Dan The Road Trip Guy
Join Dan the Road Trip Guy as he explores the adventures, memories, and life lessons of diverse guests from all walks of life. This podcast goes beyond the road to celebrate the journey of life by uncovering stories of passion, resilience, and the pursuit of happiness. Whether you’re a seasoned traveler or simply love a good story, Dan the Road Trip Guy will leave you inspired and ready to embrace your own adventures. Buckle up and enjoy the ride!
I hope you enjoy the episodes. You can find me at https://www.dannyneal.com.
Dan The Road Trip Guy
Travis Gregg, From Go-Karts to Indy Lights to Mortgage Banking
Get in Touch with Dan by Texting Now
What happens when a childhood surrounded by the roar of go-karts turns into a career in Indy Lights racing? Join us for an exciting conversation with Travis Gregg as he shares his journey from Camden, Ohio, to the fast-paced world of race car driving. Travis recounts unforgettable stories from his family's go-kart track, a beloved gathering spot in the racing community. Discover the unexpected challenges and thrilling victories that marked his racing career, along with his pivotal role as a spotter for IndyCar drivers, which proved just as thrilling as the racing itself.
Ever wondered about the ultimate family road trip? Picture this: a sprawling RV adventure across the U.S. This is what is on Travis's bucket list and ultimate road trip with his family. This episode paints a vivid picture of the freedom and adventure found on the open road, intertwined with tales of motorsport triumphs and dreams of racing in the Indianapolis 500.
Indy Lights racer turned mortgage banker, Travis Gregg's story is far from ordinary. We discuss his dynamic career shift to mortgage banking and how his racing background continues to shape his life today. Travis shares insights into his professional experiences across several states, and how his children are now exploring the world of go-karting. Stay tuned for more stories and road trip adventures by visiting dantheroadtripguy.com, and be sure to share this episode with those who appreciate the thrill of the journey, both on and off the track.
You can find Travis on social media and at his website, https://travisgregg.com
Absolutely nothing beats windshield time, a road trip and good conversation in the car. Welcome to another episode of Dan the Road Trip Guy, where we have entertaining conversations about cars and road trips, life lessons and maybe, every now and then, a little advice. I'm your host, dan Neal Road Trip Extraordinaire, and now buckle. Now and then, a little advice. I'm your host, dan Neal Road Trip Extraordinaire, and now buckle up and enjoy the show. I am back in the studio doing a virtual drive today with my guest. My guest is Travis Gregg.
Speaker 1:Travis grew up in a small town of Camden, ohio, with practically a go-kart track in his backyard. This track would go on to host national events and, as I've read it, it's the birthplace of the World Karting Association. Travis moved into what we call Indy. Next today it's Indy Lights series in 2004. In his second season, he won three races and finished third in the points. Like any racer, his goal was to make it to the Indy 500. And if you know anything about racing Indy cars, you know it involves money and a lot of it.
Speaker 1:Travis would go on after his career in Indy Lights to be spotters for some of the biggest names in Indy car racing, some who are still racing. Today, a spotter is crucial to the success of a driver, particularly on an oval, due to the fast closing speeds that these drivers encounter. After racing, travis would work in the family business in Camden, ohio, alongside his father, and then he made a move to the banking world, and today he is a mortgage banker. I really believe you're going to enjoy this conversation, as we talk about growing up in a small town racing cars and then moving on to banking. So welcome to the show Travis. Welcome to the show, Travis. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Travis, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:It's a pleasure to have you here. I don't know that we've ever met in person, but we've seen you race and we've been to your family's kart track. I feel like I know you a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, your name's very familiar. I'm sure I've seen your son Henry race around the track a time or two as well. I've seen your son Henry race around the track a time or two as well.
Speaker 1:Let's take a. We'll take a, since you're a former racer still a racer, of course. Take a warm-up lap and just tell my listeners take a couple minutes. Who is Travis Gregg?
Speaker 2:My name's Travis Gregg, of course. Right now I live in Douglas, michigan. I have a beautiful wife, anna, two kids Asher's 11, and Elise is 8. And we'll talk about this later. But they're getting into go-karts. That'll be fun to do with them. But I grew up in Ohio, a small town called Camden. That's where my dad has a go-kart track in the family. G&j Kartway Grew up racing karts. My brother and I my brother's a couple years older than me. I always look up to him. He, in my eyes, was a better racer Went to Preble Shawnee High School, then, after high school, wrestled at Miami University in Oxford, ohio, so we didn't go too far away from home. During that whole time I was still racing. So we did go-karting, we did SCCA, formula Atlantic, and then we did sprint cars and then eventually got up into Indy Lights racing back in 2004.
