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00:00All right, guys, I'm looking forward to this.
00:01I imagine Ryan looking at those clips doesn't get old.
00:04Well, the celebration of the cup championship.
00:07No, it doesn't.
00:08Well, it's a pleasure to be here today.
00:10Nice to talk about a bunch of different things.
00:11But no, the the full speed, you know, documentary that they did on Netflix
00:16last year, I thought was great.
00:17And just so happened that we won the championship in that year.
00:20So it was even better for us.
00:22But I thought it was a great inside look of like,
00:25you know, motorsports and NASCAR in general,
00:29kind of the ins and outs of what it takes to put a race car together.
00:34How many people are actually involved?
00:36I mean, there's hundreds of people involved.
00:38That's just, you know, the drivers and the teams at the track.
00:41There's a lot of people behind the scenes.
00:42So it was a neat experience.
00:44And, you know, looking forward, hopefully, to where it
00:47we can continue to show more of that stuff.
00:49You're having a crazy week.
00:50You were in New York on Wednesday for the Today Show last night,
00:53nominated at the ESPYs today here with us.
00:56Are you enjoying the the attention and the way the life has changed
01:01after after the championship? Is it overwhelming?
01:03How are you feeling?
01:05I'm an introverted guy by nature, but I enjoy doing this stuff
01:09because I think it grows the sport.
01:13It grows yourself.
01:14You get to meet interesting people that maybe have a very different
01:18kind of point of view of things than you do.
01:20But there's some similarities that you can kind of relate to.
01:22So I've really enjoyed it.
01:24And I feel like it's kind of an obligation, like
01:27to you, to your sport when you do win the title or something like that.
01:31Like you, you have the privilege to go do this stuff.
01:34You have the opportunities to do it and you need to go do it.
01:36And so I've kind of tried to take that responsibility and have fun with it,
01:40for sure. And I've been able to do some really, really neat things.
01:42So it's it's been a fun week, busy week.
01:44I'll be tired tomorrow when I get in the car in Pennsylvania.
01:47But it was definitely worth it.
01:50John, I want to start by by diving into the documentary.
01:52Right. This is a the docuseries you've spent your career
01:56doing these 30 for 30 at ESPN last dance.
01:59The most successful sports docuseries probably ever.
02:03You came to NASCAR earlier this year.
02:05What is the what have you seen from the success of full speed?
02:09What has it done for NASCAR?
02:10What doors has it opened that maybe were not open before?
02:13It cuts through.
02:15It just reaches outside of the normal NASCAR world.
02:20Where the fan base is is so strong and so dedicated to their favorite drivers.
02:27But Netflix helps you reach a new audience.
02:30And that's why NASCAR brought me aboard to help grow the sport
02:35through storytelling, through content, to reach new audiences
02:38that I believe we can reach.
02:40And you were a consultant on the show before you came to NASCAR, right?
02:44So you were working one end of it and then came to NASCAR.
02:46And then obviously now seeing it from the other direction.
02:49How is the perspective now that you're on the NASCAR side?
02:52How has that changed the way you look at the product or look at the approach?
02:56It's it's it's fun to be on the inside of it.
02:59I mean, for my entire career, really, I've been like on the third party side at ESPN.
03:05I was at CNN Sports and with Turner a little bit.
03:08And to be on the league side is kind of fun for me.
03:11You know, I've always wondered what it's like to be a rights holder.
03:15And now I get to be in that position.
03:17So, you know, you get to know everybody in the sport.
03:19And it's just I'm blown away by the dedication, the passion
03:23that people have at NASCAR and around NASCAR for the sport.
03:27I mean, they're really into it.
03:29And yet they want to grow.
03:33They want to reach out and do more.
03:36And so, you know, that makes it really fun for me.
03:39Ryan, having watched the show, I don't think I'd pick you for my billiards team.
03:44But I am curious what if you watched it, have you
03:48do you feel like it was an accurate representation?
03:50How do you feel looking back on what was obviously a transformative year
03:53for you personally? Yeah.
03:57I really thought it was good.
03:58We kind of try to balance out like
04:01like, right, how much do you let them in and how much do you show?
04:05And I tried to show all I could of like away from the track stuff
04:10and give info at the track.
04:12And we probably showed 80 percent of our life.
04:15You know, some of the things I feel like we kind of we said no to,
04:18which I wish we wouldn't have said no to.
04:20But if there's if you can share,
04:23I don't like when we won,
04:25you know, we won racing the playoffs, you know, midway through.
