welcome to another edition of chitchat today we have a great show for you Al day four time European nashcar champ Israeli who's a member of the IDF whose home was destroyed during the October 7th Invasion by Hamas is here to talk with us today so going to be a great conversation welcome to another episode of chitchat and today I am honored to be with Alan day who is a fourth time European NASCAR champion uh and he is Israeli and he's here for the 500 so I want to welcome you to Daytona Beach thank you thank you for having me here and you know at the end of this conversation we're going to see if we can get you in the next year's Daytona 500 I hope we can make it for uh this weekend all right so why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your career um so yeah as I said uh I'm a NASCAR driver European Champion four time European Champion um Israeli born and raised in Israel still live in Israel love this country um served in the military in the IDF uh for 3 years like every other person in Israel um yeah I'm trying to trying to raise the the awareness about the about what's going on in Israel and about the um the Jewish community in general around the world and trying to you know well I want to thank you for your your military service even though it's mandatory it's still the fact that you're there defending your country and defending us we don't have any other option I understand I understand so I think you're familiar with what occurred last year here during the 500 uh you know I'm here almost 18 years now as served as the police chief and as the sheriff and I never saw hatred in this community before that I saw on speed weeks uh you know this group this gdl group this goam Defense League came in they took over our pedestrian Bridges hanging out signs about death to Israeli death to Israel Henry Ford was right Hitler was right uh they put a they had a a a projector that scrolled messages on the facade of the speedway calling for death to to Jews and and other all this other ugly hateful rhetoric that was put up there and then that night they papered our neighborhoods throughout the entire County uh they had Ziploc bags with wood chips in it to simulate uh the the the gasing in in the in in Germany in World War II with all kind of hateful literature and they dropped it on people's driveways uh so it actually brought a lot of fear in into our community by a bunch of uh uh it was a Rogues gallery of Who's Who of criminals really when we when we identify them and we find out what their criminal history is I mean they were in there for child pornography for aggravated assault with a firearm DUI drug charges I mean it was just a who's who of scumbags you know as a as an Israeli the most of the thing I I deal with the the country itself is enemies you know we fight we have the war right now and that the sad thing that's going on but how you fight I wonder how you fight a group of hate you know hate speech group that trying to do something what's the way to fight you know if if there are terrorists then you go and probably shoot kill whatever whatever you need to do to eliminate them but when it's in your own country people that actually grow up and and live here what's the way to deal with that yeah well what they do is they they wrap themselves in the First Amendment it's free speech well you know Free Speech has its limits and when you talk about eradicating people because of their race their religion their sexual orientation or ethnicity that's not free speech anymore and and from my perspective when you look at the mass shootings that we've had in this country recently whether it was the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh if it was the predominantly black grocery store in Buffalo New York York if it was the Walmart in El Paso mostly Hispanics uh population and the black church in South Carolina all of these hate groups are on these internet chat rooms uh talking about how somebody has to pay for whatever the the their ills are whatever the problems of society are how you have to wipe the Jews off the face of the Earth you have to wipe the blacks you have to wipe the gay and somebody in that chat room figures they're going to be an avenging Angel and a gun and then goes and wipes out innocent people and that's that's what the where people get confused with our first amendment cuz they're in there inciting some marginalized individual to take some kind of action that's going to destroy human life uh yeah that's that's crazy you know I'm I'm trying to to think what's the way to deal with that I wonder if that's education you know so many times I hear right now there was a big conversation about what's going on between Israel and Hamas and things like that and the the amount of misinformation and disinformation on the internet that people just you know shouting things that they don't even know and I think that's the main issue right now that people don't even know what's going on in other countries in Israel in the Jewish they don't even know the Jewish history to know exactly and they say stuff they sometimes it's not even right like not even a fact just people are lazy not interrupt here they'd rather read a post on the internet and they take that as gospel you know do they know what Hezbollah stands for do they know what they do did they have any idea they know what Hamas does they don't they don't know that you know they adopt this flavor of the day and they don't look at the fact that what is their their their Mantra here their Mantra is they hate the Jews and they hate the United States and once they once if they're successful and eradicate Israel off the face of the map guess where they're coming folks they're coming right here they're here now and and you have to be on guard against hatred at all times you just have to education's nice you know but education is not not the key I mean we do it here uh just my opinion Nazi Germany came into existence because the police kind of helped the police let them get themselves get corrupted so we make sure in our Academy that every single recruit takes a trip over to Tampa to see the Holocaust Museum