Nate: [00:00:00] Today, I've got a familiar face. My guest is Conor Daly. This guy, oh my gosh, he's been everywhere, all over social media. You might have most recently seen him on an episode of Pardon My Take. He drove to Chicago to represent IndyCar, to represent the Indianapolis 500 with the fellas, with the AWLs. You can't beat that, man.
I'm excited to, I mean, maybe not quite the same production value here, but we're excited to have you in the studio. We're excited to catch up about what you've been up to for the last year. If anyone wants to hear the story of Conor Daly, we put out an episode probably about a year ago documenting your journey through, you know, the Formula Series to IndyCar, keeping the dream alive.
Today, I wanna catch up on, one, how the last year's been going. Two, what's going on this month of May from an Indy 500 perspective, what do people need to be looking for. And, you know, obviously just talk shop on all things IndyCar. Conor, welcome to the show.
Conor Daly: Thank you. No, thanks for having me back.
Nate: Yeah. We're back, and we're better than ever, man. It is the month of May. We got burgers.
Conor Daly: We do have burgers.
Nate: I did get an update.
Conor Daly: Right out the gate.
Nate: Oh, are you getting numbers already? I did.
Conor Daly: Oh, dude.
Nate: I'm a competitive guy. Man. Conor is a little bit out ahead of me. A little bit out ahead of me on burger sales.
Conor Daly: Oh, really?
Nate: But we're pushing. Man. Yeah, and I was like...
Conor Daly: I actually saw some lady on TikTok, like, reviewing our burgers, and I was like...
Nate: Did she actually?
Conor Daly: This is so random. Yeah, yeah.
Nate: What'd she think of the peanut butter?
Conor Daly: It got good reviews. Good reviews. Let's go. Yeah, so I mean, there wasn't any negativity, so that was solid.
Nate: Yeah. We'll take that. Yeah. I mean, actually, our two were the best. I'm gonna say Kevin's is very plain. Sorry, man.
Nate: Yeah, Kevin's is plain. Yeah. It's just, like, a cheeseburger, you know? Yeah. You can't beat that. But yeah, we got to catch up a little bit there. One, I wanna know what's been keeping you busy this IndyCar series. Obviously, this season. Obviously, you're racing in the 500 for Dreyer & Reinbold.
Conor Daly: Yep.
Nate: We're gonna get into that, but what have you been up to since last IndyCar season, and how are you fitting in still in the racing landscape?
Conor Daly: Yeah, I mean, it's obviously not ideal where I'm at right now. We wanna be full-time doing this all the time. But last year, and the way the business and the financial side of it works, and the politics in it, it just didn't play out the way we were assuming it would or what we thought or what we were told it was.
Nate: I was gonna say, you had decent finishes.
Conor Daly: Yeah, no. It was my best season in IndyCar. Now, again, it's with a small team, so a lot of people that don't really know a level deeper in the sport, if you're just looking at results, well, you have to understand what team are they with or how long have they been around? What's the teammate doing? And, you know, I beat my teammate the whole year long, scored more points than any driver had ever scored for them, had their best finish ever in races. So those things are usually things that you're like, okay, that should be worth something.
But at the end of the day, there is a large financial element involved as well.
Nate: Dude, that's what I keep...
Conor Daly: And it's tough. Yeah. It can be. Obviously, I think the sport's getting better. The sport's growing massively. We're up massively on ratings this year, which is huge. And hopefully that is helpful for the teams, right? So then they can find their own sponsorship and get to the guys that they want.
One of those off-seasons that I was basically being told up until the first race, like a week before, two weeks before the first race, I was still being like, maybe you'll be in this car, and then I wasn't. So it's kind of a weird world. We had sponsors that were waiting on it, but then at the very last minute it was like, oh, it wasn't me. So kind of a crazy deal.
Nate: Dude, that is nuts.
Conor Daly: Yeah.
Nate: And that's the piece that I'm learning is there is such a business component, financial component to getting a seat. You mean, take out...
Conor Daly: There can be, yeah. It's not always that way, but there are some seats, especially with the smaller teams, that are, you know, not for sale, but boy, is it really helpful to have something with you.
Nate: Yeah. If you're bringing in a million, you know, one five in sponsorship or whatever it is, it's like, okay, yeah.
Conor Daly: Ten million. Yeah.
Nate: Oh, 10 million.
Conor Daly: Yeah, you're gonna need close to that for sure. It's a big number.
Nate: Okay. So obviously that doesn't shake out the way we want to. But you're still actively involved with IndyCar from a content perspective, from the podcast perspective. You're actively involved because now you're also racing the Indianapolis 500. You do say ratings are massively up. How much of that is given to drivers and social media and having more personality, and how much of that is credited to Fox?
Conor Daly: I think it's really mainly Fox. I think a direct advertising campaign, the schedule as well. Our schedule I think was much better for this year because we started getting momentum. You have one race, guess what? Next week's another race. Guess what? Next week's another race. So you kind of start building this momentum and building the drive for people to watch.
Our whole goal, like, we have a great fan base and there's a fan base that loves to voice what they think on the internet too. But those folks, we're really happy to have them and we will kind of always have them I feel like. But we need to still market to the general sports fan that is like, okay, if you find something on a Sunday, IndyCar racing, okay, yeah, we'll give that a watch.
They might not know every technical detail about the car. They don't care what's under the hood really. But if they're entertained, if you're putting on some really good racing, that's awesome. And then maybe they can figure out, okay, it's a 2.2 liter V6 twin turbocharger, all that. Then it's like, okay, we can get into that. But we gotta get eyeballs first rather than a lot of the technical details that people worry about. And Fox did that. They listened to us.
A lot of us talked about the schedule and the advertising campaign that they did was really good. But also, you still have to have personalities that you wanna follow, too. In any sport, you're gonna have your guy, you're gonna have your girl, you're gonna have that athlete that you're like, hey, that's who I wanna support. And so Fox has helped with the ad campaigns. A lot of drivers don't really run their social media, so it's kind of hard for them to be fully authentic, but some people are getting better at that, and then it gives people more and more chance to develop a drive to support someone in the series.
Nate: Yeah. I mean, I do feel like teams largely have staff that's doing some of the trends or whatnot. But you do get a pretty decent sense into who's funny, who's serious, who has some personality. Like, I mean, we had Pato O'Ward, and we need that. Yeah. We had Pato O'Ward, and his personality...
Conor Daly: Great personality.
Nate: Great personality. Great dude. Long-winded. I love it. Because sometimes you talk to some professional athletes or whatever it is, and they're so focused on the thing that if you're not talking about engine specs or whatever it is, they'll be like, how am I even gonna have this conversation?
Conor Daly: Yeah. Pato is the number one example of someone who gets it. And that guy is so smart, too. Way smarter than I think people give him credit for. I talk to him all the time, and we talk stocks and the market and all kinds of different things like that. And he's got a great mind for that stuff, too.
