Five With The Five: Joe Graf, Jr. “Getting Ready For My 200 Point Come Back”

Joe: Hello.

Andrea: Hey, Joe!

Joe: Hey. How are you doing?

Andrea: I’m well. How are you?

Joe: I’m doing all right. What are you up to?

Andrea: Just getting things ready for Lucas Oil. Just got done making some media videos and stuff to send off.

Joe: That sounds like fun.

Andrea: Oh yeah, it’s a blast. How about you? It looks like you’ve been busy from just scrolling through your social media.

Joe: Yeah. Just getting ready for my 200 point come back in the ARCA Menard Series

Andrea: Haha! That’s what we’re all expecting. No pressure.

Joe: So, yeah, no, just I’m writing an essay now for school. I got that due Sunday, so just bunch of schoolwork. I ran Richmond last week. That went pretty good. I had my cousin’s wedding over the last weekend, so-

Andrea: Oh, wow.

Joe: …been pretty busy.

Andrea: Right!

Joe: Oh, then I tested Indy on Monday. So, basically-

Andrea: I was going to ask you. I know there was a whole bunch of you guys there. I wasn’t sure if you were one of them.

Joe: Yeah.

Andrea: Did that go well?

Joe: It went well, yeah. However it worked out that I was on a plane- I had seven flights in seven days. It was great.

Andrea: Oh, my goodness. So every single day you were in the air?

Joe: Yes.

Andrea: Dang. Do you still feel like you’re flying?

Joe: I’m still kind of questioning it.

Andrea: Haha! “Are my feet on the ground? Are they not? I can’t tell”.

Joe: Am I in a big plane right now? I don’t know.

Andrea: Right, right. So, how is the confidence going into Indy?

Joe: I feel pretty good about it. We had a pretty good run at Salem, our last ARCA race. The Xfinity race at Richmond went pretty good. So, we’re putting together a few good races here. We had a good test on Monday. Tried some stuff. We have some work to do you going back, but I think we’re going to have a really good night on next Saturday, October 5th

Andrea: Yes. You’re back at school?

Joe: Yeah.

Andrea: So, anything exciting going on there? I know you said you were just writing an essay and stuff. Anything noteworthy, or just-

Joe: Writing an essay. Finally back to eating good pizza.

Andrea: Oh, that’s right. You’re back in New York, so you’re in the motherland.

Joe: Yeah, I mean, so I don’t have to deal with bad pizza anymore. We got the good pizza up there.

Andrea: Right. Are you a pineapple on pizza person?

Joe: I do like pineapple on pizza.

Andrea: Okay. I know it’ not a big New York thing to do that.

Joe: No, it’s really not. When I go get pizza in New York City, a lot of the times I just get a slice or two for convenience, so I get whatever they have done. So, I’ll just get like two plain slices and walk out, because it’s just quick.

Andrea: Gotcha.

Joe: But, if I sit there and order a pie, it’s going to have pineapples on it.

Andrea: Yeah, that’s one of my go-tos as well. So, how are things that RCR? Still going-

Joe: It’s going all right.

Andrea: Yeah, what have you been up to?

Joe: Well, not too much to be honest with you, because I haven’t been down there all that much. But, we ran Richmond last week. Was on the simulator a little bit before Richmond.

Andrea: Gotcha.

Joe: That’s about it, honestly. I’m trying to figure out the next time I’m coming down to North Carolina. I don’t really know. I’ve been so busy. I have class Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. And, then we’re usually racing every weekend. So, this is my first off weekend, but I got to get some stuff done around the house. It was one of those where like I finally stopped flying on Tuesday. My last flight was Tuesday, so I didn’t really want to… No, it was seven flights in six days, because I left on Wednesday and got back Tuesday.

Andrea: That’s still a lot.

Joe: But, yeah, I just got back Tuesday, and I was not keen on flying back down Wednesday. So, I decided to end the trend of a flight every day.

Andrea: Gotcha. So, but just kind of slowly working on 2020 plans at this point?

Joe: Yeah. I think we’re choosing between three options.

Andrea: Oh, nice. Okay.

Joe: So, we’ll figure that out probably in the next month here and let you know.

Andrea: Right. Well, that’s been about five minutes, so I’ll let you go get back to school work. Thanks for chatting.

Joe: No problem. Thank you so much.

Andrea: Anytime. Thank you.

Joe: All right. Bye.

Andrea: Bye.