168: Is What NASCAR Teams Breathe Affecting Performance?

The track has a smell that every NASCAR fan knows by heart: hot rubber, race fuel, and heat-soaked asphalt. We love it, we chase it, and we rarely ask the uncomfortable follow-up question: what are we actually breathing in while it’s happening? If you can smell it, you’re not just noticing it. You’re absorbing it, and repeated exposure can become a real performance variable for drivers and crews.

We dig into why this matters by comparing race weekends to manufacturing, where the same kinds of materials are handled with strict controls: ventilation at the source, full air exchange systems, enclosed processes, continuous air monitoring, OSHA and NIOSH limits, and protective gear when required. Then we bring it back to pit road reality: high heat, elevated breathing rates, no exposure monitoring, and the same mix of chemicals showing up week after week. We also break down what’s in that “race day air,” including VOCs from fuel and heated components, plus PAHs created when materials burn or degrade under high heat. Some of these compounds can be neuroactive and bioaccumulative, which makes the conversation less about vibes and more about reaction time, cognitive clarity, decision-making speed, fatigue, and recovery.

A moment from Darlington alumni weekend adds a deeper layer: when veterans seem less sharp, is that only aging, or could decades of exposure combined with stress and inflammation be part of the story? From there, we get practical with a test-first approach to motorsports health and longevity, covering integrative health testing for detox pathways, minerals and metals, and environmental toxicity patterns, plus a structured functional medicine detox protocol, reset cadence for high-exposure environments, and nutrition and recovery strategies that fit a travel-heavy schedule.

If you care about performance, you don’t have to guess. Listen now, then subscribe, share this with someone on a team, and leave a review with the one change you think motorsports should make first.