Speaker 2:I believe your grandpa built the track way back how it started, but I know my dad and some of his friends really like to do some go-karting and they, they, they started it and I think it was the smallest oval that was there, kind of like the warm-up oval right was the first, you know, rendition of what the track is today and it just kind of grew. Of course they don't have the the monza Corner anymore that they had back in the late 60s when they had the IKF Nationals there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've seen pictures of that. It's pretty cool. This is Dan, the road trip guy, and one of my questions I like to ask what was your first car?
Speaker 2:My first car. So it wasn't a car, it was a truck Trucks are good.
Speaker 1:So it wasn't a car, it was a truck, okay.
Speaker 2:Trucks are good. Yeah, it was passed down from. So my sister had it. First it was a work truck and at Barnett's and J&J Cartway it was a 1981 Chevy. It was blue and my sister started driving it first when she was 16. And then it became my brother's and then it became mine. Nothing special about it. But when I got it, I think I tried to do some renovations to the exterior and I didn't really know what I was doing, but my dad had a makeshift kind of body shop in the wash bay for the semi trucks. I think at one time I was trying to put fiberglass over rust and then spray painting it to kind of hide the rust holes. So that's what I think about when I think about that truck. It wasn't pretty, but I was trying to make it look as good as it could.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did you drive that to college then? Oh no so that truck.
Speaker 2:I only had that for about a year, maybe Year and a half, and then I graduated into a Z28.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, moved up a little bit.
Speaker 2:Moved up just a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those 81 Chevys were a little bit notorious for rust.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. I mean it was a solid, solid truck, 305 in it. My sister when she had it, she put in new interior so didn't have vinyl seats, it had carpet. So it was a, yeah, one bad truck to drive.
Speaker 1:You said your family's in. I believe they're in the trucking business, correct? Yes, yeah, do you ever make any drives with any of the truck drivers.
Speaker 2:The one time that I can remember, like one of my first drives, that I went on, it was with my dad and he was taking a load to Cincinnati. Okay, and I was young, of course, and when I heard of Cincinnati I would just always automatically think the Cincinnati Zoo. So when he asked me if I wanted to go to Cincinnati, I'm like heck, yeah. So we get there and we get into the warehouse and I'm like this isn't the zoo, this isn't what I was thinking. I always think about that. Yeah, on one of the first rides I went on.
Speaker 1:My dad was a long-haul truck driver and when I was nine years old I spent the summer with him in the cab of a 67 Kenworth. That was fun, oh nice. Any epic road trips in your life, any trips or just trips that just stand out to you as just very memorable.
Speaker 2:When I think about road trips I have two that come to mind. One so my dad, when we went go-kart racing, we'd drive down to Florida in the winter. We'd take this old Dodge cargo van, gray cargo van. They had to put bench seats in the middle because all it had was two captain chairs in the front. There weren't any windows on the right side unless you were sitting in the passenger side. So they put in a big window on the left, right behind the driver's door. When we were sitting on the bench seat we could sit out and see.
Speaker 2:But I can't remember where we were going. We were going on either Jacksonville or somewhere warm, you know, when it was at night. You know we had to find a place to sleep. So I ended up finding a place to sleep in the back between the go-karts. There's a go-kart on the left and a go-kart on the right and there was a little spot in the middle right where I could sleep, just above the the axle for the rear end and then the drive shaft, and it would always, you know, be warm enough. You know, driving down in the winter that's, that was my little place to sleep.
Speaker 1:So yeah, good memories from, yeah, from those trips, no doubt and then the other.
Speaker 2:The other trip that really kind of sticks out is a few years ago went to see a friend in Colorado who I went to college with and wrestled with, and he was getting married and we stayed in Boulder and we ended up driving our Tahoe from where we're at in Michigan all the way out to Colorado. We took our two kids with us too.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, driving through, you know, the Plains of Kansas, you know. Stayed in a little town called Manhattan, kansas, the first night, where Kansas State is, and then ended up driving through into the mountains. Never been out that way in Colorado, have you ever been?
