WEBVTT
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Welcome to the Women's Motorsports Network Podcast, the show that puts the spotlight on the incredible women who fuel the world of motorsports.
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From drivers to crew members, engineers to fans, and everyone in between, we're here to celebrate the trailbizers, dreamers, and doers shaping the sport we love.
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Each episode, we share inspiring stories of females of all ages from every corner of the motorsports universe, past, present, and future.
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It's a journey through the seasons of life filled with heartfelt moments, laughter, and a whole lot of horsepower.
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So whether you're a lifelong fan, a racer yourself, or simply curious about the extraordinary women behind the wheel, settle in, relax, and enjoy a fun and uplifting ride with us.
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This is the Women's Motorsports Network podcast, connecting and celebrating women in motorsports one story at a time.
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Let's hit the track.
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Yeah, I appreciate you having me.
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I'm greatly appreciated for it.
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I'm Shelby.
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I've been racing for 14 years.
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I live in Portland, Tennessee.
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I work at Publix.
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My dad, he has his own transmission shops.
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That's how he works in all of our cars.
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I'm very deeply into racing.
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That is my passion.
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That is what I love the most.
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Wrap my whole world around it pretty much.
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My boyfriend as well, he races too.
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He uh is just rebuilding his whole car.
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So yeah, just pretty much the racing world is my world.
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Okay.
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And do you have any siblings?
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I do not.
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I'm the only child.
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No child.
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So you're a you're your daddy's spoiled daughter, right?
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Pretty much we can admit that it's okay.
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And and uh how about pets?
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Do you have any pets?
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I have two wiener dogs.
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Oh their names are Doug and Carl.
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Everyone who like really knows my family knows Wiener Dog because my dad posts about them like they're newborn babies.
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But yeah, we love them.
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I also have a cat, she just kind of chills, but yeah, I got two wiener dogs.
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Yeah, she tries to.
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Well, that's cute, very, very cute.
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So I'm gonna ask you if if somebody googled you, would they find out anything about you that most people don't know?
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Yes.
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A few years ago, I actually had like a little thing with Drag Champ where they did a thing about me.
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And I used to, I was really into beauty pageants and dancing when I was younger.
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So that's something that most people don't know about me.
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Is I did a lot of beauty pageants.
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The older I got, the more I got into racing.
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So I just kind of like didn't do that anymore.
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I wasn't really interested in it.
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Well, you and you kind of have to choose, don't you?
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A little bit.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Well, that's cool.
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I did not know that about you, so that's that's pretty cool.
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So um, so tell me, how did you get started in motorsports?
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So my grandpa, which is my dad's father, he he raced long ago, which got my dad into racing as well.
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And my mother always says when she was pregnant with me, every time my dad would do a burnout, I would start kicking.
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That's how they knew I was gonna be a racing baby.
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I was always at the racetrack with my dad, even when I was a newborn baby.
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That's how they revealed my gender as they went over the intercom and announced that they were having a girl and everything.
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So yeah, I was always by his side.
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There's actually like a little picture that my dad has on his bedstand, and I was like not even a year old, and I had a helmet on in his car just standing there.
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Then I fell out of the car and busted my head open.
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But that's that's okay.
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I I never really knew about junior dragsters until I got older, and back when I started the legal age to start was eight.
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Well, I was eight for like three years, so I just stayed at local tracks that I was like they were allowing me to race.
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I started when I was seven.
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I got a little junior dragster on my seventh birthday.
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It was like this was back when like Jegs made junior dragsters.
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It was called a Jagster, had a little 1390 Briggs Stratton motor.
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Wasn't nothing too crazy.
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I raced at Music City for a very long time until I turned eight.
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Then we were able to start traveling.
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And then that's when my dad realized he was like, okay, she's actually into it.
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So he got me a bigger junior, half skill.
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I had that junior up until I aged out because he got it for big enough for I could have it the rest of my junior career.
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I traveled at places like Memphis for when they had this like junior program going on.
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I think it was called the Southeastern Junior Dragster series.
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Can't really remember.
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It's so long ago.
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I did that a lot, as well as Music City and Bowling Green, those were three of my big tracks until I was finally able to go to Bristol.
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And oh my goodness, that just like changed everything.
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We only went for three days.
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I remember this.
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I mean, we went for three days, and we didn't even get to like experience half of it.
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So that's when we started going for like the full week and a half and everything.
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I did that for till I aged out, obviously.
