Latest / Top Row Racing Media Monday Night Rewind / Episode 33 | Monday Night Rewind | Chelsea Landis | Todd Metz Jr. | Super Shoe & Michigan Cup

Transcript

Episode 33 | Monday Night Rewind | Chelsea Landis | Todd Metz Jr. | Super Shoe & Michigan Cup · Top Row Racing Media Monday Night Rewind

1:01
All right, welcome to the Monday Night Rewind, your short track
1:06
racing notebook and scrapbook of area racing.
1:10
I'm so excited for today, for tonight's show.
1:13
We are welcome, welcoming man. I can't talk Super Shoe hangover
1:17
and it's not because of alcohol, but we are welcoming Chelsea
1:19
Landis from Fast Lane images tonight.
1:22
I'm so excited to have her. We talked way long ago when we
1:25
first started about bringing her on.
1:27
So I'm excited to bring her on. And then of course, tonight as
1:31
well, we have Todd Metz junior from the front wheel discussion
1:35
and I'm excited to have him on too.
1:37
He was at Super Shoe and even raced at Super Shoe Amanda
1:40
Weatherwax's car since she's on pregnancy and obviously can't be
1:46
in the car. So excited for that.
1:48
And then while we're thinking about it, you can start dropping
1:51
your answers in the comments section for tonight's Rewind
1:54
Brain Buster. So since we are just at the
1:56
Kalamazoo Speedway, before it became Kalamazoo, the original
2:00
dirt track was known by what name?
2:03
And then of course, how many years did it operate as a dirt
2:05
track? So you got Alamo Speedway, BK
2:08
Speedway kits, Miller Speedway or B&K Speedway, that might help
2:14
process of elimination there. And then of course, how many
2:17
years did it operate? So again, that's where I'm super
2:20
excited to have what who I feel are just strong guests once
2:25
again here on the Monday night rewind.
2:27
And if you're like, why is Lewis doing an intro?
2:28
It's because Buju is sick and and even my voice from the
2:32
weekend is a little scratchy, but we pushed through.
2:36
And so I'm really excited again to be back on a Monday.
2:43
But boy, super shoe weekend very tiring.
2:45
I was my back hurt a lot by the end of or Sunday.
2:50
So I when I got home, I sat in the car for about 6 minutes.
2:53
Took 6 minutes for me to kind of like pretzel my way out of the
2:56
car. I'm like, OK, little sore.
2:58
So I'm definitely if you want drop your super shoe stories in
3:02
the comments below because again, I know there's so much
3:06
going on this weekend with super shoe and people seem to be I
3:13
don't know, it just seemed to be like really happy this year.
3:15
And so just to let everyone know too, I'm not too long from now
3:21
after we're going to get through Michigan Cup, but you're
3:23
probably going to start seeing me pushing a lot of Donnie
3:25
Ritter campaigning. You know, and if you can help
3:29
kind of rally around the idea that I, I'm going to be
3:33
submitting, submitting a few proposals for Donnie Ritter to
3:36
be promoter of the year, not only in Michigan, but I
3:39
definitely think he deserves recognition.
3:41
Because not only has he done really well at Kalamazoo this
3:44
year on top of his successful year last year, but at the same
3:49
time, what he's doing with Springport are bringing that
3:52
back to life. And I know publicly, you know,
3:54
there's a lot of things that people don't know about the what
3:59
Donnie inherited with Springport when he took over a few months
4:03
ago, about him and his family, who are just obviously
4:06
incredible people have put in a lot of work to bring Springport
4:11
back to life and a lot of hours. I mean, even they're out there.
4:14
They went last night, I think right afterwards to get
4:17
Springport ready. I know people are out there
4:19
today painting the lines for camping and all that.
4:22
Ryan warning will be racetracking like he did at at
4:25
Super Shoe. So it's a lot of the same team.
4:28
And what a lot of people don't understand maybe about
4:30
Springport in the past is that they operated basically with
4:33
seven people running that whole thing.
4:35
You know, you go to some tracks, they have sixty, 7080 people.
4:39
But when it comes to Springport, they're a small operation.
4:43
And I'm hoping with their time over at Kalamazoo that people
4:46
who maybe didn't know how the readers do things walk away from
4:50
Spring or from Kalamazoo going, all right, we got to go give
4:53
that Springport a try. So I always told people, you
4:57
know, in the two years that I was there, if you just give it,
5:00
yes, 03 years I was there. I'm like, if you give it one
5:03
chance, you'll go back and you'll want to go back and
5:06
you'll find a way to go back to Springport.
