Catching up with INDY NXT Presented by Firestone Director Levi Jones

ROGER:

This is Roger Penske and you're listening to Pit Pass Indie, sponsored by Penske Truck Rental.

BRUCE:

IndyCar fans, it's time to start your engines. Welcome to Pit Pass Indy, a production of Evergreen Podcast. I'm your host, Bruce Martin, a journalist who regularly covers the NTT IndyCar Series. Our goal at Pit Pass Indy is to give racing fans an insider's view of the exciting world of the NTT IndyCar Series in a fast-paced podcast featuring interviews with the biggest names in the sport. I bring nearly 40 years of experience covering IndyCar and NASCAR, working for such media brands as NBCSports.com, SI.com, ESPN Sports Ticker, Sports Illustrated, Auto Week and Speed Sport. So let's drop the green flag on this episode of Pit Pass Indy. Welcome to Pit Pass Indy presented by Penske Truck Rental as we continue our fourth season of giving IndyCar fans a behind-the-scenes look at the NTT IndyCar Series and the drivers and teams that compete in the Indianapolis 500. Because of the Olympic Games in Paris and the fact IndyCar's television partner at NBC is broadcasting the games, IndyCar series teams and drivers get a rare break in the schedule for this point in the season. PitPass Indy isn't taking any time off, however, as the show continues to give IndyCar fans exclusive interviews with the biggest names in the series. That will continue during the Olympic break. This week's show includes an interview with Indynext presented by Firestone director Levi Jones. He was one of the greatest drivers in the United States Auto Club during his racing career with seven USAC national championships, including sprint car titles in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011. and USAC Silver Crown National Championships in 2010 and 2011. All but his 2005 Sprint Car Championships was when Jones drove for Tony Stewart Racing, owned by the legendary NASCAR Cup Series champion and IndyCar Series champion Tony Stewart. The only Illinois native scored 35 feature wins in USAC before he began working for the sanctioning body as the National Series Competition Director in 2015. Jones joined IndyCar in 2021 to oversee all operations and competitions of IndyNext by Firestone, the developmental series of the NTT IndyCar series. Here is my exclusive Pit Pass Indy interview with Levi Jones, the director of Indy Next by Firestone. Joining us now on Pit Pass Indy is Levi Jones, the executive director of Indy Next. Levi is in charge of the IndyCar series Stars of the Future. Levi, thank you for joining us today.

LEVI:

Hey, happy I could jump on with you.

BRUCE:

One of the things that you do at IndyNex is prepare drivers for a career in IndyCar. And this year, you've got great car counts. A few years back, you would see IndyNex races that had fields of maybe eight, nine, 10 cars. Now you've had upwards of 20. What do you see as being the reason for the resurgence in growth in the IndyNex series?

LEVI:

Well, I think, uh, I think since, since I've started here, um, you know, just, uh, you look at a few things, uh, working on the schedule, being part of everything IndyCar does. Um, it, it, it just really became a place where drivers have seen this as a, as a launch pad to the IndyCar series.

BRUCE:

A lot of times we have seen drivers that have come through the Indynext ranks and really not get a shot at IndyCar. Now we're talking an IndyCar about having charters, 25 charters, 27 car starting lineups. Does that make it more difficult for the drivers in Indynext to be able to get a chance to drive an IndyCar in the future?

LEVI:

Well, I think if you look at racing as a whole, no matter what series it is, and that as you're working your way to the top, um, a lot of it is about timing circumstances and, uh, you know, availability of, of you getting a chance to show what you can do. So, um, you know, as, as recent as looking at, at Venus, a situation where he did not have anything for sure. Um, some things played out, he got an opportunity. to show you could do and turn that into a full-time ride, an opportunity, you know, and then looking at, you know, this last year, what Chris Rasmussen can do with this scholarship and go to Ed Carpenter Racing. So it's definitely not easy, you know, looking forward to the future. You know, there are only so many seats available and with how competitive the NTT IndyCar Series is, It's tough. You've got to be ready to go and be able to jump in and perform and show that right off the bat.

