Former Team Owner Tells Dale Earnhardt Jr How NASCAR & Elon Musk Have Already Crossed Paths

While electrification hasn’t come to NASCAR yet, there’s already one connection between the sport and one of the pioneers of the electric automobile industry, Elon Musk. That connection is Doug Yates, the son of the former team owner Robert Yates, who recently revealed in an interview with Dale Earnhardt Jr, his involvement with the world’s richest man.

Yates spoke about how he and his father always wanted to have a company that dealt in areas like defense and aerospace, something which was like a mission for them.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen in old man Yates’ lifetime; but his son, it seems, has fulfilled the mission as Doug Yates revealed that he is working with Musk’s SpaceX.

“We’re making parts for Space X, which is something that’s really cool,” he said. “We went out there and visited when we ran the Clash. So it’s just something that fits really well with this area, this industry, these people, these skill sets, and we’re proud of that.”

Elon Musk would make “a hell of a racer”, Doug Yates tells Dale Earnhardt Jr

Yates went on to describe the similarities between what he saw at SpaceX and what team owners or race shops do on a regular day of business. “I went to the shop and what I saw was just a big old race shop that looked like a fab shop, a machine shop and it reminded me of a race shop,” he said.

“I think what he’s done is kind of like what we do as racers like, ‘Why won’t that work? Why don’t we try this? Why does it have to be that way?'”

Yates even went as far as to say that the Tesla CEO would make “a hell of a racer.” 

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He described how the founder of The Boring Company “challenged the norm” and revolutionized the entire space industry.

“It’s amazing what Elon Musk has done,” he said.

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