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The Dale Jr. Download
Scott Speed: Red Bull, F1, and Why He Left the Driver's Seat
01:11:46
If you’re a motorsports fan, you’ve probably heard the name Scott Speed. From his journey through Formula 1, ARCA, NASCAR, and Rallycross as part of the Red Bull family, the three-time X Games gold medalist has sure done it all. On this week's episode, Dale Jr. sat down with the former Formula 1 racer to learn about his career journey. Though Dale and Scott shared the track for many years, they never got the chance to sit down and chat. Today, that changes. What spawned from a love of racing video games and an admiration for his father's own career quickly grew into national go-kart success and a call from Red Bull. Scott was quickly thrust into the Formula One pipeline, moving overseas and becoming Red Bull’s test driver for F1 as a teenager. Scott became the first American to compete in F1 since Michael Andretti.
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- [00:01]
Scott Speed
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- [00:30]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
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- [03:47]
Scott Speed
My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
- [03:49]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I'm serious, man. Hey, looking over these notes, dude, you've done it all. I mean, 40, you're only 43 years old. And I say that because once we go through this, you know, this career of yours, it's, it's going to be impressive what you've packed into to 43 years, all the different disciplines and things that you've experienced. But three time X Games rally call scrolled medalist, four time rally cross champion, you've won other champions and other four forms of motorsport. But I want to know where, where were you born?
- [04:23]
Scott Speed
I was from the start. Huh? Right from the start. I was born in California. The Bay Area.
- [04:27]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
The Bay Area. Where did you see racing? What? When did you first go? Hey, what is that?
- [04:32]
Scott Speed
Gosh, a great question. I, I was born into it. I would say from three years old, I was going to the go kart track, watching my dad race go karts and so I, I can't think of a memory before I saw racing.
- [04:46]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. Did your dad race out of the garage? What kind of, what kind of racing did he do?
- [04:52]
Scott Speed
Yep, he did. He raced go karts and so we. He raced out of the garage and he was, he was really good. He was a national champion. He was a sponsored go kart driver. Yeah, that's how he could afford to do it. So I Got to see my dad race go karts at a super high level.
- [05:07]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Where did you guys go to compete?
- [05:10]
Scott Speed
Well, he ran, he ran all over the country. He ran some big races and, and he actually, he raced lay down go karts as well. Like the stuff. Here's point. And. And then also he raced the, the sit up go karts, like the standard ones. And we raced all around California. There was, you know, tracks, you know, a couple, you know, like probably three tracks within an hour or two hours of, of where we grew up.
- [05:36]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
When did you decide, you know, that you wanted to give it a shot?
- [05:41]
Scott Speed
Well, I think I always wanted to, you know, from age three, I guess. You know, I was, I love. I saw my dad racing. How much he liked it? He was really good at it. And so I, I started racing video games.
- [05:54]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
So what video games you record, man?
- [05:57]
Scott Speed
I'm thinking early stuff, you know, Sega, you know, there was a Grand Prix grant game, there was Monaco Grand Prix, There was gosh, obviously Daytona usa, when that came out, was super popular. And then you had the Sega Rally. That was an original game. I'd say.
- [06:19]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You, you started racing cars in 2001 or.
- [06:23]
Scott Speed
Yes. So I got my first shot in a, in a car in 2001.
- [06:26]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Okay, you began carting at age 10? Yep. Okay.
- [06:30]
Scott Speed
In a really interesting, impactful moment for me, really, because like I said, as I always watched my dad do this, I raced every video game I could growing up. And eventually my dad had a friend who had a kid my age who had a go kart and he said, hey, do you think Scott would want to try this thing? And that? My friend, he had been racing for a couple of years and I got into his go kart and like my very first session out in the go kart, I was faster than he was. And I was like, oh man, I'm like pretty good at this. And the, and the guy gave my dad my, my, my kid that his kids go kart to try. I raced that go kart for a year. I did really good, and the next year I ended up winning a national championship. So it happened really, really fast. And that was good and bad. It was good in the sense that I, I then had the ability. I got sponsored from that, right. I started getting tires and go karts for free and, and that allowed me to continue racing. The bad piece of that is I, I like really early on had this really bad idea that I was just naturally talented. I was like, I got this, like, I just sat in it. I could do it. I was Completely unaware of all of the work and all of the things that I had absorbed up to that point, which was watching my dad at a super high level playing video games, learning how to make cars move, how to make them go fast. And so when I obviously got in one, I had a lot of knowledge on it.
- [07:54]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [07:55]
Scott Speed
And so, you know, from that moment on, I just, I was a fast study. I was able to pick up things pretty quickly. And, and, and that really launched my career.
- [08:06]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
When you're, you know, you won the Super Pro title in 2000, you raced cars until 2001, you won the IKF Grand Nationals and then you graduated into formula cars. Um, your dad had ran karts his whole life or his, during, during his career he was a kart racer. You as well. What are the, how do you create these opportunities or get these chances to go race full size cars?
- [08:34]
Scott Speed
I just, I won a lot of kart races. You know, the.
- [08:37]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Who did you meet that said, hey, I want you to try this?
- [08:40]
Scott Speed
Well, unfortunately, I never had the, the ability or put the effort into doing any of that, like reaching out to anybody. I got really lucky. Every opportunity I got was either from winning a scholarship or obviously the huge opportunity was when Red Bull called and said, hey, we're going to do this Red Bull American Driver search and we've selected you to come and compete in this. Before that, I would just get opportunities by winning a CART race and there was always some kind of programs around. I'm thinking Skip Barber, Jim Russell, where, hey, you win a chance to do the driving school here in the race car, and I would do that.
- [09:16]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
When you hear about those things, you wonder, now, you know my, those type of things don't happen in the oval pipeline, right where you, man, if you, if you win these series of races, that gets you the scholarship to do X or gets you the opportunity in this ride in this series. And when I hear those, when I hear about those, I've, I've, I've had a lot of guys sit in that chair and tell me the same story about how this win this championship propelled them into the next series driving for this specific team and they went over to Europe and so forth, which we're probably, we're going to get into with your, your own career. How legitimate are those opportunities are they? Is it a money game or back then, was it genuinely like a system, a working system to help provide, you know, opportunity for drivers like yourself to get out of carts, to get beyond, you know, the next level?
- [10:13]
Scott Speed
Man, I think by and large it's always been the same. There's always people out there that want to help the next generation. And I say that because I. I'm that person now, right? So there's always someone trying to help. You know, there's never been, you know, motor racing has never been like football, where there's a set, you know, program. There's always different paths that everyone takes. Even, you know, in NASCAR and in Formula one, the guys that reach the top, they all come through different kind of unique paths. When I was growing up, it was similar in the sense that there was. There was some programs. There's probably less now, honestly, in open wheel, but there was always some programs where guys would give scholarships or you would meet someone. I mean, for example, I got, you know, I got to do a Mazda race in that time, and I won my first Mazda race. And then from then, the team that I was racing for said, hey, we need you to come race full time. Like I said, how can we make this happen? It was like, well, we're going to need, like $5,000 a race. Well, I didn't have that. And so I'd call around to some friends and I'd. I'd get a couple guys to write. Write me checks for $5,000 a race. And then I went and did a couple of those, and then I actually found two. Two people to give me that. And then I ran out and. But I'd already done four races, and we're doing really good in the championship. And the team's like, ah, well, we're just going to let you run the rest of the time. And then from there, the huge break. The thing that changed my life was the Red Bull runoff.
