Ryan Truex on excessive hair, pool etiquette and the first time he met Dale Earnhardt Jr.: 12 Questions

Each week, The Athletic asks the same 12 questions to a different race car driver. Up next: Ryan Truex, who has two races remaining in his partial schedule with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Xfinity Series team. The New Jersey native will race at his home track of Dover Motor Speedway this weekend. This interview has been slightly condensed, but the full version is available on the 12 Questions podcast.

1. You must pick one chore or obligation to do every day for a year. But if you make it the whole year doing this, you never have to do it again for the rest of your life. So what chore would you pick?

Vacuuming. I have a lot of hair, and my girlfriend (Leah Schwandt) has a lot of hair. I have two giant fluffy dogs — one is white, one is black and brown — who have a lot of hair. So I literally vacuum every single day. The Roomba is not even worth using because it’ll run for like 10 minutes and then just lock up because there’s so much (hair).

Let’s see: I probably have some on my socks, even though they were in the laundry (takes shoe off to show evidence). Here we go, there’s some right here. This is just my life. Everywhere I go in public, I have a lint roller with me because I am inevitably going to be covered in dog hair. And they’re both opposite ends of the spectrum on color, so it doesn’t matter if I’m wearing black, white, brown, red — it’s visible.

2. Can you describe how you are as a passenger in a street car?

When someone is driving and they look in their mirrors to move over or they’re at a stop sign, I’m looking with them because I don’t fully trust anyone driving me. So I’ll look and also see to make sure they’re clear. And at a stop sign, I look both ways probably four times more than they do.

I’m terrible at navigating because I get sidetracked. I zone out in the car, especially when I’m driving. You know when you go to work or wherever you’re going, and you’re there and you’re like, “Did I just drive here?” You zone out. That’s me in the passenger seat, too.

So you were supposed to give directions and you missed it?

It drives my girlfriend crazy, because I’ll be navigating and then I’ll just not pay attention. I’ll look up and I’ll be like, “Where are we?” She’s like, “You didn’t tell me.” And we’re like 10 miles past our turn. Happens all the time.

So I’m a terrible navigator, but I’m good at picking music. But when I drive myself, I actually just drive in silence because I’m a crazy person.

3. What is an app on your phone you love using and think more people should know about?

I don’t really have anything mind-blowing that people don’t already have. But the best app I have is Reddit. When I have something broken or I need to fix something — say something in my truck breaks or something in my dishwasher breaks — if you Google how to fix it, all you get is targeted ad articles that don’t really tell you anything. But if you go on Reddit and look it up, you’ll find 1,000 people with the same problem and you’ll find somebody’s figured out the best way to do something. You always get the answer on there, so that’s my most useful one.

4. What do you do to make yourself feel better when you’re having a crappy day?

Usually when I have a bad day, it’s at the racetrack. That’s where I get the most frustrated. In day-to-day life, it’s a little easier than in your professional career, where you’re giving it your all and feels like anything can be a huge setback. I try to clear my head and change my mindset, thinking (about how) I’m definitely a lot more fortunate than a lot of people. Perspective is a huge thing. It’s so easy to get caught up in your own world, like, “Man, this sucks.” And then you take a step back and look at the full picture like, “This is nothing.” You can always push through and make it to the next day.

5. I’ve asked readers to give me a Dear Abby-style advice question and I’m changing it for each driver. This person says: My boyfriend’s 17-year-old son has totaled two cars in six months. What should we do with him?

Maybe take him to a professional driving school to learn. The question is how did he total them? Is he like street racing? Or is he just not fully up to speed on how traffic rules work? Maybe he just got into two situations where somebody else was doing something stupid.

But yeah, maybe some more driving lessons doesn’t ever hurt. I’ve had a few friends in my life who waited so long … if he didn’t drive (for awhile), you kind of get in a rut of not having a vehicle and not driving, and people end up being scared to get behind the wheel again. It’s something that happens in the back of your head. So you gotta get back up on the horse.

6. The next one is a pop culture/societal debate question that is also different for everyone. As someone who has had a spa sponsorship for many years, when, if ever, is it OK to pee in a pool?

It depends on how big the pool is, for starters. If it’s your own pool, then I see no problems with it. And if you go to a resort or hotel, probably 99 percent of the people there are going to do that. Especially if it’s one with like a swim-up bar? That’s game over.

I personally don’t, just because I have OCD about things like that. Like, “Oh man, if I did something like that, something bad is gonna happen to me.” If you’re at your friend’s house and they’re having a pool party and there’s 20 people in there, maybe just jump out and go take care of business. Definitely don’t do it in a hot tub. That’s just too small. Recirculating water. You don’t want to do it there.

7. The next one is a wild-card question. You had a great interview on the “Stacking Pennies” podcast and you were talking about dealing with some of the bitterness about not getting all the opportunities. You said you’ve gotten better at trying to manage that and having balance in your life. For a young driver who might be dealing with that, what advice would you give for trying to manage those kind of emotions?

