Drag Illustrated Issue 178, September / October 2022 | Page 101

You ’ ve started a family recently . How has that experience , becoming a dad , changed how you race ? Or has it ? It ’ s changed me . I don ’ t think it ’ s changed the way I race . It ’ s definitely changed my priorities and the things that are important to me . Racing still holds the sentiment that it always has . I ’ m a competitor at heart . Racing is my chosen avenue to compete . Outside of racing , my priorities have changed and I enjoy spending time with my family and my little girl .
I ’ ve had this question asked quite a bit lately : Has my drive or my determination or focus or just sheer want to win changed because of starting a family and all that ? Absolutely not . If anything , it maybe has grown and I just show that differently because I want my little girl to know that her daddy is a champion .
Racing has always been a family thing for you and your parents . Now you ’ re getting to do that with your own family , your wife , Natalie , and your daughter , Haven Charli . What ’ s that been like , getting to have her out on the road and experience those things with her ? It ’ s just a natural progression . As tight-knit and close as my family has been throughout my whole life , my little girl is being brought up in the same way . Anything my parents did , I did with them . It ’ s going to be the same thing for Haven Charli .
She ’ s going to school at the church for a couple hours twice a week now , and that was probably one of the most difficult things . My little girl is growing up . She ’ s a year and a half old , and she needs to be around some other little kids . She ’ s never around little kids . She ’ s around adults and all of us at the races – so many different people . In a year and a half , she ’ s definitely been exposed to a lot and traveled a lot and been able to go and do more than some adults . It ’ s pretty neat .
Everybody says , “ Don ’ t blink ; they grow up ,” and you listen to that , but when you actually find yourself in the position of watching your child grow , it happens so quickly .
Talking about the independent team dynamic , for years , it was thought that you need to be one of the mega teams to have success in the nitro classes . Your team came along and disproved that . How challenging was that early on , building your team and going up against those mega teams ? I remember very , very vividly Don Schumacher telling me in 2011 that a single-car team just simply couldn ’ t compete with a multi-car team . It couldn ’ t be more untrue . It ’ s not as easy . It ’ s more difficult . It ’ s taken a lot of hard work to get where we ’ re at and to have the success that we ’ ve had .
But I think there ’ s not a lack of people that are willing to put that in other than us either . You look at Josh Hart and Antron [ Brown ]. Antron has somewhat of a team alliance with Justin Ashley , but Josh Hart is completely independent on his own just like we are . For the most part , Billy runs a limited schedule and whatever he does is a direct clone of what we have .
It ’ s been an unbelievable time over the last 10 years of doing this , and I wouldn ’ t say paving the way , but getting things back to how they once were when there were more independent teams . Whether we started that wave or that trend or not , I would like to think we were a part of that . It ’ s good to see . I think it ’ s good and healthy for the sport .
I do think it ’ s fair to say your team kind of led that charge and maybe helped usher in a new era for nitro racing . Is that a point of pride for you ? Absolutely . I feel like it ’ s kind of going back to its grassroots , and that ’ s what we need . We need independent teams and personalities from the driver , not the cookie-cutter , same old interview . We need drivers who want to win and want to show emotion and want to be real in a time when so many people are scared to be a real person . Show emotion and
September / October 2022
You think it ’ s challenging , but we went 15 races without winning a race or something like that . There ’ s guys that ’ ve gone 15 years or their whole career without winning a race . So I think we just set the bar so ridiculously high for ourselves .
be happy when you win and motivate yourself to do better , not just accept what everybody says you should be and thank your sponsors and thank your team and be happy even when you lose . That ’ s a crock of crap to me .
What does an independent team need to be successful ? What are the elements you ’ ve found to be important ? Ultimately , every team out there has to do the same thing to be successful . It ’ s continuity with your people . It ’ s the ability to have the best parts you possibly can afford and maintain them well . Not only as a driver , but as a crew chief or a crew member , it ’ s the willingness to put in more than just the bare minimum . You may not be able to go out there and buy brand-new parts , but make sure you put that stuff together absolutely perfect every single time and you have an intention and in-tune for detail .
Don ’ t half-way anything . Every person that puts something on that car or works on whatever has to give it 150 percent and make sure that everything is perfect because one little bitty mistake of doing anything – putting a bearing in backward or setting the valve lash wrong – not only affects the outcome of maybe winning or losing , but also the outcome of blowing the motor up from the top to the bottom . “ Good enough ” is never good enough . It ’ s either perfect or it ’ s not .
You came into this season as a dominant , multi-time and defending world champion , but you
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