- [11:40]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
All right, so tell me what the Red Bull runoff is.
- [11:43]
Scott Speed
Well, Red Bull had this idea that they wanted to create an American Formula one team. And funny enough, it was also with Ford, because Red Bull was looking to buy the Jaguar F1 team. And they had this idea that they wanted to do this whole American thing. American F1 driver, American F1 manufacturer. And originally. Actually, I find this out later in life, but this was originally Danny Sullivan's idea. Right. Um, and he. And he was pretty instrumental in trying to put that program together. In any case, it got into Dietrich Mateschit's lap in Red Bull, and he thought, this is a great idea. Real smart marketing guy. And they put together this. This driver search. They select 16 of us young American racing drivers. Anywhere from. I was on the younger end. I think I was 18 at the time, maybe 17. And they. They Brought us all to Europe. We did fitness tests, we did hand eye coordination tests, we raced some go karts, some formula cars and eventually they narrowed it down to four of us to eventually move to Europe and to race in Europe.
- [12:47]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
And so you were one of the guys that got that opportunity to go to Europe and race in the British Formula 3 championship. What do you, you know, what's your memories of that experience being over in Europe and
- [13:00]
Scott Speed
life?
- [13:00]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I mean, massive culture change?
- [13:03]
Scott Speed
Well, just also growing up, you know, I would say I was a pretty sheltered 19 year when I went over there. My parents did a lot for me. I barely knew how to pump gas. I stayed home, played video games all day. I played in the, like, I just, I did so much. But living like as, as really an adult at that time, like was.
- [13:22]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Did you have really hard. Yeah. Did you have any kind of parental supervision of any type, any kind of guidance of any type as an 80s kid?
- [13:32]
Scott Speed
No, we, I shipped over there, my dad left me with a suitcase and I got good luck apartment.
- [13:37]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [13:39]
Scott Speed
And yeah.
- [13:40]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
How scary was that out of the gate?
- [13:42]
Scott Speed
Well, I would say it wasn't scary because of just I didn't know any better. This is great. I got freedom. I'm not living at home, you know. In Europe. Yeah, in Europe, yeah. Which was really cool actually because like I'm an American. I had this American Californian accent. So can imagine like living in England was awesome. Like people, it was, it was a unique culture. The food was really hard because it's not uh, it's not mom's, it's not mom's home cooked meal by any means, you know, and, but it was a really cool experience and honestly looking back at all of it, that the being able to live overseas and, and live in these different cultures and I eventually moved from, from England to Austria to, to where Red Bull was based for the remainder of my European racing career. And I think that was the things that I take away most, you know, being able to see different cultures, different racing and how people can live life differently than, than I grew up doing.
- [14:39]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. So how did, how did you find success over there? Was it good?
- [14:44]
Scott Speed
Well, it was really, really hard to start. Yeah, I think, you know, the level, you know, the comparable would be to have someone wanted to race in NASCAR and was growing up in Europe. You have to come here, right? So imagine like you're, you're racing in Europe and you want to race in NASCAR and you come over here and you do your first truck race. It's like, wow, everything just Got serious. It's really hard. And so it was like that for the, for the open wheel side road racing side of things here. Like when I was racing here in America, whether it was formula Mazda or like the small formulas that I did right out of go karting, it was. The level wasn't even on the same planet to what it is over there. That's where all the best guys that go to race open wheels go. They go to Europe. And so there's just this huge concentration of talent of young kids. And the first year was really, really hard. Battled a lot of health issues. I had my, I started, I got ulcerative colitis so I was using the bathroom a lot. I was, I was really anemic at, at some points and, and just had.
- [15:47]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
That came about probably.
- [15:50]
Scott Speed
Well, my, my ulcerative class is an autoimmune disease, so it's something that I had going on. Yeah, but stress is certainly not helpful for that. You can imagine being a 19 year old trying to live and make a career in motor racing, but honestly it didn't really affect me much because I was just so, so focused on the racing and so focused at the job at hand. But it was really, really tough the first year. I think I got, my first year racing, I got like one top 10. And honestly I thought, well, okay, I don't have it. I mean we would all heard as a kid, I think even to this day as an American open wheeler, you think that, you know, going over to Europe and racing in open wheel cars or an F1, like that's just too hard. We don't, we can't do that, we don't have that ability. So I just thought, okay, I'm like the standard American went over here, like these guys are really good, they're better. And it's where I'm at.
- [16:42]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You had to come back to get treatment.
- [16:45]
Scott Speed
I was really lucky. Red Bull had some great doctors in, in Europe and, and basically after the first year of really struggling, I moved to Austria and got some really good help by those doctors there. I good support system there that Red Bull put in place for me and the sec. My second year of racing over there is when, when everything kind of changed. And some of that was maybe a little bit of getting life in order, but most of it was just dealing with the challenges of, you know, the racing over there and competing against the best and learning. And so my second year I ended up winning two open wheel championships over there and had started finding a lot of success. And then everything changed.
- [17:24]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Really Quickly you got the GT GP 2005 and which is Formula 2 this today, and you got promoted to the top driver of the team. All of this would, you know, you had a lot of podiums, top five finishes, finished third in the driver's points and you would also Compete in the A1 Grand Prix. All of this would present you the opportunity to become a test driver for Red bull and their F1 team. You know, do you, do you realize, I guess, what do you think about that today? I know at the moment, at the time you probably had you. It was how everything's happening so quickly and life's moving so fast. You had no moment to really sit down and realize where you had, where you had landed, right?
- [18:13]
Scott Speed
Oh, I think, I think I grasped it.
- [18:15]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I think so.
- [18:16]
Scott Speed
I mean, yeah, absolutely.
- [18:17]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I mean, you couldn't.
- [18:18]
Scott Speed
Not because it's just so big. Gosh.
- [18:22]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
How old were you in the. At the time when you were tabbed as a test driver for the F1 team?
- [18:29]
Scott Speed
Well, I was competing in GP2. Yep. I drove, I got the test. And the big thing, the test driving thing was, was just a formality. That was. Things were already kind of set. That, that was, that was put in place because I was going to race the next year. The, the big moment came when I got the call to do the, the F1 test. And so, you know, I just got the GP2. I just won some championships. I was one of the best, you know, one of the higher rated Red Bull Junior drivers at the time. And they, they had a stacked field. The really cool opportunity I got was the Red Bull Junior team at that time was just fast kids, karting champions. They had, you know, obviously Sebastian Fettel was right behind me in age. There was a stacked group of Red Bull drivers that didn't need Rebel, didn't care if he had money, helmet. Marco was out there picking the best kids. And so it was a really unique environment to be around and living with like the best. What would become, you know, Sebastian Fedel, that some of the best open wheel racers of all time, all in kind of one area and, and kind of together in Austria together doing Red Bull events, doing, you know, training, having an actual training facility where you would go twice a day to work on your physical fitness and to work on yourself doing the reaction time tests. And, you know, this is all early days, but at the time this was, this wasn't being done.