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And then when I turned eight, he got me a bigger motor A90, whole new, whole new world.
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Like I thought I was flying.
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I thought 1290 was fast.
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No, 890, faster than the birds.
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I did really good in A90.
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I like to think.
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I won a bunch of things.
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I'm trying to remember.
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I feel like I haven't been in a junior for a long time, but it's been like three years, two years.
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The whole different game changer was 790.
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That's when it kind of developed 790.
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It was hard at first, didn't like it because the car was just so inconsistent, but bigger, bigger motor, bigger parts, more things that can be wrong.
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My dad finally figured it out.
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So 790 career.
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I remember this is when Chad Axford, he's a good racer, good friend of ours.
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He used to put on these races back in the day called the Mississippi Showdown, Throwdown, Mississippi Madness.
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That's the one.
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As well as Dream Team.
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I was I won Dream Team two years in a row, and then three years back to back to back in the finals.
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So that's a very good core memory of mine.
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And I was able to mark off 100 wins in a junior.
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So I don't remember when I did it, but I think I finalized at like 130 something when I aged out of a junior.
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My mother as well.
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She was always a she was always there for all my races.
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She was always a nervous wreck, but she is definitely my biggest supporter in the junior career.
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And that's when Drag Champ did like their little article about me talking about my wins and stuff.
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I won a bunch of Wally's Iron Man's.
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I had Best Appearing Junior at one time.
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I when I was back in like seventh grade, my dad told me if I won this one certain race, I think he wanted me to win more than I wanted to win.
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But he said if I would won it, he would let me get my car re-wrapped.
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And I won it.
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So I was in seventh grade and I was sitting in English class and I was just drawing it out how exactly how I wanted it.
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Even colored it, the color I wanted, and he surprised me with it.
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And that's a do that's another core memory I have.
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When I turned 16, I made it on to the FTI farm team.
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I think it was 16, 16, or 17.
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I loved it.
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They always treated us very well, sent us very good products for our junior as well as Wild Willy.
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They sent me some products for the junior as well, along with clots.
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Back in 2023, that was that was my last year in a junior, 2023.
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I won a good amount, and I'm glad I did.
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I started the year off kind of rough, so it's kind of I think because I was just so nervous.
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This is my last time in a junior.
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But I won like a teams race in a junior.
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It was me, Anthony Bradford, Braxton McGee.
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Yeah.
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And it was just a team that was thrown together, and we won.
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And it was just awesome.
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It was in Montgomery.
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And then I went back to Montgomery a few months later in September, and that's when I won all those races in one week.
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And it was like Friday night, we get there, and they have a 5k Gambers race, and I win that.
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Didn't even think I could win it, but I won.
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So I was just like, I was happy for the weekend.
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Woke up the next day and I told my dad, I was like, you know, I want to race the junior because they would do the junior class first and just get those out of the way, and then they would start doing big cars.
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So I was like, I'm just gonna run the junior.
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I won$500.
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I was like, oh my gosh, didn't know I still had it in me.
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And then later that day was the team race, and it was me, Dylan Kyle, and Cam Wheeler.
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Once again, it was just a team thrown together at last minute, and we won the team race that night with$7,500.
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And then Sunday I wake up, race again, won$10,000, and that was it.
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That's a weekend I still will never forget, and I still talk about it to this day.
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Just because I don't know, I just that's one of my biggest accomplishments in my life and racing career.
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And then I was able to, I was blessed enough to get into the Mike Smith race and the 500k, which was like a few, like a month or two after that.
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And I had a great time.
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I won some money, made a lot of good friends, and then um I as well won the sports and spectacular in my truck that season as well.
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I started racing in my truck back when I was 15.
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And that's I remember it was the last center mountain, and they had to cancel the race due to the weather, and they were able to drive the track off enough.
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And my dad was like, You want to hop in it?
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So I hopped in it and left, whole foot came off the pedal, couldn't reach the pedal.
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Still to this day, I can't reach the pedal, so I have a pillow behind me.
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Good friend Jody Davies made me a custom pillow that will that helps me reach the pedal, but that is definitely a core memory of mine.
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And then 2023 in Braydaton, that was the last go-around in the junior.
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It was definitely emotional.
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I was like, for the longest time, I was ready to get out of it until I did get out of it.
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And I try to tell people a lot who don't like to race the junior to just stay in it as long as you can because once you get out, you cannot go back.
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It is definitely just it's just a core memory.
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Like I just loved my friends in the racing world, especially Bristol.
