Conversation with Sting Ray Robb, An Up-and-Coming Indy Car Racer

He's a rising star in IndyCar racing . I've been following him since 2017 , when he started on the road to Indy in Pro Mazda . He's now on the last rung of that racing ladder And we expect to see him in IndyCar's next year . I welcome to the show Stingray Rob . So Stingray , most of my guests don't understand this . first start .

I say we're going to take a warm up lap around Mid-Ohio . I know , you'll be very good at this . Who is Stingray Rob ?

My parents were big Corvette fans and they decided to pass that passion along with me through my name . But I started racing when I was five years old . Ever since then I started climbing the ladder .

I mean , one of the funny stories that I like to tell is that whenever I was in the car with my mom and they had a Corvette at the time when I was quite little , she got on the throttle a little bit . All I could say was faster , faster , faster .

It was pretty cool , but anyways , yeah , i ended up getting into racing pretty early and moved my way up through the carting ranks and then into cars , and I tried everything . I did dirt cars , nascar , open wheel sports cars And I just wanted to make sure that whatever path it was that I was going to take was the one I wanted to do .

So I just did it all , and one of the blessings that I've had along the way is the involvement of my family . They've been huge supporters of what I'm doing and who I am from day one , and that's not just my parents , my grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and nieces and nephews and brothers and sisters , i mean .

I got a large family , a wide variety of personalities , and they've all become part of my career , which is so cool because it may have been so much more meaningful for me .

And not only that , but , like , my faith is something that I believe in And that has been something that has passed along from my grandparents into my parents and to me , and that's why I feel like I am where I am is to share my faith with others and be a light to those down being and just feel like racing is that platform And it's something that I'm

passionate about and really enjoy .

But outside of the Corvette side of things , sting is actually short for Sterling And that is because of my dad's heritage . Inside of the family is from Sterlingshire , scotland , so they took Sterling , shortened it to Sting , and then both my grandpas had Ray in their name .

My dad's dad was Ray And then my mom's dad was Phillip Ray And so we took all of that combined together And here I am as Stingray Rob .

But my mom was also a car person . She is quite unique personality . She's very versatile and she likes projects . She likes old cars and she likes going fast . She likes the sound and driving and just the whole atmosphere . It's pretty cool to see , because I'm kind of in their way of experiencing more in depth of that . They share the passion with me .

But I'm the first generation racer out of the group .

You remember that very first race where you went out and you were competitive and tell us about that .

You know and yeah , so I got started doing that And then we went out to our local cart track , which is by no means something to brag about . It's a eighth mile Ripper of a track , super bumpy . You hold your breath for you know 15 seconds and take a breath on the straightaway And then you hold it for another 15 seconds .

So I got going out there when I was five or six I guess my birthday was . I turned five in September and then we didn't get out there until that next summer And I don't really remember my first race , but I definitely remember the early stages of like okay , where do you put your hands on the steering wheel ?

I go OK , how close can I get to the cart next to me ? And the five year old is pretty young . Yeah , i remember some of it And I think my first large memory of like a successful race didn't come until I was about eight years or nine years old eight years old , just 2010 . And I won the four cycle grand nationals .

That was a big event for me And I actually made a last lap pass with two turns to go And my mom's got a video of it somewhere , but she was filming and you see me throw it in the corner that people don't normally pass in .

She ended up screaming and like dropping the camera And I crossed the starting finish line and , you know , finished first And that was pretty cool And my mom and grandpa and my dad were my mechanics at the time , so they got to end up on the podium with me And that was like the big deal .

You know , it's like the first national event that I won , so that was pretty awesome .

I got that when I was like 13 , maybe because I needed to learn how to drive a manual in order to go to the Bondron racing school in Arizona .

So I kind of went like a year without a car , got another Mini Cooper S And it was race red . I don't know the exact name of the color , but you know bright red Mini Cooper and you know has a supercharger and short wheelbase And I ended up autocrossing that a couple of times And then pretty soon . I mean I live in a small town actually , so pay Idaho .

The population is less than 7000 , probably most of the year OK , and our local police department had officers that were coaches on our basketball team , and so my two coaches the head of coach for my freshman year , my assistant coach were police officers and they'd seen me ripping around town .

Instead of pulling me over , they would say , hey , you're running suicide tonight , and so I'd have to do the extra workouts after practice because I got caught speeding through town And so that Mini Cooper had to go pretty quickly . Yeah , those are my two first cars .

So tell me you're still young , most memorable road trip that you remember , small child recently .