04:29And and they wanted to come film at the house afterwards,
04:31like the big celebration at the house.
04:33I was like, I don't know if I want cameras around when I'm,
04:36you know, destroying 12 packs of beers.
04:38And I don't know if my team would like that very much.
04:41So I was like, I don't know, we kind of shied away from it.
04:44But like, and I feel like this show was such a success
04:48and we all had a lot of fun with it and it got such good reviews.
04:51Like if that if we get lucky enough for it to come back, you know,
04:54like I think you're going to have more people and teams and drivers
04:56open their doors up even more.
04:58Like, let's really show a lot more of of, you know, what goes on at the track
05:02away from the track, you know, you as a person like
05:05because I feel like athletes, they get that right.
05:08You just see the product on TV and you see them in their element.
05:11And it's hard to get to know them away from the track.
05:13Who are they as a person?
05:14Because I feel like almost every athlete is a different human being
05:19than what you see on TV and what they are at home,
05:21just because your mindset's completely different, your competitor.
05:24So I think fans want to see like who you are as an individual.
05:29And so I definitely would be excited to to kind of open that up a little bit more.
05:33Walk us through the decision making for you about being part of it.
05:36I imagine there was a choice there.
05:38What did you weigh about if it was going to be a distraction?
05:41How much time you wanted to give to it, et cetera?
05:43Well, that yeah, that's the big thing.
05:44It's like right there.
05:45They just filmed in our playoffs like they started a week before a playoff started.
05:49And then it's the last ten weeks of the year.
05:51And and yeah, so you're trying to balance out, OK, is it going to be a distraction?
05:56You don't want your team and your folks working with you
05:59and your bosses to think, you know, hey, are you spending too much time
06:03focused on this the show and not enough time focused on your craft and your job?
06:08Right. So it's like, how do you balance that out?
06:11And I feel like, you know, at least personally, I try really hard to like
06:14be able to flip my competitive switch on and off,
06:18like be able to flip it off when I'm not the racetrack and I've done my preparation
06:22and now I can go do this stuff.
06:24Or even like if we were filming at the track, like.
06:28How do you get in the mode before you go race, you know,
06:30and I feel like we're pretty decent at that, but
06:33it definitely was a tricky, but we obviously made it work
06:38and performed really well.
06:39So it's a matter of like, OK, how much more can you stand?
06:42Can you keep doing it more and more and be able to separate the two?
06:46Which I think is something that with experience you can do pretty easy.
06:50One of the things that I loved about a lot of these shows is and you both
06:53mentioned it, is that you get a sense of everything that goes into
06:57Ryan Racing on Sunday.
06:58How big is your is your garage or shop?
07:00It's hundreds of people, right?
07:02Yeah, we have it's over 400 people that work in our race shop, men and women who.
07:07Uh, gosh, whether they have been in motor sports growing up,
07:11we we pick a lot of people out of,
07:13you know, right out of college, engineering degrees and things like that.
07:17And they've been super helpful.
07:18So there's a big variety of folks that kind of have all these different jobs.
07:22And some of them you never see.
07:24Some of them are behind the scenes, you know, but they have just as big
07:26a part of our race team being successful as B or, you know,
07:31the people who travel to the racetrack week in and week out.
07:33So I think that's what the show could, you know, kind of present.
07:37More of is the people behind the scenes is at work just as hard
07:40as everybody else who get to travel.
07:43I thought Booty Barker was a breakaway star.
07:46He was. Yeah, it's really good.
07:48Bubba Wallace is crew chief.
07:50I wanted to see more of Booty, quite honestly.
07:52He was so good.
07:53How do you, John?
07:55A lot of different sports and leagues have docuseries like this, right?
07:58There's tennis, there's golf, there's cycling, there's F1.
08:02How do you differentiate the NASCAR version of it?
08:04What do you try to do that is using the things that they're doing successfully
08:08and also putting your own stamp on on what that looks like?
08:12I mean, make sure it's authentic to NASCAR.
08:14It doesn't feel cookie cutter like this just could have been applied to any sport
08:18that it really is genuine NASCAR.
08:20I mean, one thing that I'm really blown away by
08:23is just how accessible Ryan is and so many of the other drivers,
08:27like the amount of traffic, foot traffic and people you have
08:31like, you know, in pit row right before you're racing is incredible.
08:35Like, I don't know how you do it.
08:37I mean, because it's just like you would never see that in the NFL,
08:41like a bunch of people and fans or whatever on the field five minutes
08:44before kickoff, you know, or right before tip off.
08:46But you guys, it's amazing what you navigate.