Speaker 1:Well, my favorite trip yeah, I've done a couple epic road trips out that way, my wife and I, but I'm going to encourage you to go get to Denver however you want to get there. We flew there and then, you drive across US Route 50, which is a cross-country highway. It comes right here through Cincinnati, but it is probably one of the most beautiful drives from west of Denver to California. Yeah, you have to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I can't remember what road it was, but when we did get into boulder and stayed there for a week, we ended up and went into devil's thumb resort and it was up in the mountains and the road that we took up to devil's uh thumb resort was pretty wild. I mean climbing through the mountains up you, you know, over 10,000 feet. It's quite a sight when you're up there and you're kind of like realizing how quickly the temperature changes. You know from just only, like you know, not that long ago, from that elevation.
Speaker 1:It's a little bit crazy out there in the mountains for sure. Well, that's cool, great trip. We'll switch gears a little bit. Let's talk about. You mentioned in the introduction that you were a race car driver and today the series is called Indy. Next, it was called Indy Lights, indy Next and then, back in your day, I believe, it was called the Infineon. Is that?
Speaker 2:Menards Infinity Pro Series.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 2:Mouthful. Yeah, this changed a little bit.
Speaker 1:Take us through that. How you, how you got into that racing? We know you, you race go-karts, but how did you end up in that series?
Speaker 2:and you know, in your second season you won three races and our family was there actually to see one of them in uh kentucky yeah, well, it all started back when my dad had an indy car with um tom kelly and del pelfrey.
Speaker 2:They put a, they put a car in the 500, started out with Mark Dismore. After that race my dad didn't. He wasn't involved with it as much. I think Dale Pelfrey took it on and kind of went a little bit more doing a lot of the racing. But there were some people that my dad met during that time when we were racing sprint cars back in 2003,. He called it, called some of those people and just said hey, if I want to get Travis into a lights car to do, just do a test. You know who would I talk to. And they put us in touch with Sam Schmidt and that was back in.
Speaker 2:In 03, we set up a test out in Vegas to do, you know, around Las Vegas motor speedway, just to do some laps. And that's pretty much the first time that we really got started down that path. Just did the test, got my license that next year, in 2004, I did three races I did Kentucky, I did Texas and then Chicago, and my first race that I did in 04, it was in Kentucky, but the weekend before that I think it was, ari Leyendijk Jr was driving the car and for whatever reason he couldn't race the next weekend, so they put me in it and it ended up on the pole, my first race. Wow, I was pretty excited about it. Back then I didn't have a lot of fears, I just was pretty excited about it. Back then I wasn't. I didn't have a lot of um fears, I just was pretty fearless and I thought that I could just pretty much do anything I wanted. So so I got started in Indy lights and, uh, yeah, I did that for a few years. Uh raced full-time in 2005 with Sam Schmidt.
Speaker 2:Uh had the uh Lucas oil car, the number seven, yeah, one, uh, three races and, I think, five or six poles funnier, funnier well, you came out in the first race, I believe, at homestead in one homestead yeah, yep, yep.
Speaker 1:That has to make you feel good. You come out and win the first race, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, I know. And then it seemed like when I, when I did my first race and I got the pole, I'm like, okay, I have a high bar, I just got to win every time I get in the car. So I was like, okay, if I don't win, then what am I doing wrong?
Speaker 1:So you did a little more racing.
Speaker 2:after that Did racing kind of stop then did some, you know, some one-off races here and there, with Sam Schmidt and then Mark Moore racing, guthrie racing just here and there and then racing as you know. I think we talked about this a little bit before racing is expensive and without a big sponsor to kind of cover it.
Speaker 2:It, you know, takes a lot of effort and a lot of resources, so started to not do it as much. But definitely if I had a chance to be able to kind of have some funding to kind of do some indycar racing, that was pretty much my goal. Just to get in it into an indycar at least once.
Speaker 2:Do the 500 yeah, be able to even have a chance to qualify and even get an opportunity to drive. You know, even in a in a test, you know, but uh, yeah, wasn't meant to be, but you know I'm still involved with racing. You know, even in a in a test, you know, but uh, yeah, wasn't meant to be, but you know I'm still involved with racing. You know, still to this day, just not driving the big cars anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you are you still a spotter?