BRUCE:

What would you like to see to make it a little more seamless transition for drivers that come from Indynex to IndyCar? Because the cars are a lot different. Race fans may sit there and notice that they sound different, but there's a lot more difference between the two series.

LEVI:

It is, right? They're two totally different series. the races with pit stops and, and all of that play into it. Uh, that's one thing that the cars and engines are different. You know, you're, you're going from 450 horsepower to, uh, you know, say a hundred horsepower, uh, dealing with a couple of different tire options, but, but you'll be, you're honing your trade and learning to be the best race car drivers. You can eat up to that next, that next level of any car. And, uh, You just hope that what we've been able to do now is adding some ovals, right? IndyNex having four ovals, getting that oval experience before you go on, because a lot of these drivers don't have a ton of oval experience coming into IndyNex even. So, and running on the same tracks, road and street courses, so you're learning that a little bit as you go before you might get an opportunity to IndyCar. All of those little things I think help you transition to that next step, and hopefully prepare them to do that.

BRUCE:

How important is it to add more ovals into the schedule? Because as you said, there's four this year. It wasn't that long ago there were zero ovals on the Indynex schedule. How big of a balance is that, that you're trying to teach kids the craft of driving a race car, but yet they may not have the experience level yet to attempt high-speed ovals? How challenging is that as the director of Indynext by Firestone to be able to create a balance to where they're able to learn ovals without it being as risky as it could possibly be?

LEVI:

Yeah, you know, myself growing up on only ovals, Some of the guys and girls that are competing and winning these races now are really working with people that know IndyCar oval racing. So surrounding yourself with the correct people and teams and coaches and so forth that can help cut that learning curve down. And it is really neat for me to see that. We go to these oval tests and see how they prepare and what they're working on with their team to get better really quick. That's what impresses me with so many of these drivers right now.

BRUCE:

It wasn't that long ago there was a race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway called the Freedom 100. A lot of the fans seemed to like it because it always seemed to produce a three wide photo finish or even a four wide photo finish. When Roger Penske purchased the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in November of 2019, he didn't really think that those drivers were quite up to the capability level of tackling something as Risky is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Proved to be a little bit unpopular with some fans, but in some ways, if you could describe the rationale of why you just don't turn a lot of drivers that don't have that much experience on high-speed ovals loose at a place like Indy.

LEVI:

Right. Let's look at the NTT IndyCar Series and the Indianapolis 500. right of those 34 drivers let's say and those cars and the speeds from the start of the month or or their rookie test to to qualifying day and those speeds there's a there even though they are pretty close there is a pretty decent gap from the fastest car to the slowest car it's not just all 34 of them running like you said three or four wide eight or nine rows deep. The Indynex cars with the aero package, the horsepower they have, they're going to be really close. There's really not much we can do with that package to make those cars be very different. The thing we work on at Ovals now is making sure it doesn't become a a race where the cars are all in one pack, it's flat out, you know, creating that situation where a driver has to determine where he's going to lift off the throttle and where he's going to pick the throttle back up. So, you know, just adding in that experience level and the risk factor of, you know, now saying 20, 22 cars all running together, creates a lot more risk, maybe more risk than reward.

BRUCE:

So by taking them to the short ovals this year, four of them as you mentioned, how important is that? Because they still get to learn a little bit of the skill and nuance that it takes to drive a race car around an oval, which as we all know is vastly different than racing it around a road course or a street circuit.

LEVI:

Yeah, look, looking at the four ovals will run this year, you know, at St. Louis and Milwaukee and Iowa and Nashville, all four of those have unique characteristics that, that really are different from each other. So high speed corners, flat corners, bank corners, you're working on the draft, being able to move your line at different places, those are all those are all tools these drivers will use use for the rest of their career, for sure.

BRUCE:

You as the director of Indynext by Firestone, how important is it to keep the cost low so that you can have a lot of participation in Indynext?

