AutoSportRadio.com 2023 Show for July 11th

AutoSportRadio.com 2023 Show for July 11th – Nathan Byrd and Dr. Pat Sullivan

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Recorded in front of a live audience at Green Street Pub and Eatery in Brownsburg, Indiana on Tuesday, July 11th, 2023.

You won't want to miss this program. We talk with a young driver starting his racing career and a veteran broadcaster continuing his...The Autosportrdio.com 2023 Show will be released July 14, 2023.

The program can be found at autosportradio.com, the Autosport Radio YouTube channel, Don Kay Facebook page, Autosport Radio Facebook page, Twitter and Rumble.

Hope you can join us...

Guests...
AutoSportRadio.com 2023 Show for July 11th – Nathan Byrd and Dr. Pat Sullivan

Recorded in front of a live audience at Green Street Pub and Eatery in Brownsburg, Indiana on Tuesday, July 11th, 2023.

You won't want to miss this program. We talk with a young driver starting his racing career and a veteran broadcaster continuing his...The Autosportrdio.com 2023 Show will be released July 14, 2023.

The program can be found at autosportradio.com, the Autosport Radio YouTube channel, Don Kay Facebook page, Autosport Radio Facebook page, Twitter and Rumble.

Hope you can join us...

Guests...

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Nathan “Byrd Man” Byrd

Nathan is a professional race car driver for Byrd Racing, an employee of Byrd Enterprises of Arizona, Inc., and a student at Grand Canyon University. I'm studying at GCU to get my bachelor's degree in Business Management while minoring in Acncounting. My goal is to become the most diverse race car driver in the world, achieving the top level of motorsports in every discipline, including Indy Car, NASCAR, and IMSA!

I’ve acquired a number of skills related to the hospitality industry in my work as a front desk agent for Byrd Enterprises of Arizona, Inc. However, my true passion is racing. Ever since I started racing karts after I graduated high school I’ve been improving and developing as a racer. I won two karting championships in my 1 1/2 years of go-kart racing and then officially started my car career in February 2020 in the 2020 Lucas Oil Formula Car Race Series. Near the end of 2020 I also made my national midget debut and did some focus midget racing. For 2021 I am scheduled to run 75-80 races by the end of the year in over 12 different series/cars.

Getting the opportunity to race for Byrd Racing was a dream come true that I didn't even know I had! For 2021 we've partnered with a multitude of race teams including Skip Barber Racing, Davey Hamilton Racing, Team RayPro, Bertrand Motorsports, Rick Ware Racing, Arce Racing, Creevan Performance, Arrive Drive Motorsports, Thirty-Three Motorsports, 3K Racing, and Mr. E Performance to make this one-of-a-kind racing schedule possible, bringing on sponsors like Signing Day Sports, Hopegivers International, Speed Sport, Tilson HR, America's Best Value Inn, FMX, Fytron Software, SAFE Antifreeze, Kipsu, RCA Commercial Electronics, and Teen Challenge AZ!

His season to date has been very successful.

Inline image
Dr. Pat Sullivan

INDIANAPOLIS – Tony Stewart wouldn’t get out of the car. He had just won his first ever sprint car race in Bolivar, Mo., and he refused to step out to talk to the race announcer.

“I can’t get out of the car, dude,” Stewart said.

“Why?”

“Well, I peed my pants.”

Stewart eventually got out and did the postrace interview, but his lack of bladder control played a large part in launching the Hall of Fame career of the announcer, Pat Sullivan.

The next time Sullivan and Stewart saw each other, Sullivan made sure to go up and whisper in his ear, “I have an extra pair of pants in the car if you need them.” Stewart, in his usual way, bantered back and forth with him and called him an SOB.

The two became friends. The kind of friends that when Sullivan decided to move to Indianapolis, he could call Stewart and ask for help with other opportunities in racing. Stewart gave him some people to call, and soon Sullivan was announcing the TQ-midget series at Bloomington Speedway and Kokomo and Terre Haute and Salem and all over the sprint car world.

He announced for Indy Racing League and NASCAR, and now moderates HE news conferences at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and writes for Sprint Car & Midget Magazine.

He’s a staple in the racing world, the jolly, white-bearded man posing questions to drivers at Indianapolis 500 news conferences, and Saturday he’s being inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame.

But unlike those being inducted with him — sprint car greats such as Dave Darland and the late Tony Elliott — this is just a hobby for Sullivan.

Sullivan is a social work professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

Hours before this interview, the 62-year-old Sullivan was scoring three goals in a pick-up ice hockey game. He has always loved sports, and his life-altering love of racing came accidentally.

He was going to see a baseball game in Tulsa, Okla., but the game was canceled because of the heat. The half-mile race track was nearby, and he went there instead. He was struck by this culture. The crowd was packed. The fans were intense.

