Throttle Therapy with Katherine Legg is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment.

Hello, Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of Throttle Therapy with Me Katherine Legg, and I am extremely proud to introduce this week's guest.

I have worked very closely with him this year and he's become a friend, a mentor, a little bit of a driver coach sometimes and also my team owner.

It is Jordan Anderson.

Jordan has been an amazing role model for me in more ways than one.

He's obviously a great race card driver.

He has built a team from scratch, and he has surrounded himself with just some awesome human beings.

Like the team is great, it's filled with everybody is amazing and I love them all very much.

And he's just done a fantastic job of getting me up to speed in an Exfinity car.

And I'm very honored to be able to call him a friend, and I think we have a very similar upbringing.

Okay, he was on this side of the pond.

I was on the other side of the pond.

I was doing go cutting.

He was doing midgets and dirt and all the things that you're going to hear about coming up here, So not the same, but kind of the same.

So we have like a parallel path that we ran up until the point he decided to get into business and run a team, which boggles my mind because there's so much work involved.

So it's fascinating to me to see how he can drive and be a team owner at the same time and keep all of those balls in the air.

He works harder than anybody else I know.

Welcome to the pod to Jordan Anderson.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me plenty to talk about.

We've had quite a year and all kind of good things going on, so definitely lots of talk about.

I know, I'm fascinated by people's stories, and so I wanted to start by talking about your story and your journey through racing to get to this year and to get to how I met you and we started working together.

But like I wanted to start at the beginning because having met your dad and having obviously you met my dad, there's a bunch of similarities, and I think it's fascinating that halfway across the globe we've had kind of relatively similar stories.

Although I have to say, I don't think I would ever get into earning a team because it looks way too stressful.

But when did you start in racing?

And how Yeah, it definitely was cool getting to know your dad and then at Indy when my dad was there and your dad was there, like hearing them swap stories and you had the big ocean between us.

But how much similarity there was.

So that's just the cool thing in racing in general.

As you look at soccer, baseball, football, there's typically a pretty standard route of how you get from your high school to college to pro like that path is pretty well laid out.

In racing, like it's there's no path that's consistent from driver to drive, like there's similarities, but everybody has their own journey.

But I think I was probably four or five years old, and back then, like I still fairly vividly remember it is ESPN Classics used to air like old races from like the nineties, So I was born in ninety one, so this would have been ninety seven to ninety eight, like it was showing early nineties, late eighties, and like just loved it.

It would be on late at night like that was always like the thing that I love to watch as a kid and told my parents, like them there on the spot, you know, as a five six year old, I'm like, this is what I want to be.

I want to be a race car driver one day.

And I'm sure for them they are like, all right, we're just going to put that in a category of cowboy spaceman race car driver.

Like you can do anything you want to do when you grow up.

You just just you know, believe.

And I was six and our neighbor told us about a go kart race going on on the other side of town, and it was a WKA National race on dirt quarter mile track.

And we head out there and we're sitting in the grand stands and my mom and dad are both pretty social people, and we're sitting there and we walk around and like, you know, I see that there's kids my age out there racing.

I'm like, wow, this is cool, Like they're like me and I want to do this.

And my parents kind of hit off with a family that was in the grandstand and there was a kid that was there.

His name was Nick Hutcheons and he actually still in the race and he works at has now, but he was like four or five years I'm older than me, but he was a two or three time national champion in WK.

But he'd got a direct broke his wrist.

So he was out of the car that night and kind of got talking.

Come to find out, we only lived a few blocks from their house in Columbia, South Carolina, where I was from, and they were like, hey, he's gonna get his cast off next week.

If you want to come try and drive on his go carts, you're more than welcome to come out and cut a few laps and see if this is really what you want to do.

And so I go out there and they let me borrow his jacket and the helmet.

You know, back then the go carts, Like all you wore was tennis shoes, jeans, and the like the leather jacket that you wore over all that stuff and and your helmets.

So went out did that.

There's a picture of me somewhere and helmets like three sizes too big, the seat's too big.

I'm like moving around.

But I knew right then and there that's that's what I wanted to do.

So I fell in love on the spot, and we had no idea, like we weren't a racing family.

My dad was in real estate and my mom owned a hair salon, and you know, I remember the first race that we went to, somebody's like, hey, you really need to look at your front end the toes out, and we looked at our feet like we were clueless on anything to do with racing and set up.

But my dad had his little lawn trailer and we had our go cart and off we went and race go carts.

From the time I was seven, eight, nine, ten eleven, we would run nine or ten races a year.

Nothing crazy, had a lot of travel, and we just kind of stayed South Carolina, North Carolina.

And then two thousand and two they had an exhibition race at one of the go kart tracks I ran with the Bandalero cars, a little small made by the Legend Car Company, a US Ledgend Cars, and they brought out an exhibition and for a couple hundred bucks you could run some laps and it did that and that was kind of when this journey started.

When moving to bangel Aira's because my dad was like, hey, we will help buy the Bandallero kind of help get you going.

But if this is something you want want to keep doing, we get to figure out a way to pay for all this.

And we went to our first banele our race and he's like, see these other race cars.

They have logos on them and sponsors, and yours is white.

We got to do something about this.

And that was when my parents both self employed, very much entrepreneurs.

They kind of helped me put together three ring binder and the deck and all this stuff as a twelve year old and just kind of got talking to people we knew and got some connections, and basically what they would do is they put together this little three ring binder that we put together, and they kind of helped me with with putting together, and they would basically get a meeting set up with owners these businesses, and I would go in as a twelve year old and sell my case and say, hey, this is what I'm doing, here's what I can do for you, and.

I love this so much.

Were you winning good?

So the first year, we had a local franchisee that owned three Chick fil as, he signed on, he gave us a check.

That was that's why I still love Chick fil Ay this day.

Another that I know about that's that's and I still can't.

We got to get you to chick fl one day.

