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Tommy Kendall is an American race car driver and television broadcaster best known for his IMSA GT Championships, GTU Championships, and the SCCA Trans-Am Series where he dominated in the 1990s. He ran in 14 NASCAR Winston Cup Series races, the Busch Series, and raced in the AMP Bathurst 1000, the American Le Mans Series plus the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Tommy’s been a television analyst for Champ Car, a host on Speed Test Drive, and on numerous television shows including Speed TV’s Setup and WindTunnel, Fox Sport’s Driven – A Race Without Boundaries, and recently on the TV show Porsche 911: The Icon in Evolution with Danny Sullivan and past Cars Yeah guest Patrick Long. In 2015 Tommy was an inductee in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America.
SHOW SPONSORS
Christopher Kimball Financial Services
SUCCESS QUOTE
“There is no such thing as right and wrong but there are consequences.” – Tommy’s father
CAREER & LIFE CHALLENGES
A huge accident in 1991 at Watkins Glenn when he was severely injured. The next big challenge was having to learn how to raise sponsorship money for racing.
AH-HA MOMENTS
At the end of the day the most important element of racing is speed and learning how to extract the best from a car by identifying one single element to make the car faster.
FIRST SPECIAL VEHICLE
A Mazda RX7 Tommy won his two GTU Championships in.
BEST RACING ADVICE
“Make sure you’re fast.” – Bobby Unser
AUTOMOTIVE RESOURCES
FAVORITE BOOKS
The Only Game in Town by Mohamed A. El-Erian
The Unfair Advantage by Mark Donahue
Tune to Win by Carroll Smith
PARTING WORDS OF ADVICE
You are perfect for this moment.
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Super interview, easily could have gone into another hour with more stories like winning his class co driving driving with Paul Newman and Mark Martin in the ’95 24 Hrs of Daytona. Great show Mark.
Congratulation on your 500 interview.
I am just a grandmother, but enjoy hearing his interview. And I remember when I had an RX7, but of course I didn’t race it.
Super guy, very interesting story. Keep them coming Mark.