Name: Built for Resilience: On and Off the Track
Uploaded: 2026-09-14T18:16:13.546Z
Duration: 54 min 28 s
Description: Built for Resilience: On and Off the Track

Transcript for "Built for Resilience: On and Off the Track": Hello, everybody. Oh, there we go. Can you hear me now? Great. Alright. Let's kick this off. So this, Rubik McLaren racing webinar series, and today's topic is going to be resilience at 230 miles an hour. So I can't think of, anybody better than knowing that experience of 230 miles an hour than, Ryan Hunter Ray. So, Ryan, are you out there? I'm here. Thanks for having me. Appreciate. it. Look. forward to, Thanks, Ryan. yeah, sharing some stories here. Perfect. So before we start, a little housekeeping that we've got here. So we've got a chat going, so please feel free to interact with us and chat. There's also a q and a box. So if you would like to ask Ryan a question later, we'll be monitoring that and submitting the questions. So please be, please be sharing those questions so that we can review them. And then finally, there'll be a a link coming out from Rachel and the Rubrik team that if you'd like to schedule a meeting with us further, you'll actually win a signed hat from Ryan. So, so exciting times there. And without further ado, Ryan, welcome. You're the sporting director newly newly appointed sporting director of Aeromeclere and IndyCar team. And, you've got quite the pedigree and excited to have you on. So, of course, the twenty twelve IndyCar Series champion. 2014, you won the Indianapolis five hundred by a very, very, tight margin. So we'd love to talk to you about that. And then as far as your, statistics within IndyCar, I mean, absolutely unbelievable. So 296 starts, 18 wins, over 1,600 laps led. I've had the pleasure of seeing you on track a handful of times, not only in Indianapolis, but other tracks. So excited to talk with you today. And, probably one of the stats that you have that's most interesting is the only American to record victories across those five different series. So pretty impressive. And and, Brian, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah. Absolutely. My pleasure. For sure. I love to, you know, chat about your industry and how it relates to mine. Alright. Perfect. So, before we, get into those questions, we'd love to show off your car. I know it probably wasn't running as long as you and I would hope for, but it did look pretty when it was out there with the Rubik branding, the price fixed car, that '31 Chevrolet. So it had a really, really cool livery. And Rubik was, was proud to sponsor you in this past year's Indianapolis five hundred, and we're looking forward to next year as well. I appreciate it. Yeah. Absolutely right. I mean, it did not run as long as, we would have liked, and that was that was a rare circumstance for me. You know, I hadn't I hadn't really turned a car around there in, what, I think, sixteen years. So the good thing was, though, we really we we unpacked the whole thing, and we really dove into it. We understood what the problem was. Right? That was that was the the key factor was that we understood what we needed, what the issue was, and what we needed to do different next year. So we've got unfinished business, and I'm really confident, going into the next year's Indy five hundred. That's great. And, speaking to that partnership and and Rubrik and McLaren, I would like to just highlight a few things with, Zach Brown, of course, the CEO of McLaren Racing. And just talking about the data driven aspect of racing and data integrity being that competitive advantage. And, of course, that's why McLaren looks to partner with organizations that, of course, share that standard, share the standard for speed, for reliability. And, of course, we're here today because Rubrik shares that mindset. So Bipul, the Rubrik CEO, also talks about that the sport can make champions in in milliseconds and in seconds. And I think your Indianapolis Five Hundred win is a great example of just how the tightest of margins matter. And so without further ado, I think I would love to get into that further question. So when you're talking with a bunch of industry and technology professionals across IT and cyber security, and they're having to deal with data just coming in all sorts of different feeds all the time, having to make split second decisions, being, being under all sorts of adversarial pressure in today's day and age of ransomware from, external attackers from nation states depending on the industry. So it's really just, of course, it's just a high stress industry and a lot of things going on. And critical systems fail. Critical industries are attacked. And if we relate that to to racing, what happens when you have a critical failure at, let's say, 220, 230 miles an hour and maybe a little, little tongue in cheek? Who do you think it has it more difficult? An an administrator trying to recover from a ransomware attack or yourself trying to, get that 1,600 pound IndyCar off the safer barrier in Indianapolis? What do you think? That's a great great question. I have, I have no idea how you guys do it, but that's like to me, that's like the fifth dimension. Can't even comprehend it. So, honestly, in a lot of ways, I think you guys have it, Artur, because with the issue that you face, there's the fallout is so much greater, has somewhat it impacts so many more people. I think I think mine would be more physically, damaging. That's it's never fun. I'll tell you one thing. It's never fun crashing a car and hitting a wall at 230 miles an hour. It's a part of racing that comes with it. It's kind of, you know, something that you you understand will happen time to time. You try to avoid it in any way that you can. But yet with your scenario, like mine, every different issue that we have on the racetrack is diff it's unique, right, in its own way. Unfortunately, with mine, I end up hitting a wall and, or I you know, something else happens that way. It's a dangerous sport. We kind of, we understand it. We respect that side of it, have a healthy amount of respect for it, but you also have to put that aside and just get on with the job and, you know, be prepared as possible to, to take on whatever scenario, you know, may arise. And, you know, when I have an issue on the racetrack, whether it be engine issue, electrical issue, I've gotta process the information. Obviously, I'm traveling at two hundred and twenty plus miles an hour. While I'm doing that, I'm trying to kinda troubleshoot, and I understand the long game and how I can get ahead of it, maybe minimize it, get get to the next pit stop so that I can get the car fixed to some small extent. But you're always trying to micromanage those little those little issues during the race, which is another it it it's a whole another side to racing that not so many people understand that the drivers kinda deal with behind the wheel. How do you prepare for that? So