It's a must.

The other one was a car dealer in Columbia.

He owned vol of the Mercedes Twitter dealership and that was probably where the biggest life lesson came.

Twelve years old, walk into his dealership, his office on the second floor, walk up there, pitch him my case.

Here's what I can do for you.

My race is gonna be broadcast on Speed Channel.

Back then, like here's the whole deal.

And I remember this day I walked in.

This was two thousand and two.

So I asked for twenty five hundred dollars to be on the hood, which was the Bandelaira's back then were five or six thousand dollars.

Pitch my case, asked for twenty five hundred dollars.

He's like, thanks for your time, We'll be in touch.

And I walked down the steps.

I'm almost out of his dealership showroom for and he calls me back up and I'm like, oh, did I do something wrong?

Did I see something wrong on my in trouble?

And his name was Dick Dyer, and he was probably in his seventies at the time, and he said, I'm gonna teach you a big life lesson right here.

He said, you're selling yourself short.

Gotta shoot for hire.

He said, I'm gonna give you a check for five thousand dollars today here on the spot.

I want to be on the hood of your Bandallero, and I want to teach you a little lesson here that you always shoot for more and everyone centter fors you just need to keep viewing yourself better, you keep selling yourself more if you want to make it in the sport.

I mean that's that was twenty three, twenty two, twenty eight years ago, and I stuck with me ever since.

And that was kind of where the sponsorship side and understanding the business side kind of started from there and Randon ben Aleerro's for two years, we traveled around a little bit with that and we were still doing it out of our house in South Carolina.

And when I was I guess I was fourteen, moved in Legend Car series and that's where I had a lot of success.

And Legend cars were big back then.

The summer shoot out at Charlotte they would have and semi pro you'd have sixty of them, seventy of them show up and so there was like a mains be Maine.

It was like what the Chili Bowl is now.

That's how Legend.

Yeah, you know, you were happy just to make the a main and semi pro.

Back then, you know, there were seamanes and d Manes and all that stuff going on.

But ran semipro that year in two thousand and four, and then in two thousand and five started to kind of get the hang of it, kept some more sponsorship and won the Nationals that year up in Lake Erie, Pennsylvania.

That was really big.

And then moved up to two thousand and six, moved up to the pro class and Legend Cars did that and ran a late model truck at Hickory sum and then went back to Legend Cars in seven because sponsorship got kind of tight that year.

And that was kind of one of my other unique ideas I had was we painted the Legend car white, put it on an open trailer, and drove around town and for a hundred bucks you could sign it to become a sponsor.

And I kid you not.

We raised fifteen thousand dollars that year doing it that way, oh wow.

And it led to other partners ended up doing more and met a lot of people that way, and that was a great year.

We finished second in the National points.

That year, I won the Summer Shootout Championship.

We won like thirty two races that year, really solid season.

Ran pro again the next year, won the Summer Shootout title for the second year in a row, and had a lot of great success that year as well.

So wanted back to back out there at Charlotte and had a lot of fun with that.

So did you know from that moment on that you wanted to be a NASCAR driver?

Yeah, at that point, like I was definitely like I'm making this reality at the time, I'm seventeen.

Two thousand and eight was when I moved to North Carolina.

There's a family that let me move into their guest bedroom mem Worsville.

They were nice enough to open up their house for me and moved up here.

I guess I was either sixteen or seventeen back then.

That's brave.

Yeah, And then did that.

So it was working in the shop, you know, working on the cars, learning all this stuff, and moved up here.

And then the very next year is when I went to college.

Two thousand and nine, I went to Belmont Abbey college here in Charlotte.

Didn't make it through all four years there.

I have the degree on the wall at the house and got a business management degree.

Okay, so I got that, But that year was when I started racing dirt, and I ran dirt for two years.

I ran a dirt lay model around the Carolina's.

Looking back, I'm so thankful I did it because I learned a lot.

I think, looking back, it definitely kind of maybe setting me back a couple of years because back then it was you know, you wouldn't go from legend cars to asphal lad model to arc or that was the path, and here I am.

I kind of went dirt, which I felt like a lateral move, but we thought at the time that was that was the way to go.

I had a lot of fun.

I raced a lot on the budget that we had.

Bet I taught you like driving skills, being able to drive on there.

I bet that actually like really helped your being an all rounded driver as well.

Yeah, it was.

It was definitely a struggle the first year because growing up racing asphalt and then you jump in this delay model.

It's like complete poor opposite of anything you've ever done before.

You know, I still it ate me up the first time we went to the track and raced because we had this beautiful car.

I put a white body on it, like it was so beautiful.

In the first race, like this guy goes out in practice and stor slams me in practice and goes off.

I'm like, They're like, that's how we do it around here.

You know.

It's track is leancaester Way in South Carolina, and that was my orientation to duration that night.

But this is where the journey kind of gets interesting is that was two thousand and nine, twenty ten, twenty eleven, sold my dirt stuff, a lot of asphalt, Super Late Model, We ran the Pro All Star Series, did cr did all that stuff and had my actual hometown one of my big sponsors back then in the city of Forest Akers.

They jumped on board.

I sold them, went to town council, pitched the city council and becoming a partner.

They had some advertising dollars and they put in the racing program back then and did that deal with them, and that's kind of where it took off.

I had enough fun to run about ten races a year.

I ran ten that first year.

We had I think eight top fives, had a lot of success in the late model that year, and then ran late models again in twenty twelve.

Won three races that year up at Southern National.

Had a lot of success with that thing.

And the following year, twenty fourteen, I meet this guy here in Mooresville.

My age wants to start a race team.

All right, I got my late Model sitting here, but this is an opportunity to go NASCAR racing.

Back then, what was the East Series?

What's like what ARCA is now?

And he's got this big idea.

We're going to go get a car, We're gonna put everything together.

We're and go run Richmond is our first race.

