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12 Questions with Christopher Bell (2018)

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The series of 12 Questions interviews continues this week with Christopher Bell, the Chili Bowl champion, Camping World Truck Series champion and current Xfinity Series driver for Joe Gibbs Racing. This interview was recorded as a podcast but is also transcribed for those who would rather read.

1. How often do you have dreams about racing?

I haven’t dreamed about racing in a while. As a kid, I used to always have nightmares that I wouldn’t be ready in time. I don’t know why, but I would always have nightmares that I would miss my heat race at the Chili Bowl or something. Like I wasn’t dressed in time and the next thing you know, your heat race or the feature’s pushing off and you’re trying to get in your car. I would have those dreams quite frequently whenever I was a kid. Recently, I haven’t dreamed too much about racing.

2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize?

If you intentionally wreck someone, then there’s no need to apologize. If it’s an accident and you really didn’t mean to do it, I think you need to make that effort to connect with him. Generally, if I accidentally get into someone, I guess I don’t go immediately because everybody’s still wound up from the race. But within a couple hours, I’ll reach out and try to talk to him.

Like via text?

Yeah.

3. What is the biggest compliment someone could give you?

Honestly, this is gonna sound weird, but growing up and following (Kyle) Larson’s footsteps, the biggest compliment that people have given me is when they compare me to Larson, because he’s the greatest race car driver I’ve seen. And so for people to have me and him in the same conversation, it’s pretty cool.

4. NASCAR comes to you and says, “Hey, we are bringing a celebrity to the race and we’re wondering if you have time to say hi.” Who is a celebrity you’d be really excited to host?

I don’t know. I don’t really follow too much of the celebrity scene I guess, but recently, I just watched Ride Along and get a good laugh out of Kevin Hart, so that’d be kind of cool.

He’d be fun to hang out with at the track.

Yeah. He’d make you laugh, anyway.

5. In an effort to show they are health-conscious, NASCAR offers the No. 1 pit stall selection for an upcoming race to the first driver willing to go vegan for a month. Would you do it?

No. I live on meat, so there’s no way.

6. It’s time for the Random Race Challenge. I have picked a random race from your career and you have to guess where you finished.

I’ll be good at this.

You have good memory?

Yes.

Then I probably didn’t go hard enough because I was like, “There’s not enough NASCAR races to where you would probably remember most of the NASCAR races.”

If you picked a dirt race in 2013, I’d tell you where I finished.

Well let’s see. Where did you finish in the 2014 Belleville Nationals feature?

Second. No, third. No, sorry, fourth. I think it was, Rico (Abreu) won, I finished fourth.

You did finish fourth.

Sorry, it was ’15 when I finished second to (Bryan) Clauson.

How do you have such a good memory for a race? I can’t even remember races from this year.

I don’t know, man. That’s just something that I’ve always had. For the most part, you can tell me any race and I’ll be able to tell you where I finished and pretty much how the race went. I remember at Belleville in 2014, the dash is what lines you up in the feature, and I think me and Rico were running first and second in the dash and I thought I had a flat tire, so I pulled in. So I finished last in the dash which was sixth or eighth, and I didn’t have a flat, so I felt really dumb and my confidence was beat down. Keith (Kunz) the car owner was mad at me because I pulled in and didn’t have anything wrong with the car. And then I started in the back, and couldn’t make our way up through there.

Wow. But you got to fourth.

Yeah, I did get to fourth, so that was OK.

7. Who is the best rapper alive?

Eminem.

He’s got a long track record.

When I was a kid, I used to love listening to Eminem and I could actually pretty much rap or sing most of his songs word for word.

Even now if it’s on the radio?

I lose some parts of it, but yeah, if the right song comes on.

8. Who has the most punchable face in NASCAR?

Oh man. (Pauses) The driver in the number 60 car has wrecked me a couple of times.

They have rotating drivers.

Yeah, I think we know which one it is.

9. NASCAR enlists three famous Americans to be involved with your team for one race as part of a publicity push: Taylor Swift, LeBron James and Tom Hanks. Choose one to be your crew chief, one to be your spotter and one to be your motorhome driver.

Taylor Swift, motorhome driver.

Just to be fun to hang out with?

Yeah, she looks good, too. So we’ve got Tom Hanks and LeBron for spotter and crew chief? I guess I’d have to put LeBron on the spotter stand and that leaves Tom on the pit box.

You feel like Tom’s leadership is gonna help steer your team in the right direction there?

Yeah, I don’t see LeBron being a crew chief.