5:07
So I know I'm excited. I originally on my schedule, I
5:11
had the New Paris Night of Destruction this Saturday, but
5:14
with Springport coming back online and doing the Michigan
5:18
Cup, I will be at Springport all weekend long.
5:22
That way, you know, I hate missing the night of
5:24
destructions at New Paris, but you know, Springport and
5:28
Michigan Cup is a really special event.
5:30
And so I feel like since it's their first time back, it's
5:33
truly their debut that I feel my gut says I need to be, need to
5:38
be there. So I will be back at Springport
5:40
all weekend long. I'll be heading up around
5:42
noonish, 1:00 or so on Friday and I'll just kind of walk
5:47
around and everything on Friday, get a lay of the land again, amp
5:50
it up and then of course we'll dive right into everything on
5:53
Saturday and Sunday. Onboard camera sign up will be
5:56
posted tomorrow. Just know that a lot of drivers
5:58
from Kalamazoo had 42 drivers qualify into Sunday's races and
6:02
with only 20 cameras, I think people swapping cameras.
6:06
Amanda Weatherwax made sure Todd and and Scott had a camera by
6:12
swapping between the cars. Jerry Oh damn, how fast was he
6:16
on Sunday Winter future winter sweep.
6:20
We were able to Sabrina was able to swap from the Crown Victoria
6:23
over to the limited late model for that race.
6:26
So you'll get to see everything assuming the camera didn't burn
6:29
up. I haven't seen the footage yet.
6:31
It was, it's been an interesting day with the cameras, but but he
6:35
had a camera so we swapped. So that's how we were able to
6:37
maximize and get some people cameras who may not have gotten
6:41
cameras by swapping out vehicles.
6:42
So thank you again to Spring and thank you again to Peter. 28
6:45
cameras came, 27 came home. One was left behind at
6:49
Kalamazoo. But thankfully Drew Ritter was
6:51
very observant and saw one and got that.
6:53
So I want to think Kalamazoo. They made a post and then
6:56
shortly after I made a post and you know, we didn't think it was
6:59
stolen. We just figured someone might
7:01
have grabbed it or saw it and kept it for safekeeping.
7:04
And and once we got everything posted, you messaged saying,
7:07
hey, my bad. I forgot to let you know that I
7:09
had that. And so I was just so thankful
7:11
that it did fall in friendly hands.
7:12
So again, thank you to Drew Ritter for grabbing that and
7:16
being thoughtful to have that because you just never know when
7:20
you have moments like that. So 28 will come home this
7:22
weekend, but 27 out of 28 and that's a lot of cameras to
7:26
manage. So again, thank you to Sabrina
7:28
and Peter for Grundy County for Bahama Brackets.
7:32
I'll be doing cameras there. And Grundy has requested 10
7:36
cameras be set to the side. That way they can kind of pick
7:39
some drivers who they'd like to with some different awards and
7:41
some different things. So Grundy County will be doing
7:43
10 cameras that they get to choose.
7:46
So that'll leave 11 cameras open and that'll probably be posted
7:49
on Wednesday. So I'll be doing 2 signups at
7:51
once, but other than that, like I said, I'll remind one more
7:55
time tonight's brain Buster if you want to drop answers in the
8:00
comments. Obviously there's some hints
8:01
here on what it's probably, probably not, but again, before
8:06
it was Kalamazoo Speedway, it opened up under a different name
8:09
and a completely different surface, although in the same
8:12
layout that it is today. But you have Alamo Speedway, BK
8:16
Speedway, Kitzmiller Speedway or B&K Speedway.
8:21
And then of course, how many years did it operate as a dirt
8:23
track, 125 or 10? And so definitely drop your
8:27
comments below Buju before we bring on Chelsea.
8:30
Buju does get a another Mulligan with him being sick that will
8:34
pause the rewind roulette. That means I'll just have to
8:36
come up with extra, extra interesting topics for us to
8:40
talk about next week when he's back and feeling well.
8:44
But without further ado, like I said, I'm so excited to have
8:48
Chelsea on. We talked.
8:51
I can't, I think we were like 5 or 6 episodes in this whole
8:53
thing as towards the spring where we, you know, talked and I
8:56
want to do like a media roundtable.
8:58
And of course, Chelsea, who I considered one of the best
9:01
photographers in the business, instantly came to my mind.