08:49And I feel like NASCAR has done a good job of like making that
08:52something that's been very special and kind of like
08:56the only sports organization that kind of does that.
08:59Like the fan access is so massive.
09:01And I feel like that's where the personal ties to,
09:05you know, fans and drivers and teams kind of come in. Right.
09:09It's really nice to meet new people.
09:10Like you said, they're
09:12gosh, they're drawing stuff on the start finish line right before the race starts.
09:15You know, so and like, I just think it's a neat thing.
09:19Like you said, you don't see that, right.
09:20People aren't walking around a court or a field or a pitch,
09:23you know, right before the game.
09:24So that's just one little thing that I feel like NASCAR does good to connect.
09:28And I think that really means a lot.
09:30How do you separate those two things?
09:32The minute the helmet goes on, is that the moment that everything else goes away?
09:36Yeah. I mean, it's like I talked earlier, like just flipping switches.
09:39Like, you know, you have to understand.
09:41You know, hey, we meet a lot of people race day, like partners, fans, this stuff.
09:47I mean, my morning is packed of that.
09:49And then, OK, how do you turn off the handshake and mode and then get into?
09:54I'm going to try to kick everyone's ass here in 30 minutes.
09:57You know, like it's usually right when the helmet goes on, right.
10:00You kind of become a different person.
10:01And I think it's with everything, right.
10:04You see people lock in and like that's
10:06that's why they become athletes, is because they can flip gears.
10:10There's a pun intended.
10:12There's a lot of shit talking in the show.
10:14Is that only when the helmet's on or do you have that just in life as well?
10:21No, it's more of the helmet stuff.
10:23I think I'm bipolar.
10:25I don't know when the helmet goes on, I definitely become a different person.
10:29But I think that's most people.
10:30I mean, you just get when you're really passionate about something
10:33and you want to do well and it's the only thing you care about in the moment,
10:37you're going to get extremely, you know,
10:41kind of vocal about things or you want everything to go perfect. Right.
10:44So I feel like that's what makes fiery competitors.
10:47And it's like a fine line between is that person a fiery competitor
10:49or is that person like coming off as a jerk? Right.
10:53Like you, you don't you're trying to kind of balance that out.
10:55But I've just tried to stay the same of who I am.
10:58My grandmother hates the person I am behind the wheel
11:01because of the language on Sunday night.
11:03Yeah, I got my mouth washed out with soap as a kid from her.
11:06But no, I think it's
11:10yeah, it's definitely a different person when you get behind there.
11:12And I think that's with with everybody.
11:14It's a different we went like a hundred years of sports
11:17without ever hearing the things that athletes say to each other. Right.
11:20And now the mic'd up stuff.
11:21Now it's a totally different ball game. Right.
11:23I mean, if you mic'd athletes up 50 years ago, it'd be the same thing.
11:27Totally. Right. Probably worse. Honestly, probably worse.
11:30Yeah, probably a lot worse.
11:32You should. There's a weekly feature that we do called Radioactive.
11:35And it's like, you know, five to eight minutes weekly.
11:39That just is all radio calls, all radio transmissions and whatnot.
11:43It's fascinating.
11:44Like what you guys are saying during the race.
11:47It really is very a raw look
11:50and feel for what NASCAR is during that race.
11:53It is. And you know what?
11:55So the radio communications, right, there's a button on the steering wheel
11:58that there's a microphone in your helmet and it relates to the team
12:01and everyone can hear it.
12:03That's a great thing nowadays is a great and terrible thing nowadays
12:06is like fans can buy scanners. Right.
12:08And then TV broadcasts everything.
12:10And so you got to push the button to talk to your team.
12:12And when you get upset, right, you push the button and you got to tell somebody
12:15they're like, well, why don't you just not push the button?
12:17I'm like, well, it's not the same if you're just talking to yourself.
12:19Like I got a vent.
12:21Like that's why people go to therapy.
12:22You know, you have to tell somebody you can't just sit in a room
12:25and talk to yourself, then you're a crazy person.
12:27So like you have to you have to get it out there.
12:29But it always makes for good entertainment. That's for sure.
12:31I think you need two buttons.
12:33You need the private button and then the one everyone can hear.
12:36I've been lobbying that for years.
12:37Well, let me know if you get it.
12:39I think the thing we want, like I want as a storyteller,
12:41as we grow our content efforts, is I just want who you are,
12:46you know, at least on the track. I just want authentic storytelling.
12:49There's all kinds of characters that, you know, that you can focus on.