in the near future Orlando's opening one up uh and we we want I want the new recruits to go and understand that you have to you have to learn history if you're going to police it and if if we get corrupted in law enforcement it makes it that much easier for hatred to succeed well thank you for uh I think raising the the voice of the Jewish community and and the awareness about what's going on and fighting against uh against groups like that I think that's something that know I I I want to thank you personally I want to thank you on behalf of Israel in general but I'm just I think I think we more than more than we can ever we're all human beings and and one thing that I always remembered from from history 8th grade history when we were learning about World War II and the Holocaust was the German preacher who said when they came for the Socialist I said nothing for I was not a socialist when they came for the unionists I said nothing for I was not a unionist when they came for the Jews I said nothing cuz I was not a Jew and when they came from me there was nobody left to say anything and those words all those years later they still resonate when that when that group hit our County that was the first thing that came to my mind was I'm not going to sit there on my hands and knees and just say oh my God I'm not going to poke the bear and maybe they'll just go away no we have to do everything humanly possible to make sure that they get crushed for what they believe in and what they want to do to to another segment of our our human humanity and they target you personally they did they did they they they don't know they didn't realize I shoot back number one and they didn't realize that I have a pretty good social media footprint so when when we we held a press conference in this room a couple days after the incident the speedway and we invited everybody we invited the community we invited Muslims we invited uh sick of Faith Catholics Baptists we invited everybody and everybody showed up to stand with our Jewish community and say this is not going to be tolerated and then we showed the videos that they shot their own videos where they were outside of the synagogue in Orlando basically just going after the rabbi and and all the folks that were coming into worship uh what they did in our community and we identified them all and then we put up their arrest records here's their name here's where they live and here's where they've been arrested before and they went wild with that uh they swatted uh my house they swatted my parents uh they called my daughter at work one of my daughters at work and told her about how I was a pedophile and that she should be raped and have her ears cut off um and then they started posting about putting bullets in my head and everything else of course when you do it on the internet you're really not going to do it you don't have the guts to do it so we we were fortunate enough we made four arrests and in one of the arrests in several of the arrests I met the guys when they landed here at the airport I stood at the bottom of the escalator to watch them come down just to let them know hey I'm the guy who you want threaten so so but uh this year we're a little bit more prepared last year we got Cod off guard uh representative Randy fine uh from the state of Florida really was instrumental in passing a lot of these laws that we have in place now the stalking law So based on your religious dress if somebody wants to run around with a bullhorn and scream horrible things at you uh you can be arrested for stalking you know going on private property and dropping those leaflets is now criminal felony trespass a projection on the wall now that is also a crime so we have all that uh and last year they took over the overpasses so we have the law codified on that if they get on the overpasses and they have anything any type of banners they were going to be arrested for that so you know we're ready this year last year they they got us this year if they show up we have a welcoming party for them I'm here too and we love it can we love it we love it we'll put you to work I'll deputize you yeah I'm going to try now we already got you a hat we'll get you outside and qualify and just give me the uniform I'm already have a so what's the difference between NASCAR just to switch gears uh between NASCAR here and NASCAR Europe basically it's the same entally it's the same car same kind of uh philosophy that the car build a bit of less horsepower uh but it's the same the the biggest difference is the the RAC tracks here in America they do mainly ovals in Europe we mainly drive on Formula 1 tracks or historical big tracks where you have to break and turn also right um so yeah that's the that's the biggest uh the biggest difference and that's also my speciality when I come here to the states and I want to racing cup and that's that's one one of my um my goals um to raceing Oscar here is to be a road course specialist and to drive in those road courses uh races and try to you know obviously win every everything I can um and uh yeah that's the biggest uh what's the fan base like in Europe as compared to the fan base here you know Europe is more cold so I think the persons are the same uh but I mean race f are race fans doesn't matter worldwide doesn't matter where you are people love um they really love racing and they love the sports and I I can tell you that through my whole career I met so many people also from enemy countries for Israel I met people from Iran Lebanon Syria um and every time when we I met them on the racetrack everything is just beautiful like we can actually communicate and have a have a good life um and I think that's the beautiful thing about about sports I I agree with you I was just going to say that Sports has a way of transcending politics you know when you're when you're on that field or you're in that car competing against somebody you know it's you you're it's athlete versus athlete you know there are no political ideologies there it's it's I want to win because I think I'm better and and that's that's I think that's that's a very profound how you say