10. What is the key to finding the best pre-race bathroom?

That’s (public relations representative) Donald (Edwards’) job, man. He’s always scoping it out for me. Sometimes they’re tough to come by. There’s a lot of these racetracks that we go to and it sucks. Like, that’s a problem. It shouldn’t be a problem. Port-o-pissers on pit road is a must-have. You’ve gotta have them.

You gotta wait in line sometimes?

Yeah. I’m trying to think…where did we go that’s bad recently? Vegas. We had like five or six drivers lined up in Vegas waiting to go into the port-a-potty. It’s an issue. It’s a real issue.

11. NASCAR misses the highlight reel value brought by Carl Edwards’ backflips and decides a replacement is needed. How much money would they have to pay you to backflip off your car after your next win?

I think they just need to give Daniel Hemric a different tapered spacer and it’d come back. (Smiles) No, Daniel has been doing it ever since I can remember, he just hasn’t had the opportunity to win in NASCAR. So there’s a guy out there that will do it if he ever wins, and he will win at some point. That’s not for me.

He says he can do it standing flat-footed on the ground. Do you think that’s true?

I’ve seen him do it, so yeah.

12. Each week, I ask a question given to me from the last interview. Last week, I interviewed Kyle Larson. His question was, “What year will you win your first World of Outlaws championship?”

That’s a great question. So I’m in Xfinity now. The hard part is you don’t know how long your NASCAR career’s gonna last. And then after you’re done with your NASCAR career, do you have the opportunity to go Outlaw racing? But that’s a dream of mine.

I’m 23 now. I would say 50 is too old to win an Outlaw championship. So, maybe, hopefully by 20 years from now…that would be ’38, right? 2038? Hopefully by 2038 I’m an Outlaw champion.

So you have a long enough NASCAR career, but you don’t want to get too old to where you’re not competitive.

Exactly.

You have to find the right window there. I don’t know who the next interview is going to be with, so do you have a question I can ask another driver in general?

I guess just, “What drives you? Why do you go race?”

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The Top Five: Breaking down Monday’s Martinsville race

Five thoughts after the rescheduled NASCAR race at Martinsville Speedway…

1. Bowyer’s redemption

In 2012, Clint Bowyer’s first year at Michael Waltrip Racing, he won three races, finished second in the Chase and posted career highs in top-fives and top-10s.

At age 33, he seemed to have many victories — and perhaps even championships — ahead of him.

But suddenly, he stopped winning. Until Monday, Bowyer had not been to victory lane since Oct. 2012 — and much has happened since then.

He triggered the itchy arm scandal with his infamous Richmond spin in 2013. There was the demise of MWR and the agonizing season he suffered through at HScott Motorsports. Bowyer, once a key player in every NASCAR conversation, became a complete non-factor.

“It was pretty dark a few times,” he said.

Life wasn’t all bad for Bowyer over these last six years. He got engaged and married and had two children. He signed with Stewart-Haas Racing despite the lack of results. He weathered the sponsorship storm (losing 5-Hour Energy) and stuck around through this latest youth movement when others did not.

But on the track, Bowyer hasn’t been relevant. And when he’s not contending, he can’t be the exuberant driver everyone loves.

Finally, with his Richmond karma long repaid, everything is coming together for Bowyer again.

Monday seemed remarkably uneventful for a driver who constantly had challenge after challenge since his last win.

“I was wondering how we were going to lose this race,” he said.

Instead, the race broke his way. Just when it looked like he was going to have to pit under green as a result of a fuel mishap, Bowyer caught a timely yellow flag — the only caution of the day that was caused by an incident.

Bowyer’s hopes were salvaged, and from lap 285 onward, no one else led a lap under green.

It’s no wonder he texted team co-owner Tony Stewart: “This is good times.” Now 38, Bowyer is finally having fun again — and a happy Bowyer is a wonderful thing for NASCAR.

“Everybody that knows me knows that I have fun and run my mouth and I’m goofy and everything else,” he said. “But I do appreciate this opportunity and appreciate the army of people that makes this possible for all of us.”

2. That’s just weird

There were only four cautions on Monday. Four! And three of them were NASCAR cautions (two stages and one competition caution).

That’s quite unusual. The last time there were less than five cautions in a Martinsville race was Sept. 1978, in a race won by Cale Yarborough. And this at a place which once had 24 straight races with at least 10 cautions! Heck, there were 18 cautions in the fall race Jeff Gordon won a few years ago.

So what’s the deal? Well, Denny Hamlin has a theory. And it’s not necessarily good news.

