William Sawalich: Race Car Driver and Hearing Protection Advocate

Strap in for an adrenaline-charged dialogue with up-and-coming race car driver, 16-year-old William Sawalich. He's not just about speed and precision on the track, but also an animal lover, drum enthusiast, and an advocate for hearing health and hearing protection. William shares his journey from racing quarter midgets and Legend Cars to stepping into the fast-paced ARCA Series, all while delving into the significance of hearing health in his journey.The conversation takes an exciting turn as we discuss the art of balancing communication with noise exposure with his crew, which is a daunting challenge faced by many in the sport. However, with his custom SoundGear racing ear molds, William is able to effectively communicate with his team while on the track. We explore his victories in the ARCA Series, a pit stop before he shifts gears to the NASCAR Xfinity series. Fasten your seat belts for an exhilarating ride into the world of motorsports guided by William Sawalich's unique perspective.

Link to the full transcript

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hi, I'm Dave Fabry, host of Starkey Soundbites, and we're really pleased to have with us today William Swalich, who is uh no stranger to the hearing aid industry. Yes. And uh you've been around this industry for I I think I've known you since you were two years old. I remember when I first joined Starkey, you were running around at the classes, even helped me uh close a couple classes or two. And um, for as long as I've known you, you've been interested in hearing, drumming, and speed. Yeah. And so, William, thank you for joining us. We're on location here on the Starkey World Headquarters, and um, we're gonna have the opportunity to see a race this weekend. And um you're you've had this meteoric rise in terms of your performance on the ARCA circuit. So, William, uh, welcome to Starkey Soundbites.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Thank you, I appreciate it, and I've been around hearing for uh all my life now, and I enjoy uh being in that environment, and I've been around a lot of loud things in my life. Um, and I'm just uh always protecting my hearing, um, and that's been the most important thing to me while I've been around those loud things.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Yeah, I remember when you um when you were quite young, you pick up the drums, a drummer like me, um, but much better. Yeah, I say. And uh, you know, I remember seeing you perform live with some of your bandmates, and even at that point you were thinking about hearing protection. This will air in October, which is Protect Your Hearing Month. And um, you know, I what what was it? It was it just because your your your your parents and your family, your grandparents, everyone is so steeped in this industry that uh you were always focused on, even though you like and have noisy hobbies, protecting your hearing. What was the catalyst for that?

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Yeah, um I don't know, it's kind of um weird that you know we are in the hearing aid busin business and trying to protect our hearing, and I love loud activities. Um so I kind of thought that was funny all the time, but I don't really know what attracted me towards that. Um I mean, obviously just always protect your hearing. Um and I mean I don't know, it's just kind of natural for me to be around a lot of environments.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Yeah, and I think what's so impressive is you're 16 now, you just barely have your driver's license, and you've already won several races racing against people twice your age at least. Yeah. Um, and sometimes though, when you're a role model for kids your age, wearing hearing protection might not be perceived as cool. I remember when I was your age, I didn't even think about audiology or hearing protection at that point, and uh, I thought it was cool to play on the crash cymbals until my ears rang, and now they won't stop ringing. But yeah. How did you how did you handle it if some of your friends uh, you know, when you were playing drums, would say, you know, why are you bothering to wear hearing protection? You tend to think of yourself as bulletproof. Did you already sort of did you ever encounter that where they said, Why you why are you bothering to wear hearing protection?

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Yeah, no, my friends never really thought of the repercussions of like later in life when you have been around the loud sounds, um, and obviously I've been taught to think about that. Yeah. Um, and something I've been around in uh I mean ever since I was little, I got the custom uh shooter's plugs uh just for any loud activity I was around and they were the best for me. Um I could really do everything I could do normally without the loud sounds and just damaging my hearing.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Yeah. And now um you're in a whole different echelon where you're racing a car, speeding around the track. Uh you know, did they evaluate when you took your driver's test to see if you could do right turns or are you really only good at left turns?

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Um they did evaluate that and I did fail my driver's test twice.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

So it was on the right turn exercise? Uh well I didn't look around enough, which I'm used to, so I have to used to being out front. So yeah, why do you need to look around to the street?

SPEAKER_01 3:46

I don't need to worry about that. Um, I mean, it's I mean, I'm I can prove I'm a good race car driver. Yes, you can. Um I failed my driver's test twice, but I got it on the third try and it was a perfect score.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Excellent. I have no doubt. I know you're a perfect student. So, you know, I am old enough to remember uh, you know, you were initially when you entered racing, you were known as the Rage and Rooster. Talk a little bit about the backstory on that. Now you're William Swalic, and uh but you still I like the homage that the rooster still factors into some of the signage and things. What's the origin of the rage and rooster?