- [19:53]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [19:53]
Scott Speed
So to be in that environment with all these kids, it was cutthroat. But it was also, you know, there was some camaraderie, like, we were all trying to make a racing career. And so doing all that ultimately ended with getting a call to say, hey, you're gonna drive. You're gonna test the F1 car. And that was, for me, when I got that call, like, that was it. I could die a happy man. I was going to get to drive. Worst case, I got. I was going to get to drive, you know, the fastest car on the planet. And I remember going into that test being completely content, not having any expectations and just being like, I made it. This is good. And as it turned out, I did this test. There was four other Rebel juniors that were effectively. I didn't. I mean, we were trying out for the F1 ride, right? And for whatever reason, I was just really fast. It was one of these things that in my career, as I got it was in Barcelona.
- [20:48]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
And how much experience had you had
- [20:50]
Scott Speed
there before I got to. I got to test on it in the. In the GP2 car. So I'd been around the track. I knew the track. But honestly, from a GP2 car, which I would say is about the speed of an IndyCar, to an F1 car, it's a different planet, right? And I remember specifically being in the hotel room the night before, and I'm watching the onboard of Christian Clean in the car I'm about to drive, and I'm literally, like, a little scared because I'm watching, like, how fast he's going into the corners and where he's breaking and thinking, oh, my, I have to do that tomorrow. And it was just so fast, so much faster. It was like this sense of, like, really nervous, like, I was really scared. And I just. I studied the video. I was watching, like, well, he's breaking here at the 100 meters somehow, all right? Going through this corner in fifth gear somehow, all right? And I just. I just watched this video, and I was like, all right, well, I'm just going to go out there and try to try to do this. And. And it was really interesting because at the time, the guys that we were all running that were all going to do that test, I would have rated us all as really great racing drivers. And as soon as we all got in the F1 car and the grip level went that next 30%, and all of a sudden, now you're doing four and a half GS in the corner, you're breaking a five GS. There was a huge gap. And I think if I remember right, I mean, I was probably a second faster than the Other guys, and, like, the. The Delta just went huge, and I didn't know why. It isn't. Wasn't like, I was trying harder, but something about feeling the tire at such high grip force, I could do. And so I was like, man, this is incredible. For one, I got to drive this thing. And for two, like, I'm actually doing this pretty good. Like, I couldn't believe it. So that is what got me the opportunity to ultimately race for the. For the Toro Rosso team.
- [22:40]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
What did you think about when they, you know, when. When you're putting away your helmet and your helmet bag at the end of that day and you know what the end results are in terms of the performance on the racetrack?
- [22:53]
Scott Speed
Man, I. I think that, to me, it was. It was just Val. It was just validation to me. Um, you know, I didn't have. I had a. Looking back. I mean, I just had a really terrible model for how I used racing and how I thought about things. You know, I had a very fixed mindset about. About things. So for me, I never went through racing trying to learn or get better. I just went through it trying to see how good I was. Like, where do I stack up between these people? So when I got to this place, I thought, I can't believe that I'm actually at this level. Whether they gave me the job to drive the car or not, it was. It wasn't about that. I was. I was, like, more about seeing how good am I at racing. And I thought, okay, I, I. I'm. I can't believe that this is the level I'm at, but cool. I'm. I'm this good. And it was just a measurement and just a validation for me.
- [23:44]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. There's not many people in the world that can claim that they've gotten the opportunity to race in F1, but that's what would. That's what would happen. You'd be the first American to participate in F1 since Michael Andretti. Red Bull purchases Minardi and starts up the Toro Rossi team, and they tabbed you to be one of their drivers. I can't. I can't imagine you're any more nervous about that particular race than any other race. And all the preparation that you had to do going into it probably made you feel ready. But you. Your F1 career, you know, for whatever reason, was a. Was a clunky one. There were some moments, but, like, what would you. What would you do? I guess. What would you do different? Would there be anything you could have done differently?
- [24:38]
Scott Speed
Oh, there's so much I could have done differently. I mean, looking back, I think, man, just. I think the. The core piece of it just starts at how. How I thought about racing in general. I had no. I had no communication skills. I had no real education. You know, I'd gone from high school to this. And I just mean that I didn't know how the world worked. I didn't know how to communicate with people. I didn't know what it took to drive a race car fast. I knew that when I sat in the seat that I had this magic pouch of talent and that it made me drive a car fast. I had no idea why. And when that it didn't work, I was left with, well, what's wrong with the car? What's wrong with this? Like, I never had the real ability to look internally and say, like, what. What can I do to affect the situation? I. I didn't look at it like that.
- [25:31]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [25:33]
Scott Speed
And so the. The other really difficult thing about Formula one and the thing that was really hard for me was, for the first time, you're not in the same cars as everybody. And so to win a race doesn't mean the same thing. And I remember specifically, like, you know, Michael Schumacher was a hero of mine as a kid growing up. I idolized this guy. I watched him, and I got to be around him. And I remember thinking, once I got to F1, like, you're really only racing your teammate because at that time, the difference between the cars are so big.
- [26:05]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [26:06]
Scott Speed
Not nowadays. It's actually closed up a lot. But back when I was like, we were going to finish a lap down, almost no matter who you are, you weren't gonna come. So that makes it really difficult to be. To find motivation or to find the drive to get better. And I remember asking Michael one time, like, dude, like, how do you put in this much work? Like, you're racing Rubens, like, you just won. Cool. You beat the other Ferrari. Like, how. Like, how do you find the drive to really push? Like, because me, in my mind, I just quickly extrapolate out. Like, right now, I'm running. You know, if we have a great weekend, I'm running 8th. If we have a bad week, I'm running 14th. But just racing Tony O. And we're kind of just pretty laid back guys. How do you motivate yourself to put in 100% effort? And I just couldn't understand because Michael went deep. He put in so much work. He was the first guy to, like, really bring a gym to the racetrack. And I just I couldn't imagine. And I think the idea of just simply waking up every day and trying to be better than you were and working on yourself and competing against yourself, I had no concept of that.
- [27:12]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [27:13]
Scott Speed
My idea was purely like, did I win on the weekend? Yes. No. Okay. It was either a good day or a bad day.
- [27:18]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. I never had the chance to. I also felt have a very high opinion of Michael Schumacher. I never got the chance to meet him. What was he like?
- [27:30]
Scott Speed
Just a disciplined, focused, very driven person who. Who really loved what he did. I think that, you know, the story that. That, I remember the story that. That resonated me with me the most was, you know, at the time, the FIA was testing helmets in a certain way, and he figured out that they weren't really testing this area of the helmet. In a Formula one car, you're pulling a lot of G force. So not only was he already probably the most physically fit guy on the paddock, but he was also modifying helmets and working with the helmet manufacturer to take ounces out of the front part of the helmet that wasn't being tested because it would save the load on the neck and he'd be fresher for the end of the race. So, like, it's just that level of depth that he went to to get better. I couldn't understand how you got there.
- [28:23]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [28:23]
Scott Speed
And so it was. It was really cool to see. To see that.