LEVI:

Yeah, that's something we talk about a lot, looking at the cost. We know racing is expensive, no matter if it's go-karts to the Indy 500, anywhere in between. Just trying to make sense of all those, so we do make it a series that we attract, you know, 20-ish of the best race car drivers for our series and make it to where it's not exclusive to a lot smaller number of participants that can't afford to do it. So we look at that sort of what we can do, bang for the buck, and have the best series.

BRUCE:

You've got some team owners that own a lot of cars in the series, whether it be Andretti Global or Harry Malucas. Is that good to have one owner own so many cars in one series, or is it something you'd like to see? I don't want to say put a cap on it because bigger fields benefit everybody, but is that something you would like to see modified somewhat in some degree?

LEVI:

Well, first and foremost, we want to have a healthy series. to anybody that comes up to me at these events, they're happy and say how great it is to have 20 to 22 cars. We know that we need to have a full field and how we go about making the value for each one of those seats the highest it can be. And I think we've got that right now. So to keep that, where we can have that number of cars and they're all competitive cars, like we've got, would we like to have as many teams as possible? Absolutely. I think that the competition is great. And we've showed that by how many different teams have won races this year and different drivers. So just as we continue to look at that, on our schedule and the places we go, growing IndyCar paddock, growing IndyNext paddock, where do we put everybody? You know, we have to make sure that we can get everybody parked and in a paddock and on pit lane and have adequate boxes at all those events. And then And then keeping the field full. And what's that look like for car numbers per team? We're definitely grateful for the teams that have quite a few cars right now. Because if every team had two cars right now, I don't think I'm in a position or you're in a position to start an IndyNex team and add one or two cars. So making sure we keep that field full and where we're at is number one.

BRUCE:

And if you're in a ballpark figure, if you could give a ballpark figure on budgets, entry level, what it costs, say for an Indynex car to compete as opposed to an Indy car.

LEVI:

Yeah. The numbers, what were your, you're saying Indynex compared to Indy car, correct?

BRUCE:

If I wanted to have an Indynex car in an Indynex race and participate for the full season, what price would a team owner be looking at just to get in?

LEVI:

You know, I could run a full season. Um, you know, if I was, if my kid was looking to do this, you know, we're, we're looking at probably right at about a million dollars to do the full season.

BRUCE:

And then if you compare that with IndyCar, they would probably be looking at 5 million to run a full season or maybe 3 million for some of the smaller teams.

LEVI:

Correct. I'm just on the IndyCar side of it. I'm not dealing with that stuff every day. So just on the IndyNex side, you're really looking at a million dollars to do it. And those numbers are out there. I look at how that compares to midget sprint car racing, how it compares to a truck or an ARCA car or even a Xfinity car. So so what we're able to do in the next program, with our partners at advanced engine research on the engine lease program, I've been really happy with that. You know, our cars and our cars have been safe. We're working on working on a few updates to those cars. One we did this year with new electronics and and trying to spread that out over a couple years of making sure that we stay on top of these cars for safety reasons and speed and competition and all that sort of stuff.

BRUCE:

You joined IndyCar in 2021, a year that was coming after a very difficult time when the COVID year of 2020 pretty much had shut down a lot of sports or greatly hampered a lot of professional sports. IndyCar had a 14 race schedule, many of which were held at venues without spectators. That was the year the Indy 500 was held on August 23rd. Nobody was allowed into the grandstands because of state health. regulations. So how challenging was it to step into that role in 2021 and basically get Indynext by Firestone back into being a healthy and viable series?

LEVI:

You know, you touch on all those points of racing during that COVID time, right? I was at the United States Auto Club where we we did, you know, 85 or on the schedule were 85 plus midget sprint car and silver crown races. We didn't get started till June and you know it it was very uh very difficult to do that um so then coming here with the indy next program um some of the looking at what what happened right they didn't race in 2020 so that was a little bit of a clean slate so to speak right coming in and talking with the current team owners and and the direction that we needed to go, what we needed to do, how do we get these drivers to want to be here? And then once they're here, what do we do to make it where it's the best situation for them? And that's something still that I work on every day.