speaking, I don't wanna harp on, of course, hitting a wall. But when we think about these, these administrators on the line that are trying to prepare for those what if scenarios, and and, of course, we all prepare, and we hope it doesn't happen. But hope is not a strategy, and you must prepare for the worst. For yourself, what can you do physically just to to try to make your own body as prepared as much as possible? Well, when it comes physically, it's it's a matter of being, prepared, you know, to drive these cars. There there are no power steering, which is unique to racing, in general. You know, sports car like Le Mans does not have Le Mans racing. Le Mans twenty four hour, that has power steering. F one power steering. NASCAR power steering. We have no power steering. So the steering load through the wheel is directly connected to the tire. Right? So that load is extremely heavy. So you also get all the little kickbacks in the wheel, in the steering wheel that you wouldn't otherwise feel with a power steering, you know, setup. So that's one thing. Right? You just have to keep your body drivers, all all of us have a very strong upper bodies, core, especially. We're we're dealing with, I think, our max g g load, right, is five oh, just over five lateral g's. So that's a different g load than what a fighter jet pilot would take. Right? A fighter jet pilot, their biggest challenge, they obviously do take some lateral load, but it's it's vertical. Right? That's that's when they do the big, you know, the big pull ups. That's why they need the g suits because the blood leaves their, leaves their head, travels down south to, to their legs. But in our scenario, it's all going basically, most of it's going sideways. We do have some vertical because we have the the banking. But, in the corners, we don't really breathe that much, Mhmm. because of the compression. It's you're so compressed. So, you know, I do a lot of cardio work. Swimming has been great for me because it you're not able to breathe on demand right when you would want to all the time, and that's that for me kinda replicates what's happening in the car a bit. But, you know, my heart rate in the races is anywhere from I've sustained, a 155 to a 180. Qualifying, I've had my highest of one ninety three. So it's it's a it's a it's a very physical sport. It does not get the wrap for it. Yeah. Agreed. I think, we definitely do not have that physical aspect. But if you talk to a few of us, I'm sure we might have our own fair share of blood pressure issues and dealing with. the stress of the cyber side for sure. I've had the pleasure of being in the two seater IndyCar, and it only went a 180 miles an hour, and I felt like I didn't breathe for three or four laps. So luckily, I survived, but it was an experience. Yeah. I I think I would be as panicked in the two seer because I'm sitting behind somebody and I'm. not in control. I don't like that. I like I like to be, you know, I like to have my hands on the wheel and and control my own destiny in that way. So speaking of controlling your destiny, I think it's a nice little segue. So let's talk about overcoming professional adversity regardless of what profession we're talking about, whether it's cybersecurity, information technology, we run through professional adversity. You've experienced something very similar in your career. So you faced you faced seasons without a full time ride, even though, of course, you had to book a business that proved that you deserve to be on track. So when that phone stopped ringing, how do you keep yourself mentally and physically prepared? How do you make sure that anytime you get that call, you are ready to come back and and be able to get into that cockpit and perform at a high level? How are you able to handle that? Yeah. I mean, in life. Right? In business and racing, doors will always open, and they will always close. And it's a matter of how you deal with that ebb and flow. Right? Racing is unique because you can have all the talent in the world, and you have to, in order to deliver when you're behind the the wheel or when you're in the race. But there's so much more that comes to it with racing. Right? We're we're we're reliant on our partnerships. It it is a very expensive sport. It's a sponsored back sport. Right? So I'm a I'm a brand ambassador as well as I am a a racing driver. And, you know, through the years, you know, we've had very healthy situations with the race team and the, you know, the title sponsor on the car. CEO loves racing, and all of a sudden, there's a CEO change. Sponsor's gone. I'm left, you know, with no chair when the music stops. And you've gotta kinda reset and start again. And I went through that scenario, in, 2000 coming off the 2005 season into 2006 and 2007. I already had two IndyCar wins at that point, and I thought that that would be enough, you know, to get my foot right back in the door and get enough another opportunity. But, you know, circumstances being as they were, that wasn't the case. And it was that was the most trying time in my career. I would, at this point, have it no other way because it gave me so much tenacity. It made me dig deeper than a lot of other guys on and off the racetrack because of that, because I was desperate to make it work. And it was my passion. Right? If it really is your passion and you actually do love it, you will find that next level. You'll find that next level of of great determination. And I learned that during that time. Now I had to go, you know, I had to go be visual. Right? I had to have FaceTime with these team owners, and constantly just telling them, hey. Listen. If you ever have an issue, you know, I'll be there. I'll jump in the car. I'll be faster than the last guy that was in there, and I'll I'll I'll not wreck the car at the same time. That's those two things coming together are pretty tough. But, yeah, I did that, beat the path for for almost two years. I was broke, dead broke at that point. I had no money, and, I got a call. They said, hey. I watched the race actually prior to that, and I saw this one driver. You know, he he crashed again. He had been crashing quite a bit, during that season. And, I didn't reach out to them on the on on this, you know, exact moment. But, they called me up, and they said, hey. Would you be available to come to the shop? Got there. I said, yeah. Okay. So we can do a seat fitting. You know, to get fit in the car, in any cars, you have to have, like, a custom made seat. Very tedious process. And then they said, we're thinking put you in the car this weekend. This is midseason, Grant. You know, I've been out of the car for a year and a half, two years, and it was going into this team's home race at at Mid Ohio. It was the Ray Hall Letterman team. And David Letterman showed up, which he only shows up to maybe one or two races a year, an Indy five hundred and maybe one other. And, so the pressure was so immense. Right? And