Here’s his quote, courtesy of Toyota:

“All of our cars, whether it be data-sharing, setups that we’re sharing with each other and all that, everyone is getting their car to drive very, very similar,” he said. “Even when I would come up on lapped cars, they were running a similar speed to what I was, but I was able to get through traffic better than they were.

“We’ve gotten the cars to where they drive so similar, so when everyone runs the same speed, it’s hard to pass. And with less passing, there’s less chance for incidents.”

The data-sharing Hamlin refers to is NASCAR’s decision to distribute telemetry data to the teams this year after some complained certain organizations had an advantage by scraping it from NASCAR’s RaceView app.

The problem, Hamlin said, is now everyone can imitate how the top drivers get around Martinsville. There are no more secrets there.

“You can steal people’s information nowadays,” he said. “You can go right to a tablet and see how Brad’s driving or how I’m driving or Kyle or anyone. That can really change some things in the future and you’re starting to see now that the cars are running very, very similar.”

3. Another reason short tracks rule

We often focus so much on the action at short tracks (rightfully so) that we forget another reason why they’re so kick-ass: The races give an opportunity for new names at the top.

Once the car is less of a factor, the driver talent really shines. That’s why it was fun to see Ryan Blaney lead a big chunk of the race, AJ Allmendinger run in the top 10 all day and Alex Bowman make a late charge to seventh.

And that was on top of Bowyer’s unexpected but refreshing victory.

No offense to the drivers and teams who run up front every week, but there’s often a fatigue there when it happens again and again over the course of a season (or several seasons). When different drivers are mixing it up at the front of the field, it makes the race much more interesting and enjoyable to watch.

4. The wait is over

Earlier in the season, I kept asking the drivers when we’d be able to tell which ones are contenders for the title.

The most common answer: Wait until the Easter break, when there will be six races completed on a variety of different tracks.

Well, guess what? That point has now arrived! So let’s look at the point standings and see who is good.

No surprise here, but the two top Toyotas of the last few years are 1-2: Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr.

Then it’s all three Team Penske cars in a row — Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski, in that order — followed by another Toyota in Denny Hamlin.

Triple race winner Kevin Harvick is the next driver in the standings, then comes his Stewart-Haas teammate Bowyer and Kyle Larson — the only Chevrolet in the top 12.

Larson is followed by the other two SHR cars, Kurt Busch and Aric Almirola, and another Joe Gibbs Racing car in Erik Jones.

So the 12 best drivers one-sixth through the season? It’s four of the five elite Toyotas, all three Penske cars, all four SHR cars and Larson.

That’s still a pretty big group, but I’m ready to jump to conclusions about their performance. So here’s betting those are 12 of the 16 playoff drivers — and the final four drivers are among them.

5. Take care of the customers

Thousands of fans planned on being at Martinsville and couldn’t attend after the race was postponed. Not a few hundred, but thousands.

Many of those people traveled from long distances, perhaps had to take time off work (using vacation or a sick day) and spent money on gas and lodging to get there.

They woke up Sunday morning to sunny skies and clear roads surrounding the racetrack, only to learn the race was postponed — a decision made seven hours before the scheduled green flag.

Why was it postponed? One of the official reasons was first responders had to be available for emergencies elsewhere in the aftermath of a snowstorm. While that may have been a reason, I’m skeptical that was the deciding factor. Given the roads were completely clear by the morning, there was no big outbreak of accidents that required area police and fire assistance.

However, it’s true the race could not have taken place Sunday. And that’s because the facility was not ready.

The parking lots — most of which are grassy hills — were covered with snow. Even as the snow quickly melted, the lots turned into mud.

There was snow in the grandstands, too, but fans could have easily cleared that off themselves (we’ve seen NFL fans do that in places like New England and Buffalo). Surely they would have rather done that than seen their money go to waste.

The bottom line is Martinsville Speedway was not ready to hold a race despite clear roads and a beautiful day. That’s frustrating.

Of course, the snowstorm itself wasn’t the track’s fault. But Sunday wouldn’t have been a postponement at many other NASCAR venues with better infrastructure. Martinsville, along with International Speedway Corp., needs to come up with a plan so this doesn’t happen in the future. 

If it’s not willing to invest in things like paved parking lots, the track should at least allow a ticket exchange for a future race. It’s maddening to think so many fans who were unable to use their tickets just had to eat the cost with no refund and no credit for future races.

I understand there’s ticket insurance (TicketGuardian) available for purchase, but why should the onus be on fans to pay extra for that? Especially when the race gets “snowed out” on a sunny day, something feels wrong about how NASCAR’s most loyal customers get treated after their investment melts away.