And so I've found the car, found the motor, the team, set it all up.

We go run Richmond and wasn't the best race.

We blew a tire, got caught up in somebody else's wreck, and tore the car up.

But two weeks later I got a call from NASCAR, Hey, the check bounced for the entry.

And then Goodyear calls me, hey the check bounce for the tires, and the crew chiefs calling me, hey, I haven't gotten paid yet, And so all this stuff starts avalanching, and then this guy he starts getting some trouble with his business and all this other stuff's going on, and basically the world is collapsing around me at this point.

And I kind of took some time and I called my dad.

I'm like, hey, what do you think I need to do in this situation?

Never been here before?

And he's like, you know, what, if anything else, you need to figure out to make it right.

Like that's what I'll leave you with.

This is the advice he efform He's figure out to make it right by everybody.

And so I kind of wrestled with what to do in that situation there.

And you know, just got my college degree, I can sell everything and just go work in the sport like and you know, I've got opportunities, but at least one keep a good name, I think at this point, So I put my Late Model up for sale, put my motors up for sale, and sold everything I had.

I think back then, the late Model and everything I had, I sold it off for about fifty five or sixty thousand dollars.

It was somewhere in there.

Because the debts were about forty forty forty five thousand dollars to pay everybody off and make it right.

And remember selling the car, the guy came from Arizona to buy it, loaded it up.

I just get that point there.

I'm like, all right, this is It's been a great run.

I've had a lot of fun.

I've been able to chase after something I was passionate for, and this is just kind of where it ends.

But just got everybody paid.

NASCAR good year, all the people got everybody paid, and I had a little bit of money in the bank.

So I'm like, all right, onto the next chapter life.

And that's where things started to get interesting, because this was like the middle of the year twenty fourteen, and I had that little bit of money in the bank and it was getting down like two or three races left in the year.

I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna go call some truck teams and I at least want to say I made a NASCAR start before I'm done, just so I can have that box check.

And started calling some teams around and I found one the fifty truck back then, and they said, hey, if you can cover the tire bill for the weekend and you don't rink the truck, you can come race for us at Phoenix, and went out there and did that deal, and I think we ended up finishing twenty second or twenty third.

You know, it was a very tight operation and we made the most of it and raced very clean.

But what's crazy is had I not everything that happened that way, like you know, selling the late Models, selling us stuff, like I would probably still be racing late Models, maybe to this day because that opportunity would have never happened.

So that was like the greatest blessing in disguise because I sold all the stuff, had the extra funding left aside, and was able to go run that truck race at Phoenix.

And then that's when things started to snowball and the team basic goes like, hey, our friend that owns this truck, he needs a driver for Homestead if you can cover the tire bill there.

So I'm like, all right, let's keep it going.

So then I go run Homestead the next week.

And you know, so here in a matter of two weeks, I run Phoenix, I run Homestead, finished both races, I think homes So we were twenty seven, twenty eighth, and I'm like, all right, we're we're off and run.

So then I spent all off season twenty fourteen figuring out how to go truck race.

And I had all this stuff lined up for this team, and like two weeks before dayton and everything kind of fell apart.

You know, I've been working all year, here's all this stuff.

And that's when Mike Carmon called me going the seventy four car back then, and he said, hey, you know, I've got this one truck sitting here.

If you can work on it, take a track, cover all expenses.

I will supply you with the truck and I'll help you find motors to go race, but everything else is on you.

Tires, pit crew, travel, all this.

And I still had my old duley from the dirt race and I had my forty foot trailer.

And that's kind of when that journey started there with Mike and we showed up at dayton On and we missed the race at Daytona.

We went to Atlanta and finished eighteenth, and now we go to Kansas and we finished sixteenth, and then everything just started going from there.

And long story short, twenty fifteen, we ran the entire year that year on one truck, the same truck all year it went from far I took it.

We finished.

I think the best finished that year was thirteenth at Michigan.

We finished like sixteenth at Mossport with the same truck.

It ran talented good.

Like today, How did you know how to set it up or what to do?

It was uh kind of trial by error like at that point the pressure was like there wasn't a lot of expectations, so a lot of learning went into it and met some people along the way, Like there were guys for bigger teams that were like, hey, you know, I'll help you if you can throw me some cash, I'll come over at night and help you set it up and do this and do that.

And you know, back then the truck Series used to have two one hour practice sessions and all the teams would do like when we ran with you at like Rockingham, and we were able to do the mock qualifying run at the end, Like back then, that was the norm and every truck race, like every every big team would do a mock qualifying run, and I would go up and down the garage area and hustle tires like I would basically cut my practice short twenty minutes just to get out of the truck to make sure I could be waiting at those guys stalls to buy their tires when they were done.

Because they'd only got one lap on online.

Yeah, one or two laps, And that was back then.

I would buy one set of stickers and then the rest of the allotment was scuffed tires.

And that's how you raced that year.

You know, I could knock out my whole tire bill for less than three grand, and just because I was buying the U stuff that those guys were getting rid of.

Like there was definitely an industry within an industry from that standpoint.

But you know, that was kind of where it was like, all right, this is I can do this.

And I think that year was kind of where I felt like I was where I wanted to be and felt like I could do it.

We had some good runs, My confidence was up, was learning the business side, was kind of running the race team.

You know, Mike was providing the truck and all stuff, but I was able to learn how to operate the business, what needed to be done every week, how to deal with the people and do it.

And so it was kind of like a slow introduction to the team operation.

Side, and I didn't realize the time how much I loved that part of it as much as I did the actual driving interesting and so that fast forward like Grand Trucks twenty six with another team, and at the end of the year ideal I basically got bought out by another driver for that ride.

So twenty seventeen I went back to Mike to drive the same truck but a different number.

So we went back old school again twenty seventeen, and at the end of twenty seventeen we had a lot of good runs a year as well, same thing and did a lot with a little just took the same truck and ran.