I I remember in that time just having to really be conscious of compartmentalizing all of that energy and not letting it be negative energy. But just through my career, just just being ready. Right? It's like it's simple example. Like, when you you're in high school, right, and you don't study for a test. The anxiety levels through the roof because you're not prepared. So if you prepare and you're ready for when that opportunity presents itself, you your your mind just processes everything so much differently. And and that is a very powerful thing. Right? You can tell yourself you know, you can let little negative thoughts creep in, and you won't even know it. But when you're on the racetrack, subconsciously, those negative thoughts are still there, and you'll start second guessing little things that you're doing. And that will impact when we're looking for tenths of a second, hundreds of a second, thousands of a second even you know, the last race we had, we were looking for thousands of a second. And, all of those little things matter. So keeping everything in line that way and having the confidence and the preparation, is key because the opportunity when it does arise after all of the hard work you put in to maybe just get that foot in the door, don't when everything comes, you know, comes in line, you gotta be ready to strike at that point. Yeah. And I think, to relay it back to to our profession, of course, we get budgets being pulled all the time. We deal with, a lot of even burnout in our industry too. When you look at some of the metrics and some of the studies and information security, information technology, there's roughly 50%, 50 to 60% of individuals that are just thinking about stopping, thinking about shifting careers just due to the pressures that are that are going on. And a lot of that has to do with, you know, something relatable to where, you know, you need to to purchase, let's say, the right technology, but budget gets pulled. You're you're looking to be able to make improvements into your team or into your company, but you're you're hamstrung with what you're able to provide, to the organization. So it's it's going to take that resilient mindset to be able to bounce back from those, those those adversities, to be able to bounce back and be resilient. So even though, of course, we are not in racing, there's a lot of similarities there with overcoming that professional adversity. So maybe diving in deeper, again, you're the only American driver to win races across these different series. Thinking about sports cars, thinking about open wheel racing here in America. You've got you you clearly have a resilient mindset, but how does that apply to all these different disciplines that you've won in? You've won Sebring. You've won the 500. There's just completely different ends of a of a racing spectrum. How do you go about that? Yeah. You know, earlier in my career, I just I wanted to diversify myself because if you if you become a specialist just in one category, which let's say it's IndyCar, right, which is what we call open wheel. Globally, f one, and it's it's more on the global side. F one is more on the European side. In America, you you know, IndyCar is the top level. You it's, open wheel, series. However, sports car racing. Right? These are all different cars. Sports car racing, as we call it, is Le Mans Le Mans twenty four hours, Sebring twelve hour. These iconic old races, right, that are endurance races. You share the car with other drivers. The key point for me was that, you know, these cars were so much different than what I was used to. And when I first got into that situation, I almost thought I made a mistake here. Right? Because I'm not I'm not immediately the best top guy on the racetrack. These full time sports car guys are. Right? So. I found this whole other area where I had to learn how to adapt on the fly quickly and be okay with operating outside of my comfort zone kind of to to understand this car and this the vehicle the the dynamics of this car are completely different than what I'm used to. So I have to I have to break a different way. I've gotta, you know, lean the car into the corner a certain way. I have to get on the throttle a certain way. I have to you know, there's I have to work traffic differently than what I've been used to doing for so many years. And once I got going on that, I just couldn't stop. I was not looking for any opportunity on a off weekend from IndyCar, any off season of IndyCar, we're still very busy, but I wanted to be driving other cars because I wanted the opportunity, to to expand my toolset, you know, for my my talents in the race car. And that, I think, was also crucial to just being able to really be very competitive on all different types of tracks even in IndyCar. IndyCar is the only, series in the world that races on all different disciplines of racetrack. It it races on, road course, street course, short oval, and super speedway, which is obviously what the 500 falls under. But just getting outside my comfort zone a little bit is it it was it was such a learning process. And once I had success in the area that I first had, fear or I first had that that those negative feelings, the tentativeness, once I had success in that, it it definitely that domino affected into my my main role, obviously, which is an ADT card. when you think about sports car racing sharing that car, you're having to, maybe adopt a setup of a different driver. So maybe that driver likes a a looser or a tighter front end or rear end or what have you. So relating that back into to, of course, our profession, we might be inheriting a technology stack that we maybe we didn't select, but we're having to figure out how to work in that environment. We're having to figure out how to make that environment successful, making it secure, making it performant. Maybe maybe asking you that question. If you're not in charge of that setup and you're having to share that setup across three different drivers, how are you able to handle that? Are you just having to adapt ever your driving style to the car, or how does that work? Yeah. Another great question. Because that happens a lot. Sports car racing, it's really it's really tough for the 80 car drivers or or the outside talent to come in, and really have any influence on the setup because there's gonna usually be two full time sports car drivers that are hired by that manufacturer. You know, I've driven for, you know, Cadillac, Mazda, all these other ones. Those two full time drivers, they have to say. Right? They're they're the guys that are there for the entire whatever their race season is, 15 races or whatever. I I'm coming in for the three endurance races. My job is the hired gun to come in and and be that third driver in those endurance races, be as fast as the factory drivers, not make mistakes, hand the car over to them, and continue on as as, you know, as as you would. But it is