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DraftKings Fantasy NASCAR picks: Martinsville

If you haven’t heard, DraftKings has extended the deadline for its Martinsville contest an extra 24 hours to reflect the race being postponed due to snow.

That means it’s not too late to make your picks. Here’s my team heading into Monday’s race:

LAP LEADERS

— Kyle Busch ($11,000): The key for Martinsville is to have all the drivers who lead the majority of the laps on your team (because there are 500 available laps to lead, vs. 200 at a place like Fontana where position differential matters more). If you think Busch will be among the top lap leaders, pick him. But you’ll need two others in that category, too.

— Martin Truex Jr. ($10,700): He starts on the pole, so I can picture him leading much of the first stage. Truex may lose some spots in position differential later in the day, but I’m predicting he’ll make up for it in laps led. So he’s on the team.

— Brad Keselowski ($10,100): The third driver in my predicted trio of lap leaders is Keselowski. He had the fastest 10-lap average in final practice, followed by Busch and Truex. All three of those drivers start in the top four, giving them favorable track position to start the day. That’s why they’re in my lineup. It’s really up to you which three drivers will be your predicted lap leaders, though (and this is an expensive trio).

CHEAP PICKS

— AJ Allmendinger ($6,400): Now it gets harder. Because my lineup is so top-heavy, I need three cheap drivers to fill out the roster without losing too many spots. I’m picking Allmendinger because he ranks 10th in average finish among drivers with five or more Martinsville starts. Prior to a crash last fall, Allmendinger had four straight finishes of 11th or better there.

— Bubba Wallace ($6,200): Admittedly, this is a gut pick more than a statistical one. Wallace is making his first Cup start at Martinsville and was only 28th out of 35 drivers in 10-lap average for final practice (he was 26th in the first practice). So those aren’t great numbers. However, his four starts in the Truck Series at Martinsville were stellar: Fifth, first, second, first (in that order). Could his confidence there carry him to a surprising result on Monday?

— Ty Dillon ($5,600): This seems like a steal based on his practice speed. He was 15th-fastest in 10-lap average for final practice and seventh-fastest in the same category for first practice. However, he starts 32nd — which puts him in danger of getting lapped early. Perhaps there will be a competition caution in the first stage that would help the cause.

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BEARDEN: Consistent Jason Anderson marches toward Supercross title after Indy recovery

By Aaron Bearden

For a short time on Saturday night, it appeared Jason Anderson had finally opened the door for a true championship fight.

As it turns out, he was just making things interesting.

Anderson continued his consistent march toward his first Monster Energy AMA Supercross title in Indianapolis, clawing his way back to a fourth-place finish despite rolling out of the race’s first turn in 21st after an early crash.

As a result, he retained his heavy championship advantage, leaving the Hoosier State a full 35 points clear of race winner Marvin Musquin with only five races remaining in the season.

In many ways, Saturday’s snow-filled afternoon in Indiana served as a microcosm of the entire 2018 Supercross season.

A few of Anderson’s closest competitors excelled to make minor gains on his lead, while at least one rider threw away his title dreams with a big accident.

Through it all, Anderson soldiered on in his usual position — quiet, focused and consistent. In other words, he did what was required of him in this season’s unusual championship race.

In a year marred by attrition, consistency has been as more important to sustained success than race wins.

Eli Tomac continued to prove that point in the 450SX main event, suffering another big blow  — both physically and in the standings.

The veteran Tomac started the event with a surge to second, and then proceeded to stalk Musquin through the opening laps. But the Coloradan’s race quickly went awry in spectacular fashion mid-race when he missed a quad jump, landing hard and falling off of his bike.

For a moment Tomac sat on the track, stunned and showing signs of pain. He continued on after assistance from the track safety team, but limped home a subpar 15th.

Issues like Saturday’s crash have been the plight of Tomac’s title chase this season. The 25-year-old’s five wins lead the tour, but it’s been an uneven campaign — to say the least. He crashed while leading by three seconds in the season opener at Anaheim, missed the second race of the year at Houston with the resulting injury and in Indy he tallied his fourth finish of 13th or worse.

Those results have marred what once appeared to be a promising title campaign, leaving Tomac fighting off disappointment as he chases race victories.

“Last year was our breakout year,” Tomac told JeffGluck.com prior to Saturday’s race. “We really started clicking off race wins and barely missed the championship by a handful of points. This year’s goal was to get those race wins again and be in the title hunt.

“We’re a ways out of it, so it’s a bummer that way. Now we’re just racing every weekend looking for a win.”

Musquin finds himself in a similar position.

The 2018 season has been arguably Musquin’s finest run, with two wins and a recent stretch of nine consecutive top-five finishes that have elevated the Frenchman to second in the standings.

