Aric Almirola

the highlights posted on their Instagram. It's like dominoes where they all fall at once and there's no bucket of water at the end. I'm nowhere near I told you so yet, but I hope everyone in professional sports is taking this serious because even though the NBA is pretending to be in a bubble, shouts to Lou Williams and rapper Jack Harlow, it's not working. And I want everyone to be safe more than I want to see a cutout of a dog sitting front row at Great America.

And if baseball is to end this week, please name Jackie Bradley Jr. M VP. He went six thirty six over the weekend. Anyway, I'm still talking to athletes and industry professionals to see what they're doing during this very weird time, because someone has to. This is the sports bubble with Jensen Cart. Even with baseball's future in jeopardy,

NASCAR has been driving at full speed. Sure, they had a positive test once and had been at the forefront of racial tension, but they're still competing, taking advantage of the natural social distancing their events allow for drivers. And no one has taken advantage of these times more than Eric Almola. While most of us have been staring out the window, paranoid and gaining weight during the pandemic, this dude has been streaking, putting together the most successful run

of his career. Eric is currently eighth overall in the NASCAR Cup Series, his career best position, and in his nineteen starts this season, he has eleven top ten finishes, five top five, and is the only driver in the field who have been inside the top ten at every checkered flag, even cross the finish line backwards at the

Geico five hundred in third place. That's insane. The Cuban missile is taking advantage of a predicament where most of us feel our physical worst, yet he's one of the few in sports having the time of his life, and this weekend at Foxwoods, he will attempt to keep the streak alive, maybe even with the w he's so intimately flirting with. We'll talk about why he's thriving in these times, why he sent a text to Bubba Wallace even though they aren't quote unquote friends. And we get into bacon,

which I'm sure you saw coming. Let's ride shotgun into the sports bubble from Eric down rolla to accept press one. Hello Eric, Hey, how's it going. I'm well man. Thanks for doing this, Yeah, you got it. Thanks for having me. First off, I know you have a lot of work on your mind nowadays, but for a very long time you were home schooling and keeping preteens busy. That was your entire schedule. So first let's start with where you

were quarantining and how you survived. So we started the quarantine at home here in Mooresville, North A Lina with a seven and six year old seven year old boy um and a six year old daughter. So we we spent a couple of weeks here and found it to be extremely challenging to keep our kids from you know, wanting to play with the neighbor kids out in Culda back and um, you know, in the street. And so we really took it seriously in the beginning, like we

were like, no, we're staying home, We're staying indoors. And we found that to be an extreme challenge, especially when they were done with their school work by you know, after lunch one two o'clock. So we loaded up our r V and drove from North Carolina to Florida, you know, And it was nice to have the RV. We didn't have to go inside any public restrooms or anything like that. We could have sandwiches and all that while we traveled.

And we went down to Florida. My in laws lived down near the Naples area in Florida, and so we parked our RV next to their house and basically quarantine there for about three weeks. And yeah, it was nice. We we could manage who we came in contact with way better there, especially with the kids. And we could swim in the pool and go out on the boat and go in the ocean, and it was there was a lot more entertainment there without coming in contact with a lot of other people. I don't blame you. You

have a seven and eight year old. Those are both very high maintenance age. I mean, I I those You can't just tell them to sit on their hands. That is way too hard. Yeah, trying to get them to do their school work was hard enough. And by the time we got done with their school work, you know, at two o'clock the afternoon, the last thing we wanted to do is continue to have to to govern their

every move. So it was nice to be down there and we could swim int the pool and goof off and and have fun and and actually just be outside. I think for us that was the hard part about being at home in North Carolina at that time, in early March and early April, the weather was terrible. It was just rain after rain after rain, and just cloudy, gray days. So going to Florida and being in the

nice sunshine and being outdoors, um certainly helped our sanity. Sure, we'll normally be traveling around a ton for work during that time. You were grounded recently. So what I want to know what's harder is it? Is it competing in NASCAR or homeschooling kids. Homeschooling kids down Yeah, that was the greatest eye opener for my wife and I. We drop our kids off at school and and quite honestly, don't really think about it. You you appreciate, you know,