I didn't run oldor that year, but we took the same truck again and ran everywhere.

And at the end of the year, I'm like, you know what, like three years into this deal on trucks, I can do it.

I have a pretty good idea what it cost.

And along the way, in twenty sixteen, we were out racing in Saint Louis and that was where I met John bamb Rito cold called them while we were out there, I basically try to ask for some help on buying two sets of tires.

They bought tires for May.

We raced that night back in twenty sixteen, finished ninth or tenth at Saint Louis and started that relationship.

And so then at twenty seventeen I called John.

I'm like, hey, you know, I've got this dream and vision of starting my own team.

You know, can I count on you to help me?

You know, basically be a bigger partner this year, and what's your commitment level?

And he basically, hey, I'll help buy your two first motors and you know, your first two trucks.

So there was another family at the time that had helped me some.

They bought another truck for me.

So basically it started year off.

We had three trucks, two motors, and a group of guys and we were able to rent space out of another race team shop up here in Statesville, and we were off and running and first race is a new team.

We went down Daytona and finished ninth, so we were checking out of top ten to start with, and wow, that journey just kind of started drawing from there.

So we ran the team twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen.

Twenty nineteen was big.

That was the year I bought our first feather light or first big trailer.

I thought we had made it at that point, and twenty twenty and twenty one I convinced John like, hey, we need to look at Exfinity racing like this is the next step, Like let's let's do this.

And we had this, I kid you not.

I had probably fifteen pages of Excel spreadsheets of budgets and I had Plan A, Plan B, and I had all these variations of what we are going to operate and the budget cap and what everything was like it was all worked out.

And I had this plan and basically went to John and I was like, Hey, if you will owe me the money, here's how I'll do this.

I'll have this money coming in and I'll pay you back.

Like so we basically started out and we bought you know, five cars, five motors, had really nice stuff, and we go down to Daytona and this is still kind of right in the middle of COVID some of it's slowly starting to wind down, but finished second in the truck race the night before.

So we finished second in Daytona two years in a row, like by that much.

That kind of sucks, I know, but was on cloud nine.

Either way, I'm going to do the racetrack on Saturday, just finished second.

We were like ninth in practice with the Infinity car the day before, so super excited and like we're getting ready to roll out to qualify and it starts raining and we're a new team with no points.

And so back then during cod if you missed Daytona, there was no qualifying for the first ten races, right, and it kind of threw a wrench in our plans.

And I'm looking at John and he's like, so that would you know?

We just just gone out exactly.

And so we kept racing the truck that year and the first race we're going to have to be able to go back was Coda and it was Coda and Charlotte'll bed two races back to back qualifying to try to get enough points to get in the top forty en points to be locked in for the next race.

And this is where the team that you know today kind of started to evolve.

It It moved from Jordan Anderson Racing as a team for me to race and just something much bigger than me.

And that's when John became a partner with the bomb Riata Auto Sports side.

But the first driver we put in.

I'm like, I need to get somebody in this car that can go run good, put some points on the stage for us, and go make this happen.

So called Shane Martin from Chevrolet and started brainstorming.

I had Robbie Benton helped me at the time.

Back then who's over Rick?

Whres now?

And we're like, let's get Tyler Reddick.

He just won Dick Twinity Series not too far long ago.

He knows the RCR cars.

He was actually driving at RCR at the time in the Cup Series.

So he put him in the car at Coda and we go and finish eighth, and I'm like, wow, is it gonna be like this every week?

Like this is?

This is pretty nice?

And then we go to Charlotte and we finished fourth the very next wi wow, we have these great results, but we're still six points out of top forty.

So we're still outside looking in.

And this is when things get really fun.

Is there was a journalist that texted me on the way home from Charlotte.

He goes, hey, check out the rule book on the eligibility on who will be locked into the race.

I said, what do you mean?

Said, well, all the past winners from this year are guaranteed in no matter what they're driving.

So I started doing some digging and the only one that would fit what we were doing was Josh Berry.

He was driving part time for Junior that year.

He had won Martinsville and so basically called him.

I was like, hey, you got any interest in doing this?

He said yeah, So we basically put him in the car at mid Ohio even though we were forty first at points, he locked the car in the race.

He goes up there and finishes eighth at mid Ohio.

So wow, amazing start, first three races, three top tens in a row, and now we're fortieth in points.

And then we raced the rest of that year and we had Austin Dillon, Ty Dillan, Sage carem cas Garala I ran.

I got to finish fifth to Talladaya that year, like had a lot of different drivers, different runs.

And then that was kind of where it started to evolve a little bit into more of a legitimate team and growing and doing things.

And we ran well enough that year to where attracted Mayat Snyder and tax Layer to come run for us in twenty two.

We ran the year with Maya.

We finished second at Portland, won our first stage, almost won the race that day, and then the following year we grew to two cars.

Parker Redslot came in with Fumpkaway, Jeb Burton came in, and Parker was kind of an unknown back then.

He had run some Marcus stuff, he had made a few Infinity starts and he came in that year and then did really well.

Jeb was kind of and rebuilding year because the team was that before had a lot of struggles that year.

So both guys came in, they ran with us twenty three, twenty four.

You know, both had a lot of success.

Jeb got our first one for US at Talladega.

Parker got our first two poles for US last year, and that led us to this year, you know, growing to where we've run the third car a lot more with you and myself and Austin Green, and you know, we've got Blaine Perkins come in, had a lot of success and Jeb almost won TWADEA for US again this year.

So I, you know, I think that's what it was.

It took it took a little while to share the story there, but I think if I could have looked back on this journey, couldn't have predicted, couldn't have ridden it the way things have played out.

I just feel so very fortunate that in the moment, a lot of the things that I went to felt like why am I doing this?

Why?

You know?

And the thing that I always think back to was when I missed that race at Daytona back in twenty fifteen.