He gets it. He sells more merch than anyone else. He has the biggest fan base of any driver. And he's an attractive young man, right? He's out there just being this celebrity. He's got his own plane. He's got cool cars. That's who I wanna be when I grow up. Like, I wanna be Pato. That would be sick, you know what I mean?
Nate: You and me both, dude, honestly.
Conor Daly: That's really cool. That is an athlete who you're like, he is not only very talented, but he is fun to follow because he does all the things, has all the things, but is also a good dude. And he's got a great personality and will interact with the fans, and there's a reason why the people support him.
Nate: Yeah. You talk about good dudes, people you love, like the heroes of IndyCar. He's definitely one of those. Are there any villains? Like Tom Brady, when he was coming up, now everyone loves Tom Brady. He's actually part of Fox, part of IndyCar. But if you grew up in Indiana...
Conor Daly: Oh, we hated Tom Brady.
Nate: In the 2000s, you hated Tom.
Conor Daly: Bad.
Nate: He was a villain. Are there any, or like people that, you know, WWE is super popular. Like Pat McAfee, one day he'll be a hero, and the next day he'll be the heel. Goes back and forth there. Are there those kind of storylines in IndyCar right now?
Conor Daly: I don't know if we have as much of that as maybe Fox desires, or as much of that as some people desire. There are definitely drivers that you want to be around less than others. Guys like Santino Ferrucci developed a bit of a history of doing some things that might not be that smart. Christian Rasmussen and I have got into it, for sure.
They're both very fast drivers, and I think our series, we have a little bit more respect for each other than, let's say, some of the guys in NASCAR because I think what we're doing is still more dangerous. You can't really just fully throw respect out the window and be like, if I see that guy, I'm gonna put him in the wall. Now you're talking about actual physical injury. You can't really be doing that.
Nate: Yeah. But where it's like even in NASCAR, right? You see guys, like, wanna fight each other in the...
Conor Daly: Yeah, and that's part of their game. I wish we had a little bit more of that, but you can't force us to hate each other. I still think that our racing is really good, and we aren't exactly NASCAR to where we are hitting each other all the time, right? They're hitting each other all the time. They can do that every race.
There are definitely still some guys that you don't wanna be around, but I guess it's kind of a double-edged sword. We've got a lot of people that you should support and you want to support, and maybe not enough who are fully willing to accept, ah, yeah, I'll be that guy who can be the heel.
Nate: Like the WWE wrestling thing. I feel like so many different sports or entertainment areas are leaning into that, where it's like, hey, just like Jake Paul or Logan Paul or whatever. Go play this villain, even though you've probably seen all over, they're actually good people.
Conor Daly: Yeah. Even the two guys that I mentioned, I want to be like, yeah, I hate those guys, and I don't enjoy racing with them. But to be fair, Santino's got smarter, and I'm sure Christian's gonna learn, too, because he's very fast.
With our sport, there's a little bit higher of a level. If you're gonna win, guess who never gets talked about as being crazy, aggressive, or not smart? Alex Palou. If you're gonna race Alex Palou, he's gonna race you exactly how you should be raced. Very honorably. He will make the right moves at the right point, and maybe some are not quite as savory as the others, but he's never in conflict with anyone.
I always say this: look at the champions. Are they ever thought of as, like, that guy's crazy? It's like, no, that guy's the smartest person in the room, and that guy is so fast. A lot of drivers come up through the field and they're super smart and they're super talented, but they can't put them together at the same time. It's funny to see, but you always have that in sport. You always have different athlete personalities.
The best part of what IndyCar has right now, though, is our competition, I think, from top to bottom, is so good. And so we are trying more to promote not necessarily the aggression or the comings-togethers. It's more, like, this is actually the fastest racing on earth, as they say, and some of the most competitive racing on the planet right now.
Nate: Palou is separated. He's probably out in the front. Put that in comparison to a more of a mainstream sport. What did he win?
Conor Daly: The Patriots of when I grew up. I'm 34, so yeah. I mean, he's... Well, here's the thing. Everyone thinks it's just Palou, and we see it all the time. Palou, Palou, Palou. It's like, no, that 10 team is very good.
There are two races this year where, let's say Arlington, for example. He was winning, leading, and he actually got passed on raw pace by Kyle Kirkwood. Kyle Kirkwood beat him. Awesome. So then we go to a place like Long Beach. He was not winning that race. He was running second the whole time. Final pit stop, when everyone has to come in at the same time, everything's on the line, his team got him a one-second quicker pit stop than the guy who was leading. That's all you gotta do, and then it's difficult to pass, so you win the race.
One second. That's all it is. Those guys, every weekend, and this happened in St. Pete as well. He was not leading that race. They played the exact strategy. They started on the right tire, and when it came time to push, Alex pushed at the right time. They had a perfect pit stop, and then he wins the race.
It's not just one thing. It's such a team effort in our sport, and right now you can ask James Hinchcliffe, any of the guys who are doing TV, it's like Alex Palou is very good, but when you have a team that works together like his team does, and everyone does the right things at the right time, that's really hard to beat.
Nate: Yeah.
Conor Daly: Basically everyone else has to stop messing up. That's the thing. Christian Lundgaard at Alabama, if Christian Lundgaard doesn't have the right rear wheel nut get dropped in his last pit stop, he wins that race, too, and Alex doesn't. All of these things lead up to thinking, oh, Alex is just gonna win everything, and it's like, no, no, no. Until other teams don't make mistakes like his team doesn't, then you'll see different winners.
Nate: What do you think, what's the disparity between the number one team, you talk about the guys that are changing tires and putting fuel in the car, to the 33 for the 500, like the 33rd team? For you guys, where are you finding the best team that's not currently full-time with a car?
Conor Daly: It's tough. It's a challenge, but there are so many talented folks in the paddock. It's just getting the right people in the right places at the right time, and the right vibes within the team, that's super important. The right leadership.
Our team, obviously, we only run one time a year. This is it, and all of our crew, we don't have the game time reps that all the other full-time teams have, right? Those guys have done six races, five, six races already. Those guys have been in the game time, heat's on, pressure's on.
But our team, every week for the last two, three months, we've been in Monday, Wednesday, Friday doing practice pit stops, and we've been simulating the noise. We've been doing all kinds of stuff to try to make it similar to a race environment. But at the end of the day, you gotta execute, and everyone has to execute. I have to do my job. They have to do their job. And when we do it together in the best way possible, then the results almost take care of themselves. But it's such a difficult game to get all of those elements right.
Nate: Oh, dude, I'm sure, especially when you don't have... Not that every race matters. Every race does matter, but you talk about winning a 500, and it's like trying to get everything all in line. And so you're racing the Indy 500. Are you also racing the GP?
Conor Daly: No GP for me.
Nate: Okay.
Conor Daly: That would require another car for us, basically, because all the Indy 500 cars are prepared just for the 500. We could bolt different wings on it for the GP, and we'd have to get new suspension pieces, gearboxes, all that stuff. So it's hard to run both unless you've got a fully different car for that.