school and the teachers. But it's normal, right, It's what we all do anybody that has kids. But you drop your kids off at school, you take for granted that they're you know, cared for and that they're learning something, and then you pick them up after school, and you don't really pay a whole lot of attention to what goes on in between. But when you are the one that's teaching them, you have a whole new appreciation for the teachers in the school. And I know that was

the case for us. Just I know, my wife and I are very very meticulous, and we have very high expectations of our children trying to teach them, and not having the patients that we probably need to be good teachers was was something that we learned. We had to navigate that because, uh, you know, we wanted them to just get it, come on, like understand like what's so

hard about this? Like and then just we know our kids better than anybody else, so we know when they're trying to scape by or when they're giving their best efforts. So we're probably even way harder on our own children than the teacher would be because we, you know, we have such high expectations out of them. Yeah, well they are saints, those teachers. I it's always shocking when they're not millionaires. You're like, this job deserves more than I make,

for sure. Obviously a lot of people who just know NASCAR from Afar assume you wake up and then go drive, which we all know is not the case. It takes a ton of endurance training, working outside obviously involved. So how do you do that when you're in in RV and going to the in laws? How did you how did you use quarantine to stay in driving mode? Well, Um, fortunately for me, I enjoy a lot of outdoor activity

for for my training. It's something that I enjoy. And so I found that if I enjoy working out, it doesn't really feel like working out. So um, so I enjoy running, and I really really enjoy cycling, and so I took you know, I took obviously running shoes with me, and I took a bike with me, and so I did a tremendous amount of cycling while I was down there, which was nice. I probably rode my bike four to five days a week and probably ran, you know, three

or four days a week. Some days, you know, i'd get up in the morning and run super early while it was still not that hot it out, uh, and then I would take off in the afternoon and go ride my bike for thirty or forty miles for a couple of hours in the heat of the day, which I felt like was going to really help me when I got back in the race car, because you know that heat training and endurance training at the same time

is essentially what we're doing in the race car. Our heart rates through on average of what a marathon runners is for about the same amount of time, maybe a little longer. But the inside temperature of our race cars is about a hundred and thirty degrees, So it's hard to train for that anywhere else but outside in the elements. That's right. Yeah. I mean, people who hear you say that you love running, I mean, what what what I mean? They're probably like rolling their eyes, But what how do

you make running enjoyable for you? So I make running enjoyable for me by the fact that I don't you know, I'm not trying to set land speed records. So I'll go out and I'll run. I'll go run three to five miles. I don't run any more than that. I'm not trying to run a marathon or you know, an iron Man. Yet maybe I have aspirations of doing that when I'm not racing anymore, because it's gonna take a lot of you know, time and sacrifice to do that, and I don't have the time right now. But for me,

I love to run. I go go run three to five miles and I can start out at a you know, ten minute pace, which is relatively slow for me, and then I can run one or two miles like that, and then I can you know, try and run eight minute or seven thirty pace mile and then flow it back down for another nine minute mile to close it out. And it feels good, it doesn't hurt, and it's uh, it's a great way to get a good workout in

to start your day. Well, I wanted to kick this off with you know, saying you're my first driver on the podcast. I've been so impressed with NASCAR. We had on Brianna Daniels, who was incredible and and after a stop down in March, you you're now back in your car's racing. I think the sport itself is done a good job with with getting you back into action. And I guess what are the biggest difference you see in the sport now because of COVID nineteen. What are the

changes that that affect you the most? For me personally, the biggest change that that has affected me is just the lack of human connectivity. You know, I am very much a hands on person just with the race car, but especially with people. I enjoy shaking people's hands, I enjoy patent you know, my team members on the back. I enjoy talking face to face with my you know, with my crew guys and my team members and smiling