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Yeah, so I raised chickens when I was about four, um, and I raised them until they were six. Um I mean a couple of them died off, but I mean that's gonna happen. Um and I always had an interest in birds and love for them, and uh when I started racing in quarter midgets, we kind of thought I needed a nickname like every other NASCAR driver. Um, and uh we just found the Raging Rooster because we thought it was somewhat mean uh while also keeping the bird and rooster personality in me.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Yeah, again, you know, I I've always been such a fan and watching you grow up from that tender age. I was gonna be a veterinarian growing up, and I know you have this deep love of animals, drums, and then cars. So let's talk a little bit about your entry. Uh you started uh running uh Legends, is that called is that one of the classes, or what were the classes that you started in?

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Yep, so I started running quarter midgets um at Little Elka, which is right across the street where I'm gonna be racing this weekend. Um I started doing that for four years uh just to get my bearings and have a little bit of fun. And then I moved up to Legend Cars, which was on the bigger track um across the street from the Little Elka speedway. Um and then I started going nationally with that, starting to take it more serious and learn some more things. Um, and then I moved up to Late Models, which are full body stock cars and a lot bigger and just a different environment. Um and now I'm here in the Arca series and about to race at my home track this weekend.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Yeah, and you and you also race, uh you're doing some limited racing with trucks, trucks too, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Yeah, yeah, with uh Tricon Garage, and that's pretty cool to be with uh all the NASCAR guys and you know I watched them growing up and uh it's really cool to be there right now.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Yeah, and you've been very competitive with some pretty famous racers and and had the opportunity to have received informal mentoring from some pretty famous racers too.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Yeah, absolutely. It's really humbling to be able to have that opportunity and experience from those guys who uh have maybe 20 years of experience, and I was I'm not even alive for 20 years, so I know, yeah. It's pretty crazy to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Yeah, now you're with Joe Gibbs racing and Toyota Racing Division, and one of the things I think that many people don't think about is yes, the noise exposure is obvious. These cars are racing around the track at 7,500 RPM uh uh inside the cockpit and on the track, you're exposed to a lot of noise. What do you do about that now?

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Uh so I have racing receivers, uh, so they're just silicone plugs that go into my ear and I can talk to my crew. Um I have a button on my steering wheel, that's that's all I got, and I can talk to them and tell them what the car's doing, and my spotter can also talk to me and tell me what's going on around me with other cars. Um but when I'm out front, he doesn't have to talk to me much. Um but it is still loud in there, but um in a race car you still have to hear the tune, you have to tune into the motor and kind of hear when you have to shift, especially on road courses. Um but now we have digital dashes, so it's a little bit easier to do that and um makes it easier to now dampen the sound more.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Yeah, so so one of those challenges, like you said, is you've got to be in tune to the engine, you've got to be in tune to your your team, uh, and you're using a plug-in module with uh passive attenuation, and and that provides you with enough comfort to be able to still communicate through that plug-in array, but still be in tune to the the car sounds that are so essential to making sure that everything's in staying in in good working order.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Yeah, it's like a happy medium. I mean, people don't really notice how much your ears matter in a race car, um, listening to the motor, listening to your crew, and all that has to be really crisp. Um, and just for your brain to really pick apart the pieces of it is really important because you're going at 150 miles an hour and you got to figure stuff out really fast.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Yeah, your reaction time is essential. And I think the drumming probably helps you with timing and processing. They they know that drummers have very good temporal processing and that ability to use that react that temporal processing in combination with the reaction time, something you don't want to lose. With hearing loss, you'd lose some of that ability.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

So absolutely, and like in a race car, you have to have a good rhythm and keep consistent lap times, and that's something I learned from drumming is doing the same thing over and over and over and just getting repetitiveness is really important.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Are you still drumming these days? Do you find any time for that or not really?

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Um I'm a little too busy to do that, but whenever I see it in the corner, I go around and uh just hit some symbols.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Yeah. You've already had some tremendous success. Um we had the opportunity to uh watch you um uh uh not face to face, but uh watch you on the screen in Phoenix. And um, like you said, um your early experience in these ARCA series is you've often been out front leading for the whole race. Yeah, but then sort of the school of hard knocks, thinking about the fact that you're 16 years old, racing with people much older than you. Learn a little bit about when you're out in front, you're controlling the tempo of the race, but then if they go under a caution flag, everyone resets. Yeah. And uh and that's part of the dynamic of racing that keeps it so interesting as a spectator sport. Is you you were out in the race that we watched you in uh when you were racing in Phoenix, you were out for had a huge lead. Yep. And they went under caution, everything went again. You led most of that race, you came back from a spin out, got all the way back up to the front, and it was the last kind of the runoff, I guess, yeah, where you got bumped. Yep. And um, and the interesting thing is then recently you ran in Berlin uh where it was the opposite where you were coming from behind, and you took over someone who had led most of the race.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Right. Yeah, you kind of you kind of gotta learn to do both. I mean, it's really important to know how to lead a race, and it's really important to know how to be behind people in a race and set your own pace and try not to burn your tires off because in the last 20 laps, that's really important to have a lot of grip and um to be able to catch them. At the end of Berlin, I was two two and a half tenths better than the leader. Uh I know it doesn't sound like much, but that's a lot. It's a lot in that time. Um when the competition's so close. Uh it's really important to be the best you can by the end of the race.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Yeah, that's awesome. And so um the you've already won a couple races. Um and what people may not know with the ARCA series is that's only two levels, right, below NASCAR. And so you're you're you have an age limit that prevents you from running in the next level until you're 18. So you're gonna be running running and racing at this series. You're gonna have plenty of opportunity to learn over the next couple years and win, I think, a lot more.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Yeah, so we'll be doing the same thing next year, just learning, and then uh my third year with Joe Gibbs racing, I will be full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity series.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Yeah, and Infinity is just one level below full-blown NASCAR. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