That was like the pinnacle of race car driver was getting to go to Daytona like that, was looking around the stands like, Wow, I'm here, I'm on the stage, and to miss the race was blow And I remember back then Mike Mitler's team was right beside us the sixty three truck and Carl Edwards had come by to see those guys, and I kind of talked to Carl a little bit.

Back then he knew the store and he came with that put his arm around me.

He's like, hey, don't get so caught up in the destination that you don't appreciate the journey you're on.

And that stuck with me through that whole process from twenty fifteen to where we are today about embracing the journey that you know, so many people I've met and passes of crossed have come from something bad happening or what the world would say is bad, has opened up a door and opened up many doors that I would have never ever had the opportunity to go through.

So you know, it's it's kind of the combination of a never give up mentality of you know, I'm going to do this and you know, yeah it has it changed along the way one hundred percent.

But being a little bit stubborn, a little bit you know, a faith mixed in there has has allowed this scene to continue to go.

And it's just like not going to give up like this just failure is not option.

We're going to keep pushing, keep pushing.

And been very fortunate to be surrounded a lot of good people, a lot of good mentors, people that have offered a lot of good advice and help along the way.

And yeah, definitely when I say it takes a village, like this isn't something that I've done by myself, Like it's a lot of people that have helped this journey, from family to friends and people along the way and other teams that have helped out and sold you know, meet cars and parts and pieces and stuff like that.

So definitely is you know, I think back when I was a kid, all these people like, oh, you'll never never make in the sport without the big check book or the millions of dollars, and you know, well, here we are today, and I definitely didn't start with that.

So it's definitely been fun to watch the journey evolve and hopefully, I know my story is a lot like yours and the path of not coming from a racing family or having a family had the funding to write the checks and you know, again getting into our sport is so unique in that there's not one path.

But if anything, hopefully, whether it's a kid that's out racing at Hickory or racing a dirt track, like, if you do want to make it to this level, enough time and enough of you know, persistence, like it, you can you can make it.

It's it's a grind, but the opportunity is there and it's been a fun ridd and the story is definitely still getting written every week.

But you know, just thankful to have been a part of this from where it started to or it is today.

Yeah, I think it's interesting to me that a lot of these things happened because something fell apart.

So for example, this year for me came together because of two things.

Didn't get a ride at Indy like we were planning on, and also then had Phoenix happen and had to scramble, which is why I ended up with you.

So it's like sometimes when you think that things are falling apart, they're actually falling together.

We're going to take a quick break, but we will be right back.

Welcome back to Throttle Therapy.

The other thing that struck me about your team is the people.

You have the most fantastic team, like the people, and I know that everybody is very solect to about who they use and everything else, but you, you know as well as I do.

You walk around the paddock and every team has a different like feel and fit, and your team is comprised of the most awesome people and I love every single one of them.

And there's no bullshit or politics, and everybody's like pulling in the right direction.

I don't know whether it's just that I don't see that, but it's it was very refreshing and very awesome, and it's like such a great environment for me to be in.

And I was talking about driving for MSR and why we had success with them, and you and I haven't had successes yet.

I feel like we've been super unlucky, getting taken out of literally every race that we've been in.

But I've learned so much and I've enjoyed it, and I feel like it was successful for me even though the results weren't there.

That makes sense, And so that leads me to my next question, which is, well, two things.

It's like twofold.

Do you enjoy the leading and the leadership and the team part of things and like making it into this like week in week out competitive team that you know is climbing the grid and is well respected and everybody wants to work for and all the things, Like is that now enough about the racing?

Does the fact that you've got a baby on the way take away from what you're doing in racing?

Do you have aspirations to be this big Cup team?

Like?

How did things change from you wanting to be a race cut driver to like how does all that fit?

Now?

That's It's a question I asked myself.

And sometimes I have to take time to walk out in the shop at night, like when everybody's gone and look around and be like, all right, become a blessings, like it's even on that I built this and on the worst days, like look at what we have going on right now, Like there are days in the sport where it's like you get and I'm sure you've been there, like you get knocked down, you're like out and you're like what in the world are we going to do next?

Like how I'm going to pull out of this hole here?

And that's where sometimes you just have to like take just take a break, like look around and be like all right, it's not in the world.

Tomorrow is a new day.

It's a fresh start, like no matter how bad things all get, like if I can wake up my feet at the ground, like have another opportunity.

And that's kind of been the mentality this thing, and the desire to still races is definitely still there, you know, it's definitely take it.

It's taking a little bit of a back seat, Like that's when you climb in that race car like I have I'm like the true definition of like ADHD, Like you know, there's ae hundred things on my mind going on at once, and for whatever reason, when you get in a race car, like it just all goes away, like it just kind of clears your head and you just go out there and you're just your tongue's hanging out and you got you it all and it's just it's just a feeling them like any other.

But I think what I've looked at now is like you have to look at the opportunity, where is what's the best opportunity to make the biggest impact.

And I think for me, when I look at it, you know, when it started, it was you know, Jordan the race car driver, like this is what I want to do, This is what I enjoyed doing, This is where my passion is.

And it was a very i want to say selfish mentality, but that's as a race car driver.

You kind of have to be a little selfish in your career path because you are a brand, you're creating, and you have to figure out what's best for you.

And now it's like it's flip to where it's like what's best for us, what's best for the team?

You know, and with us here, you know, we're up to thirty two people, Like when you count the thirty two people that are full time, and that's how you've accounting the pit crew and the spotters.

I mean it's up to sixty people on a full weekend that are that are a part of this.

When you think about those people and then you think about wives or husbands and the additional you start thinking about the you know, one hundred plus people, and it's it's like, it's a cool feeling to say, hey, you know, these people are part of this journey.

They're helping make this happen, and it's definitely bigger than me at this point.

And I think that there's a lot of fulfillment in seeing people come in that, you know, we want our first race at Talladega.