Speaker 2:I am. I don't do it full time. Last year I did it for, or this past, uh summer, I did it for Kyle Larson.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I'll probably do it again for him next year. I heard he committed to doing it again with McLaren, reached out to the team manager and said hey, if you need me, I'm available. Pretty cool opportunity to do that for him. But I started spotting after I was done driving in lights. Sam Schmidt just asked me if I wanted to kind of help on some of his drivers. So I spotted for James Hinchcliffe, joseph Newgarden kind of worked my way into the IndyCar series and spotting for some of those drivers as well. I was lucky enough to be able to have the opportunity to spot for Newgarden when he was at Penske in 18. I have to pinch myself sometimes to think about some of the drivers that I spotted for. But Fernando Alonso, juan Pablo Montoya, tony Kanaan and then Kyle Larson I'm like how is this possible? Some guy from Camden Ohio has this big responsibility to be a spotter for these guys.
Speaker 2:One of the biggest races of the year.
Speaker 1:nonetheless, yeah, and for I have a lot of listeners who are not race fans. I've always thought the spotter has an extremely stressful job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have to be pretty focused on what you're doing. Yeah, you have to relay the right message at the right time or, you know, you could potentially cause an issue where the driver you know doesn't know somebody's coming up behind them and potentially crashes.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Do you spot on road courses also?
Speaker 2:There are a few teams that do have road course spotters Not a lot. They'll do it like at the end of one of the straightaways just to let you know if somebody's coming in on the inside. You know under braking to let them know they're there. But I mean nowadays you know, especially if you're on a road course, drivers kind of know what's behind them. You know they got their mirrors. It's not like it is on an oval where you could have. You know the closing rates are so fast on an oval.
Speaker 2:So, that's what makes it really important to be able to have, you know, some eyes from above.
Speaker 1:Sure Well, thanks for that little education on spotting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no problem, you're the first guy I've had that's a spotter, so that's cool. Okay, so now you've moved on from racing and you're in the mortgage business.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh.
Speaker 1:What took you there? Was there one particular thing? Or you're just like, okay, I've got to go to work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I was working at Barnett. Barnett is my father's trucking company. He still operates it to this day. It's where you know. It's on the same property where the go-kart track is Right, worked in the office as a dispatcher and kind of doing. It was a small family company, sure, but just doing a little bit of everything. So my dad's, you know, older than me, and at that time I'm like looking towards the future and wanting to try to automate some few things with the company and make it a little bit more I don't know user-friendly as far as being able to manage. In our discussion, my dad didn't want to give up a lot of responsibility. He's the guy that works 24-7, seven days a week.
Speaker 2:Still, it was a good time for me to really just step out and find some different opportunities of other things to do. Through some family friends, they put me in touch with one of the sales managers at Huntington Bank to be a mortgage lender, and I didn't know anything about mortgage lending. I couldn't tell you the difference between FHA or conventional financing. It wasn't really the mortgage that I was looking for. It was looking for the opportunity of being able to be in sales and help people be able to run a business in the way that I could run it and help people, be able to run a business in the way that I could run it and help the people the way that I wanted to help them. So it was almost like doing it as your own business, even though it wasn't, but you were able to kind of operate it the way that you wanted to and I really liked that. And the more you worked, the harder you worked, the more you could make, and I really liked that aspect of it as well.
Speaker 1:That's great. It's kind of a weird market out there right now.
Speaker 2:I guess it's different. Yeah, but just today I was putting in a couple of refinances, which is nice.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:The Fed dropped interest rates by 50 basis points. It didn't really change rates too much from the mortgage side because everybody was expecting it. It's definitely a step in the right direction, considering we were up in the 8% range not too long ago. We're getting some more inventory. Things are, I think, picking up and heading in the right direction.
Speaker 1:So let me ask you this what's on your bucket list in life?
Speaker 2:Bucket list in life. Well, to keep it along the whole road trip theme, my wife and I have talked about this often. We want to get an RV while our kids are still young and be able to do a cross-country trip. Asher and Elise, they're 11 and 8. I know once we get into high school and college it's not going to be as easy to do a trip like that. Take an RV, go out West, hit up the national parks, probably even stop into Las Vegas to see my friend Sam Schmidt out there.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But yeah, just being able to park wherever we wanted to for the night, kind of have our own little destination wherever we want to make it.
Speaker 1:That would be a fun trip. I interviewed somebody, have you?
Speaker 2:ever done trips like that with your family.
Speaker 1:Well, so not. We did some with the kids, but it was usually fly someplace. We didn't do the RV thing. Kind of regret that. So I really encourage you, do that soon. But my wife and I took. We still think this is probably one of the best trips we've taken. We skipped over kansas and the mid, the midwest area, and we flew to denver. We drove us route 50 to sacramento. We spent about three nights in california. Then we drove up the coast all back roads, no interstates up to Portland, watched the IndyCar race because our son was there drove then over to Glacier and spent a few nights there, did the park, then down to the Tetons and then back to Denver. So that was, and I would. That trip was amazing. I'd never taken two weeks off in my life. I'm a little like your dad, probably, or too much, but we took two weeks off and we put 4 400 miles on this rental car holy cow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hopefully you bought the uh unlimited yeah option.