He’s been the strongest rider in the field for the better part of two months, running within sight of the leaders every week as the season slowly winds down. But unfortunately for Musquin, the push appears to be all for naught.

Musquin started the season off with a victory in Anaheim, but a crash in his heat race kept him out of the main event in Houston before returning the following week with a quiet 13th-place showing in the second Anaheim date.

In the weeks since then, Musquin has had the best average finish in the field. But thanks to a 10-race winless stretch and Anderson’s impressive year, it hasn’t mattered.

The 28-year-old Musquin is still happy with his results, and at 35 points out his title chase is far from over. But his early issues have left this season with lingering thoughts of what could have been — a storyline reminiscent of his quest for an outdoor title last year.

“If you look at last year outdoors, it was the same,” Musquin said. “I was winning a lot at the end, but it was too late and I came up short on the championship.

“This season has been crazy. A lot of guys have gotten injured. I got injured in the second round and was far back in the championship, and I came back when the other guys got hurt. I know it can be easy to say that the other guys got injured, and that’s why I’ve come back in the championship to second place. But it happened to me at the beginning also.”

Sitting between Musquin and Tomac in the standings is a rider in the opposite situation — Justin Brayton.

The 2018 season has been the best of the 34-year-old Brayton’s life, yielding his first 450SX victory at Daytona International Speedway earlier this month.

It’s also been his most consistent year to date. Brayton has finished no worse than 10th over the entire 12-race stretch thus far, elevating himself into the championship discussion by avoiding the issues that have plagued his fellow competitors.

“The season has been really good, even from the beginning,” Brayton told JeffGluck.com. “We’ve been top 10 every race, top five quite a bit. Won several heat races. Practice times have been in the top five pretty much all year.”

Brayton’s been the most consistent rider in the paddock, but he hasn’t managed to rattle off race wins or podiums at the same clip as the riders around him.

The veteran has just three podiums compared to the seven and eight the other riders in the top four have mustered, and after Musquin’s Indy triumph he’s the only rider in the group without multiple victories.

So despite the career season, Brayton he knows he could do better.

“I’m really happy with everything right now, from my riding to the team, everyone involved,” he said. “It’s been a really fun year, and I’ve enjoyed it. But I also want to continue to have the success and try to win another race.”

Other riders put in strong efforts early in the year — Justin Barcia, Ken Roczen and Cole Seely among them. But they’ve all been lost to injuries in the midst of a chaotic Supercross season.

The only one who’s been able to pair success with consistency throughout the entire 12-race stint thus far has been Anderson.

The 24-year-old Anderson hasn’t been flawless, but he’s managed to avoid any significant setbacks to build a near-insurmountable advantage in the standings. His 2.75 average finish this season is easily the best in the field, and his four wins are topped only by Tomac’s five.

Anderson’s run has been impressive, elevating the New Mexico native to the top of his sport and forcing his competitors to acknowledge his improvement.

“He’s improved his consistency,” Tomac said of Anderson. “He hasn’t had that bad finish yet.

“That’s what’s winning our series right now, is guys that are consistent. Last year’s series winner won two races, maybe three. That’s just the way it’s been.”

That consistency was on full display in Indianapolis, despite the best efforts of the field.

As long as Anderson can keep it going for five more weeks, it appears nothing will stop him from marching on to his first Supercross 450SX title.

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Alexander Rossi doesn’t mind controversy after Robert Wickens incident

Alexander Rossi lost control of his car and took out Robert Wickens on the final restart of the IndyCar season opener in St. Petersburg two weeks ago, sparking an ongoing debate about the move.

The two friends moved on quickly — they were at the gym working out together 48 hours later, Rossi said.

But even then, the controversy over Rossi’s attempted pass was still raging online. And as Rossi sees it, that’s a pretty damn good thing.

“I think the reaction was great,” Rossi said by phone this week. “I mean, people were talking about the race a week after the fact. When has that happened before? That’s amazing.”

There hasn’t been a race since then, and it will be two more weeks until the series returns to action at Phoenix. But if IndyCar can manage to keep its positive momentum going for that long, the series appears to be off to another promising start.

IndyCar has been on an upward climb of late. In the last year, Fernando Alonso left the biggest Formula One race of the season to drive in the Indy 500, IndyCar got a refreshing young American champion in Josef Newgarden after a close points battle, the series brought a redesigned car to the track, had two drivers shine on The Amazing Race during the offseason and this week announced a new TV deal with NBC Sports.

If that’s not enough, Rossi’s incident with Wickens — one of several promising rookies as part of IndyCar’s youth movement — put the focus firmly on the racing action to start the year.