BRUCE:

And then by 2023, you averaged more than 17 starters of each race, the most in over a decade. And you had a total of 25 drivers compete in the 2023 championship, eight more than the previous season in 2022. Is that a number you were surprised by or were those numbers what you were intending to hit?

LEVI:

You know, from the start, we, we had some goals in the high teens, right? Do we get there? Um, myself personally, right. I came from the short track USAC world, 22 cars start the main event. So in my mind, we needed 22 cars for the main event. Um, so, so working towards that, I think it's, it's been a paddock wide effort. Um, people like yourself talking about it, making sure people know what it is that we're doing, that this is IndyCar racing, the drivers and team supporting it. We could have, and we did, talk about what our plans are, what we want to do. You could talk to your blue in the face about it. But until it actually happens, people see it, and you do it, there's proof there. So we worked on it a little bit each year, I think, given those those drivers and teams and team owners that confidence of of of what we're really here to do and you know and just looking at this year even even the drivers that have won like different teams that have won that that gains the interest of drivers from around the world um and even here in the country i've talked to I've talked to so many potential new drivers here in the last three months, compared to the year before and the year before, that that's what really kind of shows me that, hey, I think we're on the right track here.

BRUCE:

What's your forecast for the rest of the 2024 season? Will you exceed those numbers?

LEVI:

I believe so. I mean, we're going to Nashville this week for a series open test with 20 cars entered. And that is great. It looks like we'll have all of those cars at the Ovals with the potential of Portland even having a couple more. So we're in good shape.

BRUCE:

As far though as the championship itself, you've got a lot of talented drivers and a lot of drivers who could perform in one series or another if they don't make it all the way to a full-time IndyCar ride. You've produced drivers that can run in other series. What are some of the other series that you've seen a lot of your talent end up in?

LEVI:

Well, you know, you take a guy like Hunter McArae that ran second. Um, in the series, he did quite a bit of sports car racing, you know, early this year through this summer, and then, uh, was able to get an opportunity with Dale Coyne and, and ran great. So, um, I think so many of them, you know, like you said, only one driver can win the championship. Uh, but we do have, we do have quite a few talented drivers that I feel like can get the job done in the car. But if not, they're going to do whatever they can to keep their skills sharp and compete and always keep an eye on what's happening in IndyCar where there may be an opportunity.

BRUCE:

Do you see GP2 as the rival of IndyNex by Firestone? Because a lot of times You're out there trying to prepare drivers to compete in IndyCar, and then all of a sudden, here comes a guy from GP2 from Europe, ends up getting an IndyCar ride. Do you see that a little bit as what your competition is to try to get these guys into IndyCar?

LEVI:

Yeah, I just, I don't like to use the word rival. You know, working with racing series and in my past, you know, cars safe cars having multiple different sanctioned bodies, it just gets messy when you talk about rivals. I think that we're proving here in IndyNex that if you're part of this program and run on the circuits that that we race are also the same circuits as IndyCar. You can hone your trade, so to speak, and be prepared to succeed in IndyCar racing. So, you know, not saying that drivers don't come from other places. We all know. We all know that's a fact, right? You know, when you have 16 of the 33 and 500 starters being in the next graduates, you know, that's pretty good proof there, but there's still There's still that many that come from somewhere else. Uh, we've had, uh, formula two looking at, at what they do a little bit different, a little bit different, uh, racing overall, but those drivers have had success in the car series. And I think, uh, that's, you know, that's what the cars being similar helps.

BRUCE:

Perhaps a better word I should have used was, do you view them as competition to what any next is trying to do?

LEVI:

as opposed to right. Right, right. Um, I think, I think looking at the competition, other cars and stuff, you know, drivers have to be somewhere to race. There's only so many seats everywhere. So, um, yeah, I think, you know, NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula One, looking at all the paths to the, to the top, um, are pretty curvy. There's no, uh, There's no set in stone, hey, this is exactly how you have to do it to get here to win the championship. So it's tough, tough to put your finger exactly on the best path.