But one of the most fun trips I think I had And , like I said , i've been on plenty , so it's just the one that stands out amongst the rest .

But in 2017 , as my first year in pro-Mazda we had a race in St Louis And my mom and my dad had to go back And we actually owned a small grocery store in Ontario , oregon , and so they had to go back and run the company for a little bit .

But we were going to Watkins Glen right after St Louis was like the following weekend , so my grandparents and I hopped in the rental car and drove from St Louis to Watkins Glen , new York . And our goal was to do it without Google Maps or anything like that , just paper map . And so we did all the touristy things .

We did the Louisville Slugger factory , we did Antietam , gettysburg , and somewhere along the way there We were going to go to the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon , like , oh , that sounds awesome , that looks really cool .

I remember I was in charge of the map And so 15-year-old me , who's never used a map before , is obviously not the best option , but they were training me , i guess .

And then that's like to the side , we've got to go from this town to this town . So you follow the road signs And so we're driving for like 30 minutes . I'm like man , where is this Pennsylvania Grand Canyon ? We're looking around And we get to the town on the other side . We're like what in the world , where did the Grand Canyon go ?

We turn around and go back through on this road that's supposed to be right next to the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon . We can't find it . It's like , ok , it's the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon . Like it's on the map , you should be able to notice what it is .

And so we get back to the town on the other side , like where we started , and we did that again And pretty soon , like we get back And we're heading back towards our starting positions for the second time And I realized I'm like wait , no , hang on . We are in the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon right now .

It was like two rolling hills and a road running between them And that was like our entertainment for the day . You know , halfway through that event I started eating all the snacks in the car And they're like hang on , we got to survive here . I'm like I know I'm eating it before you guys eat it . I got to put on the pounds before you guys come along .

So , anyway , that was a good trip And seeing all the sights And Gettysburg was awesome too , because I was actually studying that in my history class at the same time .

So I'm doing homework in the car in the backseat as we're going through Gettysburg And I'm studying it in my book and reading about it And I'm telling them facts about this place and this place and this place and so and so is here , And then It was so cool to experience that with my grandparents just the three of us , without my parents or someone else being

there . It was a lot of good personal time , good for our relationship .

I said well , because you can't see America if you just stay on the interstate .

It was 73 at the time , but we pick up this car and we had no map . So we're kind of like I'm thinking I got a truck driver with me . He figured out where we're going . The goal was to run Route 50 from the West Coast back home . We did get turned around once . We actually had to stop and buy a paper map .

You've been racing let's just call it 2017 to now , and you're doing great . By the way , i enjoy watching what you do , so you've been in these races . We'll talk about pro-mods . We'll talk about IndyLite . Is there just one race that just really stands out to you among the rest ? I know there's been lots .

And so I was going for the championship way more than I probably would have otherwise , because I knew this is kind of like it if I don't win . So we do is a triple header weekend . We do the first race and I started like third or something and then finished tenth And it was no one's fault other than my own .

I drove off the track and then put myself in bad positions and it was just terrible .

And after that race , i remember I get out of the car and look at my driver coach and he kind of shrugged his shoulders And I was like I don't want to talk to anyone right now .

So I said , okay , i'm going to be back , i'm going to put my home in the trailer and go for a walk around Mid-Ohio , And I don't know if you've been out in the little fields out there where the campgrounds are . But I went for a walk through the trees . I've camped there many times And I was like okay .

Someone else makes a mistake , or I make a mistake , and it just like it never . It never works out the way we need it to work out , and I'm tired of trying to force it , so I'm just trusting you with it .

And in that moment I had a memory of a verse that I learned when I was homeschooled , and it was James one and said consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds , because you know that the testing of your face produces perseverance . So let perseverance finish its work So you may be mature and complete , not lacking anything .

I was like huh , like that is not something that I've thought about in a long time , but it was like this flood of emotions went away And I felt at peace because I knew that everything that I've been through had been for a reason and I could trust God with everything that I'd struggled through and all of the lessons that I learned , that I could consider it

something that was a blessing , because it taught me something that I wouldn't have experienced otherwise . I was good after that , like all right , whatever happens , happens , i'm trusting God and I know that it'll be for a reason . It'll be for a reason as long as I give it to him .

I went out for the next race and I ended up winning and it was just like the weight kind of just was lifted and from there on it was just like the floodgates opened up .

So , yeah , that's probably one of the most memorable races I've had , and one that I think will be a staple in my career , just because it was the moment that I kind of gave it up and leaned on my face more than I would have had I not been broken . So I think it's good for a man to be broken , not broke . That makes sense .