Nate: So all of the cars that are doing the 500, they will not be racing at the GP?
Conor Daly: Yeah. There are only 25 drivers for the GP. There's 33 for the 500. But all the cars that you see racing at the Indy GP, none of those cars will be racing in the 500. They will all have separate chassis for the 500.
Nate: So is that kind of how it goes where you have an oval chassis and you have a street chassis?
Conor Daly: Yeah. All the Indy 500 chassis have essentially been massaged and worked on all during the winter. The floors have all been gone through the wind tunnel. Most teams go to the wind tunnel. There might be one team that doesn't quite spend as much time there, but all of those pieces will be found to be the best, and all of those best pieces will be strapped together for the 500.
Some of the teams, we obviously just finished the test at the end of April here at the track, and that was the first time everyone got out there. Some teams were running their Super Speedway cars. Some teams weren't.
Nate: What's a Super Speedway car?
Conor Daly: The Super Speedway is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It's basically our version of the lower downforce wings. Super Speedway cars will be basically the cars that only do the 500. Now, after the 500, if it goes well, you'll see those chassis used elsewhere, but the 500 is where you need everything out of it.
You need to have the most efficiency. You need to have the least drag, most downforce. All those things come from body fits, gearbox, floors, everything fitted correctly, everything fitted to the tiniest degree of perfection. That's what teams work on all winter.
Nate: When did you announce that you were gonna be driving in the 500?
Conor Daly: First week of January maybe.
Nate: So you knew pretty early you were gonna run the race. Talk about you're practicing pit stops Monday, Wednesday, Friday. What does the month of May look like for a driver that's in the Indy 500?
Conor Daly: Honestly, it's way busier than I think anyone fully wraps their head around because we're being pulled in a thousand different directions because thankfully we are very popular this month. That's very helpful for us, and it's helpful for our sponsors.
There are people, like think of how many different companies use that practice weekend, qualifying weekend to entertain their employees. They get a suite for the day, and they're bringing out 25 of their, 50 of their employees, and that day's the best day for them. That day's the biggest day for them. If they're a part of your car, you're gonna go up and do an appearance for them.
I have, you know, first week of May, basically this whole week that we're talking, I do this. I have an event tomorrow. I had an event Sunday. I had an event Saturday. I had an event Friday.
Nate: Do your sponsors or people just call you in?
Conor Daly: Yeah, sponsors or different, like Monday, next Monday is for Coca-Cola. I don't have a deal with Coca-Cola, but Coca-Cola has a deal with someone at the track or somewhere, and there's a need for a driver, and they basically just pass these out to us, and it's paid. Obviously, we get paid to do these things.
Everything, like we're not showing up anywhere for free this month. Not to be mean about it, but our time is worth something. There are definitely people who recognize that, and so it's important. I always tell the young drivers, don't ever say no to anything, because these appearances, whether maybe you think you should be paid more, maybe not, but these appearances are good for your brand, good for the business.
As soon as they said, oh, yeah, Coca-Cola, yeah, I'm gonna do that, obviously. That's a big brand. I'm gonna do that appearance for Coca-Cola. Even though it's probably the local distributor or whatever it is. But there's something every day. There's something every day this week. There's something every day. Obviously we have practice week, qualifying weekend. You've got things that are put on by Firestone, by Chevrolet, by all of our team partners. We've got 70 people or something coming to the race from our partners that are on the car, Kingspan and ARCO.
Nate: Who are your partners this year? Tell me a little bit about what Kingspan is and what ARCO is.
Conor Daly: ARCO is a deal that I've had for the last year and a half now. ARCO gas stations, obviously AMPM as well.
Nate: Are they in the South more?
Conor Daly: They are mainly West, but also the South, yeah. ARCO is more. We had AMPM on the car last year at the 500. Same group, but AMPM's only West Coast. You can definitely find some ARCO stations more on this side of the US.
ARCO's a deal that I've been working with very closely. And then Kingspan was actually found by the team. Kingspan is basically insulation, construction stuff, building equipment. They were found by the team, so I actually just met one of the guys last week. It's not been normal for me to have teams that have found sponsors for me, so I'm actually thrilled to have that.
ARCO is also very, very loyal to me, and they've been... We've actually had to put them with JHR, the team that I drove for last year as well, because again, they want me to be in the car, but I also want them to be in the sport. So we've kind of co-mingled together with JHR on that ARCO deal because I wanna make sure I see ARCO still in the sport. Then obviously they want me to be full-time in 2027, so we're gonna keep trying to work together as we go through this year to see where the openings come for next year.
Nate: You talk about not saying no as a young driver and sponsors, the business side of things. What has to happen for you to get a full-time ride next year?
Conor Daly: That's a great question. I honestly don't know, because we raised more money than I'd ever raised, probably single-handedly over this off-season, and it just wasn't enough. So we're gonna try to build our program up. There are a lot of contract years for certain drivers this off-season. There wasn't really last off-season. There were not many open seats available. I think there will be much more this coming year, and there's gonna be two more cars next year. There'll be 27 full-time cars instead of 25. They are adding two charters to Chevy and Honda. So that's helpful.
Nate: What does that mean?
Conor Daly: Our sport with the way charters are, so it's like a sports franchise. In NASCAR, they make it work. There's 35 charters, I think. Having a charter is like owning a sports franchise. For us, when you have a charter in IndyCar, there are 25 right now. That means there are 25. You can't have more than three.
Right now the way it works is, like, Ganassi has three, JHR has two. Having a charter means that you can compete for the year-end bonuses, right? At the end of the year, you're competing for the top 22 spots in points. That gets you an extra $1.6 million. If you have two cars, if you have three cars, and you're all in the top 22 in points, that all adds up to money. That helps you keep the doors open.
You want to have the ability to own a franchise that is worth something, right? Before charters, if you owned a race team, you owned cars and trucks, and there wasn't really a value to owning an entity.
Nate: Yeah.
Conor Daly: Now there is. They've put a value to that, because if you wanna get in, and you wanna get access to being able to run full-time, and having access to hopefully this growing level of prize money, well, you gotta buy your way in. Supply and demand. If there's only 25, if there's only 27, let's say, I don't know, name any super rich company guy, private equity, whatever it is. Think of all the teams that you've seen, whether it's NFL, NBA. The numbers on those are going up like crazy, but they're still getting sold.
We wanna get to that point where these team owners who have kept the sport alive for the last forever, essentially, and there are some new team owners in the last five, six years, but those team owners who have kept the sport alive now actually have some sort of an entity that's worth something.
Nate: So if we just got Jeff Bezos, for instance, interested in IndyCar, he could say, I want the Amazon car, and I wanna run it in the Indy 500.
Conor Daly: So anyone can run the 500. That's where it's a little bit different from the season.
Nate: But are there a finite amount of chassis and engines?
Conor Daly: Technically, no. You could buy 100 chassis if you want. You could buy as many chassis as Dallara wanted to make, but it does take a while to make them. We get a new car in 2028, so the new car is coming, so this car kind of will be slowly shuffled out.