With nearly two weeks to reflect on what happened, Rossi has the same stance he did in the moments after the race: He saw a chance to win the race and went for it. Unfortunately, his car slid in the marbles and sent Wickens into the wall.

“Rob’s a good friend of mine, so I would have loved to be on the podium with him, no doubt,” Rossi said. “But looking back on it, from my side I wouldn’t have done anything differently.”

Rossi called it a “misconception” he had any intention of taking Wickens out.

“I don’t think people really understand,” he said. “It’s probably silly to admit this, but we don’t have as much control as fans would actually think. Like I can’t control a rear slide to be 30 degrees and just hit someone at a certain point to not damage my car but hit them enough to spin them out. That’s not a calculated thing to happen.

“It wasn’t an idea I had, like, ‘Oh, I’m not going to be able to pass him, so I’m going to hit him out of the way.’ Like that’s not a thing. It was simply a situation where we were both going for the same piece of real estate.”

The good news in circumstances like that? There’s a chance to see the same two drivers battle again in a similar scenario. The next street course race is in three weeks at the Long Beach Grand Prix, which Rossi was promoting in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

“Of course Rob has every right to be upset. If I was in his position, I would have been upset, too,” Rossi said. “You move on, right? We’re here to win races and championships. At the end of the day, there will be 16 more chances to fight it out.”

That other Amazing Race

Speaking of an amazing race, Rossi’s deep run on the CBS hit reality show with Conor Daly (they made it to the season finale before getting eliminated) is something he doesn’t mind discussing.

After all, he went on the show to help promote IndyCar. And he hopes it worked.

So far, he hasn’t been recognized as a direct result of the show (a woman who spotted him at the Toronto airport was the only one he could think of). But winners Cody Nickson and Jessica Graf were at the recent IndyCar test in Phoenix and plan to come to the Indy 500, along with Team Extreme’s Kristi Leskinen and Jen Hudak.

“(The producers) like it to be known as a true reality show, and I can tell you that is accurate,” Rossi said. “There were zero second takes. There was no ‘Act like this’ or ‘Have this emotion.’ Everything you saw was something that really happened.”

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How I Got Here with Greg Stumpff

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This is the latest in a weekly feature called “How I Got Here,” where I ask people in NASCAR about the journeys to their current jobs. Each interview is recorded as a podcast but is also transcribed on JeffGluck.com. Up next: Greg Stumpff, founder of helmet painting company Off Axis Paint.

You design helmets for a variety of drivers. Who are some of the drivers you’ve worked with?

Well, Martin Truex Jr., Cup champion. We got him a couple years ago. Honestly the whole Truex family, we do them. Justin Allgaier has been with me for a long time. Ryan Reed. Joey Logano was part of it for awhile.

We do 30 to 40 drivers between the three series now. And we’re very personal, so it’s a lot of personality and things to remember about certain individuals. Because when I do these, I don’t want to just throw a sponsor on the helmet. I want to make it something the driver loves and is part of them. They don’t really get a whole lot of say in the firesuits or the cars or anything else, so the helmet is kind of the one thing these drivers can be part of. So I try to make it very personal. That’s why I’m at the track a lot of times, because it’s cool to see your friends run and to see your stuff on the track.

I visited your shop, and you have a nice, big place where you make the helmets, and you guys even pull all-nighters to make these helmets sometimes.

A lot of times. It’s right there in North Carolina, in Mooresville, and it’s right next to a bunch of race shops. When things happen very quickly, which they do in NASCAR a lot — “Oh, we need this sponsor on a helmet by Friday” — we can usually pull that off. And there’s not a lot of shops that can do that, so that’s kind of our blessing and our curse, I guess. It’s a lot of long nights, but we can crank out helmets in our shops because I have a great group of guys who love doing what they do. As long as I keep the work coming in, they’ll probably stay with me.

Your success didn’t just happen suddenly. How did you get your start?

It’s kind of weird, you know? It’s not really one of those occupations where you take a test in high school and it says, “You’re going to be a doctor” or “You’re going to be a veterinarian.” Helmet painter is not really on the list. So honestly, I didn’t really know it was a job until early in high school, when I started looking at designers like Troy Lee. Even then, I didn’t know there was a career path. Those guys were so big and it was so far out of reach, (I thought) there’s no way I could ever make it that far.

This is when you were in Missouri?

Yeah, I was in Missouri. Dirt central. That’s why I’m good friends with Allgaier and Tyler Reddick, because I come from the same dirt background.