a tough spot to operate in. Right? Because if every driver just like personalities, every driver wants a different thing from the race cars. We've had a lot of that this year within aero McLaren. You know, we have three different drivers who want three different feelings from the race car. You know, a feeling like I could just simplify it for you is when you come into the corner at 220 miles an hour, 230 miles an hour, some guys, like our one of our drivers, Padel Ward, he doesn't mind if the rear if the rear of the car is on is sliding. Right? He understands that that yaw moment can turn the car a different way, and he has less work to do out of the corner. Some drivers like me, I wanna feel the rear of the car first to know how much and how aggressive I can really get the car down to the apex. So, yeah, just getting used to that, right, and and being able to adapt to it, it just it it kinda just made my foundation bigger so that when I got to another challenging situation in any car, whether we had a tire compound change with the tires, completely different, it just built I I was just more I was I was more grounded and able to be able to, take advantage of it because of the experiences I had in having to deal with these situations in sports cars that were not really optimum to me. So, yeah, it's a that's a unique carryover or or a unique likeness, I think, that, that we can take there. Mhmm. No. It's great. Leading into that the that in race pressure a little bit, not only sports cars, but, of course, IndyCar and setbacks, Bad pit stop, mechanical failure, anything can erase months of preparation as as you know, very recently. So how do you keep your your mind reset and move on? How are you even focusing, of course, on on next year's five hundred? And again, relating that back into IT and cybersecurity, it's a lot of that, some of the failures are due to humans, maybe inadvertently. And you have to bounce back from that. And you don't wanna fall into that finger pointing exercise. You wanna, of course, push into solutions, and you wanna make sure that something like that doesn't happen again. So how are you able to handle that? You've gone through all of those scenarios, bad pit stops, mechanical failures, of course. All that preparation just just down the window. How do you stay resilient? How do you reset? You know, it's it's something that I've learned over years of experience. Experience helped me a lot. When I first came into IndyCar at 21 or whatever, you know, I was just, hair on fire all the time. The highest of highs were awesome, and the lows were, like, you know, world's ending tomorrow. And I found very quickly I cannot operate that way. Right? I had to be more down the middle, and I had to manage my my thoughts. I had to manage my mental approach, and that was that was key for me. It's amazing how even like, a simple example again is, like, if if you're worrying about something. Right? I've got this meeting later today, and and you start worrying about it and your anxiety ramps up. These are all things that are just putting the brakes on for you. That there's no it is doing nothing to help you or help your end game. Right? So I I got on this. I was conscious of it, which is key first. You have to be conscious of the fact that you have to be strong enough and have the the, you know, the willpower to to just try and set those feelings and compartmentalize them and set them aside and continue using any thoughts, emotions, anything that is only conducive to winning, to your end game, to your performance. So that was key for me. Pivotal absolutely is is managing that. Like, Indy five hundred, when we had I was leading I was out front by a good little ways, actually, in the race that I won. And this is the first time ever with seven laps to go. They went red. Red means stop. Okay. Everybody in the pit lane, shut the engines off. We're gonna clean up the wreck that's on the track, and we're gonna go have a, you know, six, seven lap shootout. Every other year prior to that, since the eighty five hundred has been around 1911, At that point, when there's a big rack, seven laps to go, it's gonna finish under caution. And I don't wanna finish under caution, but I'll tell you. When you're in this scenario, you could race it for, like, three and a half hours, four hours straight, 220 miles an hour. You'll take an 8,500 win anyway you can get it. Mhmm. But I I remember sitting there when they shut the engine off, and I'm sitting there leading the Indy five hundred, biggest race in the world. 300, whatever, 50,000 people sitting there. And I remember thinking, man, I could let this moment of this silence right? I just had engine noise, wind noise, team yelling the radio for for, like I said, three hours, three and a half hours. I could let some negative thoughts come in here. Like, oh, gosh. What if I, you know, what if I don't accelerate perfectly and and he can get a draft on me and pass me and I lose the race? You know? Here here come the negative thoughts. Right? And I just we just had to shut it down, stay positive, like, blinders on, and went out and drove. I think what you know, you could ask the LA who was well, you can ask a lot of you. I think it was one of the most exciting finishes of the Indy five hundred ever. But dealing with setbacks, like, after the fact, that's what racing is all about. It it is actually it's r and d. It's just racing and development. Development only happens when you understand failures and why they occur. That's the only way you actually progress. Right? That's the only way we progress as as as humans. It's the only way we progress as as businessmen, as as racing drivers, as you have to understand those small the failures that happened, the losses that happened, they have lessons in them. They have actual understandings within them. Then if you apply it then to the next time, right, the next application on track, you're not going to have that same failure. Don't let it happen again. Do your best at least not to. And that's that's how growth happens. It is it is absolutely, Yep. a huge massive part of racing. We have failures all the time, engine failures, tire failures, part failures, driver failures, cue and pick lane, all of it. We have got so many different, different points that can go wrong in a race. And as long as you understand them and you do your absolute best to, to prevent that from happening again, that's that's growth. One thing that we do in the cybersecurity side is, of course, we highly recommend, tabletop exercises to where you start playing through scenarios of those what ifs. Rubik ourselves, we, of course, offer a variety of different tabletops that we work with our customers and prospects. So maybe map to racing. What do those table tops look like in the Engineering Room prior to prior to a weekend? What type of scenarios are you reviewing and going through just to try to prepare for that unexpected to where