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I wish I could go back to Bristol for that week and a half.
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I would do it all over again, honestly.
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But aging out of the junior made me and my dad focus more on the truck, which I was mostly excited about when we sold the junior.
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We were able to start building this motor 383, and we put it in there last season.
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Last season was last season was kind of rough.
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We were still getting like all the bugs and the everything out.
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We were whole new motor, whole new setup.
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We had new transmission, motor, converter.
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We had like just new everything, front end, everything you think of.
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So I'm hoping this season will be better, which I think it will.
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We finally got my truck figured out literally in November.
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That's when we finally got everything.
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Good buddy of ours, Trevor Wiggins, owner of Get Hem, he was definitely there for a lot of it to help us figure out because we put a gethem carburetor on there as well.
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Flawless.
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It's nasty.
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Like, but he's always a phone call away.
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You're like, you can call him at 2 a.m.
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and he'll answer.
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And then BTE, Brandon over at BTE, he we had some issues with the converter, and we sent it over there, it comes back flawless.
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At the I believe he got us, it's like an old converter, and he turned it into a 388-600, one of those hard-hit converters.
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So yeah, that's that's not even like half of my racing story, but with all these years, I can't even remember half of like I can remember the good stuff.
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But you do know there is a lot of bad things in racing.
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Luckily, in the junior, I never wrecked, never did that.
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My dad always preached to me to never slam on your brakes at the finish line.
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If you do, don't do it too aggressively, don't turn too hard when you're going fast.
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He always preached that to me.
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And then as well in the truck, he still says that on he watches at the finish line, and every time I hit the brakes, I come back to the trailer.
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And he's like, I saw you hit them brakes too hard.
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And so honestly, I think I just don't like slam on the brakes because I don't want to hear my dad talk to me about it.
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So yeah, that's pretty much that's my story for racing.
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Little little bit.
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We're gonna go back a little bit.
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That weekend that you won all those races.
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Yeah.
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Did you at the time understand how amazing that was?
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People just do that.
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They don't win all the in the same weekend.
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Yeah, I was so in shock, like honestly, like the rest of the month I was, because I was never, I never I don't know.
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I'm like, I take I don't take stuff for granted.
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I don't like when people do take it for granted, you know.
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So I don't know.
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I just it didn't hit me till like a month later.
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I was like, oh my goodness, dad, we did that.
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And my dad was like, no, we did it, you did it.
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I was like, my dad is my number one supporter as well.
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He works on all the cars, he makes sure my car is better than his.
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Mine's the number one priority, not his anymore.
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And so, like that weekend, after I won that 10K, it was just like I was just in tears.
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I couldn't, I couldn't believe it.
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And especially seeing my dad, he was in tears as well.
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That's just what put the cherry on top because I love knowing that he worked on this, and all the success is what makes him happy, mostly when it's my truck.
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It's like your hard work is the reason why I'm here, dad, because you made such a good truck and you turned me into a good driver to know what I'm kind of doing.
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Yeah, well, you obviously know what you're doing, or you wouldn't have won all those races.
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Yeah.
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You know, one of the questions that I normally ask is, What is your proudest moment?
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I don't even think you could pick one.
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There's so many that you've just shared with me.
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And I I just love I love hearing all of that.
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And I'm sure there are it are a lot more wins and races and things that you've won a lot along the way.
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Um was there ever, ever a time when things didn't go well and you came off the track and said, No, that's it, I'm done.
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I'm trying to think.
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I believe this was honestly last year.
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I just I could not catch a break at all.
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Could not catch a break.
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And I actually like I took a few months off just to refresh because I never want to quit, but I don't want to race and just make myself feel miserable.
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So I just took a few like a month or two off, and it really made me miss racing.
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So that's when I went back.
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But it's just my dad always kept telling me, don't give up, we will get this truck figured out.
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I think he was, I'm pretty sure last year made him go halfway bald because of that truck.
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It just made him, it made everybody crazy.
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But last year was definitely a very hard year for me with all this new stuff that we have trying to figure it out.
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But I never really wanted to quit because I don't really know what I would do without racing.
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But I definitely there are a few times where I'm just like, okay, I need a I need a break for a moment and just go do something else because I'm just getting too frustrated with this.
00:17:56.319 --> 00:17:59.599
So, Shelby, there's a lot going on when you're in the race car.
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What keeps you at ease when you're going down ready to go down the track super fast?
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You know, you may be going for a win.