He loved that when something happened, half the crowd would stand and cheer and the other half would boo. That was the kind of culture Sullivan wanted to be a part of.

He was a Ph.D. student at Kansas, then went to what is now Missouri State and had options for where to go next. He chose IUPUI for a specific reason:

“It was the racing stuff,” Sullivan said. “I thought, 'Man, I could live in Indiana.'”

He was announcing at tracks across the state, and soon he had a position in public relations at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was the dream.

Sullivan claims he doesn’t have that classic voice like his longtime partner Brad Dickison. Where he found his sweet spot was on-track work and interviewing.

His career is in social work and mental health. Much of that career is talking with people and learning what makes them tick. He knew whom he could tease and whom he should be serious with, how to read body language and how to probe without making someone defensive. He was good at it.

He was great at preparing. He dug up every detail possible. He wanted the most knowledgeable fans in the crowd to stop and say, "No kidding?"

Scott Smith worked as a spokesman at Lucas Oil Raceway with Sullivan for more than a decade. He said Sullivan had everything in a row when he stepped in the door on any given night. Preparedness was never an issue with him.

“He was just Pat,” Smith said. “You could just count on him.”

Cheryl Badale isn’t an easily frustrated woman, according to Pat, but there came a point when she was getting annoyed with how much time her husband was spending at the tracks. They are both hardworking people, but it was becoming a lot.

Sullivan told her: “I have a hobby, and I have a hobby that pays me money."

That resonated with her. His hobby and profession flowed together. The overlapping had its awkward moments, though.

Drivers would come up to him to talk about how they were having trouble with their kid or how their relationship with their girlfriend was on the rocks. He would make referrals. He couldn’t be their therapist.

When Sullivan got the job as state director of mental health for a short stint in the 1990s, his father assumed he was getting a pay raise, which was not the case. But his father talked to Badale about the benefits.

“He’s got this new job, maybe he won’t have to announce all these races,” he said.

This time, it was Badale doing the defending.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “Announcing races makes him happy.”

***

When Sullivan got the Hall of Fame call, he cried. He isn’t afraid to admit it. It was one of those, “You’ve got to be kidding me” moments.

He’s the kind of person who to this day stops himself and freaks out that he’s interviewing Johnny Rutherford. Few things still blow his mind more than an 800 horsepower machine weighing 1,250 pounds moving so fast on a half-mile track.

It meant something to him, and it meant something to his family. Badale has been so supportive as he chased his passions, this victory was for her, as well.

“You know, we all want to make a little bit of a footprint,” Sullivan said. “I mean, we do. Maybe that’s a little hubris to say that, but the fact of the matter is, I remember when that happened, I thought, ‘As long as anyone gives a darn about sprint car racing, I’m in that group.’”

He cares so much about history. He does so much research and pulls out each and every great historical anecdote about somebody’s career.

“I don’t want some people to be forgotten,” he said.

Sullivan's life as an announcer and racing writer has been spent shaping memories for others and recording those moments in time so that nobody is forgotten.

Now, he’s in the Hall of Fame. Now, he won’t be forgotten.

Nathan “Byrd Man” Byrd

Nathan is a professional race car driver for Byrd Racing, an employee of Byrd Enterprises of Arizona, Inc., and a student at Grand Canyon University. I'm studying at GCU to get my bachelor's degree in Business Management while minoring in Acncounting. My goal is to become the most diverse race car driver in the world, achieving the top level of motorsports in every discipline, including Indy Car, NASCAR, and IMSA!

I’ve acquired a number of skills related to the hospitality industry in my work as a front desk agent for Byrd Enterprises of Arizona, Inc. However, my true passion is racing. Ever since I started racing karts after I graduated high school I’ve been improving and developing as a racer. I won two karting championships in my 1 1/2 years of go-kart racing and then officially started my car career in February 2020 in the 2020 Lucas Oil Formula Car Race Series. Near the end of 2020 I also made my national midget debut and did some focus midget racing. For 2021 I am scheduled to run 75-80 races by the end of the year in over 12 different series/cars.

Getting the opportunity to race for Byrd Racing was a dream come true that I didn't even know I had! For 2021 we've partnered with a multitude of race teams including Skip Barber Racing, Davey Hamilton Racing, Team RayPro, Bertrand Motorsports, Rick Ware Racing, Arce Racing, Creevan Performance, Arrive Drive Motorsports, Thirty-Three Motorsports, 3K Racing, and Mr. E Performance to make this one-of-a-kind racing schedule possible, bringing on sponsors like Signing Day Sports, Hopegivers International, Speed Sport, Tilson HR, America's Best Value Inn, FMX, Fytron Software, SAFE Antifreeze, Kipsu, RCA Commercial Electronics, and Teen Challenge AZ!

His season to date has been very successful.