That means next year at the 500, I could actually see there being a lot of entries, because it's the last year of the car. So why not show up, use all the stuff that you've had, lease cars out to whoever wants to try to do it. Because it's the last year of the car.
Nate: And then what do you do with the cars after that?
Conor Daly: A lot of them get used for pit stop practice at the shop. A lot of them get sold off to different people. Collectors. We have a historic racing event that happens at IMS, right? You see plenty of old Indy cars there, old Formula 1 cars, all kinds of stuff because there are private buyers who wanna own stuff like that.
For the most part, it's one of those things that it's time to get a new car. Everyone's gonna get a new one.
Nate: So with these two new charters, do they know who those go to?
Conor Daly: Right now, yeah, the Honda one has already been delegated to Meyer Shank Racing. They've obviously got a really good relationship with Honda, and that's where they've kind of said that one's going. But the Chevy one, Chevy hasn't decided where they wanna go. They could run it themselves. Chevy could run as their own factory team, just one, like, hey, this is for the Chevy entry. Or they could partner up with an existing team. They could partner up with a team like us, Dreyer & Reinbold, and then Dreyer & Reinbold could essentially run a full-time car, which would be awesome.
Nate: How many teams have three?
Conor Daly: McLaren, Ganassi, Andretti, Penske. I think those are the only ones with three.
Nate: So they can't have any more charters?
Conor Daly: They can't have more. Three's the most.
Nate: And what are the main ones that have two right now?
Conor Daly: Right now it would be MSR, Meyer Shank. It would be ECR, Ed's team, Foyt, JHR, and Dale Coyne. I might've missed a team in there somewhere, but I think I got everyone.
Nate: That's super interesting when you talk about franchise value.
Conor Daly: A lot of our fans hate this because they're like, well, why can't... You can't show up to any other race to be an open car, like a car that's not a charter. I fought this a lot because even myself, this year I wanted to show up at one of the tracks that's one of my best as an open car. Like, ah, if we find enough money, we can just show up and do this race. Now I can't.
But I get it because I want the sport to be around so that I can come back next year and try to be full time, and I want the sport to continue to grow financially and from a marketing perspective and everything. I understand the business model because when I got in IndyCar, there were 20 cars on the grid, maybe 22. But you still had 33, 35 show up at the 500, because it's the 500. There are always gonna be cars that show up for the 500.
People say we struggled to get to 33 this year. Well, that's because all of a sudden a team disappeared, and Colton ended up having to change his schedule to go race in F2. You were gonna have 34 or 35 already. We're never gonna get to 40. That's kind of unreasonable to think about these days.
Nate: That just kind of made it an interesting pinch, because people were like, well, if we're gonna get over 33, then I probably don't know if I wanna go run a car because I don't wanna get bumped.
Conor Daly: It's true, and I understand that too. I think a lot of our fans just can't grasp that. But if you wanna show up to the 500, it's at minimum gonna cost you 850 grand, right? And that's without making the race. When you make the race as an open entry too, and this is something that I do agree that we have to fix, when you make the race as an open entry, you're guaranteed 100 grand. That's not a huge make-your-money-back type situation.
But with how good the series is doing and with how much it is growing, you should be able to sell that sponsorship, right? The 500 is the easiest race to sell because it's the biggest race in the world, and the ratings are going up like crazy. A sellout last year, probably a sellout this year. Those are all things that major companies probably wanna be involved in.
We see PrizePicks on Ryan Hunter-Reay's car. You see ARCO and Mike. You see more sponsors now that you're recognizing. It's a long story, but I think in our era of IndyCar, 34, 35, 36 cars trying to qualify for the 500, I don't think you're gonna get much more than that. But I think that's okay. I still think that even having one car that doesn't make it, is that tragic? Absolutely. But it's still the 500.
Next year I think you're gonna see plenty of people try to make it. But it's actually hard to find the people to run those cars. You cannot... A lot of our fans want it to be 1986 again, where you could just show up with a trailer and a couple guys and run a car. That would be sick. That's just impossible to do anymore.
If you wanna do it correctly, and a lot of people wanna do this race to try to be competitive, a lot of people back then just did it to make it. But all of us now, you wanna do it to make it, but you would love to think that you have a chance to win, right? And IndyCar is so competitive that if you do make the field, you probably do have a chance to win.
We're in an interesting time in our sport. But I'm excited about it. I think having the charters the way they are, and people could fight me on this, a lot of our older fans will fight me on this, but I learn about this stuff every day. This is my entire life, my business. I'm deeply involved in how it works out, how it goes down.
This is an interesting story, because our sport is growing now. I've been in this sport now for a long time. This is my 13th 500, as you mentioned. I remember when it was on Versus, and when we had races that were solely streamed, and you had races where there was, you know, like even I was still around when you had Champ Car and IndyCar, and Champ Car only had 17 cars. This was before the series reunited. IndyCar maybe had 21.
A lot of people still love to complain, because it's easy to complain. But we now have 25 really strong cars. Next year, 27 really strong full-time cars. If you get more than 27, you actually can't fit them at some of our racetracks. We don't have enough pit spots. You don't have enough place in the paddock.
So you do have to create a... Not everyone can get in. It's weird to say that, but it helps the business model, I think. Fight me on that all day. I'm happy to go to war for it. But I love the fact that we've got 27 full-time cars, because that's more job openings, more potential jobs for drivers than there has been over the years.
Nate: We had Tom Kelly on not too long ago. He talked about when he sold his race team, you're buying chassis, engine. You're buying physical pieces. And information. You're not buying the Dallas Cowboys. You're not buying Ed Carpenter Racing. You're not buying Dreyer & Reinbold. The brand now with charters, it makes it matter more. There's scarcity.
Conor Daly: And as the sport grows, there are gonna be more benefits to owning a charter, right? We're still very early on, and NASCAR has made it work. There have been some charter sales over there that you're like, some of these smaller teams who got 'em initially made 20, 30 million bucks. And you're like, all right, well, they gotta be thrilled with that.
Nate: In the world that we live in today, things can change rapidly. Think about how much the Fever franchise was worth five years ago. Are we counting on... You never know.
Conor Daly: Season tickets. I almost got season tickets for the Fever right before we drafted Caitlin Clark because I was like, I think I gotta do my research. I think this could be awesome. And then they quadrupled in price. Literally. I was like, I can't afford 'em anymore.
Nate: Once we won the lottery, overnight it was like you could get a full season for under $1,000 for two tickets. I was so pumped. It was crazy.
Conor Daly: I was gonna get floor seats for the whole year, and I missed out on that one. That was the dumbest investment decision I've ever made. I didn't invest.
Nate: You could've sold two games and paid for the whole thing. All you need is a couple personalities start hitting. A good, insane finish to the 500, more helicopters, more... Because last year when they pulled out the helicopters, dude. The pageantry of it continues to not... I feel like you talk about change and sometimes the older generation can be like, oh, my gosh, don't change anything. But when they pulled out the helicopters...