I think probably three quarters of team that was their first win too, because they had either been on smaller teams or were near to the sport.

And it's like, man, this is a this is a great feeling to do this and to check this box.

And so I think as this thing has grown and going on and the competitive nature that I have, there's as much fulfilled out of seeing the team succeed and then giving people the tools and resources to see them succeed in positions as there was, you know, for me to go out and run well on the race cars.

So it's definitely evolved a little bit over time, but you know, as that fulfillment, fulfillment comes, it's just so cool to give people the tools and resources.

That's what I tell people.

You know, if you need something, let me know.

I'm all for that.

And that has definitely created a bit of a culture here to where you know, we have people that want to be here, that want to be a part of this, that are pushing to get better.

And you know, with with me on the team side, the competition is important.

The optics of a team, you know, the way the haulers and pit boxes are wrapped, the way the cars look like, that's that's important.

Presentation is super it definitely is.

And then you've got guys that when you have the nice stuff, they take pride in it.

And then that kind of flows out from from everything else in the organization.

So you know, here and you say that that that means a lot because I feel like we try to build a culture of people that want to be here.

Like I went through a season in twenty sixteen driving for a team that was just like I was getting your race every week, but I was miserable because I was around people but didn't want to be there.

Like in there, the guys were just collecting check like, yeah, the one crew chief was like trying to put a different driver in there because he thought one thing.

Like so I went through a whole year of that.

I'm like, you know, if I'm ever in a position to make sure this stuff hasn't happened, like I was about ready to get out of racing at that point, Like I think I would go get a job at a bank before I do this every single day, And so I think, you know, once you go through that, you're like, all right, there are red flags and signs of one things and people that come in, like you just got to have people that aren't a cancer to the team, like they are there those people unfortunately, and sometimes you got it.

It's like a race car you got we were just told about this morning.

You got to make an air pressure adjustment or a ledge adjustment and move people around and do the right thing for the team.

And it's a learning process, Like it's the toughest thing I've ever done, by far to figure out to put a team together.

But when you see it all click at the racetrack and everybody pulls in the same direction, like we work very hard on making sure that it's not the twenty seven, the thirty one to thirty two that it's our team together that you might see going through tech.

If the twenty seven passes first, they're going to hang around and make sure the other two are good.

And same thing in the shop, like I've got one guy he puts the gear in all three of the cars, and then one guy's on the plate making sure final scale is right.

So it's like when we kind of mix and measured that way.

It's not you versus me in the shop, it's us versus the other guys at the racetrack that were up again.

So it's really worked out well for us.

And Shane Whitbeck, our competition director, has done a phenomenal job.

I mean he's other one of those guys.

I met Shane.

I bought some cars from back Keslawski team back in twenty eighteen.

We started this deal and Shane was still working there, and I remember it was like the second race year we went to Atlanta.

I was at the lunch like we were bad, like not handling good.

He texts me, He's like, hey, want you to come by Wednesday before Vegas.

I'll be down here.

I'll help you pull down the truck at night and help set it up for you.

Yeah, we did that, and we went to Vegas and qualified like thirteenth.

We ran top twenty all day and he helped us the rest of the year.

And so that's how I kind of got to know Shane.

But we've got a lot of smart guys here that you know, have really done a good job of making the thing better.

Is it harder the bigger you get.

Is it harder to keep the or the team together?

It is?

And I think the biggest thing is trying not to micromanage, because as a.

I will say that the teams that have been the best in my twenty years right in racing, the best one was MSR Michael Shank micromanaged the shit out of everything he did.

And I think that that kind of level of buy in an investment, and like I don't know, passion for it translates into into results and everybody else being that invested too.

So while it's hard not to for you, I think it's also a sign of somebody who really wants success.

Yeah.

No, it's definitely care about it, I would say, And I think that's why it's It's funny like you're you're more likely to see her in the shop.

Like Mondays, we have our team meeting at seven, and you know, I like to get early and be a part of that.

That's kind of kicks the week off right.

But usually the way my schedule for the rest of week goes, I'll be here till nine and ten o'clock on Monday, and then I'll roll in probably nine nine thirty the next day and then work until nine or ten o'clock at night, because usually our guys are done by four, four or five o'clock, and then I've got four or five hours here at the shop to just I just go through and look at the cars and look at parts and pieces and look over the stuff, and it just kind of lets me keep what I feel like is a good pulse on the team and way stuff is.

And it definitely does get crazy.

I mean during the day from seven to four, you get pulled in a hundred different directions from phone calls, sponsor meetings, you know, driver debriefs, going over setups, paint schemes, and that it's like five o'clock things kind of like get quiet, and then you get a chance to go to the shop and look at everything, and that's when I that's almost my favorite time of the day is to kind of that's when you get to get back into it.

How do you think your wife feel about that though?

Like when do you see each Heather, it's definitely now you asked about the baby, like you learn to kind of like during the week, our time is almost like in the morning now to where it's like I made stay at the house an extra hour or two and it's like our morning time together and then I just plan on working late.

So definitely know it's gonna have to probably evolve here come they're saying October first is the due date.

So I got a little boy on the way, so pretty pretty excited.

Everything's been good so far and she's been a trooper.

But again that for me, I'm very fortunate that she comes from a racing family, like you know her her dad was in racing for so many years.

They joke about it, but I think the day Kendo was born, they were racing in Richmond.

Her dad was kre chief and for Earnhardt that year and like he was up there for practice, flew to the hospital, saw her born, made sure she had five you know, five fingers on each hand.

The toes were there, and then he flew right back to the racetrack.

So how did you meet her?

We met at a place called Sayeed's here in town, and it's a karaoke bar behind a gap station.

Can you think after midnight I might've seen it definitely get gets a little bit better.

So I haven't been there in a while.

After I met her, the need to go there anymore was not needed anymore.