and laughing and joking and having that human interaction. And for me that has been the most challenging part is you know, flying to the race tracks alone, getting to the race track and being in my RV alone, and then when it's time to race, walk out to the race car alone, uh, stand next for my race car for the national anthem alone, and then getting my racetrack

to go race alone. And you know, all of my human interaction is through a telephone or a video screen or a computer, and it's just not it's not the same. I'm very very much a person that enjoys being around people, and especially my team. I love that camaraderie. And you know I missed that. Yeah, and you know, dumb question, but do you notice the fans in the car? Like

it's a totally empty and quite stadium right now. NASCAR's hinted to bringing some people back down the road, But do you notice any noise or anything when you're in the car. Is that sort of the same. You know, you you notice the lack of fans when you walk out, you know, to your car to start the race. There's just that lack of energy, that lack of electricity because you don't have you know, a hundred thousand fans and the sands and yelling or cheering or booing or any

of those things. Um, you're not walking through crowds to get to drive introductions and you're not signing autograph and all those things on pit road before the start of the race. So that is that's very awkward. But once you strapped in the race card to start the race, you don't really notice the lack of fans anymore. You know,

when I'm when we're all in the race car. We're so focused and concentrating on the competition around us on the racetrack, and then you know, just focused on the mark, hitting your marks and racing the race track that you don't really notice that there's no fans in the stands. You know, the race cars are so loud inside, um you can't really hear even when fans are there, you can't hear them. But then when the race is over,

that's the next awkward part. You know that there's no there's no fans cheering or booing or any of those things when you know when the race is over, and it just there's just the overall lack of energy, you know, with without the fans. And you know, I know that they have sort of really drastically cut the number of personnel that's allowed on site during the race weekends. Like you said, you can't really stand next to your pit

and your crew. I mean, have those configurations and guidelines negatively affected the job itself other than just maybe your psyche about about working. No, you know, I I think for us. I can't speak for everybody, but I can only speak for myself. I grew up racing as a hobby. It was something that I did because I loved it, right, that's what That's how everybody becomes a professional athlete, Like they all started as a hobby. It doesn't matter if

you're a baseball player or football player or whatever. You do it for for hobby, for sports, and then all of a sudden you get good enough, and then you grow up and then next thing you know, you've become a professional and you start getting paid to do it. So that is, you know, essentially my story. And so I never did it for the fame. I never did it for the money. I've always done it just because I love to drive fast things. Um, whether it's a go cart or a race car or whatever it is.

I love to race and compete against other people in machines and I like to try and go faster than them and to pass them into race with them. And so I missed that so much when we weren't racing while we were shut down because of the pandemic. Uh. That that was the one thing that I realized that I really miss. Like I don't miss the money, I don't miss the same I don't miss any of those things, but I missed that adrenaline rush of driving the race car and competing. Yeah, and how were you able to

keep in touch with your crew? It was it just zoom calls and stuff like that, because they're so crucial to your prep and success. Yeah, we used zoom and there's other forms of meeting teams and spacetime and depending on how many people were on the meeting. And we used every resource and still to this day or continuing to use every resource available just to constantly stay engaged

with each other. And I asked this purely for one big reason, which is that you have somehow been able to take coronavirus and COVID and the stopdown and all these all these changes to your sport, and you're having the best run of your career. Very odd time in history to decide to do that. But top five finishes in your last five races, eight consecutive top ten's, while most people have felt rusty and out of sorts, you

are killing it. Why is that? Um? I just attested always to people, you know, I think, UM, that's the one thing that I think it's overlooked about most sports, UM, but especially about ours when you look on TV or if we can ever have fans back and you can look at the race track and you look at the cars. They all look very similar. You know, obviously they have

different paint jobs and stuff like that. From the in the grand scheme of things, they all look relatively the same, right, And we have rules that govern us to be equal, but they're not equal. And what makes the difference is the people. The people that put the cars together, the attention to detail that they put into their specific job,