Conor Daly: So sick.
Nate: That was the most badass thing I've ever seen with my own two eyes. How did it feel being there?
Conor Daly: Sick. When I saw the helicopters, like...
Nate: Did you guys know they were coming?
Conor Daly: I had no idea. We weren't told anything. All of a sudden I look, I thought we were going to war, right, on top of me. I'm like, is there gonna... What's happening here?
Nate: That's wild.
Conor Daly: You could feel it, too, because obviously we only have an open top, like, just above our head, and all of a sudden you feel the air and the heat from the motors and you're just like, this is sick. Then Scott crashed right in front of me, and I was like, oh, my gosh, this is even crazier.
Nate: Sadly, sorry, Scott. Sorry. Tough luck. He's probably watching the helicopters. Man.
Conor Daly: Still one of the coolest. But the 500 continues to blow your mind, right? You had just a couple years ago, the Thunderbirds with the most insane flyover of all time. Then we had the helicopters. The race sells out last year. Now this year it's even on track to have even more tickets sold.
It does feel like IndyCar is finally getting the recognition that I think it deserves, and there are still so many people that really only recognize the 500 as the only IndyCar race, and I wish that wasn't the case. There's so much out there that can just capture our attention. You're on the internet. Five seconds, that's all you got, and you just try to capture people essentially.
Nate: Yeah. I think the actual stat's like eight seconds is as long as people will look at something on the internet.
Conor Daly: It's crazy. I feel like all sports are actually doing well right now. The NBA playoffs are going right now. I think they're awesome, and you're tuned in. There's major TV deals being done. NBC just got part of the NBA. The NFL obviously is always king. But even hockey's awesome right now. The WNBA with their new deal. Sports are doing well. Television is doing well still.
We just kind of need to continue to go that direction and hopefully capture people's minds, capture people's eyes, and show them what we've had for a long time, but continue to grow. And honestly, I think once we get the new car as well, I think the racing will get even better, and I think it'll get even more competitive and even less Alex Palou winning a lot because you kind of start fresh. You get these teams into a new engineering mode of trying to work on something that is very new.
Nate: Yeah, I was gonna say, when was the last time there was a new car?
Conor Daly: Great question. 2012. That's when our bare bones, the chassis came out. It's been through multiple iterations, right? We had the 2012, 2013 car. That was one aero package. Then you got to 2015, you had a completely different aero package. The car looked different, a bunch of different wings on it, all kinds of different things. The car completely changed. Then you took all those away. 2019, 2020, you add the aero screen.
The car has looked different, and the car has been different, and I don't think people never wanna recognize that as well. Some of our classic fans never wanna recognize that. But this will finally be a fully new chassis, and the chassis is the base of where we're sitting in.
Nate: Have they revealed that?
Conor Daly: Not publicly, no. I think they will around the 500 or sometime near there, I think. We've all seen it. You don't have to re-engineer the wheel. A race car is a race car. It's gonna look more futuristic. It's gonna look cool, I think. And they've listened to us, the drivers, on what we think it should be. I hope it's helpful.
Nate: One thing I want to talk about, you talked about last year's 500 being insane. You have the pageantry. You have Tom Brady running around. Man. The whole nine yards. For you, also insane, you led laps.
Conor Daly: Yeah, we had a good run, and we definitely had probably the best chance to win other than 2021. Just everything has to be perfect, though. Small things. The second to last pit stop, we knocked the wheel weights off the right rear tire and developed a really severe vibration, which means you have to pit early, and then you have to do an extra two laps, three laps on the last set of tires, which is just impossible.
Nate: So really it was one thing.
Conor Daly: One small thing. Knocked wheel weights off the right rear tire. And then your day's done. Because you can't get that back. If there was a yellow that came out and then you could pit shorter, maybe we would've survived, but it didn't go yellow, so that was it.
Nate: How much... It was second to last pit, so how many laps left?
Conor Daly: Probably 50-ish laps to go. I wouldn't have felt it until about 40 to go, because then at that point I'm like, I think I'm gonna die, and I started losing positions. Then you kind of are forced to pit early, and you can't really make that back up.
Nate: Because then now you're in oh dear mode, and you're just hoping that maybe you get a yellow so you don't have to survive, but it just didn't go yellow till the end.
Conor Daly: It was easy until that point. The 500, when you have a good car, when you've got everything going the right direction, it's just about one lap at a time, being smart, avoiding dumb things, people, saving fuel when you need to, attacking when you need to. It was easy up until that point. And then as soon as one thing goes wrong, it's definitely not going wrong for someone else. So it's hard.
Nate: Where position did you start in?
Conor Daly: I started 11th.
Nate: You start 11th. You get to first. What's it feel like to lead a lap at the Indy 500?
Conor Daly: Honestly, super peaceful. At 230, the air is like a hurricane, right? You're cutting through the wind at such a high rate of speed. When someone's in front of you, that air is like a tornado or massively chaotic. You basically feel like you're either going up and down, side to side, all over the place.
Then when you get to the front, it's just pure air. Nice and clean air. It's peaceful. Suddenly your car turns way better because you have air directly going to your front wing instead of choppy air. It's nice. It's a completely different balance of the car leading than not leading.
Nate: That's wild. I would not have thought of that.
Conor Daly: Completely different car. You change everything. Once you get to the lead, you almost change everything you have in the car to get it to handle right when you're leading.
Nate: Wow. After mistakes are made, you come back in. Does someone have to take ownership?
Conor Daly: No, honestly, it's no one's fault. The wheel weights are on there, and that can happen if the tire goes on a little wrong. It's not my crew's fault. Sometimes this sport is not easy, right? These things can happen. We've seen how many times. Even Alex Rossi last year, the guy caught on fire because the fuel thing came out in a weird way, and all of a sudden they were having a gearbox failure, then the fire. All kinds of random stuff can happen.
That's just why it has to be a perfect day. It's hard to come back from things at the 500. But if you just stay in the fight until the last pit stop, and that last pit stop you get out of there and you're like, finally, I don't have to do any more of those, then it's great. It's your goal with your engineer to, when you get to that last pit stop, do I need that little extra half turn of front wing? Do I need a little bit less rear downforce? What is your decision-making gonna be for that last pit stop to make the car the best it's been all day? And then see what happens.
Nate: You talk about the last pit stop happens, so 30 laps roughly?
Conor Daly: About 30 laps to go.
Nate: Where from placing is still in the fight?
Conor Daly: I think it's really the top four. If you're further back than fourth, it's gonna be harder work. You're gonna need a little bit of help somewhere along the road. If you're third or fourth in line, it's much harder to pass. If you're third in line, you can kind of do it. If you're second in line, you definitely can do it, but you're just trying to play games with the guy who's in first. It's just a matter of strategy.
Last year, lap traffic came into play, and that's what won Alex the race. Alex knew that he needed to pass David before he got to the lap traffic, and once he got in the lap traffic, because it's hard to pass cars, when you're deep in traffic. There were two Rahal cars, you had Foster and Devlin DeFrancesco, they were basically almost going a lap down, because they were on a different strategy.