you're better prepared with that end race pressure? What do you guys do before you go out on track? Yeah. We do a massive amount of it. Obviously, we have our we have our meetings that are, you know, our our our planned agenda and procedures and how we would, you know, foresee and hope it would go. And then we have we we go through a massive laundry list of of, you know, critical failures, what we would do in this scenario, what we would do in that scenario. Even in pit lane, you know, our last time on track, like, the d n d five hundred is called carb day. It's called carb day because not because Miller Lite has carbs and that's what a lot of people think, but it's carburetor day from back in the old days when they have to tune the carburetors. But that's our warm up for the d n d five hundred. It's about an hour. And in that, we can do pit you know, practice pit stops. And so we will constantly, you know and I'll tell the crew well, we'll tell them beforehand. We're gonna have we're gonna we're gonna simulate some failures here so that the crew could be ready. Pit stops are so vital in a in in '85. Less time you spend on pit lane, better chance you have of winning. And if you actually you know, if you're slowing a pit stop by a second, you know, tenths of a second, the car that was right behind you coming to the pits, he could be in front of you. Right? So, you know, sometimes I'll I'll come in, I'll shut the engine off. Right? And I'll say it won't restart. So the guy has to go get the starter you know, has to have the starter, this massive thing right there ready, to then plug in the back of the car to lose as minimal amount of time as possible. We're changing in front wings on pit lane, rear wings in case, you know, we have damage on those. So, yeah, we are we're trying to cover every different, negative scenario, and and just making sure that we can get on top of it and solve it as fast as possible. So, yeah, you have to plan for for some of those, issues that could and will arise at some point. Yeah. And I think, you had mentioned this earlier, but when you think about the mental grid of Indianapolis five hundred or even let's say the Sebring twelve hour, which you won as well, just you talked about the the the frantic red flag finish. It was the first time the race had ever been red flagged in the past. It would just finish under yellow. So you mentioned this a little bit, but that's that's the first time nobody had ever experienced that before. So you're sitting in that car, you're not allowed to touch the car, it's under red flag. Like, what do you do? How do you stay composed? You're sitting in that cockpit probably baking away. What are what's going through your head? What are you thinking? Yeah. Just like I mentioned before on that on the last topic, it was like it was just trying to keep my head in in the right space that I knew I needed to be. And there were times in the in the race, in the last seven laps, Elliot and I were going back and forth, and it was it was super sketchy. We were putting the cars in in places that they had never been. Right? We were turning in from the bottom of the racetrack, which you never do at Indy because you need you need the most radius to get through the corner. Right? You you arc up from the top, you come down the middle, and you go back up at the exit. You need as much, radius as you can. We were just putting the cars in in in very risky spots, and there was no time in that race where either of us, myself included, was just we we were not thinking, hey. Let's maybe this is too risky right now. Let's maybe wait till the next quarter. It was it was full go, full send, and it was so intense in that last seven laps. This is one of only a few times ever happened to me in my career where when I came in and people were talking to me about the last, you know, oh, I'm at, you know, whatever. I'm at one ninety eight or one ninety six, whatever it was. I couldn't remember it because I literally wasn't even banking memory at that point. I was operating in such a place processing so much. I think I didn't even have, any more room for it. But, you know, in those in those circumstances, you have a you have a you have a choice to make. You might not know it. You have you've got a choice to make on your your mental outlook of the situation. Right? I've always I've always liked it to we we usually race in the on road and street courses, we usually race in the dry. Right? Mhmm. And it no rain. When it rains, we put on rain tires. Rain racing in the rain is very difficult because you're operating with much less grip. And you can get away with a certain amount of pushing the car, and you have to do that. But the the line between hero and zero in the rain is very, very, very thin. And I've always liked it to this scenario where you wake up in the morning, you're in the hotel, you've been kicking rear end all weekend, and you're you're in tune with the track. You know, you qualify on pole, whatever it is, and you open up the curtains, and it's pouring rain. Right? Mhmm. At that point, you're already you're already setting the groundwork for your performance that day. What's gonna go through your mind at that point? And that I learned probably not soon enough, but I it was it was at a it was at a younger age in IndyCar where if I because I you know, I would start in the hotel. I was like, oh my gosh. Like, I'm on pole. What if I break a little bit too late for the first quarter? It's you know, the whole race is gone. Would you know, there's walls all over the place. What if I, you you know, what if I'm taking the rain line, which is the outside line, the the unorthodox line around this corner and, you know, I end up getting the tire barrier. We we lose points in the championship and just, you know, it just starts specific it just starts building on itself from there. So, yeah, the power over your mental thoughts and thoughts and management over those thoughts and using, like I said earlier, kind of what only try to use only the ones that are actually conducive to what you are trying to accomplish on that day, it's, so powerful. What is you've led a lot of laps in Speedway with multiple different teams, big teams, small teams. You've been at the front. What's it taught you? What have you learned? It's taught me that, you know, I I raced for Andretti for for twelve, thirteen years straight. Right? So I was used to and accustomed to a certain set of protocols, a team environment. Right? Procedures that we just did. This is how we operated. We had success with it. You know, we won a lot of races. But I also think that my strength came from working with different organizations that do things much differently. Right? And I knew knew kind of the positives and the negatives of what I can kinda take from each of those and try and apply it no matter where I go, whether it be with Aaron McLaren, the team, we almost we're, what, 20 laps away from winning