Out of high school, I worked on a dirt Late Model team. I traveled all over the country. Like every dirt track — you name it, I’ve probably been to it and scraped that mud off the car. There was a lot of downtime when you travel like that, so I started taking some helmets home on the weekdays and I’d them back on the weekends and make a little side money. I was like, “Alright, this is not bad.” Then I started realizing sponsors will actually pay to get this stuff done; it’s not just the drivers.

I literally got on Facebook — Twitter hadn’t really taken over yet — and I just started messaging every driver on there. I got one hit: J.J. Yeley. And he said, “Hey man, I want you to paint my helmet. I’m in Talladega.” We were actually there racing a dirt race, so I went over and met him. I was like, “Wow, this is a Cup guy. I’m big time now.” And he was like a start-and-park back in the day, you know? But I was just pumped to even see my driver’s name on TV.

So you essentially didn’t have any contacts at all and were starting completely from scratch?

Zero. I was going to websites and looking through every roster of K&N, ARCA, Trucks, Cup and finding their website, finding their Facebook. Back in the day, a lot of drivers ran their own personal Facebook because the (social media) PR hadn’t taken off yet. So I would get messages back like, “Hey man, I’ve already got a guy who paints my stuff” and Yeley was the first one who actually messaged me back and said, “I want you to paint my stuff.”

And your offer was, “I’ll just do it free for exposure” or what?

Free, or paying for materials. I wasn’t asking for a lot. “Give me credentials into the racetrack so I can meet more people.” Then I met my buddy Skip Flores — he changes tires on (Ryan) Blaney’s car. He was working at Stewart-Haas and running the Field Fillers (group of racing friends who raced karts) back then. So that’s how I got in with (Corey) LaJoie and (Brandon) McReynolds and all of that group back in the day.

They were like, “Why aren’t you in North Carolina?” I looked into it, and there’s no real helmet painters in Concord or Mooresville or anything like that. I’m like, “That’s not a bad idea. There’s nothing holding me back in Missouri. The dirt program, I don’t really want to scrape mud off Late Models my whole life.” I love dirt racing, but it’s not really a great career path for a worker. So I put all of my stuff in a U-Haul, moved 15 hours out to the East Coast and never really looked back.

Painters demonstrate some of the process at Off Axis Paint. (Courtesy photo)

So where did you live once you arrived? Where did you work?

A friend of mine had a bedroom with a couch, basically, and she said, “I’ll charge you $100 a month to live there.” I said, “That’s perfect. I’m never going to be there if I have a shop.” I met a hauler driver and he’s like, “I’ve got a storage unit and it’s a pretty good size. I’ve got some cars in there. Just move some stuff around and you can paint.” So I had no paint booth or anything — just a box of paint, and I made it work. And it was in Troutman, so it wasn’t even close to Mooresville.

I didn’t know anyone there, so it was pretty easy to work all hours of the night. I was going to these race shops and acting bigger than I was. Like they had no idea I was working out of a storage unit, spraying with plastic hanging around a little box.

But I kept on doing stuff. People loved my work and the more I traveled to the track, the more people I met. I kept getting bigger shops, adding more people on (to help paint). I would start getting way too overwhelmingly busy — kind of like we are now. I never really put out, “Hey, we’re hiring” or “bring an application,” but I just found these guys along the way. And it’s actually worked better that way, because they’re coming to me and wanting to do the job.

We’re a very tight group of guys. I get paint shops asking all the time, “How does your shop work? You have the perfect formula.” Honestly, it’s just because I have the best guys in the world working for me.

There’s a great chemistry, it sounds like.

So a lot of helmet painters — not to name any names — you see one guy at the forefront of the business but there might be two to 10 guys back at the shop painting all these helmets. They don’t get the recognition I think they need. So my guys, they do a helmet from start to finish. It never gets passed around. One guy will start it and finish it, and then he’ll put his signature on the back.

Say John Hunter Nemechek or Matt Crafton comes in. Well, the same guy paints his helmets every time. So you actually get a bond with the driver. That’s something we do because we’re in North Carolina. People don’t just email back and forth, they can physically stop in and talk to us, and it makes our job a lot easier.

You give your guys a lot of responsibility and are building them up. You’re not threatened by the possibility they might want to start their own thing?

Honestly, it’s a lot more work to start a helmet shop than people might realize. There are certain state laws you have to abide by with the paint, and paint is just expensive by itself. To have all the best equipment and any tool you need at your fingertips like at our shop, that’s key. If they were to go out and start by themselves, it would be a lot of work to try and come up to our level, I guess.