But every now, every now and then, I'm probably if you had to pick who's going to sing, I would go for like a little bit of outcasts, some forty one, or maybe a little George Straight if it's good enough later in the night.

I'm a very broad variety.

Her is like Dixie Chicks or the Chicks.

She's going to go right to them.

That's that's her go to.

But that was even crazy in itself, Like this is how small the racing world is up here is that her brother and I raced Ben.

There's a picture somewhere of her brother and I on the podium running ban lero's against each other back in two thousand and two, and so like we all grew up around each other and just kind of it's just so funny how small the world is up here.

But having you know, a partner that you know understands the sacrifice and the time is has been big because there's nights where you know, like, hey, I got work, like I gotta do this, and she understands the opportunity here in the dream and you know, and also with her, she's a therapist, a counselor, so she understands that's kind of helped navigate through that stuff.

But she also works for herself, so her schedule sometimes is, you know, she may go in at nine in the morning and work till eight a nine o'clock at night as well as she's trying to go her clientele base.

It's slowed down a little bit with a baby now, but you know, we're both kind of wired that way, and you know, when we are together, we make the most of our time.

And that's why usually a few weeks after Phoenix at the end of the year, we disappear for like a week and a half and just take that time to make sure we're together and get caught back up.

You need it, yeah, keeps her saying.

That, exactly, I need a VAKA now.

It's just rain the whole time.

We're going to take a quick break, but we will be right back.

Welcome back to throttle therapy.

So what's next for Jordan and Jordan Anderson racing if they are one and the same or do you see more racing in your future?

Do you have any desire to go Cup racing?

Do you want to go into Formula One?

Like what if you had to pick your ideal next five to ten years, what would that look like?

Yeah, it's and the sport is in a very weird place right now because the deal with the charters has definitely changed the way that the Cup Series garage is made up.

The barrier to entry is very real, like it it's very steep.

I mean it's almost done.

Like what's happened on the F one grid when you look at you know, Chevrolet wanted to go in there this year and it was basically locked out because of how it was all out.

You probably could explain it better than me, but basically that was locked out.

They couldn't go.

And that's what the charters have done.

It used to be you know when I was growing up, and even how Exfinity is now.

You know, if you're fast enough and you can bring a good enough product and you can connect the dots, you can go race and yeah, you can go do that at the cup level, but it costs so much in the way the purse structure is made up that you're just at a huge disadvantage right from the start.

So definitely curious to see what that looks like.

That's one thing that having a partner on the team has taught me a lot, because the racer and me sometimes makes financial decisions that maybe aren't the best because I am very competitive and I want to go buy this and go do this, do this, But if I did that long enough, the money would all be gone.

So it's good to have a partner like John that's very physically grounded.

You know.

It's good to have that because like, I'll have a bad day here and I'll call John and he's got probably twelve hundred employees across all his auto groups and his businesses, and he'll tell me he's like, yeah, you know, I got sued six times last week.

I had you know, the unions coming after me.

I had thirty four people leave to go to another dealership.

Like, so I'm like, oh, I'm not having that bad of a week.

It puts things in perspective.

But he's been a great mentor on the business side because he's definitely forced me to look at how we operate and almost operate in a moneyball kind of way to where we know we have this budget and how can we accomplish the best possible product with what we have, but also reinvesting back to make sure that the team is stable and we can be here for the next twenty thirty years, you know, not being a flash in the pan.

Like the fact that the building that we're in, we own this building.

We just bought another building next door to expand our fab side.

You know, we we've you know, invested back in haulers and people and you know, being able to have competitive pay and benefits for our people that work here, and you know, just all the different parts and pieces to make sure that we have a solid foundation.

But you know, I think for us, we want to get to where I want to be a little bit more competitive on the infinity side.

I feel like there's some races where we can load and have really good speed, and there's some races like this weekend we're I kind of look in the mirror, man what the heck like what you just have those weekends sometimes and it's like continuing to you know, add more tools to our toolbox.

We always talk about adding depth, people and our understanding exactly.

You know.

Like one of the big things was last year we started hanging our downforce and short track bodies in house, and you know, with the new building, wanting to be able to do more of that stuff and have more help from Chevrolet.

So you know, I think I see, hopefully the next i'd say two or three years, continue to slow the fire footing here in the Infinity Series and at the same time have an eye on Cup.

You know, whether that means, hey, let's get a car, let's let's build a car, and maybe we run five races or ten races and start to understand that side of the garage and how those cars are built, and just slowly understand that without having to buy a charter.

And you know, if a charter does become available, you know, that's that's certainly something that John and I have talked about of how that can be done and how it makes sense.

You know, John and I have had conversations and if it makes fiscal sense to do it and buy one then you know, I think he's he's committed to one day do that.

When that does happen, much money then, like somebody was telling me it was seventy five mil something estimated at.

The Yeah, and for something that's not you know, there's obviously all the stuff going on right now, but you're buying someone that's not pernent.

It's on a seven year you know.

However, that deal is structured, so you know, right now we're kind of in like the wait and see phase of let's keep slidifying our deal here and just see how some of that stuff starts to shake out.

How many years are we into the seven year cycle?

I think this is.

They just signed it, so it's like the first year of it.

Oh, is it okay?

So like you could have to write that seventy five mil off over the next six years or something if that was okay.

Who knows what's going to happen though, because I'm sure you know how most things in the media get a little bit twisted and lost in translation.

Well, I'm sure it's the same thing with everything that we're reading, with all the different charters stuff going on, Like we have no real idea what's going on because we're not on the inside.

And come December.

So I said this to somebody the other day.

I'm like, come December, though, we'll know and we'll know what NASCAR are going to do with those charters, and we know what the teams are going to do and blah bla blah blah.

And they were like, no, we won't.

That's gonna then get appeal.

Then that's gonna then run into next year and that's gonna this is gonna happen.

And so I was like the closure that I wanted because obviously I want to go racing and I want I want to be a childhood driver, and I want all the things.