A truly broken man is at rock bottom and is willing to give it all away in order to get back up , and that's where I was . I wasn't , you know , halfway there . I was all the way there . I was ready to do it , so yeah , Wow , Wow .

Maybe as a kid you're like ah , someday I'm going to do that . We know you're going to win the Indie 500 , okay , i'm confident of that .

Like why do we have to go to school ? Why do we have to learn ? Why can't we just be born with it ? I think this is ridiculous , i'm tired of it already , and so I mean , those were questions that I was thinking at a very early age , and it was kind of funny too , because before that I thought that I was just going to do everything .

You know , i was going to be a race car driver , i was going to be an astronaut , i was going to be a baker , i was going to be a dog trainer you know Yeah . It was just like this list of things that continued on . Oh , i have so much life ahead of me , and I think that's so true .

Like at eight or nine years old do you think that you're on top of the world Because the world sits in front of you . You know , that's like the age that you realize that , man , i have so much ahead of me and as long as I keep doing something , i'm going to do it all . And I didn't realize that we don't actually have that much time .

So I think if I was going to make a list of things that I want to experience , like , i think it'd be super cool to do

So . Actually , growing up in Idaho , i'm a big outdoorsman . I like snow skiing , i like mountain biking , i like hiking , i like hunting .

But I want to do like an all-out trip , like a three-week trip up the coast of California , i do like surfing , rock climbing , and then going to Oregon , washington , idaho , up into Canada and like just do anything from like surfing , hunting , fishing , hiking , and then snow skiing in the British Columbia , and like do it out of the back of my car or a van or

something You know , meet people along the way and just like have good company as I go to different places , and I think that would be absolutely amazing to do something like that , i mean , and then outside of that , if you're going to get get away from activities , I don't know , it's hard to say , i don't know what it's going to look like yet , but you know ,

life is quite short And as one person you don't feel like you can do a lot , but I feel like racing is a platform I can use .

So I want to make a difference in communities around me and the lives around me , and so , like that's , one of my main goals in life is just to look for those opportunities And hopefully one day I don't care if I be , i'm remembered as that , but I want to inspire others to do the same .

Stingray Rob , sitting down with young person , they've got a passion . I don't care what the passion is . What would you tell them ?

It's like how important community is and that doesn't mean like your social media community , i mean like really interconnected , deep , hold you accountable , living life together kind of community .

That could be family , it could not be family , but I think that it's important to have wise counsel around people that are going to call you out , people that are going to challenge you , and also the people that are going to have fun with you and be willing to go through the daily life and the monotonous , as well as the good , the bad and the ugly kind of

a deal . But yeah , i think that pour into relationships where you know that you can have that more so than getting caught up in how many friends can I have ?

That is something that I really advise , because the group that you spend your most time with is the group that you're going to become And you're all going to grow together , and so make sure that you're growing with the right people instead of all the people . So , yeah , there's that .

And then another thing I'd say is that you know , recently I read Ecclesiastes and it is . It's almost depressing to read , but it is very eye opening to the idea that you know everything that we do is going to go away at some point . Right , everything fades over time .

So make sure that what you're doing is not just for the moment but is also valuable in the future . And that's like how you spend your money , how you spend your time , how you spend your energy , how you spend your thoughts , and make sure that what you're pouring into and what you're pouring into yourself is valuable and you're going to see the return out of .

And that also goes into your passion . Like , don't get caught up in doing everything all at once . That was something I had to learn with racing is . When I was growing up , i was playing a bunch of sports baseball , basketball , soccer , golf , snow skiing , all that And those were all things that I really enjoyed .

And I got caught up every once in a while of like , well , should I just quit racing and be a basketball player ? Like I need to do it all . And I think that if you just enjoy it for what it is , take what you can from it and give everything that you can 100% , but don't get caught up in doing everything all at once .

There's a balance there , and so I think I guess learning the balance is tricky and easier said than done , but yeah , i think that's a good thing to learn . As well .

As you know , career and life Like there's , there's so many things outside of racing for me And there's a lot of things I want to achieve outside of racing , and balancing those also helps me inside of my career . You know , you're only as good as you are balanced . Those are the three or four lessons that I would pass on to someone .

We've taken some to the Texas Speedway trying to introduce racing to some of my non racer friends . That's awesome . Tell , tell my friends and my listeners how to find you so they can follow you .

Peacock's got great coverage , so that's the best way you can follow the racing . And then , if you want to follow me , instagram , facebook those are probably the two best off , there you go .

, the road trip guy . Okay , i like it . That sounds good Yeah .