12:54It's not like everybody's got to be the same way.
12:56We want to focus on the differentiation between characters like
13:00and there's, you know, teams and, you know, the NBA.
13:03The Lakers are most loved franchise and the most hated.
13:06You know, Cowboys are the same way.
13:07The Yankees are the same way.
13:09Sometimes you tune in to root for somebody.
13:11Sometimes you tune in to root against somebody or do it at the same time.
13:14So I think we recognize that.
13:17And, you know, I want to lean into that, just who each driver authentically is.
13:22To that point, John, NASCAR has been very open
13:24about trying to expand its its fan base, right?
13:28Trying to do new things, pushing drivers into new places, doing new things.
13:31Content wise, if you can give us a glimpse under the hood
13:34of what you're thinking about moving forward,
13:36how do you whether it's storytelling or something else,
13:39how do you start to package NASCAR in ways that reaches people
13:42that have not traditionally watched the races?
13:45Yeah, well, I mean, what I'm thinking about a lot is, first of all,
13:48I was not brought in for my NASCAR expertise, OK?
13:52That's I want to be very clear about that.
13:53I have been around the sport for a long time off and on.
13:56I've done storytelling around the sport before.
13:58We did a Tim Richmond 30 for 30 at ESPN.
14:01Did a big project called Ultimate NASCAR years ago.
14:04But what I was brought in to do is they just wanted me to be myself as well
14:08and just do what I do.
14:09Grow NASCAR through storytelling, through content.
14:12Now, initially, I've been focusing more on social digital streaming
14:17because I just think that's where the future is.
14:19You know, that's where I want to reach my daughter who's 17 and a sports fan,
14:24but not a NASCAR fan.
14:25And I want to reach my son who's a sports fan, baseball, soccer, football,
14:29but not a NASCAR fan.
14:31I brought him to a couple of races the last two in Nashville and Chicago.
14:34I just want to see what he reacts to.
14:36What does he like?
14:37What does he not like?
14:38You know, and I'm thinking about, you know, my kids
14:41because they're kind of the future consumers of our content.
14:45Give me something that you learn from them about about the way that
14:48that generation looks at looks at the sport.
14:50I mean, my daughter can be entertained by pretty much anything
14:54on TikTok or Instagram or Snapchat.
14:57And she likes like me, the Atlanta Hawks, which, you know, can frustrate you.
15:02But my son, you know, it's like I'm trying to kind of really when we're like,
15:07come on, tell me what you want to see, what you don't want to see.
15:10Unfortunately, he said he wanted to see a crash in Nashville.
15:13And I'm like, oh, you know,
15:15you don't want anybody to get hurt, right?
15:17He said, no, nobody gets hurt. I just want to see a crash.
15:19So we were at Nashville.
15:21We were there for the first stage.
15:22There was literally not one caution flag.
15:25It was green for 90 laps.
15:27Sorry to disappoint your boy.
15:29Ryan, next time.
15:30Ryan, can you next time?
15:31Next time, let me just let me just wreck this thing and I'll gain a new fan.
15:36This is actually an interesting one, because I've thought about this
15:39with a few of the other docuseries as well.
15:41There's danger in a lot of sports.
15:43And as you said, there's a lot of fans that like that danger.
15:47And there's a thin line for a for a league sports property to promote it,
15:51to show it, to not to show it.
15:53And Ryan, you had in this last season,
15:56there was a very, very prominent and scary looking crash.
15:59How do you think about that balance?
16:00I guess for both of you in terms of it's the thing that a lot of fans want.
16:05And it is also a very scary and dangerous part of your sport.
16:08Yeah, I mean, it is.
16:10There's dangers in every sport.
16:12You know, I think the improvements that we've made as a sport over the last
16:16even just 20 years has been, you know, pretty incredible.
16:19And that's like, how do you always continue to get better?
16:23There's always going to be a, you know, element of danger in it.
16:26What we do, you know, when you're running 200 miles an hour
16:29and inches apart, things are going to happen, you know, you're going to crash.
16:33And it just depends on how bad it is.
16:34But that's kind of the risky take.
16:37Like, you understand that.
16:37I understood that when I was eight years old and I started racing like,
16:40and that's just part of it.
16:42And but yeah, I mean, from the fan aspect and the consumer side, like
16:48I think people enjoy chaos, people like watching chaos.
16:53But I really like at the end of the day,
16:55I don't think anybody wants to see a person get hurt.
16:58Right. But they enjoy seeing like the some destruction and things like that.
17:02But and there's going to be I mean, there's going to be crashes and stuff.
