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"I've never felt like this," Josef Newgarden says. "I've never, ever, ever felt like throwing up. I actually feel like I'm going to throw up." IndyCar's defending champ and I are standing backstage as we anxiously (yeah, we're panicking) wait to join Chicago's famed Second City improv troupe for a sold-out performance. Just a few hours ago, after we took an "improv fundamentals" workshop with members of the cast, Newgarden was feeling bullish. But after sitting in the audience for the early part of the show, we realize the cast members were only in second gear during the workshop. Now they're at 240 mph and the crowd is roaring. We're screwed. In between biting our nails, I ask Newgarden about being the face of IndyCar, dealing with nerves and why the Indy 500 is the most important race in the sport.
ESPN: Are you generally a funny person?
NEWGARDEN: I used to be when I was younger. I was more animated. Jim Carrey was probably my favorite actor growing up. I feel like it's kind of gotten beat out of me with racing. So I'm excited to try to pull that back out again.
How much performing experience have you had in your life?
Zero, Sam. Zero.
In the school play, were you a lead role or were you, like, the inanimate object?
I did one play when I was a kid. I was, like, 8, and I was the emcee and that was my gig.
You've been called the face of the new IndyCar generation. Do you feel you have the face for it?
I don't know that I have the face for IndyCar.
How would you describe your face?
I don't know. Some people would probably call it punchable, which is not a good thing.
I would call it interesting.
Is my face interesting? You know what's funny? I've always been so self-conscious as a person, and racing cars has actually been an escape because you put on a helmet and suit. You can be a different person when you race cars.
If you can handle the pressure of the Indy 500, this should be nothing for you.
Dude, we got this. What does this place hold-
almost 300 people? You got 350,000 at the
Indy 500.
How important is the Indy 500?
The Indy 500 is really what matters for Team Penske. And really, if you're an IndyCar driver, it's what builds your legacy. You want to win the championship, no doubt. But if you don't win the Indianapolis 500 in your career, I don't know what it means at the end of the day. That's really what it's all about is winning that race, drinking the milk.
Is this the year that you finally drink the milk?
Man, I hope so. I think every year you hope that. What you can't do is big the event up too much. If you make it The Indy 500, which it is, then you might have a difficult time.
How do you get by the nerves?
You know what I think is probably the best advice I would give as a race car driver? When you get in the car, you can't do anything about the nerves. Don't fight the nerves, because it's going to happen. To this day, every time I get in the car, before we go green, I have so many nerves. But they go away as soon as I start performing, as soon as I start racing. So I think tonight-just let it happen. Be nervous.
You know what I normally do when I'm nervous?
What do you do?
This is kind of embarrassing. I think of my grandmother using the restroom.
That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard.
Write that down. You can use that in a race.
What prompted this? What sort of event happened?
It just zaps me out. Once you think about that, you're like, Oh, this is easy.
Maybe it's so traumatic that you can't think about the nerves. That's hilarious. You know what I'm going to think about tonight is you saying that you think about your grandma going to the bathroom.
You're going to be thinking about my grandma?
Oh, man, I just hope that this somehow doesn't make me think of my grandma going to the bathroom-because I don't want that. I feel like you put it in my head now. Oh, gosh.
When we finally join the troupe onstage, Newgarden astonishes the audience by creating a character and scene out of thin air: a fragrance clerk engaged in a "smell-off" against other fragrance clerks-think the battle in Anchorman between warring news teams. Later, unable to help myself, I deliver a skit in which my grandma poops on the living room floor.
"I'm just glad it's over," an elated Newgarden says after we take our bow and leave the stage, "but I kind of want to do it again."