those are what makes the biggest difference. And so you know, I've just been so fortunate and blessed to be with a great group of people, and you know, they make me look good. Yeah, And and I mean, even through these sort of challenging times, it's been awesome to see. And and I guess too with the way the sport is going with Jimmy Johnson testing positive for coronavirus last week and the NASCAR announced just a few days ago

the two negative tests will be back racing. I listen, I'm not one to bust anyone here, but that hasn't sad right with me. It's only two tests a couple of days. I assumed he had to quarantine. I thought it was for two weeks. Do you know what NASCAR's rules are for that when there's a positive test, and

how often are you guys being tested? Yeah, so we are being tested to enter the racetrack, They've run us through a testing station, and then we are we are admitted um into the infields to our our motor homes and campers, and then we're you know, we're we're ready for the race weekend or the race that weekend, and then if we do test positive, we have to go to a secondary screening station to further evaluate what's going on.

He uh, he had a positive test, and then so they they've told him that he's got to have a negative test, two negative tests within twenty four hours of each other, and so I guess, uh, he tested positive early of a week ago, and then this Monday he had a negative test, and then Tuesday he also had a negative test. So you know, the doctors and CDC and state health officials all agree and and that SCARS reinstated him. So I'm glad. I don't I don't I

think uh, I think that's probably the way it should be. Personally, I think it's extremely detrimental to a guy that you know, would have no symptoms and have a positive test, and Lord only knows if it's a false positive. There's no way to prove that. But you jeopardize not only somebody's season, but you jeopardize their career. I mean, you talk about

missing fourteen days. If you test positive the day before an event and it's a week where we're gonna run a double header race and a Wednesday race and a double head of the next week like we're gonna have coming up pretty soon, you could potentially miss five races, four or five races, and if if you miss four or five races, your season is over. And then once the playoffs start, if you miss one, your season's over.

And so not only does that have an effect on on your season, it has an effect on your career um and it has effect on you financially. So I think that, you know, I think that NASCAR has gotta gotta do the best job that they can to navigate all that. Yeah, especially with it possibly being Jimmy's final

season as well. Uh and because of the stop down in NASCAR, the schedule has been adjusted, like you said, ton of doubleheaders things like that, and one big thing, and I know we're all voting for Bacon to make it happen, which we'll get to a little bit later. Is the July fifteenth All Star Race. They're letting in thirty thousand fans. Obviously, they're going day by day to figure out if this is even humanly possible. But are you tep it? I'll be honest, I'm I'm going to

be your most pessimistic interview wher. I think we should be overly careful. I know a lot of you've seen that way as well, but thirty thousand fans to me sounds still like a lot of people, and and I'm still nervous with with numbers raising. Yeah, I I don't make the rules, man, I just I just go show up and go drive the race cars. So to be honest, I'm I'm not even really going to comment on that because I don't have a dog in the sight. Like I'm they're not going to come in contact with me.

I'm not doing any engagement. I'm not going out shaking hands, they're signing autographs or kissing any babies. Um. From that point. From that standpoint, I'm gonna do everything I can to make sure that I stay safe. And that's really all I can worry about. After this more with NASCAR driver

Eric al Marola. Right now, Feeding America is working tirelessly to ensure our most vulnerable populations, like students who are out of school, the elderly individuals whose jobs are impacted, and low income families continue to have access to food and other needed resources during the COVID nineteen pandemic. The Feeding America Food Bank Network is committed to serving communities and people facing hunger in America, and their greatest need

is donations and support of local food banks. This podcast is committed to donating a portion of the proceeds from the show to Feeding America, and we hope that you can join us in this effort to find out how you can help Feeding America dot org. Backslash COVID nineteen and now the rest of my conversation with Stuart Hoss racings Eric al Marola. Luckily, like I said, you've been on a streak and you had a wild finish at the Geico five hundred third place. You you basically finished,

spun around backwards. You were like a real ricky Bobby. Has that ever happened to you? And you have you ever had to practice at No, I've never practiced that, but when I got home, my kid did tell me that I was like to Mader from the movie Cars and that on the World best back in the Driver. So you did kill it. I mean it truly was remarkable. You know, it made mainstream news, hit pop culture even outside a NASCAR and I guess it's a Mario Kart move.