17:05But how do you, you know, enjoy both of it?
17:07Like, OK, you go to a race and you're in all of a wreck.
17:10Like, could you never see a car wreck?
17:12Right. Like how many people have ever seen just a wreck on a highway
17:16before happened live and like these NASCAR events?
17:19Right. Like, I think that's just it just amazes people that this can happen
17:23and you witness it.
17:24But I mean, from hoping just to put on a good race, like that's what we care about.
17:29We want to put on a good show for the race fan and for the consumer.
17:35Am I necessarily thinking about putting on a good show while I'm doing it?
17:38No, I want to try to win the race.
17:40But and I'm selfish and I want to win it by a minute.
17:43But at the same time, you want to make it entertaining.
17:46And we constantly work on that in NASCAR.
17:48Like, how do we make it more entertaining?
17:49How do we make the cars closer together to where there's more passing
17:53and there's more things going on to where the fans are watching something neat?
17:56And as they kind of get it and they understand they get their favorite drivers
18:00and, you know, they watch their progress and their competitiveness like
18:03that is what we constantly work on in our sport, I guess, from from my side.
18:08I'm also just impressed in my I've only been with NASCAR now like two and a half
18:12months, but just the care that NASCAR puts into everything.
18:16Thankfully, the sport is so much safer.
18:18You know that it's been, like you said, in the last 20 years.
18:21But every decision, there's just so much thought put into like
18:26what tweaks need to be made or not made.
18:29And like the Nashville race, I thought, you know, to add excitement,
18:32just the overtime concept and the way it's done now to have like five overtimes,
18:36you know, and guys are running out of fuel and like who's going to win.
18:40And like that just that's that's constant.
18:42NASCAR always looking at how we can make it just a little bit better.
18:46You mentioned, Ryan, you come from a racing family, grandfather, father, uncle.
18:51You've been around this sport your whole life.
18:53How much do you see some of these changes in just even the last two decades
18:59of how safety wise, promotion wise, gameplay, all of these?
19:02Yeah. How much has motorsports changed?
19:05Oh, it's immensely changed.
19:06I mean, yeah, my my grandfather was a dirt racer from Ohio and that's all he did.
19:10And, you know, he started in the 60s and you look at you look at these cars
19:14in the 60s and you're like, how did these guys survive?
19:16Like it's just unbelievable.
19:18You see it nowadays.
19:19You're like, I would never sit in that race car ever.
19:21And and then just the safety from the decade to decade,
19:25even when my dad was running, you know, in the mid 2000s,
19:29you know, just the improvements they've made there,
19:31whether it's changing the racetracks up, changing the driver,
19:34like kind of equipment up has been has been pretty incredible.
19:38And we're constantly still doing it.
19:40And you have to appreciate a organization like NASCAR
19:44for putting an emphasis on it, because that's
19:47that's like the biggest thing is the safety side.
19:49So we're essentially out of time.
19:51But I got one last one for you.
19:52I asked a buddy of mine who big NASCAR fan speaking to Ryan Blaney on stage.
19:56He was like, you got to ask him about the burnouts.
19:58He was he explained to me for a long time in your career,
20:01you weren't doing burnouts after winning races, the big tire burning laps.
20:04And then he said, you started doing more of them last year
20:07when, uh, when the running was good.
20:10What's, uh, what's going on with the celebrations?
20:12Where are you now?
20:13Um, yeah, back and forth on the burnouts or not.
20:15I, uh, so the reason I don't do them, um, his name is Dale Inman.
20:19He was Richard Petty's crew chief for a long time,
20:22won a bunch of championship for the King.
20:24And, um, he came up and he'll grab you by the collarbone and, uh,
20:29whisper in your ear and, and, uh, I didn't do a burnout after one race.
20:32He said, Hey, he said, I really like how you don't do burnouts.
20:35He said, we never used to do those back in the day.
20:37He said, I don't know why people do them.
20:38He's like, you ever see the jockey who wins the Kentucky derby, get off the
20:42horse and start beating the shit out of it.
20:46He said, they don't do that.
20:47That's dumb.
20:48So don't ruin your motor after the race.
20:50So it's like, that's a good point.
20:52So I stopped doing it and then I'll randomly do them every now and then.
20:55And he'll get mad at me and I'll stop doing them for a while.
20:57But I just thought that quote was great.
20:59Uh, so it was good.
21:00All right.
21:01Well, John Ryan, thank you very much guys.
21:03This is fun.
21:04All right.
21:04Thanks.