During the race weekend at Sonoma Raceway, Danny Peters spoke to Ty Dillon about how much he has enjoyed watching the FIFA World Cup, his longevity in the sport, his gratitude about his day job, his relationship with Cleetus McFarland and being a dad.
Danny Peters, Frontstretch: Have you been following the World Cup?
Ty Dillon: Yeah, I’ve been following it pretty adamantly. I’ve been pretty excited that it’s come to America. I actually invested in a bunch of sports cards four years ago before the last World Cup, thinking that America was gonna have the performance that they’ve had this year, but it’s been really fun to follow them and then just follow all the games.
It’s so cool that they’re on that kind of decent hours throughout the day in America, and so I’ve almost watched every single game but not start to finish. I’ll click it on for a little bit, kind of check the scores and see who’s playing, and obviously I’ve watched all the teams with the superstars. But definitely been watching all the USA games and cheering hard, and hopefully we can make a run.
The US was eliminated in the Round of 16 by Belgium. The World Cup Final will be played by Spain and Argentina on July 19.
Peters: Sonoma will be your 299th Cup Start. Talk a little bit about just your longevity in the sport.
Dillon: Yeah, you know, when you’re a young driver and get into the sport, those things don’t really register with, like the length of your career, but after you’ve done it for a while and you realize the ups and downs and the ins and outs of what happens to just remain relevant in the Cup Series for that long, you grow increasingly proud of your efforts. So 300 starts to me is something that you’ll never be able to take away from me, long after my career, and something I can always be proud of, and hopefully the next 300 will be my best.
In his 300th Cup start at Chicagoland Speedway on July 5, Dillon finished 20th.
Peters: Did your success in last year’s In-Season Challenge (where you made the final) help with sponsorships at all, being the face at the track every week with your great efforts?
Dillon: You know, it’s hard to calculate that and see if it actually did or not. Obviously it created a lot of conversation, a lot of buzz, and I think for a lot of people in NASCAR, they got to see not only my personality, but Kaulig Racing and the fun that we have. I think our marketing and PR team did such an awesome job around it last year. We had so much fun and really showed who we are as a company, and so I’m sure it helped a lot in a lot of ways. Appreciative of NASCAR for thinking of an In-Season Challenge like this that’s given us so much run out for telling more storylines.
Peters: I wanted to ask a little bit about Cleetus McFarland. You kind of vouched for him and I saw you in Nashville kind of talking to him, like, just talk a little bit about how that’s been, that experience with him and just seeing him take his first steps.
Dillon: It’s been fun. You know, I think that’s the biggest thing with me for Cleetus or Garrett, is that he has so much fun driving cars, and I think a lot of times we get so caught up in the competition and the seriousness of Cup racing and NASCAR in general that we lose the fun factor, and he brings such an enjoyment and light to our sport. He watches in-car, he watches interviews, and we got to remember that as who we are.
So not only for me personally, but for the team members and everything that are around him, it’s so fun, and it’s also a good reminder of like you can have fun and also work really hard and improve and be kind of vulnerable about where you’re at as far as a driver and still be able to stick around. So he’s something unique and different for our sport, but he’s a great dude, and I don’t think you’ll meet many people that come around him that don’t say that. So you know it’s been really fun, and we’ll see where the future goes.
Peters: You’re going to race Crown Vics with Cleetus and your grandfather … have you done that yet?
Dillon: I’m excited to race against my grandfather a little bit.
Peters: Who’s gonna win?
Dillon: I don’t know.
Peters: Are you allowed to win?
Dillon: We can’t bump him.
Peters: So is that coming up soon?
Dillon: I think it’s the weekend of North Wilkesboro.
Peters: I saw in a Jeff Gluck 12 questions interview you talked about how people who haven’t met you before, when they meet you they think that you’re kind of a really different guy to what they expect. You also talked about the gratitude you have. I was just really struck by you mentioning gratitude and just wondering if you can kind of talk a little bit about that.
Dillon: Yeah, I think I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to have this sport kind of taken away at different times in my career where I always felt like I was on top of the world being a Cup driver and Cup contracts. Then for it to all be gone and then have to kind of grind your way, kind of scratch and claw to come back, and when you’re away and you have enough time to realize that there’s a lot of world out there that doesn’t even know what NASCAR is or what’s going on, and you kind of find comfort with that. But then you come back, you have gratitude to be able to do something so cool that there’s only 36 to 38 drivers in each series that get that chance, and so I balance that, and it’s one that I’ve been given perspective multiple times.
It’s hard to hang on to the bad days and just not remember that, like, I’m one of the luckiest people in the world, that I get to do a fun job. And yeah, I’m an extreme competitor and I get mad in moments, but ultimately I’m so grateful to to be one of the few that get to do this and have fun and travel all over the country, see special places and race cars for a living.
Peters: You’re a dad of three young kids. How do you kind of balance that, that family life, young kids, needing to be there with this kind of relentless schedule at NASCAR?
Dillon: I mean the most important thing to me is being a father and a husband first, and I would give NASCAR away in a heartbeat if that were to get in the way of being those two things first. And for me, my career is more now about showing my kids hard work and never giving up on your dreams, and if you believe in something, you want something to work hard, and I’m just trying to set an example for them. My life is more about what happens for their life now, and if I can give them some fun moments in between, that’s what I do it for. So it makes it a lot easier to go out and work hard for somebody else than it does to work hard for yourself.
Peters: And then last question, obviously that awful news about Kyle. I wanted to ask your thoughts on that.
Dillon: Yeah, it’s just devastating. And it’s not fair and it’s upsetting, and we’re always thinking about the Busch family, especially Samantha and Brexton and Lennix, his mom and dad and Kurt. It’s easy to get swept up in our season and just move on to the next race and focus on things we think about, but there’s always the reminder that someone’s missing that’s been so impactful to our sport, but not just him but his family too. So we’re always thinking about what we can do to help, and it’s just not easy.
Danny Peters has written for Frontstretch since 2006. An English transplant living in San Francisco, by way of New York City, he’s had an award-winning marketing career with some of the biggest companies sponsoring sports. Working with racers all over the country, his freelance writing has even reached outside the world of racing to include movie screenplays.
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