the 8,500 in 2025 when we had a a fuel, issue, with Dryer and Limble. Very, very small team. Only does the 8,500. I mean, it's complete opposite of of an Aaron McLaren or an Andretti, you know, of these huge, huge teams with lots of resources. This was this was the small team with, a lot of talented people in it that didn't wanna basically travel full time all year, but really had a good time with them. And and we were able to, you know, take those positives and apply it and actually be very competitive every time that we went out and raced together. Yeah. And I think, again, relating this back, it's we all have playbooks. We all have a technology stack that we are looking towards to be able to, provide us the capabilities when we need it. But when you get that red flag, you get that complete situation that you're not expecting, it's it's almost impossible to plan for every single scenario. So you you must be resilient. You must you must problem solve. You've gotta figure out how to break down those barriers to be able to get the results you want even when you're not prepared for what's about to happen. And that's just that's something that we're having to live with every every single day within cybersecurity and information technology. It's just, it's it's almost the be prepared, to be unprepared. It's something that we all have to be ready. We have to be really thinking about that continuous improvement under under constant threat. So I think as we look at it in regards to cyber resiliency and as we think about AI, we're all, of course, concerned and cognizant that attackers will leverage AI. And the fact that we're going to have to be resilient against AI means we're probably gonna have to empower AI to fight AI. So we're getting into this weird situation within IT because things are just moving so so fast, and cybersecurity is evolving on the daily. Defenders are are are always having to catch up against these adversaries. So I think relating it back to you, and you're, of course, very familiar with the younger drivers, not only at McLaren, but in in some of the other teams as well. So they've grown up on the simulator where you grew up in a go kart. So what are they what are you having to do to upgrade your skills, or maybe what are some of these newer drivers missing because they have so much simulator training? What are your what are your thoughts on that? How are things transitioning in that in that driver pool with technology? Yeah. I mean, things are always evolving and changing. Right? But I have a lot of respect for what you guys go through and and what your industry is, especially when it comes to this, you know, with AI. I mean, this is it it's like science fiction. The rate it's it's it's, you know, progressing. And how do you stay ahead of that? I I I have no idea. Glad I get to deal with race cars. Oh my god. But, you know, it it is it's a scenario where, you know, you see you see guys I've had a lot of teammates. Right? That's a good thing. I I I really enjoy working with teammates whether I like the guy or not or the girl. You know? Danica Patrick is my teammate. Every one of them has strengths and weaknesses. Right? And just like working with all these other teams, being able to work with other drivers within, a race team, I I was very, you know, I I was very conscious to observe their their positives and their negatives and try and understand how they're doing some things differently that I might, you know, I might be winning two races in a row. Right? And I see something my teammates doing that I think I can I can apply to my my whole game that I bring? Right? And just continue to to, you know let's say let's let's not let complacency set in. That that was always my deal. But with with you guys, I mean, it must feel like it must feel like you can't can never do enough, honestly, with with the rate of evolution, and trying to to stay on top of every little, you know, fire, putting out all these different fires all over the place. But, yeah, it makes sense when you say, you know, fight AI with AI. Crazy times. Yeah. It's crazy times, and I think, you know, all of us on the line would probably agree. You can't prevent a 100% of attacks. That's just impossible. A hundred percent's, unattainable. So what do you do when that one or two slip through? How do you be resilient? How do you be able to recover? How do you keep your business operational? So we talk with our customers and prospects quite a bit about the minimum viable business or minimum viable operations to make sure that you define what are those critical core components that are going to keep your race car running. So if we can get those core components up and running, we can then plan out how to fix the rest of the car later. And it's really important in that business aspect for organizations to understand what applications are going to keep the lights on, how is it going to keep revenue moving. So we we are often working with customers and prospects on that and making sure that we can provide that resilient technology platform, of course, to be able to drive those operations. It's critically important. And then as we know, standing still is just it's it's not going to it's not going to work. Standing still is going to make you fall behind. Just as yourself, you're having to adapt to you're having to adapt every single year to new teams, new cars, whatever it might be. It's just that, nothing is ever static. We all guide to keep pushing. So maybe maybe to throw a little, a little joke out here that you didn't get ahead of time. So your teammates called you something this year during the month of May. What did they call you, Brian? Well, I call the gas. They called you dad. you can see I have a number one dad. Yeah. So what's gonna be interesting next year is you have a couple of new teammates. One, Yeah. in fact, I know is actually a little bit older than you are. So how do you think those nicknames are going to, work out next year with your new teammates? Have you have you already called Scott? Have you called Felix? Have you guys figured that out yet? What's gonna happen? You know, drivers for drivers, their age is it's like a very sensitive subject. It? is. Because especially in. in open wheel racing, like Formula One and Navy car, it's a very it's a very young sport. Drivers are young. Right? Like, I'm, I'm 45, and, you know, I'm at the end towards the end of my my career. I started when I was 21. The teammates I had last year, you know, Potto, Nolan, and, Christian, you know, they're all I think the oldest one of them is 25 years old. Yeah. So this next year is going to be, much different. We have, you know, Scott Dixon coming in, Felix Rosenquist, and, obviously, Potto, is is staying on. So we have a lot of experience. We've, and and and experience really pays at Indy. At at the five hundred, that is a race that rewards experience and how it is applied. So, I'm work you know, looking