8 Questions with Nathan Byrd
500 Sprint Car Tour rookie competitor Nathan Byrd sat down for a Q&A session with 500 Sprint Car Tour media. Here is how the conversation went before he returns to the track on Friday, June 28 at Toledo Speedway.
Question: If you could do any race over again, which race would you choose?
Answer: Good question. My racing career isn’t very long at this point compared to many other professionals in the short track world, thus the list of races that I would deem to be very “important” and potentially worth doing over again are is very short. However, knowing what I know now I would probably say one of my most recent races actually, my NASCAR Xfinity debut at Portland International Raceway (probably the biggest race of my road course career thus far), would be the race I would do over again.
Ultimately it’s the experience and lessons I learned from that first time racing a stock car against so many seasoned professionals that showed and taught me a lot of those things where if I would’ve been able to go back and do it differently I would’ve had an even better result than I did. But that’s the nature of racing, and I can’t be too hard on myself because you just don’t know what you don’t know!
Q: Some drivers keep a payback list in their minds. Do you also have a list for drivers who have done you a favor on the track?
A: It’s an interesting question, I don’t have a payback list in my mind just yet, but similarly I also don’t have a return the favor list. I try to race everyone clean and expect to be raced clean in return. I wouldn’t say it’s in my nature to keep scores of either the good or bad, but I think if there were to be a very notable in-race favor that was done for me, I’d definitely remember it.
Nathan Byrd talks with DIRTVision’s Ashton Smyth at Anderson Speedway in April. (Jack Kessler Photo)
Q: How often do you have dreams about racing?
Great question. I actually don’t believe I’ve ever once had a dream about racing, which is surprising considering how much I race! I also played a lot of Call of Duty growing up, even competitively, but I also never dreamed about that either from what I recall. I wonder why!
Q: What is a food you would not recommend eating right before a race and are you speaking with personal experience with this recommendation?
I can’t speak from a personal experience where I’ve gotten sick in the car before due to something I’ve eaten, but I do have some general food guidelines that I stick to now which I wasn’t as adherent to in the beginning of my racing journey. Namely, trying to avoid processed foods, refined sugar, and other kinds of junk food that just won’t make your stomach feel well when you strap into the car and have to push your body to its limits for 30-60 minutes.
Q: What do drivers talk about when they’re standing around at driver intros before a race?
It’s hard to say. Much to do about nothing I would say. Oftentimes I’m usually introducing myself for the first time having not met a lot of the competitors I’m racing against, as well as just asking how their day has gone and how their car is, questions like that. If I know them I might ask more personal questions and just use the time as an opportunity for a nice chat.
Q: If someone gave you an unlimited budget to design and build a new racetrack, what kind of track would you build?
Oooo, that’s an awesome question. I think I would build a road course that’s a mixture of two of my favorite race tracks, Watkins Glen International Raceway and Winchester Speedway. Watkins Glen is a very satisfying, high-grip, high-speed track but still demanding perfect technique to get just right, and I think if you combined that with a few more corners around the track (both lefts and rights) where the track becomes very high banked like Winchester is, then I think that would just be an absolute blast and quite the track to race around.
Q: What's a TV show you're really into right now?
I haven’t been watching much TV recently, but the two most recent series I’ve been very into and have been watching with my now-fiancé is an anime series called Demon Slayer and the hit streaming series The Chosen.
Q: If you could team up with anyone or hire a crew chief who would it be?
I think that it would be incredible to team up with any driver who is at the top of their game right now and/or is very close to their peak but with years and years of experience and wisdom, really between any current road racing or pavement short track discipline. Any guy from say Kody Swanson in the silver crown world, to Scott Dixon in the formula car world, to Kyle Larson in the stock car world, being a teammate with the same equipment as all of these guys and being able to benchmark, compare, and learn from them would be a fantastic and invaluable experience and possibly even a stamp of approval on the Byrd Racing methodology of building a professional race car driver depending on how it all went! That would be very epic.