Doesn't look like it's gonna happen, but.

There's a lot there's a lot of parts, some pieces that are still still move many.

I feel like that's always been.

You've got to have a mix of living in a space where you're proactive but also reactive to the series and planning and timing and looking at all those different things and you know, just trying to make the sense.

And that's what's crazy is at the club book Cup level, you look at all the different venture capitalist companies and different investors that have come in that you know, it's definitely going away from a typical team owner.

It's just one guy by himself owning the whole team.

I mean, you know, having John as a partner of him, and I've talked about like, hey, if a third partner ever comes along and you know, we do a rebrand or what does that look like?

And you know, so we've we've considered all those things.

And you know, he asked me the five and ten year planet.

I think the biggest thing is continuing to build, you know, us as a race team.

We want to have a mix of you know, we are a race team first and foremost, but solidifying the culture of people that work here and the marketing arm of the team of you know, having partners that were able to check boxes for their goals and you know, even on the driver's side, like you and I have talked about this a little bit.

Is you know, that's one thing that I have truly enjoyed is you know, when when Parker came in, when Maya came in, you know, helping Jeb get back on his feed and then working with you know you this year and working with Blaine and you know, I won't say.

I think helping drivers has been something that has kind of turned into another part that I'm passionate part on this side as well, because I've I've raced and I haven't you know, I hadn't run Cup before, but I've run, you know, one hundred plus truck races, and however many of these and been around the sport for so long, and it's like all right, from the mental side to the business side, to all of the things, and helping try to get a driver the most out of what he can do with the racetrack and with working with Jeb and Blaine this year year.

And then you know, seeing you, I know when we first went to Rocky Ham, you kind of you're drinking from a fire hose, you know, but watching you know, Catherine at Rockingham versus watching you, like at Indye, Like it's almost like a different person on the race car, you know, watching your confidence when you get in and like, you know, the ins and outs and hopefully the people that we put around you, like with Bruce on the radio and Trey spot for you, like hopefully you know, the success you've had on Sunday the Saturdays have helped you, you know, you showed up Sunday and you've been there, done that, like I'm ready, you know.

So it's it's been cool to watch that development and and you know that's that's the whole other part of so hopefully continuing to help on that path and that side of things, and that's definitely cool to watch.

Well.

I hope that I get to strive you for many ye is to come.

We got with Old and Gray and we can put it off a good run.

I know, we really do.

But I will not take up any more of your time.

Jordan.

It was a pleasure.

Thank you so much for telling us your story, and I'm sure that the listeners who are more on the indie color Sportscar Science are fascinated by hearing it on the Sportscuss side.

One last question before I let you go.

Did you ever have any desire to go IndyCar racing or Open war racing or was it always Nascar?

I did.

That's a great, great question.

I think any driver always wants to run different things, and I've never had a shot or never had a shot to go run any kind of sports car, but I've always wanted to because back in and that's a I just completely left out.

A year was in between the late Model and cannon stuff.

I went and bought a thunder roaster which had it was built by the Legend Car people, but it looked like an old the old like nineteen forties roaster IndyCar.

So it was like a single seater sat in the middle and it had a Legend Car motor in it.

But we would run it with like SCCA and NASA and back then there's like twenty twenty five of the Matt Chopin race.

So we would go to like VR we're Atlanta.

We'd run the Roble Sea bring Kershaw.

Kursher, you raced it Kursha.

We did full throttle through the kink on the backside.

So it was a lot of fun doing and I fell in love with road racing that year and I'm like this is you know, the heck with the NASCAR stuff like this is like I learned about incident reports and no contact.

I earned the first race of Cursal.

I bumped into a guy and it was another I think it was a BMW or something.

The guy came over, He's like, you didn't go fu a inciant report.

I'm like, what are you talking about it.

He's like, well, this is you know, you have to do these things here, and so I got in trouble with that and I was that was like my my introduction to it.

But yeah, I thought about it.

I'm like, you know, what the heck with this?

I think you look at sportscar racing and later that year was when the truck opportunity happened.

But mad respect for all kinds and forms of racing.

I mean, it's it's uh And I think again you asked that question about driving.

I think before the goal was always like, you know, I want to do full series here, a full season here, And now it's like I want to race, but I'm open to want to try to do different things like going and running the truck.

The other week at Indian I was like, I just missed doing it and it was fun to go do it.

I you know, it was a good lot to rust off.

I hadn't driven on a non sen super speedway in like three years.

But so what you're.

Saying is you me, Blaine and Jabs, so go do Daytona twenty four next.

Yeah, I like that.

That's definitely my bucket list.

Twenty four hours one day to at least everyone did it.

I think between what our team was doing and then I know what you're doing in the sport.

You definitely you're writing a lot of new chapters in the journey you're on.

It's been cool to from a step back, but also working alongside you.

It's been cool to see what you've done this year and the I think the progress for the sport as a whole, but obviously some of the berriers that you've broken down and what you're doing right now has been cool to watch.

And I think the respect I have for you outside looking in the lungside working with you, like when you went and qualified at Charlotte, like the amount of That's what people don't realize is the stress that drivers carry.

They can never show you're like a duck on water or you were so calm and collected, but underwater you're like kicking like crazy.

Like the fact you had to qualify in you had everybody from else there that weekend, the huge display set up, and like you had to qualify that thing in the show, like it had no points.

You had to go do it and you did it.

And it's like, I don't think people realize the amount of mental toughness that that takes to do and to like process through.

But you know, it's just cool to watch that.

So I think that you got a lot of good stories and good chapters left to right, and hopefully our team does as well, and hopefully they keep intertwining and we can do a lot of cool things together.

I hope for the same well.

Jordan, thank you so much for joining us on Throttle Therapy and I will see you at the weekend.

Sounds good.

Thank you, thanks for.

Listening to Throttle Therapy.

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