- [28:29]
Commercial/Announcer
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- [30:24]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
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- [32:48]
Scott Speed
No, not, not really. I think that, look, I think that's always the case. Everybody's always working on the car and trying to make it better and, and everyone's going to miss that. You know, that's the beautiful thing about sports and racing is every weekend you get to go and see what reality is. So you go and you do a race weekend, you come back and you're like, all right, what worked? What didn't work? We're gonna try this now from the driving side and the engineering and the racing side, that's what's so beautiful about motor racing. And then you go to the weekend, you go to the race the next weekend and you get to find out if is what you change working or not working. That's the reality. So I think that is always a part of it. But I, I can tell you that, you know, when I left Formula one and in spectacular fashion, I had opportunities to race with other. I had other opportunities in F1 and I couldn't get over the. For one. I think being away from America for so long was a piece of this. But also just the co. Not having like a clear definition of what, like I can impact as a driver from a result standpoint because all the cars are different. Like, I couldn't make that work in my head. Like, so from running, if I was running 5th or 10th or winning in a Ferrari in my mind, like, I was just get. I only got to race one guy. And it's like that's. That wasn't enough feedback for me. Like, I want to know, like, you know, that I can impact the result more as a driver, and I just was not aware of how much you could just. You could do that. And then the perfect example is that Sebastian Fedel, when he came in, because he came in with such great energy and such great drive that. That affected the whole team. I mean, he ended up winning in. In effectively the same car that we were running 12th in. And it's not like that's all driving. That's all culture. That's all pushing. That's all motivating everybody. There's so many other things that he brought that I didn't even know you could.
- [34:45]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. Do you remember getting penalized for cursing at David Coulthard in a post race here?
- [34:51]
Scott Speed
Oh, yeah. I mean, that's a piece that probably changed motor racing for me the most. You know, it was my third F1 race. I had got. I finished eighth in the Australian Grand Prix. I won Tauros's first point. It was unbelievable. And then somehow, I guess the other Red Bull team protested us. They said, I passed David under caution under a crash. And I thought, well, that's strange because, like, David had to pit anyways after it had no effect on his race. Why would he protest us for this? And they're looking at this video, and evidently, like, a yellow flag came out, like, right beside him as we're going by at like 150 miles an hour. He's like, yeah, I saw that. And I slowed down and I was like. I said, I probably cursed at him. I was very childish at the time. And David is such a smart. You know, and I've got to hang out and be with David recently, and he's just such a smart, calculated guy that I utilized zero. You would think that, you know, a young kid would take a veteran like that and try to, like, ask some questions. I was just this outrageously cocky kid. And so they, you know, they penalized me and they took the point away. And that disheartened me so much that I want to say it was that point. But really shortly after, I just. I lost a lot of motivation for trying to continue to push really hard.
- [36:14]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
So how do you end up leaving F1?
- [36:21]
Scott Speed
Well, I got. We were doing a race at Nurburgring. Okay. We. I qualify at that time, I think me. Antonio qualified 17th or 18th on the race is a spectacular story. Start 17th and 18th on the grid. Our car, the Toroso car, was outrageous in the wet. Earlier that year in Monaco, I was actually P1 in practice, in the way. In the rain, in free practice. 1. The thing is, our car was really good. We don't know why. Right before the start of the race, it downpours. I mean, pouring rain. So you have to start the race on slick tires. Me and tonio Drive from 17th and 18th to. I think I came in the pits 11th. After 3/4 of a lap. We're flying. I'm passing cars on the. I'm just. You're dog fighting. And I passed Tonio in the last section. Coming to pit road. And so in F1, you can only pit one car at a time. So it was really crucial that, you know, you entered first. So I threw his dive bomb pass on. And I pass them in the last sector. I come in the pits. Well, they got Tonio's tires waiting, and so I come in, they put Tonio's tires on, then they realize, shoot, we gotta take those off. It ends up being like that. Well, they're his tires.
- [37:26]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
It's like a. He's co. Those codes belong in his car and it's illegal.
- [37:31]
Scott Speed
Yeah. Because otherwise, if he failed, I couldn't, like, take those sets at the time. Okay. And so the pit stop ends up taking forever. We lose a lot of time the next lap. Now we got rain tires on there, but it's pouring so much. The entry to the first corner at Nurburgring is pretty downhill and going to the brake zone, and I'm pretty conservative. And I don't stop a second. I'm hydroplaning down the hill, off into the gravel. I'm crashed. So the race is over. I mean, the most spectacular two laps, basically, in my F1 career. And I come in and I'm actually, like, in a pretty good mood because it was pretty awesome. I drove from like 18. I mean, it didn't work out, but, like, it was an awesome first lap. And I'm talking to my engineer in France, the. The team owner. France comes up, he's like, what's happened in turn one? And I was like, what do you mean? Like, there's eight cars parked out there. Lewis Hamilton, Jensen, Button, like, everybody, basically, that went in the corner. I was like, well, the same thing happened to everybody else. We hydroplaned in a thing. And he says, no, not everybody, just the wankers. And I was like, you're right, Lewis. He's a wanker, Jensen. You're right. Everybody's like. And I told him to f off and I. And I walked away. And I guess I thought I could tell the team owner that he can f off and that everything was be okay. In my mind, it was not. And the next weekend, Sebastian Fedel was in the car and that was it.
- [38:55]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
That was the end.
- [38:56]
Scott Speed
Yeah. And honestly, it was time like, I. It wasn't for, like, I didn't have the ability the. The model to process what needed to have, like, how to be a racing driver. And for me, I was. It was just as much of me wanting to go as it was them wanting me gone.
- [39:15]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. So you. Will you go to go to your apartment, pack?
- [39:19]
Scott Speed
Well, first I met with. You know, they put faddle in the car. Right. And that was the. The piece.
- [39:26]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
As a test driver, did you not?
- [39:28]
Scott Speed
No. So I stayed around while Fettel. He did two races. And when he. When it was pretty clear that he was running in the same spot I was, he wasn't qualifying or finishing any better. Dede called me and said, hey, look, like, obviously the car isn't, you know, really capable right now, but we love you. What do you want to do? And he gave me carte blanche. I could. I could pick basically anything. So it was really an important time that at least could you have chosen anything? I could be test driver with the main team and stick around in the Red Bull F1 deal. I could go. You know, basically wanted to know what I want to do is the easy. The easy solution would have been to do like DTM or like sports car racing in Europe.
- [40:09]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
And DTM was cool.
- [40:10]
Scott Speed
It was. It was. But for me, like, I had done. I had answered the question I had for myself, which is like, how good am I as a racing driver? And I was like, okay. I'm like, I'm not. I'm not a Lewis. I knew, like, I'm not Lewis. I'm not Nico. But like, I'm a good F1 guy.
- [40:26]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Cool.
- [40:26]
Scott Speed
I'm. I'm can sleep. I've answered the question for myself and I want to go do something fun. I want to go do something different. I don't want to just keep. Like, I know where I make. After Formula one, everything was such a huge. In my mind stepped down that it wouldn't. It just didn't make sense.
- [40:42]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
So you decided to go home.
