All right.

This week is Ryan Blaney.

This is our first NASCAR guest ever.

Ryan, thank you for that. How you been? How's everything going? Yeah, going good. Thank you guys for having me on. You know, fans of you guys and cool that you invited me on the show and honored to be the first NASCAR guy you've had on. Well, I got to be, like for me, I got to be honest. And wess will jump in here who's got me into nascar more but i feel like the last couple years the sport got really i don't want to say younger but it felt like it got more exciting and then there was like the gambling element that kind of came in and like for me i was like oh shit i'll just start gambling i see the odds i just pick a few, I was like, one of these guys going to hit. But then West started writing a lot more. And I feel like for me, a lot of the misconceptions of NASCAR kind of like went away. And then I know Wes had a lot of question on that. But do you feel like it got younger and more exciting and just a little bit different these last handful of years, the sport itself?

Yeah, I think so.

You know, I think NASCAR and the drivers have done a pretty good job of maybe reaching

a different demographic, you know, a younger demographic maybe and just kind of how we've

gone about things.

And there's been, you know, a handful of younger guys coming in and doing well that I think, you know, a lot of the

younger generation can't associate with just because they're closer to their age. So I feel like

that's that's helped out too. So it's a combination of things. But yeah, just, you know,

that's what's all about trying to reach

fans who've never seen NASCAR before young or old you know trying to reach them and maybe

it catches their eye and they enjoy it that's what uh that's what a big part of kind of what we do

is right is being entertaining to people watching and um just trying to put on good races

i think that's what draws people in is trying to make the racing as good as possible too. I think for me, like, I probably started watching last year during the pandemic. NASCAR was kind of the first sport to like come back. That kind of makes sense, you know? And so I'm like, you know, I'll turn it on. See country folks like it. I grew up in a small town. Never was really into it. But I turned it on and I'm like, holy shit, this is so fucking cool. Like you guys are flying. And first of all, I thought NASCAR was like football where every track was the same and then I'm like no there's different tracks

there's different you got to turn the car depending on the track and then within a few weeks I'm like

screaming at the TV and so I think for me like and there's like you know people fighting on pit road

get to hear you guys on the radio being like what the fuck's he doing and like so i i feel like

there was so many misconceptions for me and asking you as a driver like do you think that's something

that you guys as a sport have to kind of contend with a little bit where somebody that's never

watched naskar before just has this picture of what it's like in their mind and couldn't be further from the truth or a lot of things. Yeah. I think you said it well, you know, and I think you were a good example. You know, never watched it before, decided to turn it on and became a fan of it, just understanding it more, right? And kind of the, you just start learning what all goes into it.

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