In 10 races of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season, Garage 66 has made starts with its No. 66 Ford Mustang with former driver-turned-owner and crew chief Carl Long at the helm.
Last weekend at Iowa Speedway’s Iowa Corn 350, Long got to be a part of a unique sponsorship opportunity with Hulu marketing the return of adult cartoon King of the Hill to its platform, allowing Long to don the main protagonist Hank Hill proudly on the hood of Joey Gase’s No. 66.
Frontstretch interviewed Long on Aug. 3 at Iowa prior to the start of the race and discussed the acquisition of the King of the Hill sponsorship, Gase racing at his home track, working as a crew chief and more.
Wyatt Watson, Frontstretch: Carl, tell me about this partnership. King of the Hill is one of the most recognizable adult cartoons to be on the waves, and with it coming back to Hulu, how much does it mean for a small team like yours to be partnering with such a big brand like that?
Carl Long: It’s a huge part to participate with these guys, and the fact is that it wasn’t supposed to come to us.
Watson: Really?
Long: Yeah, it was going to another race team, and the other race team had a lot of demands, had a lot of stuff that they wanted to happen pretty quickly, and all of the PR people and everybody involved couldn’t make it happen. So instead of a one deal with a better-known team, they got two deals with me and Joey in Xfinity and Cup. We’re not going to go out there and set it on the pole, but we’re going to get a lot of TV time, as much as they would have with [Frontstretch] and the other people that are posting on the internet. We’ve got them as much exposure for a whole lot less money than what they were originally trying to do.
Watson: You mentioned Joey Gase. He’s driving your car for the first time since 2019 and in a second go-around in the Next Gen car. For this being his home track, how much does it mean to you to help him get on the Cup Series grid for this race at a track that’s so important to him?
Long: Well, the biggest thing is that I bring a driver to this track with experience of the racetrack. A lot of the times, we go and you have to learn [that] these cars are so different. I’ve never got to drive one other than on the chassis dyno, but just getting in and out of them from an Xfinity car to one of these — everyone talks about what the big difference it is. Now that I’ve took over the crew chief role over and learning the things, it’s just a lot of adjustments and a lot of things that aren’t there that you were used to. So although we don’t have the factory backing with the big engines and all of the stuff that we want, we’re learning. We come to the racetrack. We run practice for us. We don’t have sim time. We don’t have these other things.
We came here this weekend and we were bouncing off the racetrack. My left-front scrub block was hitting the bumps at the start finish line. My left-rear was dragging, so we worked on practice to get it up. It’s tough because of the gold surface, the digital points of what you have to have for NASCAR to go through inspection. I want to get it from Ford. NASCAR says I have to get all your gold surface stuff from Ford to digitize it. They said we’re not on the program. Then, I go back to NASCAR and say Ford don’t give it to me. So we have to go back and forth to the NASCAR R&D Center two or three trips to get it close, and we don’t have these things Roma armed in. So I can’t program my computer or my car into a computer, and if I could, I still don’t have their sim knowledge.
I’ll have to lean on some friends in the garage to give me a good starting point. I’m glad it’s a little longer practice session on the Cup side than it is on the Xfinity, and it gives us more chances to adjust and try to drive it on most everywhere we’ve been this year, when we start the race, we’re a lot faster at the end than we are when we start.
When I took Josh Bilicki to Bristol this year, we had the knowledge of what we done last year, which we didn’t run that great. This year, we went there and the car kept up and did well. So it’s just me building a book of notes and having these things where I can go back [to].
When we do get a sponsorship strong enough like I’ve got coming up for Daytona that we can lease a Yates engine, I’ve got something to offer when I put a driver in that got a little bit of experience behind us, and maybe we won’t start off in left field.
Watson: Doing the crew chief role — you mentioned you’ve been an owner for a good while coming back, and now embracing that crew chief role, how has that changed the way you’ve approached race weekends this season?
Long: It hasn’t. I’ve always crew chiefed my own car. When I was driving and I had two or three other cars going, I just had a couple of guys that would move the bolts or change a wedge or do something that I asked them to do. I always had an opinion, and they had an opinion, but when you hire a crew chief and you’re spending good money, you have to trust that he’s doing what you want him to do. It’s what you ask him to do or what he’s bringing something to the table to teach you.
This new car is all new, and I don’t have the money to go hire one of them crew chiefs over there. When I look through the garage, I can almost find somebody at every team that either I worked for, drove for or they worked for me. One week, I might ask my buddy on one team what he thinks. Next week, I’ll ask another guy. By the time I come around two months later, I’m back to the same guy I started with the first time so I don’t wear out the same person ever week with, “Hey! What are you gonna do? What do I need to run at this track?” I just lean on people I can trust and go from there.
Watson: Of all the sponsorships you’ve had, is this the most fun and unique sponsorship you’ve had in your career as an owner or driver?
Long (in a Jeff Boomhauer impression): Well, you know, the dang old, the dang old get around the corner over there, and just mash the gas and get on the TV and people come looking at me and everything, but I think it’s pretty good.
Watson (in a Hank Hill impression): I don’t know what you’re saying Boomhauer!
*Both laugh*
Wyatt Watson has followed motorsports closely since 2007. He joined Frontstretch as a journalist in February 2023 after serving in the United States Navy for five years as an Electronic Technician Navigation working on submarines. Wyatt is one of Frontstretch's primary IndyCar correspondents, providing exclusive video content on site. He hosts Frontstretch's Through the Gears podcast and occasionally The Pit Straight.You can find Wyatt's written work in columns such as Friday Faceoff and 2-Headed Monsteras well as exclusive IndyCar features. Wyatt also contributes to Frontstretch's social media team, posting unique and engaging content for Frontstretch.
Wyatt Watson can be found on X @WyattWRacing