I’m not stopping anybody that wants to do that, but with the guys and how we work with our chemistry, I don’t think anybody would want to do that. Hopefully it doesn’t happen.

I’ve always wondered about people moving to North Carolina and starting a shop down the street or something, but that’s why I’m so personal with everyone. Loyalty is a big thing with these younger drivers, and if I can keep them from K&N to Trucks, all the way to Cup, then that would be really cool to see them go through the ranks like that.

A painter works on a helmet in the Off Axis Paint shop.

It sounds like you’ve learned a lot about the personal touch. What else learned from being a business owner and a boss?

I feel like I’m still learning. I never went to college for business or anything like that. I have a lot of good mentors on the corporate side with money and invoices and how to do certain things, talk to certain people. I’m really lucky to know the owner of Bass Pro (Johnny Morris) because he’s from my hometown, so he gives me a lot of tips. He built his business from a bait shop in the back of a liquor store to the empire it is now.

So when you have guys like that in your corner, or somebody like Sam Bass, who talks to me quite a bit on the art side of it, you can’t really go wrong. You’ve got all-star people who are a dial away on your phone.

I’ve learned a lot. Made a lot of mistakes. But those guys help me to say, “I made this mistake 20 years ago. Don’t make it.”

So you can’t be afraid to ask for help or humble yourself in that way, I suppose?

Not at all. I call Sam quite often to go to lunch with him and say, “Let me run this by you.” He’s kind of in a position now where he’s not doing as much artwork and he can take the time to help us out. I think he sees a lot of himself in us — starting out and really being passionate about artwork. It’s not just a business to me where we’re making money painting helmets. I really enjoy watching Tyler Reddick beat Elliott Sadler at the line in Daytona and going to victory lane. Like it’s the coolest thing in the world to see your friends win races and have your helmets on.

So you’ve said the shop is basically a family with the drivers. How much have those tight-knit relationships played into your success?

I’d say that’s 100 percent of it. It’s not just doing good artwork, it’s the personality side of it. I joke around and say we have a KBM/TRD day care, because all those kids will come in there. They either go to the go-kart track or come to Off Axis. Which is cool with me, because I enjoy hanging out with those kids.

There’s not a lot of people in this garage who can probably walk into any hauler they want to and sit down and have a conversation with anybody without going through a PR person or whatever. So that’s really cool. I just feel like they respect me as somebody they can talk to.

Honestly, I get the most text messages after races of (drivers) wanting other drivers’ numbers, because they know I kind of know everyone and I won’t be afraid to give it out. It’s either “I want to congratulate that person” or “I’m angry at that person,” so I kind of learn from that and stay out of any drama I can.

What advice would you give others who have seen what you’ve accomplished and want to be the next you?

Just come work at Off Axis. We’ve got plenty of helmets to paint. If you’re good, come on over.

Honestly, keep doing it every day. I go back to my old high school a lot and talk to art kids there, and they think it’s the coolest thing in the world when I bring in a helmet and say, “This thing won Daytona and it’s been on TV.” They think, “There’s no way I can get to that level,” but I was in the same spot as them — barely graduating high school and not knowing what I was going to do with my life after leaving that place.

So anybody young, just pick up an air brush or markers or a pottery wheel — whatever you’re into — and just put your head down and keep doing it. Don’t worry about what other people say — like “Oh, you suck.” I still don’t think I’m that good, but I wasn’t good at all when I first started. So that’s just from working long hours and perfecting your craft. It’s like any of these drivers: They didn’t start out in NASCAR, they started out in go-karts. As long as you’re moving forward and getting better every day, I think you can do pretty much whatever you want to do.

For creative types, what’s the most important element about the job?

In NASCAR, it’s deadlines. That’s the biggest thing. We have never missed a deadline, and I’ve been in North Carolina almost six years now. You might have two days to get a 40-hour helmet done, but as long as you make that deadline, you are gold to any of these teams. Having the shop right there in North Carolina and not having to ship stuff back and forth, if you can get it done quick and have it look good, that’s the biggest thing.

Don’t be lazy. There’s a lot of helmet painters who give us a bad name and say, “Oh, you don’t wake up until noon and start your day late and that’s why you work until 2 a.m.” No. We start the day at 8:30 or 9 every morning and we leave when we’re done. We don’t just clock out at 5 and say we’ll do it tomorrow.

In NASCAR, it never stops. People think we have three months off for the offseason, but honestly that’s when we work the hardest. Before Homestead is even over, we’re already starting Daytona stuff.

Any final words or advice for people reading?

Just hard work, man. As long as you work hard and are passionate about what you’re doing, then you’ll make any goal you can put out there for yourself.