forward to working in that room, understanding, you know, how these I've been racing Scott Dixon forever. I mean, for what it feels like, you know, to me forever, 20 since I was 21, basically. And to this point, you know, he's he's a six six time IndyCar champion. We both have same 9,500 wins, but, the six car six time IndyCar champion. And to do that in an era where where the competition is so tight. Right? Because it is his count is compared to these guys that were doing it back when, you know, like AJ Floyd, Mario Andretti. Definitely not taking anything away from them. But they're doing it at a time when, there was a lot of failures. Right? There's a lot of development in the industry. There was tires big, you know, engine failures all the time. So if you were with a team that kinda had it figured out a little bit more or you or you were in a more powerful in with a more powerful engine and a car with a more powerful engine, you you you could dominate. Right? You could rack up those wins in those championships. So for him to do it, in this era, I think, I I think it's healthy to say is is the best there has been to this point. Yeah. It's it's gonna be very exciting times. I'm, of course, as a fan, I'm personally excited. I'll be wearing the the papaya colors, very proudly, next year for sure with that upcoming driver lineup and excited to see next season get started, of course. And I I think to begin, to remind everybody on the line, please submit your questions to the q and a. We'd love to to be able to ask Ryan some of your questions, of course, instead of instead of my questions, although I could talk to Ryan all day long. You know, Ryan, I'd like to point out between the two of us, there's an Indy five hundred win. There's an IndyCar Series championship. There's 18 other, wins. Right? 18 together wins that you've got. Those 1,600 lap led. I I think you and I are actually a really good, a really good pairing there. We we've we bring a lot of those metrics. You a little bit more than I do, but, man, I think we're, we're a good team there. And it sounds like, honestly, with some of the some of the adversity you're talking about in racing is similar to what we run into in cybersecurity. So I feel like I'm ready to get into a car as well. I don't know if you're feeling that same thing, but maybe we could trade professions for for. a day if I'll probably willing. stay in my lane and maybe stay in yours because I would not. be successful. at all in what you do. That's. for sure. Well, hey. I still wanna get in the car, so maybe maybe we can work that balance. You should definitely do that. Alright. So, You're not in any car at the five at at Indy, but, yes, you should definitely, get a race you. can take me in the out in the two seater. Sounds know? Maybe I'll just be scared behind you like I was before. So, you know, I don't good. I yeah. There there's a lot of downforce on that thing. I think we'll be alright. There is a ton. So, a question that we've got, and I'll I'll throw it out to you, how has that race preparation changed? Of course, when we think cybersecurity information technology, it's changing by the year, but a lot of the things we've been doing have been consistent, I would say, five, ten, fifteen, twenty years, and then AI is just completely changing everything. Ransomware completely changed everything. So to your experience, when you think you're early, you know, in cart versus preparing for the 500 this past year, is it the same? Is it completely different? How is how have things changed? How has it evolved? Yeah. It's completely changed. You know, the the the data analysis side has changed. We're we're we're logging thousands of channels of data in the car real time that's sent, you know, via telemetry to the to to the timing stand. That is sometimes analyzed in real time or it is analyzed in real time there on the timing stand next to the track. But when we get back to the engineering trailer, we and we have, you know, all these, you know, engineers, There's a lot. I don't know how many there are. But the amount of information that we're sifting through to find what we need to improve, where our where our competition, right, the superior on the racetrack, in what sections and what ways, There's so much that you have to really just knock it down to the big hitters. You have to come down, you know, to the big hitters that I can manage these, and I could I can kind of get on top of these, and I can understand that, you know, it looks like the the shocks, the dampers are not optimal in this section of the racetrack, this, that, and the other. Now and that's how it was. It was more it it was it was a bit more simplistic and and and pure driving, I I could say. Yeah. That generalizing, overstating that. But now we're using, you know, AI agents to end up, you know, ciphering through all this stuff and and putting out, basically I I love it because I'm learning a lot about it right now. In all these different areas, it'll give you trends on where things are going, whether it be, you know, lap time loss, sector time loss on on your competition, you know, damper profile management, shocks, aero loading, and and the ride height variation on the racetrack is wild. But instead of having to go through each one of those and dive into the subsections of each one of those, you know, we are actually now using AI to to to make that, easier from, like, a 10,000 foot view to where we can see, okay, we have to spend more time focusing here. And then the other side would be, I I guess, just simulators. Right? Yeah. Driving simulators are not racing simulators are not really they're not really meant for driver at all. Right? A lot of people think that. Like, oh, you're in the simulator because you're getting used to the racetrack you're going to because you're getting great because you're you're you're trying to get the driver sharp on that track to prepare for the weekend. But it's an engineering tool. Right? So when the driver tells, you know, the engineer at the same, hey. The car is doing this, this, and this. I don't like that. I wanna fix that. We are we're setting we're putting a toolkit together of potential changes, right, to get in front of all of these different problems we might have at the actual race event coming up the next weekend. So simulation drive we call it DIL driver in the loop simulation, has has just skyrocketed. And and I was there in its infancy. I developed the Dallara's simulators with them. Dallara is the company that makes the, indie cars makes the actual chassis. You know, I was in Italy a lot developing their simulator over there, then back in in Indianapolis, developing the simulator there, doing it with Honda for years. So that's that's how it's changed a lot. And you just you know, you wanna be the best of your craft. So if you have an opportunity where, hey. This this is gonna help you if you actually wanna take time and put the effort