Dr. Pat Sullivan

INDIANAPOLIS – Tony Stewart wouldn’t get out of the car. He had just won his first ever sprint car race in Bolivar, Mo., and he refused to step out to talk to the race announcer.

“I can’t get out of the car, dude,” Stewart said.

“Why?”

“Well, I peed my pants.”

Stewart eventually got out and did the postrace interview, but his lack of bladder control played a large part in launching the Hall of Fame career of the announcer, Pat Sullivan.

The next time Sullivan and Stewart saw each other, Sullivan made sure to go up and whisper in his ear, “I have an extra pair of pants in the car if you need them.” Stewart, in his usual way, bantered back and forth with him and called him an SOB.

The two became friends. The kind of friends that when Sullivan decided to move to Indianapolis, he could call Stewart and ask for help with other opportunities in racing. Stewart gave him some people to call, and soon Sullivan was announcing the TQ-midget series at Bloomington Speedway and Kokomo and Terre Haute and Salem and all over the sprint car world.

He announced for Indy Racing League and NASCAR, and now moderates HE news conferences at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and writes for Sprint Car & Midget Magazine.

He’s a staple in the racing world, the jolly, white-bearded man posing questions to drivers at Indianapolis 500 news conferences, and Saturday he’s being inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame.

But unlike those being inducted with him — sprint car greats such as Dave Darland and the late Tony Elliott — this is just a hobby for Sullivan.

Sullivan is a social work professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

Hours before this interview, the 62-year-old Sullivan was scoring three goals in a pick-up ice hockey game. He has always loved sports, and his life-altering love of racing came accidentally.

He was going to see a baseball game in Tulsa, Okla., but the game was canceled because of the heat. The half-mile race track was nearby, and he went there instead. He was struck by this culture. The crowd was packed. The fans were intense.

He loved that when something happened, half the crowd would stand and cheer and the other half would boo. That was the kind of culture Sullivan wanted to be a part of.

He was a Ph.D. student at Kansas, then went to what is now Missouri State and had options for where to go next. He chose IUPUI for a specific reason:

“It was the racing stuff,” Sullivan said. “I thought, 'Man, I could live in Indiana.'”

He was announcing at tracks across the state, and soon he had a position in public relations at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was the dream.

Sullivan claims he doesn’t have that classic voice like his longtime partner Brad Dickison. Where he found his sweet spot was on-track work and interviewing.

His career is in social work and mental health. Much of that career is talking with people and learning what makes them tick. He knew whom he could tease and whom he should be serious with, how to read body language and how to probe without making someone defensive. He was good at it.

He was great at preparing. He dug up every detail possible. He wanted the most knowledgeable fans in the crowd to stop and say, "No kidding?"

Scott Smith worked as a spokesman at Lucas Oil Raceway with Sullivan for more than a decade. He said Sullivan had everything in a row when he stepped in the door on any given night. Preparedness was never an issue with him.

“He was just Pat,” Smith said. “You could just count on him.”

Cheryl Badale isn’t an easily frustrated woman, according to Pat, but there came a point when she was getting annoyed with how much time her husband was spending at the tracks. They are both hardworking people, but it was becoming a lot.

Sullivan told her: “I have a hobby, and I have a hobby that pays me money."

That resonated with her. His hobby and profession flowed together. The overlapping had its awkward moments, though.

Drivers would come up to him to talk about how they were having trouble with their kid or how their relationship with their girlfriend was on the rocks. He would make referrals. He couldn’t be their therapist.

When Sullivan got the job as state director of mental health for a short stint in the 1990s, his father assumed he was getting a pay raise, which was not the case. But his father talked to Badale about the benefits.

“He’s got this new job, maybe he won’t have to announce all these races,” he said.

This time, it was Badale doing the defending.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “Announcing races makes him happy.”

***

When Sullivan got the Hall of Fame call, he cried. He isn’t afraid to admit it. It was one of those, “You’ve got to be kidding me” moments.

He’s the kind of person who to this day stops himself and freaks out that he’s interviewing Johnny Rutherford. Few things still blow his mind more than an 800 horsepower machine weighing 1,250 pounds moving so fast on a half-mile track.

It meant something to him, and it meant something to his family. Badale has been so supportive as he chased his passions, this victory was for her, as well.

“You know, we all want to make a little bit of a footprint,” Sullivan said. “I mean, we do. Maybe that’s a little hubris to say that, but the fact of the matter is, I remember when that happened, I thought, ‘As long as anyone gives a darn about sprint car racing, I’m in that group.’”

He cares so much about history. He does so much research and pulls out each and every great historical anecdote about somebody’s career.

“I don’t want some people to be forgotten,” he said.

Sullivan's life as an announcer and racing writer has been spent shaping memories for others and recording those moments in time so that nobody is forgotten.

Now, he’s in the Hall of Fame. Now, he won’t be forgotten.

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