- [40:43]
Scott Speed
So I decided to go back to America. And. And I said, hey, what do you think about NASCAR to dd? And he's like, I love It. Go. Go there. And I thought, okay, I'm going to come back to America and I'm just going to race NASCAR Cup Series.
- [40:55]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Just like that.
- [40:56]
Scott Speed
Just like that. And I got here.
- [40:57]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
What, before that moment, though, what had you known about Cup?
- [41:02]
Scott Speed
Almost nothing. I actually. Man, my. It's. I'm embarrassed to say.
- [41:07]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
But what about it? Like, you, you know, you. You just said, you know, that everything was a step down. What about it stood out to you?
- [41:14]
Scott Speed
Well, it was different. Yeah, I knew it was very different, and it would be a challenge.
- [41:20]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [41:22]
Scott Speed
I did grow up a little bit watching, obviously, your dad, Ernie Irvin. I watched some stock car racing, but not enough to really have any grasp of what it was going to take or what the level was at all. I just thought, okay, there's these southern boys out here running around in circles, like, surely I can figure this out. I mean, basically Days of Thunder.
- [41:43]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [41:43]
Scott Speed
Like, it was very. It was very similar. I thought, okay, I'm going to get in here. And luckily, Gunther Steiner was running the. The Red Bull NASCAR team at the time, and he had some kind of wisdom about him to say, hey, maybe let's start off by doing like a year of ARCA and some truck, and we'll feed you into this thing.
- [42:02]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I'm surprised that. I love this about Red Bull. They went. They built you up to be able to take over a seat in the F1 car, the top echelon of motorsport in the planet. And when that didn't end up working out as everyone had hoped, they gave you other opportunities and you were still in the family, and they were still believing in you and knew that there was somewhere in their portfolio that you could, you know, you could have success. I'm just really. Because usually you assume that the guys. Guys get chewed up and spit out and, you know, you. They have to go fend for themselves and they have to find this, you know, find whatever it is that next opportunity is if they want to be a race car driver. But it seems like in the Red Bull system, you had. You had a personal relationship or something about you that they liked and appreciated and didn't want to lose. And they wanted to. They had all kinds of other avenues for you to go down. You know, that's unique. Do you not see that as unbelievable?
- [43:15]
Scott Speed
Yeah, unbelievable. Luckily for me, because I was never the kid that was gonna go raise sponsorship or work on his image.
- [43:23]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Is there anybody else or any other thing comparable to Red Bull in terms of like, hey, man, you know, hey, you all right? That didn't Work out. That's cool. We got this and this, this, this. You see anything here you like?
- [43:33]
Scott Speed
Well, I think you got to remember Rebel's a marketing company. I know my. My last name is Speed, and I'm a very authentic person. And so I fit the brand really good. And I was also. Was a really fast racing driver.
- [43:48]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [43:50]
Scott Speed
So I think all those things just fit really good.
- [43:52]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [43:53]
Scott Speed
And certainly with the last name Speed, being an American.
- [43:56]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [43:57]
Scott Speed
Having a pretty good personality. I could always talk pretty good on camera. I could always engage with people pretty good. Um, it was. It's just an easy fit for them.
- [44:06]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. Well, you go racing the ARCA series, you have success, you know, relatively quickly. I mean, we've. We've seen all kinds of examples of guys that have come out of predominantly grew up road racing. Try to come run ovals, and they're like, this is weird. You know what? These cars, all. This is archaic. All this equipment. The way that people think and act and race is completely.
- [44:35]
Scott Speed
There's no data.
- [44:36]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
No.
- [44:36]
Scott Speed
Like, the cars are all different.
- [44:38]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [44:38]
Scott Speed
You get it from one car to the other. You're like, the setups are the same, but they're not the same because at the end of the day, they're made in the. In the. You know, they're just tubes, welded. It's not like, you know, the F1 car. When you go from the primary car to the backup car, it's identical. You don't know the difference.
- [44:52]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [44:53]
Scott Speed
Like, you know, like, sometimes you got some cars, you even name them. I know Betty.
- [44:57]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yep.
- [44:57]
Scott Speed
She runs good. Like, we gotta try to build another one.
- [45:02]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. So you. So you seem to fit right in. You seem to be. I don't know whether it's malleable or you. You made it work.
- [45:15]
Scott Speed
I mean, if you call my Stockhart career making it work, good on you. Well, I mean, you went great.
- [45:22]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
No, you went. You. It was not you. So you. I remember. I remember this.
- [45:26]
Scott Speed
You.
- [45:28]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You won Kansas, Kentucky, Berlin, Nashville. You finished seventh at Talladega in your first race in arca. You're battling for the championship when you have this spectacular event.
- [45:41]
Scott Speed
My most favorite moment of my racing
- [45:44]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
career was definitely the Stenhouse. I mean, it was an epic moment. But listen, no one would have assumed that while. Yes, you might have went to a road course and destroyed these guys, but nobody would have said, yeah, he'll win. Kentucky, Berlin, of all places. Like, you're not a. You weren't an oval guy. You weren't a short tracker. You didn't drive Stock cars. How did you, how did you adapt and be able to find it, you know, pace and speed? I mean, you do truly have just a pouch talent somewhere.
- [46:20]
Scott Speed
I, I do. I have a lot. Yeah, I'm. I have a lot. But I had. No, I was not. I'll say it like this. I never watched a day of film. I did not watch a single race. Jerry, actually, I ran in Jerry Baxter, he was crew chiefing me in Xfinity qualified pole. My first Xfinity race, I go to Darlington. Jerry's like, hey, you want to watch the guys run a little bit before you get in the car? You know, I was like, wow, no. Why? I'm just gonna get in the car and rip it. I remember, right? And I, I was like, I think after like three labs, like one P1 on the board, and then I fenced it in four and I had to fix the car. But like, I, I just had, I think I have a really good feel for a tire. I obviously had some, some models growing up that worked pretty decent. But there was huge limitations. I was terrible at racing. I had no race craft. Right. So I think that if you think of what makes someone successful in F1, you got to be fast, you got to qualify good. There's some racing going on, but really it's about going fast. NASCAR is about racing. I can't tell you how many times I've seen like, she's like Austin Hill, for example, win with like a fifth place car. Like, I, I. There's so much race craft that happens in NASCAR that I never learned or didn't understand. It was literally, it was talented. It was days of thunder. I could get in there, I could go really fast. And then you put 40 guys out there. And I was like, whoa, these guys are, I'm getting shuffled back here. Like one restart, lose a couple. Another restart, lose a couple more. Like, what's going on here? And I just didn't, I didn't understand what was going on.
- [48:06]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Well, I, I remember you would run truck series a little bit. You'd obviously get an opportunity to go up and, and, and make your cup series debut for Red Bull and finish out the season in the car you had. Best, best finish of 16th at Homestead. You have a full time schedule in 09. Rookie of the year. Um, you also ran in the rally series with Michael Waltrip. I remember, I remember this was. I remember you having a lot of moments where I went. I mean, the Red Bull team, again, very similar to F1. This was a brand new team. They had no clue what they were doing. They were going to figure it out, and especially if they had stuck it out, right? But they. They weren't going to be a great team out of the gate. Nobody. Nobody was even Red Bull, right? And they were going to figure it out, but you didn't get the Runway to be a part of that. I remember being out there with you. I remember watching you. I remember when you came in ARCA and went through all of the stuff you went through, and there were a lot of moments where you were like, yep, the, the. The speed is there, you know, and the racecraft comes with just racing, right? You just got to keep racing and keep going and AJ would figure it out. And I thought y' all were quite similar, honestly, in terms of, you know, being very raw and, you know, and I wouldn't, you know, being very raw in the racecraft part of it. People won't believe that I said that about AJ But y' all both were very similar, and I felt like that both could have, you know, you could have had a similar result that AJ had as a stock car racer in a stock car career given the same Runway. But it was like there wasn't enough patience, man.