Nate: Because they were on a different strategy.
Conor Daly: Yeah. They helped Alex win that race because they were obviously hoping for a yellow, right? If there was a yellow, they would've cycled back around and caught up to the pack and would've been fine. They didn't get that yellow. Alex Palou didn't want that yellow either, because when you're in the pack, air's choppy. So he knew that it was probably gonna be hard for David to get a pass going on him, and all he needed to do was stay there. He didn't need to pass those lap cars. He didn't need to put them a lap down. He just needed to keep the air choppy for the guy behind him.
Nate: Dude, that's a lot of strategy.
Conor Daly: It's a lot.
Nate: Talk to me about how things are feeling. You guys have been on the track. You've been running.
Conor Daly: Yeah, we feel good, honestly. Our car, we get to be a part of the Chevrolet group as well during this month, which is really good. Chevrolet always brings really fast engines to the track for the month of May. We've had a couple days on track. Went pretty well for us, honestly.
Nate: The first day you were the fastest car.
Conor Daly: Yep, we were fastest and then third on the second day. Again, you can't really read too much into that. But there was some stat that someone put out that basically the winner from each of the last however many, seven 500s were in the top seven of the test times. So it's not fully wrong to look at test times, but there are definitely some cars that weren't running all of their fancy juicy bits during that test, and you kind of save those for May.
It should be fun. We are obviously a team that only gets to do this race, so we're gonna need every day of practice that we can get. We hope for good weather and qualifying. Obviously this year with only 33 cars, it's not super crazy stressful, but no one wants to start in the back. So no one's gonna not try on qualifying day. You're gonna go out there and you're gonna give it everything you got and try to start towards the front, because you wanna be in that fast 12 shootout. You wanna be in the pole shootout for the fast six. I think it'll be a lot of fun and we're looking for a really solid month.
Nate: Yeah.
Conor Daly: And we wanna win, obviously. We don't show up to not win.
Nate: Talk about winning. From a team perspective, I feel like, going back through it: Chip Ganassi, Chip Ganassi, Penske, Meyer Shank, Rahal Letterman, Penske, Andretti, Andretti, Penske. A lot of big names. When was the last time a non, I don't know, blue blood team...
Conor Daly: It's hard to say, man, because those are the best. I point back to Dan Wheldon winning in 2011, because that was not a full-time car. That was Bryan Herta Autosport. They were partnered up with a full-time team, but they were not full-time. That was a really cool story obviously.
For the most part, it's really hard to look at a winner of this race and be like, that's kind of an underdog. Even Alex Rossi when he won as a rookie, that was with Andretti Autosport, a really good team. It's tough to win as a smaller team, without a doubt, and we hope to change that. I think the team has focused so much on showing up with the best possible piece of equipment, and we just have to go from there.
Nate: Anytime you're the fastest at anything, right, it means you're in contention.
Conor Daly: No one's out there just putting around.
Nate: I do feel like there have been slow cars that are somehow in the field, cars that just can't get the job done. It doesn't appear as though that's you guys.
Conor Daly: Thankfully.
Nate: That's gotta be a good feeling.
Conor Daly: Yeah, you can kind of feel right as soon as you leave the pits, first run in the test. You can kind of tell whether your car is cutting through the air better than others. I've been in that situation where it doesn't. As soon as you get in a draft too, really good cars will tow up really well. They'll cut through the air even better when there's a little bit of a draft. Those are the really good cars to have because that means they race really well. Ours does that really, really well.
We'll see. We still have to put all the puzzle pieces together, and we gotta go through every day of practice. We gotta go through every day of qualifying. Come carb day, we gotta make the most educated decisions and execute the plan on race day, and then hopefully the results take care of themselves.
Nate: It is wild that you get to toe the line for the 13th Indy 500. That's awesome. Not many people have gotten to put a car out on the field. Again, even less people have led laps. There are so many stories of people who have battled, had adversity. I talked with Tony on the podcast last year, and the 500 was ever-elusive for him. Full-time seats were ever... It's hard. Keeping the dream alive is hard. To be...
Conor Daly: I mean, I wouldn't be as... If I wasn't showing up every year and running at the front and being competitive, I wouldn't be as motivated to do it. We were on the podium less than 20 races ago, right? If I wasn't doing that, and a lot of people on the internet love to hate me for my existence, and I still don't really know why because I've never met them. If I wasn't able to show up and run at the front, I wouldn't be as motivated to do it.
But we literally have had a shot at it for the last five years. We finished in the top 10 the last four years. The last five of seven races, we've finished in the top 10. So we're in the fight. It's just these small things have to go correctly. That's what it's all about.
I'm still learning every day. I still feel like I've got more experience now than I've ever had. When it comes time to go racing, I feel so confident because I know what I want, and I know what I have to do to get to the front. Even last year, we were at the front until the last 30 laps. You kind of know what you need to get there. It's just about executing, and we gotta execute the process one day at a time.
Nate: What does it take to win an Indy 500?
Conor Daly: The right people doing the right things at the right time. The team executing with the driver, the driver not making a mistake. I can't point to one moment last year. I train with Alex Palou at the gym every week, and so I spend a lot of time with him. He's like, you guys were faster than us last year. And I think we were, but we had an issue, and he didn't have to beat us then.
Everyone can see that, but that's not put in the history books, right? You still gotta win, still gotta execute. So I hope we find out what it takes to win. The people who make the least mistakes, the drivers who are the smartest, and sometimes a bit of luck helps as well. No one can ever complain about getting lucky. Sometimes the track chooses who's gonna win. The aura at the track is a wild one.
Nate: Final topic I wanna talk about. You were recently on an episode of what some would say is the largest sports podcast in the world. You got to go on Pardon My Take and be a representative of the Indianapolis 500, be a representative of IndyCar and the state of Indiana. Talk to me about the experience of getting to hang out with Big Cat and PFT and how that whole thing came down.
Conor Daly: Man, such a cool experience, honestly. I was the first-ever IndyCar driver to do PMT, so I'll hang the banner for that. I listen to that show religiously, honestly. It's my favorite podcast to listen to. I love sports. I just love sports in general, and I think those guys present it in such a fun way. They have great interviews with some incredible people that I've now become fans of because of how they get interviewed.
NFL Combine was in town this year, and I was having dinner downtown Indy at Prime 47. Love that spot. Always there with my buddy Deep, who was there. We were sitting down for dinner because maybe we'll see some folks that we're fans of, like football. We like football. PFT walks into the restaurant, and he's just kind of hanging around. I was like, hey, man. AWL, big fan. And he was like, oh, thanks, man. He just kept on walking.
We're hanging out, and I see that he's just sitting by the bar, and I was like, I wonder if he's waiting on someone. I was going to the bathroom. I was like, hey, man. If you wanna sit with us, feel free to hang for a bit if you're waiting on someone. Because you don't wanna be that guy at the bar that's waiting by themselves that has to check their phone. We've all been there. You're checking your phone so you don't seem like a weirdo, and then you're trying to get to where you're going or figure out who's gonna get there. He was like, oh, really? And I was like, yeah. Come on, sit down.