BRUCE:

We'll be right back to Pit Pass Indy after this short break.

JOSEF:

Hey everyone, this is two time Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden and you're listening to Pit Pass Indy presented by Penske Truck Rental.

BRUCE:

Welcome back to Pit Pass Indy presented by Penske Truck Rental. Here's the rest of my interview with Levi Jones, the director of Indy Next by Firestone. A lot of people need to remember that Levi Jones is not only director of Indynext by Firestone and a former executive at USAC, but also one of USAC's greatest drivers during your era. You're a seven-time USAC Sprint Car Champion, winning the title in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011. You got USAC Silver Crown National Championships in 2010 and 2011. 35 feature wins, everything except the 2005 sprint car title came when you were driving for Tony Stewart Racing. What was those years like for Levi Jones to not only win all those championships, but you were pretty much the man when it came to USAC?

LEVI:

Those years were a lot of fun. Right. I would say those were the years of my life where it didn't matter where I had where I would be the next day. Right. I was only focused on the next race. But, you know, then it was the race I was at. You know, I didn't have a I didn't have my own family. uh, wasn't married for a lot of those years. So, you know, from, from, from a teenage kid running sprint cars until, you know, until 2010, it was, it was just a lot of fun of, of being a professional race car driver. And, you know, I, I hope I had dreamed and hoped and of wanting to be at the Annapolis 500. Um, you know, the, the program with with Brian Clawson winning the scholarship through the USTAC program with IndyCar. Brian was obviously the better choice. I was on the end of my career and an old guy about done. So for him to do that for the racing community, that was cool. Like I said earlier in this conversation, so much of it is about timing. And I just appreciate Tony Stewart and all the partners at TSR for the years I got to do what I did and have the opportunity to win the championships and a lot of races. And I'll cherish that forever.

BRUCE:

back in the day your career would have definitely led you right into the indianapolis 500 because the legends of the 50s 60s 70s and even the 80s came up through usac sprint midget silver crown cars but if you look at the era that you came from a lot of those drivers in usac ended up going to nascar now if i look up your record There's no NASCAR races in there except for the Prelude to the Dream that was a special race held in Eldora. What was the reason why you decided to maybe not go in that direction?

LEVI:

I was just in a great situation with Tony at TSR and driving the sprint cars and making a living doing it. I just didn't want to go out and chase the money down that I would have needed to do it. I'd spent my whole life trying to get good at what I was doing. I was finally there and I was okay with it. I was happy with it. I liked winning. I liked doing what I was doing and just never, the right opportunity never presented itself to do anything in NASCAR as well.

BRUCE:

For a lot of fans of IndyCar, they see a race sometimes every weekend, maybe every other weekend. When you compare that to the lifestyle of a USAC driver, you're racing every night. The racetracks you're going to may not be close together. What would a typical week be like when you were driving in USAC in terms of where you would race one night, how little sleep you would get between that and the next night going to a different track? How often did you sleep in the back of a station wagon? Those are all things that a lot of people don't realize that the USAC drivers, you got to really be on your game because you look at a guy like Kyle Larson and some of the travel he does, he shows up, returns to an ass car track on Sunday morning, sometimes at three in the morning, and he's going to have a race later that day.

LEVI:

Yeah, so many of those people see what Kyle does now, but he's done that his whole life and he always didn't get to do it in the helicopter and airplane. A lot of times it was in the back of a truck or riding in a car or driving yourself. So it's probably, to Kyle, it doesn't even seem like that much travel. I think about the stuff that I did when I was younger traveling. You just did it, right? I mean, because your heroes and all the best guys before did it the same way. I mean, I can remember, you know, planes, trains, and automobiles with my heroes as a 19 or 20 year old kid, you know, doing it. You just, you did it. It was fun and part of it. And you didn't realize that most people didn't live life that way, I guess.

BRUCE:

Generally, when you would finish a USAC race, what time would it be before you got out of there? And what were some of the worst commutes in terms of having to get somewhere quickly, but it's a long way away?