- [50:13]
Scott Speed
It was there. It was me. I didn't want it bad enough at all. I. To me, this is going to sound crazy because I get asked a lot now, obviously, for the last five or six years, I've been working with Josh on this, on developing drivers. I have had the greatest, most fulfilling five years of my life doing this than I ever did in my racing career.
- [50:39]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Why?
- [50:39]
Scott Speed
And I think that deep down to my core, I enjoy much more helping and impacting people than I ever did trying to win a trophy for myself. To me, it was such a shallow. Racing was. Was shallow. To me, it was just purely validation for my self esteem. My real energy and what really motivates me and drives me is being able to acquire some knowledge or some information and then to be able to impact someone with that in a way.
- [51:11]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I just assumed that your attitude back in the day was just, you know, you're a California kid and you were just. You're living by the seat of your pants.
- [51:23]
Scott Speed
Yeah, there's some of that for sure.
- [51:25]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You know, I. I thought you wanted to be there. I thought you wanted to succeed, wanted to develop into a cup winner and a cup champion, and I felt like that you had all the ability in the world, but you're. I remember your attitude being very big contrast. No, not when I say attitude. I don't Mean bad. I'm just saying I remember your personality. I should use that word. I remember your personality being a huge contrast to everyone else in the field, but it was. I was purely basing it off of location and your own personal experience being overseas and all of that. You hadn't. You absolutely would be a different person than anyone else that came into NASCAR because you came from a completely different path. And I didn't think that it was bad. I just felt like that he's here because he wants to be here. He's got some support from Red Bull, and he'll. He's got the speed and ability and talent, and he'll figure it out. But you really just feel like that maybe it wasn't. You didn't have your whole heart, wasn't truly in it.
- [52:25]
Scott Speed
Yeah, I think that my. My need or like my desire to go fast is just, you know, for validation from my own ego. It was just not a drive and a real love, I think, for racing. I didn't, I didn't. I didn't. I wasn't able to think about racing like that.
- [52:45]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
And I feel like, though a lot of guys have. Are a lot. I feel like all of us have. Are filling our ego. You know, I think. I think every race car driver races for that. You know, to feel important, to feel like you're.
- [53:02]
Scott Speed
I'll tell. I'll give you the example in my life that where this. Where this really resonates. When I was at the end of my carding career, 19 years old, I won every single national race you could win in. In the country. It was undisputed. We dominated everything. It was maybe my most unhappy year. There was no challenge. There was just like, okay, we've got it figured out now. What? Earlier, maybe like two years earlier, I went to. There was a race going on that I. I couldn't go to this race, but I had my buddy that was racing, his name is Lan Yi, and he got to go to the race, and I wanted to go with him, and I wanted to help him out. And we go to this race and I'm helping land, and he wins his first race, like his big first national series race. I was more pumped about that than any win I had up to that point. And so let's Fast forward to 2019. I break my back at a rallycross race, and so I can't drive. So my dad and my brother still have a really successful national karting team. And I go to the, to the, to this race, and I'm like, hey, who's the kid that you guys are struggling the most with. Like, who's the kid that, that I can help out? And this kid, Paul Bokus, he's, he's got tons of speed, but we, you can work with this kid. And so this weekend I'm working with this kid. I don't really know what I'm doing. But he ends up winning his first national race. And I had all those same like feelings. Like man, I felt so much happiness and felt just so fulfilled by, you know, feeling like I was able to contribute to this kid having success and to watch him like just crying after the race, you know, and all the joy that he felt. I was like, man, this feels right. And I knew right away that's the path that I want to go down. And very, very fortunately for me, my best friend Josh Wise at the time had already started this journey like four years before to start Wise Optimization. And really quick during my recovery of this, it just became so clear that I think this is really what I was meant to do much more. Because even in my mind I can look back, I can replay the tape and if I could go back right now, well, actually I could do it. Like if you take me three years ago, I'm the best racing driver I've ever been by a, by a mile. I have zero desire to get in a race car and do it. Zero. The only race I've done was a Trans Am race with Tristan McKee because he, it was a, it was his going to be his first opportunity to get in a Trans Am car. And I, I've been working with this kid. This is something he needs to do if we can get him in the car and I have to go do this, this Pro Am thing with him to get in it. What a cool opportunity. I can show him some things about how to, you know, a tackle a race weekend. But other than doing that for him, like I would have no motivation to go race a car for myself. My motivations now are, and it's, there's just so much more of it because now like I'm at the office at 5:30 in the morning. I'm putting in like real, real amounts of work and I would just not, I don't think I could, I would have that same energy if it was just all directed towards myself to try to make me better.
- [56:20]
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- [57:41]
Scott Speed
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- [58:12]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You ran some limited races for a team in 2012. 2013. You'd stay around NASCAR. So I mean you say all that, but you did, you know you did
- [58:23]
Scott Speed
what to earn a living.
- [58:24]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. You're trying to earn a living.
- [58:25]
Scott Speed
Yeah.
- [58:26]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You end up, and I don't want to skip this particular part of your life. You go to rallycross in 2013, you have insane success.
- [58:33]
Scott Speed
Yeah.
- [58:33]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I mean you do. You, you had in, you had to have enjoyed all of that experience.
- [58:39]
Scott Speed
I tell you, the experiences that I've enjoyed the most were the experiences where I didn't know how to do something. Rallycross is a really good example of this. Right. I got lucky. Like I'm sitting at the grid. I don't even know the story, but I'm just at the grid in Bristol and this guy Colin Dine walks by and he's like, hey, do you want to come do a guest car at the X Games in Brazil for Rallycross? And I'm like, yeah, sure. And I'll never forget this. We go back and at the time, Josh Williams is my spotter. We go back to his house. This is Mar. We go back to the. To the hotel, I think there. And I look up like, what is rallycross? And I'm like, oh, my God.
- [59:17]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [59:18]
Scott Speed
What about there's a jump.
- [59:19]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah, like.
- [59:20]
Scott Speed
And then I immediately call Pastrana and I'm like, hey, like. So I just said, I'm going to do this X Games in Brazil and there's a jump. Like, what do I do? And he's like, ah, don't worry, man. But like, it's kind of like a motorcycle. If you hit the brakes or lift in the air, you're going to nosedive and then you're going to flip and it's going to be really bad. He basically scared the crap out of me. And I was like, oh, God. So now I have to understand, like, how to control the pitch of a car in the air. And I'm like, all right. And luckily, I didn't realize at the time. I know very much now. You know, the, the. My first race in rallycross was at a track that ended up being like a blue grooved dirt track, which means it was really important to like, hit the line really precisely. And I could do that. I couldn't really. I didn't know how to control a rally car yet, but that was just the natural way I went around a track. So I ended up winning that weekend. And then very soon after the next race, I was, you know, seconds off the pace because it was actually, actually a real gravel rally situation, which is just completely different dynamics. But learning that and also learning the stock cars from where I started, I've enjoyed those processes more than anything. I like the. The learning aspect of motor racing more. More than anything, man.