I mean it truly was like I've never seen it. Yeah, well, I do have a fair amount of experience playing Mario Kart. My son loves Mario Karts, so that's one of the ways that we've spent some of our quarantine was playing Mario Kart, so I did have I did have a chance to brush up my skills on Mario Kart quite a bit before we went back racing. Who do you pick? I'm just hoping you don't say Bowser. Do you have a regular racer? Yeah? Yoshi? Okay, good, very good pick.

I like that good, good, middle good middle run speed. Yoshi on a motorbike is tough to beat. It is tough to beat. So beyond golf carts on Mario World, I've been impressed with NASCAR over the past few months. It started, obviously with the banning of the Confederate flag at races, and then the swift message they sent out

regarding Bubba Wallace. I know he mentioned you specifically during a press conference as someone he's not necessarily pals with, but was so impressed and felt it was so important that you texted him, and he said it meant a lot, and you also publicly tweeted. But but why was reaching out to him personally? Why was that important to you? Well?

For me, I just knew that he was going through a lot, and you know, I know when you feel like the world's crashing in around you and all those things, you can you can live in your head and you can, you know, you can just get in a bad place. And so I just I just messaged him and said, hey, man,

I can't imagine what you're going through. I don't even pretend to understand, but I have empathy for you, and I you know, care about you as a human being, and I am going to stand with you and and stand by you and support you as a as a brother. Uh were. I know we're not friends. You know, he's got he's a very different personality than I am, and we don't you know, he's young and not married, I'm I'm older, married to kids. Um, so our lives just

don't you know, really coexist. And so you know, he's somebody that I see around a lot at the racetrack, but we just don't have a lot of interaction. But something inside of me was just saying, like, man, reach out to the guy. He's probably just dealing with so much. And I don't know how many people he has that reach out to him that just give him some encouragement.

And so I just wanted to encourage him and tell him that I was thinking about him and caring about him as a person, as a human being, and I just feel like that's the right thing to do. I mean, for me, I'm a devout Christian and I feel like that plays a huge part in my daily life and the way that I want to interact with people and treat other people. And for me, it was just something

that I felt like I needed to do. Yeah, And I think that as a casual NASCAR fan who is now getting much more into the community, I have loved it seeing people like you and Tyler Reddick and ty Dylan and the legend Richard Petty. I mean seeing all of you guys stand up for each other as brothers. Like you said, competitive but still brothers has been really inspiring. Did you did you know that community existed before it was tested, you know, on a national scale. Oh yeah.

I mean I've been around our sport for long enough now to know that we as much as we want to crush each other on the race track, when we are away from the race track, we are a family. Like we we are really a community. Um. You know, one of the things that I think that makes our sport unique to other sports is that every single team

competes against each other every single weekend, right. There's no other sport like that, where you know, it's either one team against another team and then the next week they play a different team. We compete against the same group of people and teams every single week. And when we traveled to these events, we're all going to the same event together. We traveled together. Our motor homes are parked

in a lot inside the racetracks together. So each one of those drivers, you know, albeit I want to beat them on the race track, they're my neighbors at the racetracks, you know. Their their motor homes are right next to my motor homes. The guys that have kids, Their kids are playing with my kids on the playground, but why they're talking to each other. You know, we sit outside on picnic tables by our motor homes and and eat

dinner outside, you know, together. So there's just a lot of community and a lot of family that goes into our sport. Uh. And lastly, you were part of the Drive for Diversity program that Bubba and Brianna Daniels was also part of, and it's really started to change the face of the fort incredibly. How how important do you think that outreaches for NASCAR as they try to define themselves moving forward to a larger audience, because, as I like to point out, ratings have been up over the

past few weeks. Yeah, the ratings have been incredible. It's so fun and exciting to see, you know. Of course, we want people to come back to the racetrack and experience it live and in person, which I in my own opinion, which I'm biased, is the best way to experience their sport. But I think the divers Day program and everything that NASCAR has initiated is so important for our sport. I mean, forever NASCAR has been a quote