LEVI:

Yeah, I guess if you were if you're trying to explain somebody that doesn't know, right, like they just finished up Indiana Sprint Week or, you know, in June, you do a week straight in Pennsylvania. So You would get to the track, like if it was the first leg of a week, you would get to the track probably 2.30, 3 o'clock in the afternoon, you unload, you hot lap, you qualify, you run your heat race, you run the main event, you load up, everything goes okay, you're loaded up and headed to the car wash probably by midnight. Spend a couple hours at the car wash, drive to the hotel, You're probably in bed by 2.30, 3 o'clock. You're back up in the parking lot, hopefully at the hotel. If not, you got to drive somewhere, find a place to work on the car, probably for two to three hours. Grab lunch, grab a nap, maybe drive 60, 80, 100 miles to the next race. You do it all over again.

BRUCE:

But I know there was some of the other weeks on the schedule where you might have to drive a couple of hundred miles between events one night after the other. Oh, yeah, for sure.

LEVI:

And then when you were running, you know, all three SEC divisions, I mean, you know, there was nights we had to go from, you know, Springfield to Kansas City and back or, you know, one one weekend, we had a sprint car race, uh, or a silver crown race in Toledo, Ohio. And we had to drive straight through the lakeside, Kansas for sprint car race the next day. And you just, uh, you look at how far the map says it is, and you just know, you've got to be leaving by this time. So you get to the next place in time. And it's, it's still that way today. You look at, you look at guys on the world of outlaw trail, like Donnie shots, Donnie shots, 10 time champion has done it for 30 years, he does fly his own plane. So over the course of the summer, when he starts putting it on people late in the summer and the dog days of summer, it's probably because he's been in his own bed more than anybody else.

BRUCE:

But when you think about that, is it really a lifestyle of endurance?

LEVI:

Uh, yeah, a little bit. I mean, I, I take pride, uh, in that part of my career. I, I, I had the SprintCar consecutive starts for a long time. Uh, it was still until now there's, you know, 50 plus races on the schedule that are actually used to that grace. I think I ran 280, 280, some SprintCar races in a row. That's. you know, just getting there, not getting hurt and wanting to go and do it that many times in a row. So definitely a little bit of endurance to that.

BRUCE:

You brought up Indiana Sprint Week. That's always a huge week for any race fan in the state of Indiana. When you think of USAC sprints, you think of the state of Indiana. And just how did it go this year?

LEVI:

I was able, you know, it just fell at the right time for me this year with our break during the Olympics, able to catch a couple races. Um, you know, when, when they have 50 plus cars and the competition's amazing and everybody wants to win that week. There's some exceptional talent right now and there were some great races.

BRUCE:

When you think of the names of the drivers that you competed against, who would you, I know you don't like to use the term rival, but who would you say were the rivals that you enjoyed really racing against that went on to become not only bigger names in USAC, but in NASCAR and IndyCar?

LEVI:

Well, it's really cool to me, the time of my career, when I started, you know, I got to race against the legends of, of Indiana sprint car racing and Dave Darlin and Tony Elliott and Kevin Thomas and Jack Hewitt and Kevin Briscoe. Um, you take those guys and then to the end of my career, I won my last sprint car race. I'd be, you know, Christopher bell, Brian Clawson and Kyle Larson. So to book in the start and the end of my sprint car career, to race against those guys that I just said, it means a lot to me.

BRUCE:

But I'm sure there's one race that you would have probably liked to have run, and that would have been the Indianapolis 500. And do you ever sit and think, what would have happened if I'd gotten that chance?

LEVI:

I'm not really a guy that thinks shoulda, coulda, woulda. The dream of getting to do that was really cool to watch Kyle Larson run the Indy 500 this year. Even though he doesn't compete full time, I know that his time in Indy and running short track races around here The Indy 500 is it.