to use it. So it's interesting to see driver in the loop. So we we, of course, deal with a lot of different data feeds as well, and we're getting alerts from all sorts of different endpoints or our firewalls or our our EDR tooling. And all of these different toolings that we've got deployed in our environment is letting us know things that are going on. So there's this concept of alert fatigue that we get. So you as a driver, of course, engineering's presenting you all this information about the, you know, hey. Your dampers are doing this. The the car is doing this. We think the wean is doing this. Like, when do you step in and say, guys, like, I'm the one that's driving the car. This is what I'm feeling. I understand the data says this, but I'm the guy behind the wheel pressing the pedals. Is was that driver in the wood part really important to make, to make all of those different engineering data feeds something into a reality? Yeah. Certainly. Certainly, it is. The driver it a really healthy driver engineering race team relationship is where the driver tells the engineer, this is what the car is doing. This is what I need it to do. Right? I don't like this. I don't like this part of it. I don't like that the car is loose on entry. I don't like that the front doesn't grip enough here on exit, whatever, and let the engineers on the race team do their job. Right? Their. job is to to then apply the changes on the car, whether it be arrow settings, ride height, roll centers, the geometry on the car on the on the suspension, shots, any of this stuff. Their their job is to then put this combination of changes on the car to fix it for the next session so that the driver can extract more potential from the car. When a driver is confident in the race car, getting what he needs from it, that's when things start you know, that's when the the speed comes. So that's the perfect scenario. There's obviously some in betweens. Engineers might doubt the driver's feedback on what he's feeling. He might be interpreting it wrong. The engineer might think that, and that's when a driver, if he's super confident on what he's feeling, has to stand his ground, say, Yep. no. I'm telling you this is the problem. We gotta fix that. So that's something to be worked out too. But the simulator helps add that time because we're not able to be on the racetrack all the time. Right? These cars. are racing, like I said earlier, is it's expensive. Right? We have, you know, tires. Firestone has to be at any time you're on the track. Firestone engineers have to be there. Chevy engineers have to be there every time you, you know, fire a car, you know, anytime you you start the engine. So we don't get enough time to really build those relationships as fast as we want, so simulator does help with that as well. So, the final question from the audience for you, in in next time you're going to be on track is, of course, the Indianapolis five hundred next year. So what makes the five hundred unique? Why do you keep coming back? And what's why is it so demanding compared to every other race? It's it's not only you that comes back either. When you think about LAO, you think about other drivers that just keep coming back to this one race. Why is it so special to you? What makes it unique? You know, what makes this so unique is people call it I I I guess some call it, like, a an oval race or whatever. It's not an oval. It's a very unique racetrack. And when the car is light on grip, it it races almost like a road course. Like, it has got this hybrid feeling to it. But I told this to somebody. It was recently. I did a an interview for an article, and I and this what about Indy makes it so special? And I said, Indy is the only race track. Even though I have plenty of favorites out there, Road America, Yeah. Mid Ohio, Road Atlanta, Long Beach, you know, none of those do I ever feel like we're not leaving the the team truck, the team transport, and the team compound to go out to the track. I none of those do I ever feel like I'm going out to do something seriously heavy right now. Like, this this has got my full attention, my full respect, and that's what it demands me. And it it you know, like, at Indeed, when we're when we're qualifying, we're trimming the cars out so much. We get to a point we have to find that edge where trimming out means dropping arrow load downforce off the car to go faster, basically, in a straight line. Right? Less drag. There's going to be a compromise there because if you keep killing downforce off, the car is not gonna stick in the corner. So you have to find that trade off. That's the hardest part. So when we're qualifying and we are on the absolute limit, you know, 200 and close to 40 going into the corner. That's going into that's starting the corner in case, and there's nothing else like it. There's. nothing that comes close to it racing that, and that's why Indy does and has, garnered so much respect from, from the drivers. Yeah. I think, you you know, speaking personally as somebody who's lived in Indianapolis, I I don't know how many five hundreds I've been to, probably 35 at this point. Wow. For Sawyer win, like, it's it's just it's it's an amazing as a spectator. And for those of you on the line that have never been, I highly recommend it. It's a unique experience. It's called the greatest spectacle in racing for a reason. It's unbelievable to be cheering on every single driver with three fifty, 400,000 of your closest friends. So, Ryan, you know, I'd like to just absolutely thank you for the time. As a as a fan, this was great for me to be able to speak with you. And I think we can all agree that the ad adversity that we're dealing with, whether in racing, whether in cybersecurity, information technology, adversities, it's it's not going to be scheduled that we know it's coming. We have to be prepared for it all of the time. So whether it's a red flag at Indy that, you've got to power through and and win, or it's a breach at 2AM that arrives completely unbeknownst to us, adversity is that content, constant. But that readiness and that resiliency are something that it's going to be a variable, but we've got the inputs to adjust those variables. And so I love, speaking to these these similarities between what we do within IT and information security and what you do in racing. And so, again, appreciate being a partner of you, appreciate being a partner of McLaren, and, of course, super excited to see you on track next year. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you. It it is it's it's really cool to see, ways that we can kind of link up, you know, two different industries like that and and and find, you know, performance gains and and how we react to these different scenarios. So I I appreciate it. Enjoyed it, and, I look forward to seeing you guys at the five hundred. Awesome. Thank you, Ryan. Appreciate your time. Yeah. Thanks for your support. I appreciate it, man.