unquote all American sport. And it's no secret that over the last fifty plus years, America has changed and changed drastically, and so for our sport to continue to be the all American sport, we have to look like all of America, you know. And I think that that is so important, just you know, that ability to have more diversity and more inclusion and make sure that it doesn't matter what color your skin is, or what language you speak, or what you look like, or whether you're you know, a

man or a woman, whatever it is. If you have a passion for horse power cars that go fast, competition on a race track, seeing cars beaten bang running two hundred miles an hour, we want you. We want you as a competitor, we want you as as a fan, we want you as a mechanic, we want you as a race car driver. We want you, We want you to be included in our sport. And I think that that's uh, I think that's so important. Well, I've loved watching it. So we talked about Bacon a little bit.

You are infamously sponsored by Smithfield Bacon. It as so much so that last week your car was wrapped with Vote for Bacon, which is something I think all of the nation can agree on, no matter what race, or gender or religion. So I think it's the most delicious car wrap in the business. And we know how much people love getting creative with the pork products. So I want to play a game with you where I mentioned

some bacon flavored products, some recipes. They're all real. You will grade them on a one one to five lap scale, five laps being the best. You tell me, I'm going to give them to you. They're all real. Okay. Bacon peanut Brittle. This is meaty, smoky bacon chopped up, then tossed in with peanuts and spices, and then sign kind of mixed in with maple syrup. Love it. Five laps. Perfect bacon brownies. Okay. This is a recipe I found

on the internet. It's basically just as it sounds, delicious, brownie bacon pieces cooked into the middle, sweet and savory. My wife makes those and I love them, So I'm giving those five all right, we I'm seeing a pattern. Let's move on. This one is a little more controversial. This is bacon sushi. This is a real niche item, but it is real. Instead of wrapping a hand roll in seaweed. We wrap it in bacon. Oh for me.

So I love sushi, and so this one's hard for me to grade because it would be very very dependent on the fish. Right, So it shrimp or like yellowtail or something like that, like a light fish. I think I'm totally in. But um, like a piece of a piece of tuna, right, I don't know? Salmon? Salmon? Yeah, So I'm gonna go into three three laps right in the middle, dependent on what is inside. Very good answer. Double decker mac and cheese stuffed bacon taco. Now it

is a lot to take in. It's not just bacon in the taco. This is a taco filled with mac and cheese, lettuce, and also shredded cheese, because boy, they need to make sure they have their cheese there. The taco shell, though, is not made out of any sort of dough or it is fully made of bacon. You're holding a bacon shell. There is a taco inside of it. What do you think? Oh? Man, So that one's gonna take about five miles of grown in before and about bike riding after. But I'm still gonna give it. I'm

gonna give it a four. Okay, very good lastly, our last one chocolate dipped bacon roses. Now you brought up your wife. This could be for Valentine's Day or a date night, what ever you feel romantic. It is a slice of bacon swirled up nicely to look like a flower, kind of like what a hotel will do with your towel on your bed. You top those off with chocolate. You put them in a box and willah. It is true love. Where are we on this? That's a five cis down. I love chocolate and I love bacon, and

I love chocolate and bacon together. Absolutely well. You got me voting for bacon love. Seeing the streak you're on during a very hard time, I think it's kind of awesome to see someone flourishing in it. And we'll be rooting for you on the track. All right, Thanks man, I appreciate it. The Sports Bubble is produced and distributed by tree Fort Media. The show was executive produced by Kelly Gardner, Lisa Ammerman, Matthew Coogler, and me Jensen Carr.

Tom Monahan is our senior audio engineer and sound supervisor, with production and editing by Jasper Leek. Additional production help from Tim Shower, June Rosen and Haley Mandelberg. Our theme music is composed by Focus. If you've enjoyed what you've heard, please subscribe, rate us and review us on the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and please visit Feeding America dot org if you're able

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