that I wish the only war was on on the RAC track could be r on a socer field or anywhere so earlier I you mentioned about your identification T yeah that's the the hostages uh dog tag um to rise the awareness about the hostages that's still uh still there in Gaza um I actually used to live in one of the kutas one of the villages next to the Gaza border um and during the October 7th I lost a few friends and I have four of them right now hostage as in Gaza which blow my mind the fact that somebody just woke up in the morning he didn't even woke up it was 6:30 in the morning somebody came into his house with a gun and took him somewhere he don't even know I must be terrifying um so yeah I wish they will all come back what does it say now what do what does it mentions their names no it just bring them home now that's the the slogan for the for the hostages uh we obviously it's a such a difficult situation because we want to beat Hamas we want to uh you know get rid of them but at the same times at the same time we also have the hostages right now inside so you have to be careful you cannot I mean I'm not right now in the IDF but I can I can imagine you cannot do too many you mentioned before we started talking you mentioned that October 7th was your 911 mhm and by the of Israel population wise you threw a number out that was kind of like amazing had had on this on the magnitude here in America it would have been I think you said 44,000 lives been lost somebody else that number out there which it's mind botling to think of that 44,000 for us so that's how that correlates into how much this was for the Israeli people I don't think people really understand how how small Israel is and how terrified people were on October 7th like we actually thought they they might concur us you know that that's going to be we are we need to survive and like like I said we have no other options we have to we have to fight and everybody I think that's the most beautiful thing about Israel doesn't matter your political side uh what you think what is your background whatever when you have to go to the to the reserve to the military everybody go to the military and we don't even think twice one of the things that I was impressed with and I'm sure nobody people could disagree even though there are hostages there and even though everybody is praying that the hostages Get Out Alive the government still had a job to do the government still had to go after the bad guy and it couldn't be held Paralyzed by the hostages I know it's easy for me to say that because my family and friends aren't being held hostage but from sitting from afar and being a police leader knowing hey there's a job that has to be done sure we're going to do everything to get the home but the same token we cannot just idly stand by here we have to be on the offensive at all times yeah and I think also the the pressure that Israel put on Hamas that's one of the reasons why we managed to get them out actually uh I don't know if you know but two days ago the SWAT team uh in Israel I don't know if you call it SWAT but Commando team in Israel managed to rescue two hostages um and hopefully hopefully we will be and capture 20 terrorists hiding in a hospital yeah which yeah that's people don't want to look into that that hey you know people don't want to look at that we we bring the facts we show them come on they are part of they look like a doctor everything they look like they work in the hospital but eventually they have a AK-47 uh under I don't know somewhere um so people don't understand that and I think that's the main issue of Israel right now to try to you know talk about it and and show people the real what going on the real thing what's going on in Israel right now people have to want to see though that's the problem people you can show them all we want but if they're if they're not seeing with their eyes then you know you're you're never going to change that perception but I can tell you from Sheriff Chitwood my family and for me personally that I pray that your your folks who are being held hostage are released safely and for those that have lost their lives that they are in eternal life with God and I pray that Israeli is the Israeli people come out of this stronger than they went into it thank you very much I super appreciate that and again uh everything you did uh for the for the Jewish Community um for the you know those kind of radical groups um even though it's it's far far from Israel far far from us but we still we fight for every every every piece of you know anti anti-i I don't know how you say that you said it anti semitic you're right you know that's one of the great things with this countyia County you know when it happened it didn't matter the color your skin it didn't matter your religion it didn't matter your political party everybody that came into this room was there for one reason and one reason alone and that was a stand by Israel and stand by our Jewish community and and and I am grateful for that and I and I think that's how you keep evil on its heels because you don't let it grow roots cuz then you got a problem yeah thank you for that and we I I wish I could talk on behalf of Israel in general but I can personally I want to thank you um thank you very much for everything you did for the Jewish community and fighting against the thank you we're all part of the same race man the human race we're all part of the same thing so so I hope you really enjoy yourself I'll probably see you out of the track on I'll be out there Sunday uh you did bring the core European weather with you it's supp to be 57 in wet coming from Israel I don't know if you're not I don't know if you ever been in Israel that's like desert that's on the bucket list to get it to get there Israel but you know normally it's 70° here and it's a beautiful yeah I'm coming from 100 100° uh country so so you're going to win maybe tomorrow we will change we'll see we'll see but thank you you very much welcome thank you very much well that concludes our uh another edition of chitchat hope you enjoyed it and have a great uh Daytona 500 weekend [Music]