Speaker 1:unlimited miles yeah, brought it back. They were probably like what, though I just encourage you, and the national parks are just great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the rental car, the mileage on the rental car. When we drove out to Colorado, I feel like I had a service done just before I left and then when I got back I had to. It was almost due for a service again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. Coupled with that, if you could take a road trip with anyone, living or deceased, who would it be? Where would you go? And maybe you've already told me that, but tell me that anyway, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'd probably couple it with I really want to do a trip as a family before my kids get too old. So being able to just enjoy some time with them, get them to have some experiences, you know at that age, and see the country, you know in a way that you don't really get to see where we live now. But I mean we live in a great place. I mean I can't complain, west Michigan, you got the lake, you got the dunes, beautiful area. But just being able to kind of see some of the things or learn about in school, I think would be really cool.
Speaker 1:Once you get beyond Denver, it's just like, unless you've been there, you're just kind of like wow this is.
Speaker 1:You know, there's so much land we're used to, surrounded by people and cities here and there. It's just miles in between. My wife and I were on us 50. I knew about this hill because I've been on it before and you can see from the crest of one hill to the crest of the next hill. And I thought, and it's just, it's just this straight piece of road, and I thought I'm gonna check the mileage on this. This time it was 12, was 12 miles from one crest to the next crest, and it was just crazy.
Speaker 1:Well, Travis, this has been fun, but I do want to ask you if you could leave my listeners with a piece of advice, life advice. What would you tell them?
Speaker 2:Well, I have a lot to learn myself, you know, as I go through life.
Speaker 1:We all do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was just thinking about this the other day Glad I learned this. I had a closing issue with one of my mortgages In the past. I probably would tend to worry about things and let it really affect me without really knowing what was going to happen. So if I could give some advice, just always think positive. I think there's going to be a way to work something out before you really work yourself up and to get worried. I know that that works for me and in this situation it helped. Instead of going down the rabbit hole of worrying about things and getting all worked up, I just kind of said you know what, we're going to figure this out. And it ended up working out even better than I thought. Just stay positive when you're dealing with any sort of you know challenge or anything like that in anything life or work, pretty much just to stay positive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great advice and yeah, sometimes you can start down a path and just the negative thoughts hit you and you're kind of like, oh my gosh, what if this happens?
Speaker 2:Yeah, our mind plays tricks on us and you know, once something happens, it triggers us to think that things are going to be bad. But you know, there's things to learn from those situations too.
Speaker 1:Not too much looking in the rearview mirror either, right.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I mean, that's a tough one for me when I was growing up, you know, looking in the rear view mirror, bad race or something like that I would always beat myself up.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And watching these drivers today. You know talking about you know a bad thing, you know, and they're like you know what I'm just going to. You know we're going to focus forward. We had that bad mistake, but you know, we're just going to. You know, race next weekend and you know make up for it. I'm like man. I wish I could have been like that when I was racing. Maybe my worry or my anxiety may not have been as bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would agree. I'm not a racer and I had that same thing. Well, Travis, this has been fun. Yeah, Hopefully we get to catch up in person sometime and, but before we leave, leave my listeners. Maybe somebody's looking for a mortgage. Leave my listeners with how to find you.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. They can visit my website, which is travisgregcom, and that's two Gs on the end. I'm on Facebook and Instagram. Instagram and, yeah, anybody's looking to get pre-approved. Or, right now, with rates uh, rate rates getting a little bit better. Anybody wants to refi or, you know, do a cash out refi. I'd be glad to help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now do you only work in Michigan, or?
Speaker 2:Nope, I got, um, I got, I'm licensed in five States. Okay, so Florida, ohio, indiana, Michigan and Indiana.
Speaker 1:Okay, great, and I hope you had fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had a great time. Yeah, thanks for thanking me to do this.
Speaker 1:Until we meet up again. You can find me on the internet at dantheroadtripguycom. I hope you will follow this podcast so that you don't miss any upcoming episodes and share it with your family and friends so they can enjoy the stories of my guests also. Until we meet again on a future episode, keep having conversations with each other and keep driving.
