Did you have a certain pre-race routine? If so, what was it? Honestly, I didn’t. I listened to a lot of music maybe a half hour before intros but beyond that I was never a big routine guy.
What is the most memorable moment in your racing career? Probably the 2017 Daytona ARCA race. And not necessarily for the reason you’d think. The crash of course was a big event but as NASCAR fans, Daytona is sacred ground for us. Being inside the track with car that had my name on it was so sentimental for me. I had pretty much my whole family and a few friends there, my cousin Christopher who truck series fans may remember for his superspeedway racing was in the stands, and as bad as the race turned out, I lived a life-long dream that day
If offered a full or part-time ride in any NASCAR series, would you take it and return to racing? I doubt it. The circumstances that would be required for me to come back are essentially out of reach at this stage in my life. For one thing, I made a pact with myself that my family would never cut another check for me to drive again. Therefore, I would need an outside sponsor which is extremely hard to come by. I truly admire the guys like Ryan Vargas who can go Monday-Friday making phone calls to companies, but I just don’t have it in me to do that anymore with everything else happening in my life. I think the most interesting re-entry point for me would be something within the leadership of a race team. Maybe even owning stake in an organization myself at some point way down the road. The nice thing about having a law degree is everybody needs a lawyer at some point, especially race teams. We’ll see if I can find a way back one day.
What is your favorite track to race at? Las Vegas
How hard was it to step away from NASCAR? Did you have second thoughts? The best and worst thing about my situation was the decision to leave was essentially made for me. I learned in the Spring of that year that our funding was going away and pretty much knew it was over at that point barring a miracle. The hard part was keeping it quite for the rest of the year. I made cold calls to companies till about August and after all the rejections I just decided it was time to call it officially. What made it a little easier to take was just how bad some of my performances were in that summer stretch. Charlotte comes to mind immediately. Our season started off on a high with two top-10’s in the first five races or so and then basically fell apart except for a few decent runs here and there. I don’t think the realization that it was over really kicked in till the new season started and not only wasn’t I racing at Daytona, but I also wasn’t racing anywhere. This is the honest to goodness truth, my last race was November of 2018, and by January of 2019 I was working a desk job as a Congressional intern answering phones. Quite the scene change.
Do you watch the races every weekend? If so, which driver do you pull for? I honestly don’t. Since mid-August of this year most of my weekends are spent in the Wake Forest Law library where I study. I also just struggle watching races after committing so much of my life to the sport. It’s hard going back to just watching on TV after everything we went through. As far as drivers go, Martin Truex is probably the closest I have to a “favorite.” That goes back to me being a huge Furniture Row fan way back when they first went full-time Cup racing back around 07-08 with Joe Nemechek driving. I loved the 78 car and watching what Martin did for a team that was start-and-parking less than a decade before his championship was incredible.
In 2017, you were involved in a serious crash at Daytona in which you suffered a compression fracture. What were your thoughts while you were being extricated from the car? Did you know that you were injured at that moment? My first thought while I was getting extracted was making sure my mom knew I was okay. Fortunately, even while the car was upside down the radio still worked so I was able to talk to her while the safety crew got me out. I didn’t know that my back was broken at the time, but I knew something was wrong. I think my adrenaline carried me all the way to the hospital before I realized how much pain I was in, but it was the most physically uncomfortable I have ever been. I didn’t realize the extent of my injury till I got to the hospital. To date that was probably the most isolated I have ever felt in my life. I was transported over immediately to the E.R. but all my family was stuck at the track trying to get back to their cars and get down the road. I was by myself with just the nurses and docs for probably an hour before anyone I knew got there. Fortunately the Halifax staff is incredible and took good care of us.
What has life been like since you have been away from racing? I have been around! The year after I quit, I went straight into working for a U.S. Congressman from North Carolina as an intern. That job took me up to D.C. for part of that Summer and then my best friend and I rented a car and drove from Asheville, NC to Anchorage, AK just to say we did it. After that I went back to work for that same Congressman as his deputy campaign manager for the 2020 election. From 2021-2022 I was basically just a college student. I also applied to law school and currently attend Wake Forest University School of Law.
If you could go back in time and do one thing different in your racing career, what would it be? Oh gosh, if I had the perfect answer to this I would probably still be racing right now. I think there’s probably a dozen things I would like to pick but in the interest of the question I’ll just say that I probably would have put significant resources behind a sponsorship hunting effort. Money is the name of the game in our sport and had I known what I know now I would have been far more willing to outsource the sponsorship stuff to marketing professionals who really knew the selling process. Cold calling can certainly lead to deals, but when you have an agency that is literally paid to find money, I think that would have given me a bit more of a fighting chance. However, I think lingering on the “what ifs” can take your focus off what’s happening in front of you, so I try not to relitigate the things that I did or didn’t do correctly too much.
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After completing an Interview or Q&A, Pit Pass Network donates an undisclosed amount to a charity of the interviewee’s choice. Justin chose https://www.abccm.org/