Nate: Did you have to say, hey, man, I'm an IndyCar driver?
Conor Daly: I just said, hey, I'm a big fan, and I'm from here, and I race in the IndyCar Series. I feel like you do have to say something to be like, hey, I'm not just a weirdo.
Nate: You need some credibility.
Conor Daly: I wanted to say something to be like, hey, I kind of get it maybe. I understand sports. We're gonna be chill. We're not here to interview you.
Nate: Or totally fanboy. It's gonna be like a chill, fun dinner.
Conor Daly: Honestly, we just sat down and had a great three hours just hanging out, getting food, having a couple cocktails. Another sports media journalist sat down too and met a couple other folks there that were really cool.
At the time, by the time this comes out, I have a merch collaboration this year with Daniel Ricciardo, former Formula One driver. His clothing company, Enchante, we're working on this lifestyle merch collaboration, and he's coming to the 500 for the first time ever with his dad. Daniel has been on their show before, and he happened to FaceTime me while I was sitting at the table. I think that also helped PFT, like, oh, I guess maybe he is a race car driver. It was one of those funny legitimizing, like, oh, we have mutual friends. This is kind of a cool moment. So go check out our Enchante merch if you want to. It's gonna be sweet.
But yeah, it was a great conversation. I have nothing but good things to say about them.
Nate: And the whole Chicago office was awesome. How did it get to the point where they were like, where you get to go on the show?
Conor Daly: We were talking about May coming up, and he was asking what we're doing to get ready, and he's like, well, we gotta have you on the show. And I was like, I would love to be on the show. That'd be amazing. I would just go up to spectate the show, to be honest.
I actually know one of their bookers who works at Barstool, Jordan Berry. She used to work for Pat's show back when it was Barstool Heartland back in the day. She's been very cool, and she helped connect the dots because she was like, absolutely, we should have you on the show. So just a lot of mutual connections and people that were making it happen.
Nate: That's so sick. So you get the call. You're like, okay, I'm going up on this date. Show up and it's like...
Conor Daly: Drive up in the morning. Heaven on Earth. Golf simulator, basketball. All kinds of stuff was going on there at the time.
Nate: But the interesting piece, right, is that I think some people will see that and be, oh, they just mess around all day. And it's like, no, they're working.
Conor Daly: No, there's a lot going on there, man. I felt like everyone was doing something or trying to get something edited, photos, video, whatever it is. Then they had the live shows that are going on the whole time. You had Mostly Sports with Mark Titus, then you have The Yak, obviously.
The former Liverpool soccer player was there at the same time. I was like, oh, that's cool. That guy probably has no idea who I am, but I don't know who he is either, but this is awesome. This guy played professional soccer. That was cool. Adam Silver was in there later as well, the NBA commissioner. So I was like, okay, they started small with me, and then they ended up at Adam Silver. A pretty cool day at the office.
Nate: That's still crazy. I was looking at the episode.
Conor Daly: I did Chef Donny's show as well. That'll come out I think in the next couple weeks. And then I did the MicroPod with Hannah Montoya as well, and she was super cool. She was really nice.
Nate: So you got to get a few media hits in there.
Conor Daly: Yeah, they made it worth the while.
Nate: I'm looking at who else was on that episode.
Conor Daly: On my episode, it was Randy Moss. But not the football player Randy Moss. It was Randy Moss the horse guy, because it was before the Derby.
Nate: Different Randy Moss.
Conor Daly: Different Randy Moss. I'm a big Randy Moss fan growing up. I own every Randy Moss jersey that's ever been made from every team that he played for. It's just so ironic that I was on the show that Randy Moss was on, but not the Randy Moss that I knew from football.
Nate: You're talking about Kentucky Derby with Randy Moss, IndyCar racer Conor Daly, Celtics and Sixers game. That's sick.
Conor Daly: It was right before game seven too, which you knew for those guys, like Max and Hank, they were obviously gonna go to war because it was like, all right, we're going to game seven, and now they gotta watch it at Max's bachelor party. It all played out, I think, well.
Nate: To be the first one, again, if you're not a listener of Pardon My Take, it is...
Conor Daly: Very stick and balls sport.
Nate: I just had Wes Zirkle on. He said the same thing. He also wanted me to ask you if you remember this story. Flying back from somewhere overseas, somewhere, maybe like Monza GP or somewhere, flying back with the old CEO of IndyCar, Randy Bernard. He said that the flight back to Indy got delayed, and it was you, Randy, and Wes. Randy got a call from a big executive at one of the movie studios pitching him the idea of a snail winning the Indy 500.
Conor Daly: Oh, really?
Nate: And that movie ended up being Turbo.
Conor Daly: That's very funny. I thought the story that you were gonna tell is Avril Lavigne was on that flight, and I was a big fan of Avril Lavigne. Randy Bernard sat next to Avril Lavigne, and I was so mad that I didn't get to meet Avril Lavigne.
Nate: He said that Randy brought everyone into the Delta lounge or whatever. It was Turbo. Two years later, that movie ends up coming out.
Conor Daly: That's hilarious. Shout out Avril Lavigne.
Nate: Shout out Avril Lavigne. Bangers. Absolutely. Okay. Well, we're rounding out the show, man. We have a couple of fun Indiana questions for you. This question's brought to you by our friends at J.C. Hart. They're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences at apartment communities all across Indiana and beyond. Check them out at homeisjchart.com. My question for you, Conor: why do you call Indiana home?
Conor Daly: I love Indiana. I really do. I've lived in Europe for four years. I've been all over the place. I've traveled the world. I've been very lucky to do so. When it comes to all the small things, whether that's cost of living, whether that's convenience of the airport, which is, our airport's so good. Shout out our airport.
We've got really good restaurants here. We've got a vibe that is really good. We've got some of the biggest events that get hosted here. Obviously, the biggest event gets hosted here. It just seems like a lot of nice people are here. You get that Midwest hospitality. I feel like a lot of people say that.
I got to play in that NBA Celebrity All-Star game when that was in town a couple years ago, and that was so fun. Everyone in town, so many of the people that really had not been to Indy before were like, everyone's so nice here. I'm like, absolutely. That's a great reputation for a state and a city. So yeah, I love Indiana. I could probably have a place here forever. I think I wanna diversify my property portfolio, if I can be so fortunate in life. But I will always, I feel like, have a home in Indiana.
Nate: Especially being the Indiana guy. Favorite Indy 500 tradition.
Conor Daly: My tradition is going to the snake pit every race morning. I love 9:45 to 10:15 going to the snake pit, seeing what's going on over there, seeing what's cracking. It's an amazing tradition. It's an amazing energy over there. Love it.