Transcript

The Smell Of Pit Road

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Welcome back to the program. So you're on pit road, the tires are hot, the brakes are glowing, the engines are ripping, and you see the smoke come off the tires. You catch that smell. The rubber, the fuel, the heat. It's familiar and it's part of racing. But here's the question: what are you actually breathing in at that moment? Because if you can smell it, you're not just noticing it, you're absorbing it. You see, most motorsports athletes believe that the smell is just part of the whole racing experience, not something that's really affecting performance. And I get why. It's open air, it's not constant, it's part of the culture. It's familiar. So it doesn't feel like a risk. But here's where it gets interesting. The exact same materials you're inhaling at the track are tightly controlled in manufacturing environments. Hello, I'm Jeffrey Morda. If you're like most in NASCAR's top-tiers, drivers, crews, owners, or executives, while you're busy chasing podiums, have you fully considered who's taking care of you? Right here, you're about to start transforming your mind and body for peak race day performance with high performance health, designed exclusively for the demands of NASCAR. As a certified high performance health coach and consulting hypnotist, I've coached elite entrepreneurs and athletes to higher energy, sharper focus, and greater resilience, naturally, safely, and backed by science. And right now, I'm bringing that same engineered approach to the best in motorsports. Here you'll find no wasted time, just a unique blend of integrative health, mental conditioning, and proven recovery strategies delivered in plain language that you can use right away. Imagine a season without burnout, brain fog, or the costly crash of your health. Because the truth is the real race starts within. I'm grateful you're here. Exposure isn't left to chance. It's actually engineered. And they use things like local exhaust ventilation to pull fumes away at the source, or full air exchange systems to control airborne particles, enclosed mixing processes to reduce direct exposure, automated material handling, continuous air monitoring, uh air monitoring for carbon black for VOCs and rubber fumes, and OSHA and NOISH exposure limits. And that's, of course, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and NOISH is National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. And where required, workers wear respirators and gloves, uh, protective clothing, and there are even medical surveillance programs tracking long-term exposure. In manufacturing, everything is measured, controlled, and protected and regulated. Now, compare that to the track. Same materials, very different environment. You see, on race day, there's no respiratory protection, no exposure monitoring, no filtration systems, high heat activating chemicals, elevated breathing rates, and repeated exposure week after week, season after season. This isn't safer, it's just less controlled. So let's break down what's actually in that smell. So these are chemicals that turn into gas molecules when heated. And at the track, they come from racing fuel, from heated tires, from track surface sealers, from plastics, paints, adhesives, in and around the car. And when you smell that fuel, you're inhaling VOCs, those volatile organic compounds. Now, there's something else called uh PAH, and these are called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. And these are created when materials burn or degrade under high heat. So think tire smoke, exhaust, heated asphalt. They are fat soluble, they're bioaccumulative, and they are some uh some of them are actually neuroactive. Now there is a neurological impact here, and this is where it becomes performance critical. These compounds can influence reaction time, cognitive clarity, decision-making speed, and even those subtle changes matter at 180 miles per hour. And here's where this conversation gets deeper. So this past weekend at Darlington during alumni weekend, a lot of former drivers were back at the track. And if you were there, you may have noticed something. Some of the veterans didn't seem as nimble or sharp as they once were. Speech patterns were slower, thoughts a little bit harder to connect, mobility compromised. Now we're not pointing fingers and we're not drawing conclusions, but we are asking a better question. Is this just aging? Or could decades of exposure combined with stress and inflammation and neurological load be playing a role here? And once you see it, you can't unsee it. Every time that you smell that hot rubber, you see tire smoke, you catch the scent of racing fuel, that's exposure happening in real time. So instead of ignoring it, what we do is we measure it and remove it. Over at our high performance health shop, Victory Lane Wellness, we use advanced integrative health tests such as Candida Metabolic and Vitamins tests. This is also known as the organic acids test. And it looks at detoxification pathways. It looks at glutathione levels, it looks at mitochondrial stress for testing energy and performance. And we also use something else called the minerals and metals test. This looks at magnesium and zinc and electrolytes to see the amount of stress the body is enduring and its response to that stress, as well as your individual heavy metal burden. Now, there's another test that we use. It's called the environmental toxicity test to look at chemical exposure patterns and detox capacity as well. These are simple, they're CLIA certified at-home health tests that show what your body is dealing with that may be slowing you down. Because detox isn't optional, it's actually happening every day. And for optimal performance, it depends on those natural key elements like the glutathione, the magnesium, the zinc, the sulfur compounds. If those are delete uh depleted, the system slows down. So the strategy becomes support the system. And how do we do that? Well, there's a few different ways that we can do that. We can use uh something that's called the functional medicine detox protocol. And this is advanced, we use the advanced testing to identify the deficiencies and the toxicities that are actually stealing your edge. And then we execute a 21-day performance reset protocol. This supports both phase one and phase two liver detoxification. And then we would implement a daily detox support to maintain results of that protocol. And then probably another seven-day reset every, well, in the motorsports industry, probably every 60 days, most people every 90 days. Um, but when you're in a high exposure environment, typically every 60 days, you know, uh first responders, firefighters, they would probably fall into that category as well. And then annually, we would do a heavy metal detox protocol. Depending on the test results, we might do that twice a year, uh, especially relevant in motorsports. Uh heavy metals, we're looking for cadmium, arsenic, mercury, lead, aluminum, and those are very important to get out of the body as quickly as possible. A few other things we can implement would be uh, you know, it's it's not all about supplementation, uh, but infrared sauna. Infrared sauna, more days than not to promote detox and recovery. And then some other basic uh detoxification strategies would be rebounding, uh dry brushing, daily sweating, of course, intermittent fasting is another great one, salt baths when you can implement those. And it's not all about health hacks either. Nutritional support comes into play as well. And that is especially relevant for traveling teams that are traveling week after week. We want to support detox with uh um things like broccoli sprouts because of the sulforophane in the broccoli sprouts. Uh, garlic and onions is another one because of the sulfur compounds in there, helps with detoxification. But of course, if you're, and most people don't know this right here, if you're struggling with gas and bloating, you may want to avoid the garlic and onions because although they're a good antimicrobial, they also can feed overgrown uh yeast and fungobacteria in the gut, and we don't want that. Uh, leafy greens are another great one for those minerals. Pumpkin seeds are great for zinc and copper. And of course, we always want to be drinking filtered water and reduced processed foods and especially, especially the chemical heavy sports drinks. Now, if toxic burden is ignored, you might see slower reaction time, reduced clarity, increased fatigue, and longer recovery. And then over time, that becomes cumulative for neurological stress. But here's the key: this is more preventable than most people think. And if you're part of a motorsports team looking to better understand how environmental exposure is affecting performance and longevity, these are conversations that we are having every day. So the next time you smell the track, will you think of it as part of the experience or part of your performance? If you want to understand how your body's handling these exposures, you can start with a free assessment or a complimentary consultation over at victorylanewellness.com. In the factory, exposure is controlled. On the track, it's experienced. The tire is built to break down, but the body absorbs that breakdown unless you support it. Because champions don't guess, they test. And until next time, I'll see you in Victory Lane. Bye bye.