- [60:30]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
So from rallycross, you'd run in that from 13 all the way to. To 19. When you talked about the crash, it broke your back. You didn't compete in 2020, you came back in 21. And then largely you would step away from competing full time. You know, you talk about, I mean, you know, this is when I would ask the person, how difficult was it to leave, you know, the driving seat? But you've already answered the question. Your emotions, your Your opinions, your feelings about all of this are very different from most people's. You know, a lot of guys that, you know, I would say that you're. I would say to you that what you're. You're extremely fortunate to. So, so to have been able to do and see and touch and feel all these different elements.
- [61:28]
Scott Speed
Well, I say that in the world of motorsport, you know, like, I made choices too.
- [61:32]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I know.
- [61:32]
Scott Speed
Like, it. It's. I wasn't. I think maybe this is a. A trait of mine that is. That's been fortunate, but I'm not scared to fail.
- [61:41]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [61:42]
Scott Speed
So making the choice to go from something that I'm one of the best in the world at, knowing that I'm gonna go try something, and that's gone. Like, I was okay with that. It was harder than I thought it would be. Like, is so much harder than I thought it would be.
- [61:56]
Commercial/Announcer
Yeah.
- [61:57]
Scott Speed
Because I went from literally being the best. One of the best in the world or something to being very, very average.
- [62:02]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [62:02]
Scott Speed
And that takes some recalibration. Sure. But the challenge of that and the struggle, I enjoyed. I enjoyed that piece.
- [62:10]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Well, your. Your experiences and where you've been and what you've done are pretty phenomenal. And I felt like that the large majority of people had. Have a very high opinion of you as a. As. As a race car driver. I do as well. And not many people that are. Not many people that are done driving like you and myself and the other guys that I've had in this. This room, most of them have a hard time stop, you know, not racing anymore. Most of them have a hard time knowing that that's not going to be who they are, knowing that they're not going to get. To get out there and feel that
- [62:55]
Scott Speed
it's got to be everybody. Right. You're changing the identity of who you
- [62:58]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
are, but it seems you are an anomaly, whereas you don't. Do you miss competition? Do you miss thrill? Do you miss that challenge of trying to figure something out?
- [63:09]
Scott Speed
Well, I have that still. Right. I'm working with 25 guys. They're like 25 different little race cars. And every weekend they get to go out there and we see how they all do and they. They all need something different. So I still have that. Like, if I left racing in general, that'd be so different. But I get to still do it in the way that that really fulfills me. So I don't feel like I'm missing anything.
- [63:31]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I found that too, like, when I. Maybe this is some somewhat similar. So When I. When I knew that I was largely done driving race cars, I. I didn't want to not be at the track. I needed to be at the track, but I needed a reason to be at the track. Can't go to the track without a reason.
- [63:48]
Scott Speed
Yep.
- [63:49]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
You know, that's weird. And so the broadcasting has been a way for me to feel like I'm still a part of something and I can matter, you know, and maybe that's what you think you found in this business with Josh, and I want to talk about that. So you and Josh Wise developed a program, I would say, largely associated with Chevrolet drivers, but where you are tasked to teach these guys how to be athletes, how to be great at what they do, help them also mature into young men. Talk about the work you all do. Why is it important for a driver to be in your system?
- [64:35]
Scott Speed
Well, I think whether it's our system or any system, it's just important to have a system. I think that if you're going to improve at anything you do, you know, having some support or at least a plan of how you want to do that is important. There's so many different things you can. You can work on. You know, obviously, we've been doing this for a long time, and every year, you know, we just. We get better at what we do, too. So it's just this constant iteration of, like, how do you. How do you really impact kids? How do you impact people? How do you get people to reach, you know, the closest to at least the, the optimum of their potential?
- [65:11]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah, when you're working with these kids, I mean, are there times when, I mean, you, you. You see real, true, extraordinary ability in some, while others, it's maybe somewhere deeper in there that you haven't extrapolated out of them. How do you go through that balance? Right. You've got some kids that. It's like, oh, man, he picks it up natural. You give it to him, and he's. He's just right on it. But this other guy, he could be as good, but I got to work a little harder. I got it. His. His. His personality is more difficult to tap into, or he's not as accepting of the, of the, of the advice. How do you deal with those type of challenges?
- [65:49]
Scott Speed
I mean, that's, that's what I. That's what's so amazing about it. The, the beautiful thing is, you know, and you know, this about racers, everybody is perceiving it differently. And so the first thing is, is you have to understand, like, how are they looking at it, what are they experiencing, what are they looking at, what are they feeling? And, you know, what do they need? And then trying to figure out, well, how do I, how do I build something for them, how do I build an environment for them, how do I give them that to where they can improve in that area? And so there's so much nuance to that. There's so much context to it. It's what makes what I do so mentally stimulating and challenging.
- [66:30]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
How do you work on helping them understand the effort and the work needed to go to. Through with what they want to, you know, the, A lot of things that, you know, I think as parents, we, we worry about motivating our kids, right, to, to really go after things and, and challenge themselves. I have, you know, nieces and nephews and so forth, racing, and I, I'm critical, right, of their, of their ethics and work ethic and, and the pursuit of trying to be better. And I'm sure you get personal, you know, you get personal investment in these guys, you know, and you're wanting them to succeed and you're. It's like they become family. Oh, yeah, right. How do you, how is it, how do you best, I suppose, help a guy who truly doesn't understand how much work needs to go into this? How do you, how do you coach them up to where their understanding of the effort needed to continue this process? Because that's. That to me is probably something extraordinary is being able to actually help a guy see, oh, you know, everyone over here is doing all this work and I'm not going to be able to skip corners on talent.
- [67:50]
Scott Speed
Well, I think it's individual, right? And, and the important piece of that is, you know, what is hard to someone is easy to someone else. Everybody's on a different spectrum, right. You know, we have Dan Jansen, an Olympic gold medalist, as a physical trainer. Right. And so just being around someone at that level and seeing guys put in work, it's, it's, you know, the other piece too is it's like this with your kids, right? Your kids are gonna do what you do, not what they're not gonna do what you say. So leading by example, setting them up and giving them opportunities to push themselves in areas more than they did before and sort of monitoring that, like how hard you're stressing them and, and what kind of feedback you're giving them. But everybody's at a spot and they can all get better and do more in all these areas. And it's like you just constantly need to keep challenging and, you know, physical fitness is a great. Is a great piece of that. Right? Because everybody starts out not being able to, let's say, run a mile, and it's like, all right, well, let's. Let's run a mile. Like, oh, now you can do that. That's cool. Now we're going to run two and bringing in different aspects of, like, working more and more and more, and eventually it's just something that grows. All of them just keep growing in how much effort they put in, how much work they put in. We do our job right.