But other than that, it's the songs, recognizing our fallen soldiers, the playing, that trumpet that just makes the entire 380,000, 400,000 people just go completely silent. Crying every time. National Anthem, crying every time. Back Home Again in Indiana, I'm already strapped in the car, I'm crying, still crying.
It's an amazing emotional experience, and I will never be able to forget those feelings. That feeling of race morning and all the traditions and the songs, the energy that flows through my body, the adrenaline, that is the greatest feeling in the world, I think. I hope to be able to do that and repeat that for as many years as I can until they peel my cold, dead body out of that car.
Nate: We've come to the final three questions that we ask every guest who comes on the show. You get the chance to highlight a couple spots across the state. This is your opportunity to shed some light on a part of the state that more people need to be talking about. What is a hidden gem in Indiana?
Conor Daly: I think we're a low-key really good restaurant city. There are so many places that when you listen to tourists, they're like, well, you gotta go to St. Elmo's, and you gotta go to this spot. I'm like, I literally never go to those places. We have so many other spots on Mass Ave. We've got places in Fountain Square now that are super good downtown. The whole north side's going nuts with restaurants up there. It feels like you're in Monterey, California, almost now on the north side. It's so nice and fancy.
I think there's a... Just go to different restaurants. Go to Mass Ave. Go explore a little bit. Go to the really small, amazing sushi spot on Keystone that's at 62nd and Keystone. Sakura. It's an amazing little sushi spot. You would never guess, but it's so, so good.
Nate: Is there a spot that more people need to go to? A restaurant that you're like, this place is fire?
Conor Daly: Chris Burton would get really mad at me if I didn't say Vicino and the Oakmont, because he's a friend of mine, and he's a part of those establishments. I love Vicino. It's a great place. Definitely go there. The Oakmont's a good bar.
I think a place called Bodhi is really awesome right now.
Nate: The Thai spot?
Conor Daly: Oh, my gosh, so good, man. Very hard to get in there, but probably one of my favorite places. Livery is still also my favorite restaurant of all time. Love Livery.
Nate: Now, this is your opportunity to enlighten us about someone else that more people need to be talking about. Who's a Hoosier we need to keep on our radar, someone who's doing big things?
Conor Daly: I met a guy not too long ago who I did not know was an Indiana guy, but Carson Steele plays for the Eagles. Super nice guy. I just met him recently. Super nice guy.
Nate: Bring these guests to the pod. So he's Center Grove. He's a beast of a running back. Goes to Ball State, then UCLA. Declares for the draft. Ends up on the Super Bowl team. He went to the team that got beat in the Super Bowl. He was with them, then now is with Philly. Great dude. For him it was like an underdog. At every stage you're like, he came out and I think Ball State was his best offer, and he was like, I led the state in rushing. He's a dog. IU maybe preferred walk-on. No scholarships to Big Ten. Proves everyone wrong. Crushes it at Ball State. Goes to UCLA. Everyone's like, doesn't get invited to the combine. UDFA. The whole thing, and he keeps proving people wrong. I'm excited to see his career.
Conor Daly: I'm trying to think of Indiana guys. I just met, obviously, Barstool Mark Titus, Indiana guy. He had said he was a fan of mine. I was like, no way, dude. I watch you every day on Mostly Sports. This is crazy. He was an Indiana guy, and he was taught by my stepdad's mom in school. I was like, this is a crazy small world, this whole situation.
Nate: That is like the most Indiana thing ever. Everyone's mom taught someone else's kid something. You all know each other. Classic. Mark Titus, Brownsburg guy. Then Ohio State for basketball. He has been historically really connected with Thad Matta and Butler. He's done events and stuff over there. Good dude.
Final question for the day, thinking about all the different things, from race day morning to growing up around racing, to being in Indiana, what is your favorite Indiana memory?
Conor Daly: You won't find anything memory-wise that's outside of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. I love everything that goes on there. I loved being able to see these superheroes that I thought were race car drivers that didn't get born. I thought they just got put on the earth to be drivers, and that was it, and they were just these Vikings of vehicles.
It was such an amazing experience to get to see people put everything on the line to make the race, to put everything on the line to win the race. Watching JR Hildebrand crash in person in turn four on the last lap and watch Dan Wheldon win. I still visibly can feel what my skin was feeling like during that time.
It's an amazing experience to be a part of everything at the track. Seeing the people come into the race facility on race mornings, just walking out to the grid and that whole experience is the best part of being a race car driver.
Also hearing the fans, not while I'm in the car, I can't do that sadly, but hearing Indiana folks support me, that's really cool. It means so much to be from this state because I feel like we all support each other really well. Hearing the videos of whenever I take the lead, no matter what year it is, like the first year, even last year, people continue to show up and every week someone tells me, man, when you take the lead, it's crazy. That stuff is the coolest feeling ever. Why would you not wanna show up and fight every day to continue to do that?
Nate: Hell yeah, brother. That's awesome. I'm fired up. We're excited for the race. If people want to follow, they wanna see you, they can support you. How can the state of Indiana support you?
Conor Daly: Well, honestly, go to an ARCO gas station if you find one. Conor Daly 22 on everything. Merch. That'll be Enchante. It's a very French word, but E-N-C-H-A-N-T-E.com. It'll be on their website. It'll also be at the track if you're at the track. The Shop is actually having some of their shirts in their little trailer. They'll have a couple of the shirts. They're helping us out by selling some out there for us.
Conor Daly 22 on all social channels. My podcast, Speed Street, if you wanna check it out. We've got a really cool couple interviews during the month of May. Daniel Ricciardo is actually gonna be on our show. That'll be a big interview. He doesn't do a lot of those, and he's a good friend for a long time. Obviously spent a lot of time in Formula 1, Formula 1 winner. It'll be the first time we really had a very recent Formula 1 driver on the show. But a guy who also is like, heck yeah, I wanna come to the Indy 500 for the first time. I'm gonna check it out. I think that's a cool story.
Feel free to check that out. Give us a subscription. Do the YouTube stuff. Please. We're on the YouTubes. Conor Daly 22 on YouTube. Like, subscribe, leave a comment, hype or whatever, all those things.
Nate: Five-star reviews always help us distribute the show more. Be a friend, tell a friend. Man, Conor, it was a pleasure to have you back on. We don't have many repeat guests, so this is a fun one.
It's fun when there's new news to talk about. When there's new news to talk about and learning the ins and outs that is the month of May, learning the ins and outs, again, I continue to be fascinated by the business of IndyCar.
Conor Daly: It is fascinating.
Nate: It is a fascinating business, and it takes a lot of perseverance to keep the dream alive. One, we're rooting for you, Indiana's guy. Come on now. Obviously, you and Ed and the whole, I think there's only like two, right? Two Indiana guys?
Conor Daly: Well, technically Ed wasn't born in Indiana. I know he probably doesn't like me to say that, but technically he was born in Illinois. But he is very Indiana. I gotta give him. He is very Indiana. Obviously went to college here, but I was born here.
Nate: There we go. Well, man, best of luck to you. Keep being fast. We love to see it. And we'll talk to you soon.
