Brad Coleman had a professional racing license at 14. By 16 he was running the 24 Hours of Daytona. He raced for Joe Gibbs, shared the No. 18 car with Kyle Busch, and drove for a team owned by Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach. Then he woke up in a Kansas hospital in a neck brace, not knowing if he could feel his legs.

Today he runs Safeway Driving, the oldest driving school in Texas, teaching teenagers the exact opposite of everything the track taught him.

In this episode of The Exit Plan, Alex sits down with Brad to talk about the near miss on I-77 that scared him straight, the high school kid he watched something click in during a sponsor appearance, and why he says the analytical skills that make a great race car driver are the same ones that keep you alive on a Tuesday commute.

They also get into the business arc most founders never live through: Brad bought the driving school he learned to drive at, sold it to a group of investors, watched them franchise it, and then bought the whole thing back nearly a decade later. He breaks down what pulled him back, why he refuses to grow as fast as he could, the kind of franchise owner he turns away, and why the regulatory patchwork that makes this business so hard to scale is exactly what protects it.

Plus the story from last week that got him in the feels, and the answer to a question he's never really been asked before.

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Get your free Franchise Fit Score and see what your capital actually buys in franchising: https://franzy.com/onboarding

CHAPTERS:

00:00 Intro
01:09 The kid who found racing on TV
03:27 The near miss on I-77
05:49 The high school moment that started it
06:41 The crash at his second NASCAR race
07:38 Alex's own accident
09:23 Waking up in the neck brace
12:49 At 18, wondering if it was over
16:03 Is he a hypocrite for teaching teens to slow down?
18:52 Owning the mistake instead of burying it
20:51 The risks we get completely backwards
22:08 Why everyone thinks they're a good driver
23:28 Buying the school he learned to drive at
26:55 Selling the company, then buying it back
30:59 What pulled him back in
33:33 What the years away taught him
36:32 Growing without diluting the program
39:01 The crash statistics behind the program
40:28 The franchise owner who will not work here
43:06 Why almost no driving school scales
46:36 "Our nightmare is our moat"
47:35 Redemption or regret?
48:17 Does he miss the adrenaline?
51:41 Was the crash the worst thing that happened?
52:51 The story that got him in the feels