BRUCE:

I wanted to wrap up on Kyle Larson because we all know what a fantastic job he did his rookie season at the Indianapolis 500 in 2024. Didn't have the greatest luck on race day because of the weather. Ended up getting caught speeding on pit road, which put him back to an 18th place finish at the end of the race. He was a little down on himself, a little disappointed, wondered if he would ever get a chance to return there. Would you know, at seven weeks later, there he is kissing the bricks as the winner of the brickyard 400. So it really does in many ways show you what a magical place the Indianapolis motor speedway really is.

LEVI:

Yeah, we say it all the time, right? The place picks the winner. I think that just proved that a little more on that day for Kyle.

BRUCE:

And he also let out a little bit of what we were all hoping to hear, is that he plans to be back at Indy in 2025. I don't know whether Rick Hendrick has necessarily agreed to that yet, but it really sounds like work is underway for a return in 2025. And how big would that be for him to come back?

LEVI:

Well, I think it's just huge for racing in general. Right. I mean, he, he's a guy, I mean, NASCAR is on a little bit of a break here now. And he, he, uh, his vacation was in people in Missouri two nights this weekend to win two world outlaw races. So he's just, uh, just goes and race. I think it's right. I mean, it's big for all of us. but he wants to do it. He knows what Indy means to him and I'd be really surprised if we didn't see him back at Indianapolis 500.

BRUCE:

And one thing that I can't let you leave before I asked, you raced a lot of years for Tony Stewart Racing. There's a lot of us that know Tony Stewart very well. There's many different personalities to Tony Stewart. There's the ones we see where he's upset and angry. There's also the ones that a lot of people don't know where he's very benevolent and will do things for people without any publicity or whatever for that. What are some good Tony Stewart stories that you could share?

LEVI:

Oh, man, I don't know. Probably, probably one of the coolest was one night he I don't even remember what year it was. He, he came to our sprint car race at Terre Haute. You know, he got there pretty early. Um, and, and everyone was ribbing him. Hey, why don't you, you know, why don't you run the spare car tonight? So he finally, he said, yeah, get it down. I'll race. So that was cool for Tony to come in and race that night. And, uh, you know, the, the cool part for me was that I won the race. So I beat Tony that night. Uh, it was just fun to have it there as, as, uh, as a fellow competitor, even though he owned it, made it all happen for us for him. Just say, yeah, get it down. Let's do it. And he, right.

BRUCE:

But in a lot of ways, Tony always had the same swagger that saying AJ Foyt had back in the day where you knew that when AJ Foyt entered the paddock, just like, you know, when Tony Stewart enters the paddock,

LEVI:

Yeah. You know, me, Tony being a little older than me and, and, and watching him, you know, in, in the early nineties, uh, you know, race the nine car and when, and, you know, just being able to show up after going to NASCAR and do that. And he would show up and he was a threat to win anywhere, right. On pavement on dirt. And he just had that confidence and he can, he could drive anything. He still can.

BRUCE:

Well, Levi Jones, you proved that you could drive anything when you were a USAC star. Now you're the director of Indynext by Firestone. Good luck the rest of the season. And thank you for joining us today on Pit Pass Indy presented by Penske Truck Rental.

LEVI:

Hey, thank you. Glad we could catch up and look forward to doing it again in the future.

BRUCE:

And that puts a checkered flag on this edition of Pit Pass Indy. We want to thank our guest, director of Indy Next by Firestone, Levi Jones, for joining us on today's podcast. Along with loyal listeners like you, our guests help make Pit Pass Indy, presented by Penske Truck Rental, your path to victory lane in IndyCar. On the highways, the raceways, and every pit stop in between, Penske Truck Rental keeps you moving forward. Gain ground with Penske. For more IndyCar coverage, follow me at X, previously known as Twitter, at BruceMartin, one word, uppercase B, uppercase M, underscore 500. This has been a production of Evergreen Podcast. A special thanks to our production team, executive producers are Bridget Coyne and Gerardo Orlando. Recordings and edits were done by me, Bruce Martin, and final mixing was done by Dave Douglas. Learn more at evergreenpodcast.com. Until next time, be sure to keep it out of the wall.