaker 1 (46:46)
tweak that, it faster. He loved that his daughters were into go-kart racing. And he loved when Danica very quickly started kicking butt in go-kart racing, like very rapidly. At age nine, which was about halfway through her first season, so she started racing at age nine, her dad already had her doing stuff like tuning a carburetor, which is usually not something that kids do until they're 16. But basically this first season of her racing go-karts, by the end of it,

Like, Nett knew this was her first time racing anything, anything. And by the end of the season, she was basically 500. Like, she had won half of her races, which is crazy. She got kicked off the cheerleading squad because she just wasn't coming to practice because she was out go-kart racing. know. I can't picture her being a cheerleader anyway, so that might be for the best. By the time she was in her early teens, she was winning pretty much all of her races.

she would walk through the gates of a track and people would whisper and be like, the girl is here. The girl is here. Yeah. She was just like the girl, but like bless her dad. He just seems like such a great supporter. He would say things to her like, you don't need to be the fastest girl. You need to be the fastest person. So like really pushed her. I know, you know, we love a good. Yeah. So she was crushing it so much. She decided to actually

Speaker 2 (48:07)
We love a dad like that.

Speaker 1 (48:13)
leave high school and go train abroad, which apparently is England. Who knew? Like the racers who are really serious about it. Yeah. Basically go to England and then train there ⁓ with other folks who are also really serious about racing and it's racing year round. So it's really intensive. She said that life in England was really

lonely. It rained all the time. She was there for a couple of years and everybody else was a dude and not super warm and welcoming. Actually, she started to realize when she was there that being different, so being an American and being a girl wasn't actually a strength. It was kind of a strength in the US, right? Like she got some media attention, support, and fans were really excited for her. But in England, in this sort of training environment, ⁓ it was not so great. It's dog eat dog.

Her family said that she came back from that experience sort of hardened and guarded, which makes me sad for her, but also probably some skills or personality traits that helped her continue to grow in the sport, I'm guessing. Came back from England, she's got no job, so what does she do? Naturally, her and her dad just go hang out at some racetracks.

And eventually she does get connected to a company that hires her. And in 2005, she raced in her first ever Indy 500. Her dad talks about how meaningful that was. He grew up watching car racing. So to have his daughter actually in one of those races was so meaningful to him. Towards the end of this Indy 500, she actually almost won. The crowd went wild when she pulled into the lead and she couldn't hold onto it. She ended up

coming in fourth, but that was the best finish ever by any woman. She was 23 years old. And basically that race, that moment launched Danica mania. The media went nuts. They were already going mildly nuts for Danica, but this was like a watershed moment. So she really started to think about, mean, she's a smart marketer. She started to think about, you know, how can I use my platform?

to do good, but also to get more sponsors because more sponsors means a better chance at getting a race in a car, which is her utmost goal. She acknowledges that she's seen as a sex symbol. She posed on hot rods in Sports Illustrated and she says she never did anything she wasn't comfortable with. Like she's like, yeah, I'm proud of that photo shoot. I'm proud of all those projects. Again, because all of those projects

give her a higher likelihood that some team is going to pick her up. It took her 115 races to actually win her first one, which I was really surprised to learn is not all that uncommon. There's a lot of drivers who were vying, trying to win in every single race. So it makes, yeah, there's only one winner of every single race. So it makes sense that it took her that long, but it felt to a lot of people like it took longer.

Speaker 2 (51:22)
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:33)
than it does for most people because she was so heavily scrutinized by the media. ⁓ Naturally, social media, there's all sorts of haters, really, really mean, mean people. But she, again, sort of that hard exterior that she developed when she was younger, she's able to brush it off and just stay focused on her goals. ⁓ Let me tell you this sort of sad and ironic story.

So after a race, she and another race car driver were standing at the edge of the barrier, know, sort of where the fans come up and they ask you for autographs. And she and the other race car driver, they're wearing their fire retardant suits and likely also their fire retardant, but they're not wearing their helmets. And so this kid comes up and he approaches the male driver standing next to her says, can I have your autograph? I'm pretty sure the kid doesn't know who the guy is, but like.

race car driver. can I have your autograph? And the guy gives him his autograph and he turns to Danica and he says, are you a race car driver? And she goes to respond to it before he could even hear her response. He's like running off to the next dude in a race car suit. But she just, and she laughed and she brushed it off. It was all caught on camera. It was just like one of those, she's a trailblazer. There's more and more now, but back then there really were not that many women racing cars.

So she talked about how people didn't necessarily treat her unfairly, but they also didn't make it easier for her. But she didn't care. She kept racing anyway, kept pursuing her goals. ⁓ Now that she's retired, she has a clothing line named Warrior. She has a wine label named Somnium. ⁓ I can't remember what that is. It's Latin for something. Dream maybe? Anyway.

She writes recipes. She's super into health and fitness. She eats really clean. She's found what she calls a really, you know, solid sense of life balance. And here's the story that I want to leave you with. I watched an interview of her and in one particular segment of the interview, they had the camera on her while she's doing yoga. And she kind of talks about how she's done yoga for all of her life.

And the poses themselves came pretty easy to her. She seems really flexible, really athletic, but the handstands were really challenging. Like also, I see you Danica, I've never done a handstand in my life, but these yoga handstands were really challenging. So she's been working on them for a long time. So the camera is on her and she tries the handstands. It's not, she can't get the one. She tries, she slows down. You can see her breathing. You can see her focusing.

and she very slowly lifts her legs off the ground. can't even believe, I'm pretty sure while I watched this, I didn't breathe because I wanted her so badly to nail it. Yeah. She lifts her legs up into the air. She holds it for like an agonizing five heartbeats or something. I can't even believe, I'm like, how is a body doing that thing right now? She holds it and then she very slowly brings her legs back down and she lands it. She takes a couple of deep breaths.

And then she looks over at the camera. She's like, did you get that? Like, did you get that on camera? Right. Yeah. And then she, and then she goes on, you know, the cameraman must've been like, yeah, you know, and she's, and she says that that, that move was called a press. She's like, yeah, I've been really trying hard to get that press. And then you can see her brain think for a second and then she hops up and she runs over to her list and she crosses it off her checklist. I know. And it just like that 90 seconds.

Speaker 2 (54:49)
Please!

⁓

Speaker 1 (55:15)
perfectly summarized for me, Danica in a nutshell. So she sees the hard thing, she tries it and fails, but she continues to pursue it anyway, maybe because it's the hard thing. And then when she finally, you know, gets to that victory moment, she's got to cross it off a checklist. I love that. I love you, Danica. But ⁓ yeah, just a super inspiring trailblazer. Again, a woman doing the hard things.

know in a male dominated industry while also wearing fire retardant undies. Undies. Undies. So for all those reasons and more are why we've chosen Miss Danica Patrick is our She's Got Game lady today.

Speaker 2 (56:00)
you

Speaker 1 (56:03)
That's a wrap on this episode of Almost Fans. We hope this peek under the hood of NASCAR gave you a new appreciation for the strategy, the grit, and the sweat behind the sport. We're back every week with more laughs, sports smarts, and sideline stories. So hit that like and subscribe button if you had fun. And if you've got a topic you want us to cover, email us at almostfanspodcast at gmail.com. See you next week, Almost Fans.