- [69:20]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Anyway, I'm sure you see some of these. Some of these kids, though, that are extremely talented, but don't. Don't want to put all that effort in. You know, how do you. You know, I guess, you know, number one, that's probably disappointing, disheartening, but it's saying, you know, how do you. How do you motivate them? And how do you. And, you know, you mentioned another thing, too, which I find challenging in my own life is I push. Pushing your. Pushing your children. Right. Whether it's trying to figure out a math problem, spell a word, or ski down a mountain. Right. You know, we want to motivate them. We want to tell them they can do it, but there are times when you push them beyond this level of stress and they break down. Right. They fall apart. And I feel like such a failure as a parent at that point that I've. Oh, damn, I pushed them too hard. Right? I should have. I should have seen that coming. Do you experience that, I suppose, with some of these guys?
- [70:24]
Scott Speed
Well, girls, sure. That's resilience, right? Doing something and failing at it and not accomplishing what you want and. And having it being hard, that. That's really important. That's probably a big piece of something I didn't have. Everything was easy for me, and so when things got hard, I quit. You know, when things got challenging and I couldn't do something, it was easy to sort of withdraw and. And quit and go do something that I was good at. So I think, yeah, making things challenging and making things hard is an important piece of. Of building some resilience and building the. The confidence in the person that, hey, I just did this really hard drill this week. I struggled at it pretty much the entire time. Now I'm getting in my race car this weekend, and it's all going pretty easy, like, no problem. So I think there's. It's nuanced. It's super individual. Everybody is in a different spot, and everybody needs different Things. A lot of guys don't need motivation. A lot of guys don't need to be motivated to come into the office and early in the morning and put in an enormous amount of work. And a lot of times there's guys that go, hey, like, you need to take a week off. Multiple times I've had to tell guys, hey, you're taking a week off, come back, you know, fresh. You got playoffs coming. We need to, you know, have you motivated and have the energy. Right.
- [71:43]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
For.
- [71:43]
Scott Speed
For when it matters. So I think certainly managing that energy for everybody throughout the year is. Is super important.
- [71:50]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
How often do you get to the racetrack?
- [71:52]
Scott Speed
I get to go probably. You know, the thing about technology now and what we have, it's so. I can see so much from my laptop and I, I don't think. I'm not, I'm not a driver coach.
- [72:04]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [72:04]
Scott Speed
I'm not the guy that's going to go in there after every session, be like, hey, you need a break. Look at this line. You need a break later here. Like, I'm way zoomed out from that. But I'm obviously there. I'm obviously talking with the guys every weekend when they have questions and I'm available. But I would say races that I go to are probably half, maybe like 15, 15 a year.
- [72:23]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah.
- [72:25]
Scott Speed
Luckily, I get to go to some. The cool ones. Right. Obviously, I can be really impactful. You know, I try to go where I'm impactful, I guess. So. Obviously all the road courses, you know, the technical short tracks, some of the technical mile and a half. I don't go to the superspeedways very often.
- [72:40]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah, well, man, I think a lot of people. I kind of knew where you were and what you'd been up to, but we hadn't talked a ton over the last years. But there are a lot of people that, you know, not only have. There's a lot of people, myself included, who will learn a lot from your own career in racing and how just incredibly diverse it was. But also I think a lot of people really appreciate learning what you're up to these days and what you're doing. That's one of my favorite parts about our show is kind of, where are the now? And you're obviously out there impacting lives and setting up the next generation of racers to be very successful in what they do. And I really appreciate what you and Josh are doing, and I know you've, you've. You sink every ounce of yourself into it. Just want to say thanks, man. I've always enjoyed Being around you, your great personality. I've enjoyed racing with you when we got to race with each other back in the day and love what you're doing, especially for all our Chevrolet guys.
- [73:41]
Scott Speed
Yeah, you're so welcome, man. Thanks for having me.
- [73:43]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Yeah. Appreciate you, man. Scott Speed on the Dale Jr. Download. All right, so Scott Speed, that was pretty interesting. I. I had. I always wondered what made this guy tick because. And we talked about it in the. We talked about it in the show and talked about it during the interview. His personality was so different when he came in. I mean, he wasn't. I wasn't rubbed. Rubbed the wrong way or put off at all, but he, you know, he just had a unique personality. And I kind of wanted to. I kind of wanted to be friends with him, you know, but he was just not ever in the same. He was never in the same place very long. You know, he seemed like kind of the Red Bull vibe, they moved fast. And I wasn't sure how serious he was about NASCAR and whether he thought we were. I didn't know how he thought about us as drivers. And then when he came in and he kind of, you know, he was kind of figuring out how to get his legs and get going. I never had a problem with him on the racetrack that I can remember. I never was like, what a d. What a. You know, I mean, I don't know if he ever had one with me. We never. We should probably covered that, I guess. But I always kind of wanted to know more about him. Always kind of curious about him because I knew he had come from Europe. I knew he had, you know, came into the arc of stuff. And one, he immediately got my appreciation and respect coming into that and doing so well and not finding that to be completely foreign. Right. But I guess, you know, some great comments. I told him once we got it from the, you know, the table that I thought him saying about how to parent your kids, you know, they're not going to listen to what you say. They're going to see, they're going to watch what you do and they're going to do what you do. And if you tell them, you know, not to raise your voice, but then you're, you know, you're bickering with your wife or something about what to have for dinner or whether to go to this restaurant or that, I mean, they're watching that, and that's exactly what they're going to do. And he's absolutely correct. You know, we tell our kids all the time how to behave, and then they, but they don't technically take that information in and just start to utilize it. They watch how we behave and they, they act that out. They, they, they take on that information and start to utilize it. So I thought that was really great information. But the other thing too, like he, he told us that he wasn't necessarily motivated by success or he had, he didn't have a hard time, I guess, you know, just sort of stepping out of a race car and calling it a day. And he talked about how he found out helping others was more rewarding to him. While I understand what he's saying and I do enjoy helping others as well, it is, I've got a completely different opinion about the racing side of it. And he's one of the few or maybe the only person that's come in here and said that, you know, that that wasn't fulfilling. Right. That wasn't as fulfilling as he wanted it to be or it should have been. And I would have liked to have gotten, I guess, more into. He talked about some of the personality flaws and things that he wasn't good at or didn't take, didn't appreciate or didn't do well with or didn't respect. And we could have dug into that a little further, but I wasn't sure whether he was comfortable admitting some of those missteps. But I do remember him being cocky. Yeah. And, but not too cocky. Just, you know, I was, I was like, yeah, so, you know, I guess Southern California F1 road racer. Yeah, why wouldn't he be? Of course he's gonna be cocky. But great catching up with him. Thanks for joining us here in the Arby studio. Don't forget about Arby's new meat in three box. You get more meal for your money at Arby's we have the meats. We'll see you tomorrow with bless your heart. Check out Dirty Mo media on Instagram, Facebook X and TikTok warranty with American Home Shield you can now video chat with live repair experts for help with home fixes over the phone. American Home Shield don't worry. Be warranty. Visit ahs.com listen for 20% off any
- [78:23]
Scott Speed
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- [78:25]
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
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