So that's pretty exciting.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Yeah, I I can't tell you how proud I am. I can say I knew him when he was the raging rooster, and now he's uh uh, you know, you're winning, you've got a huge following in sports, and certainly Starkey is uh privileged and pleased to be a sponsor. Uh it's such an interesting synergy in terms of you know, people think a hearing ain't company sponsoring uh race cars, but it's really this prevention that is consistent with the theme of this month's protect your hearing. Right. And then I think you're you're being such a strong role model to say, I, you know, I need to protect my hearing for later, not only for what I'm doing now, so that you can be in tune to the car, yeah, in tune to everything around you, but for 20, 30, 40 years down the road, you want to have preserved your hearing as much as possible for your career and to the sounds that connect you to life.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Yeah, absolutely. When we got into the sport, I don't think we realized how much hearing prevention was needed in the sport. Obviously, the drivers are the main subject to the loud sounds, but also the crew guys, you know, they work around the running motor and pretty much everybody that is involved in the sport, even the spectators just need to protect their hearing.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Really raising awareness for the importance of protecting hearing while still enjoying music or the sport and all of the different sounds that that you might encounter, and I think you're just wise beyond your years that you've been concerned with protecting your hearing from when you were this tall and and really being born into this, but also now being a representative for kids your age, I think is so empowering, particularly during Protect Your Hearing Month. Absolutely. So, William, um one of the things I remember was Starkey uh holds uh an uh an expo where we bring in a lot of customers, we're going to Vegas, and a couple years back you had the opportunity to talk about uh Livio at the time, which number one, I think it was it was impressive that you were with normal hearing wearing the devices and being connected to your smartphone, but you shared a story at the expo a little bit about a creative way that you were using Livio AI devices at the time for a competitive educational advantage.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Absolutely. Um I mean at that time when I was little I was really involved with technology and I thought it was awesome. And when Starkey came out with the Livios, um they had so much technology, you know, tracking your steps, your brain activity, uh, the fall detection. I thought I thought that was the coolest part because usually what you see is hearing aids in older people, and sometimes they have trouble falling. Um, and that's kind of a cool safety feature. Um and yeah, so I wore them in school and I told everybody about the really cool features, which one of them would be language translation. And they're like, hey, why don't you use that uh language translation? So I did, and it ended up working, and it was uh pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Yeah, I think you got a good grade for that class too.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Yeah, and no one was the wiser.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

So exactly. And so I think using technology, I mean, back in the day when I was in school, they didn't even allow us to use calculators in class. Now I think it's really technology can leverage the human advantage, and so I think it was a very creative application, it was funny. And most importantly, I think you're again setting the example in the same way that you have with wearing hearing protection. You were up there saying hearing aids are cool. Yeah. You know, and and so many people worry about the stigma associated with hearing loss and the use of hearing aids that does exist, but you're up there saying I'm using it to my advantage so that I can do better in this class and in life in addition to being connected to the people around me. Right, and I think that's the coolest thing that Starkey's doing is making hearing aids cool. Thank you very much for being on this special edition of Soundbites, and we wish you the greatest success this weekend and in the future as you uh continue your meteoric rise on the racing circuit. Thank you, I appreciate it. Thanks for being here. Yep. And for our Soundbites listeners, we hope you enjoyed this special episode. If you're listening to this instead of viewing it, I would encourage you on this one to go to your the YouTube channel because we're gonna take a tour of the car. We've got the uh the hauler in the background here. William is out here in 90 degree heat wearing his suit. That's gonna be nothing like what you're gonna have this weekend with the heat. But um I'd encourage you to go to the YouTube channel and watch this special issue. We're also interested in your ideas for future topics. This one during October, prevent hearing loss is important. But if you have other ideas for topics or to bring in other experts on topics like William as a role model for preventing hearing loss, send us an email to um soundbites at Starkey.com and we'll bring in other people and cover the topics. We look forward to covering those in future episodes. If you like this episode, please like it, subscribe, share it with your friends, your network, your colleagues, um, and really help raise awareness for why it's so important. And even though it seems counterintuitive that a hearing aid company is interested in preventing hearing loss, it's so essential because hearing is so precious and vital to the human condition. Thanks for joining us. We hope to see you and hear you again soon.