When you’re a young guy coming up, it’s so easy to get caught up comparing yourself. And in any profession, comparing yourself to others isn’t doing justice for yourself. It’s not beneficial for you in any way. Sure, there’s a benchmark, like, “This guy is great and I want to be as good as him.” But when you’re just comparing yourself for the sake of it, that’s a different person who had a different path and different life experience.

It was definitely a tough thing for me to fight through. There’s guys who probably felt that way about me when I started. I was getting great opportunities and very young. But comparing yourself to somebody with the same career path or somebody who is younger than you and has accomplished more, it doesn’t do you any good. It’s really easy to mentally psych yourself out by doing that. But it’s just wasted space in your brain.

It’s a lot easier for me to say to do this than actually apply it, but it’s not anything that matters. Focus on your own path and career. Everybody is their own person. So just accepting that and going with it works wonders.

8. In your career, what is the deal that came closest to happening that ended up not working out?

So 2012, I was racing for JGR and I had a sponsor who wanted to go full-time the next year (in the Xfinity Series). We actually got really far along with JR Motorsports and Dale Jr. to go run what ended up being Regan Smith’s car. We had contracts ready to go, sponsor signed off on it. It was pretty much a done deal. This was probably September or October 2012. I was like, “Alright, this is happening.” Everybody around me was like, “Hey, this is pretty much done. We’re gonna do this.” And Dale and Kelley (Earnhardt Miller) and everybody signed off on it.

At the last minute, the sponsor just completely pulled out. So it went from these millions of dollars in a full-time deal with an Xfinity team — where I hadn’t even done that yet; I was still a part-time guy bouncing around — to spending the next year pretty much scrambling trying to figure out what I was going to do. It was so late in the game.

And then Regan ended up in that car and had a really good year, so that was tough to be on the sidelines and see that. But I’ve learned nothing is ever guaranteed — even contracts in this world aren’t always a sure thing.

9. Who is a person you would be starstruck by when meeting them?

It would have to be somebody who is really low-key, like Keanu Reeves. Someone who doesn’t want to be famous. I’d just get along better with them than somebody who has an entourage and is hard to talk to. So it has to be somebody down to earth where you’d be like, “That was really cool I got to meet someone like that.”

I met Dale Jr. in 2004 — I told him this story and he doesn’t believe me and he says I’m making it up — but I met him in (older brother) Martin (Truex Jr.’s) motorhome. Dale walked in, didn’t say a word to me and just like shoulder-checked me. I was 12. He didn’t say anything and just laughed and walked by to go use the bathroom or something.

I was like, “That’s how I just met Dale Jr., the most popular driver in NASCAR.” And in 2004, he was on top of the world, right? I guess he just saw me as Martin’s punk little brother and was just messing with me.

But I told Dale that story a couple months ago, and he’s like, “You’re lying. That did not happen.” I’m like, “Dale, I clearly remember it because it was the first time I met you. That’s how it went.” So I guess that’s a starstruck moment — literally struck by a star.

10. What is the single most important skill a race car driver can possess?

Perseverance. It’s really easy as a driver when you have a rough day to snowball and make it worse. We see a lot of guys, if they make a mistake on pit road and get a speeding penalty, they go to the back and they end up in a wreck or overdrive it and spin out. Perseverance is a huge part of having the right mindset to come back from a bad race and win a race and perform on a down day.

Look at Brad Keselowski and how many races he’s won that he shouldn’t have won, where he’s pulled through and done some crazy strategy or stayed out on super old tires or had no fuel and saved fuel when nobody thought he could. Things like that are definitely the mark of champion-level drivers — the ability to always dig a little bit deeper and find a little bit more.

11. What life lessons from a young age stick with you and affect your daily decisions as an adult?

The thing I just said leads right into this one. Growing up around my dad, he and his brothers were self-made business successes in the clamming world. They started as deckhands and worked their way up to being captains to owning their own company. Hard work and perseverance are two huge things.

Accountability for me is also a big one. Being able to own up to mistakes and take the blame when it’s your fault. Or when you need to be the guy held accountable, you can shoulder it and take whatever’s coming your way and pull through it and come out the other side as a better person.

12. Each week, I ask a driver to give me a question for the next interview. The last one was Todd Gilliland and his question is: Would you classify yourself as a calm driver or an aggressive driver?

Calm. I’ve definitely had my moments where I’ve been too aggressive, like (earlier this month) at Martinsville. But last year at Martinsville, I was too calm and everyone else was aggressive and I ended up getting spun out. So it’s a week-by-week thing and depends on where I’m at and who I am around.

I can get pretty hot under the helmet, which (crew chief) Jason Ratcliff is really good at calming me down. He’s very level-headed and he’s got that little Southern twang, so it’s kind of like having a therapist on the radio with me.

Do you have a question I can ask the next person?

If your life depended on it, what song could you sing 100 percent correctly, every word? And they have to answer; they can’t just say none. At least the one they can get closest with. But it’s life or death, so you gotta get it right.

(Top photo: Sean Gardner / Getty Images)