9:05
And so that's where I'm excited to have her on only now, but not
9:09
only now, but you'll see her again on a future episode where
9:12
we'll have a lot of media joining to just talk about our
9:15
industry and what we do as media and the long hours that we put
9:18
into. So without, like I said, without
9:21
further ado from Fast Lane Images, let's go ahead and let's
9:24
welcome Chelsea Landis. I almost said Lynn just because
9:27
of Facebook, but I'm like, it's Landis, but it also is Lynn.
9:32
But you know. But again, welcome Chelsea to
9:35
the Monday Night Rewind. I know you had a busy weekend
9:38
too. You were over at Owosso, right
9:40
For the Nationals there. Yes, bright and early.
9:44
We left around 6:30 AM. For a.
9:48
Half hour drive up there, so it was a long day, but I kind of
9:54
enjoy long days like that because you get to hang out, you
9:56
know, all day long and really take in the day and you have to
9:59
rush around. Yep.
10:01
And did you do any camping or anything too over the weekend?
10:04
Like, did you stay overnight? I did not, OK not.
10:07
We just went up Saturday morning and then came home late Saturday
10:12
night, Sunday evening. All right, yeah, cuz did you?
10:17
So you didn't do the Friday portion, you just did like that
10:19
Saturday, all right, Yep, Yep. Cuz I knew they raced on Friday
10:22
too, so that's where I didn't know how long you were there,
10:25
but I'm like, I know you were there.
10:26
You took a new race fan, right? Wasn't that where you took like
10:28
a new race fan I brought? My little sister for the first
10:32
time and she really seemed to enjoy it, so that was a lot of
10:35
fun. Well, and how exciting to share
10:38
that too right to to share that with her where she gets to see
10:42
you know, I know it's before 9:00 PM, but like how badass
10:45
have a sister who that she has who I mean, you just do
10:48
incredible work behind the camera.
10:49
So, you know, so for her to see that, but then also just share
10:53
racing, right to share that and and hang out.
10:56
So I'm glad that she seemed to enjoy that.
11:00
Yeah, all the drivers were really nice.
11:02
You know, everyone was super nice, said hi to her.
11:05
She asked a lot of questions. You know, sometimes you forget
11:08
that no one knows anything, you know, the types of cars and
11:12
things like that. So it was fun getting to explain
11:15
to her who everyone was and the types of cars and what was going
11:18
on on the racetrack. We oh, sorry, we have something
11:25
going on on property. Someone's on our property trying
11:27
to do stuff and hunt, hunt deer. That's why I got distracted.
11:31
We got we have someone who's literally on our on our property
11:35
right now because we have we feed deer.
11:37
So that's, I didn't mean to like look to the side, but like we
11:40
have deer all over and we literally have some hunter who
11:43
just came onto our property and is trying to do stuff.
11:48
So sorry, got distracted. I'm like, I'm like, why is that
11:53
was my stepdad? And I'm like, why is he on the
11:54
run? And then I hear yelling and then
11:57
I hear like a side by side and I'm like, so I guess an
12:04
entertaining Monday is in store. So if they're if you see like
12:07
stuff going on behind the I guess watch the show behind me.
12:12
So but anyway, so I didn't mean to like be distracted there.
12:16
That is my fault. But I'm like, something's about
12:19
to hit the fan and I don't know what.
12:20
And it's like, do I need to be on alert or something?
12:22
But because, you know, guns and all right, so it's like, do I
12:26
need to like duck and cover here or what?
12:28
But but anyways, as you know too, you know, I always like to
12:32
start off with the softball question.
12:34
And so kind of peeling back because again, you get to share
12:37
this weekend with your sister and she got to experienced
12:39
drivers and ask questions to do all these things.
12:42
You know, at some point you were a new photographer too, and you
12:45
were new to getting into racing and getting that racing bug.
12:50
So who is Chelsea Lynn Landis? And and we'll just kind of go
12:56
from there too, just to kind of wrap it with now your sister can
13:00
maybe get that bug and you never know what she might end up in a
13:03
race car someday. She might, you know.
13:05
Hey, I was trying to give her. My.
13:07
But she didn't want it. Yet, yeah.
13:12
Yeah, there we go. So basically I got started
13:17
shooting at New Paris Speedway. At the time, my husband was the
13:23
flagman and their photographer had retired, so they were in
13:28
need of 1. I had always kind of been
13:31
interested in photography, but I wasn't really sure.
13:35
Sabrina and Donnie, the owners of New Paris at the time, they
13:39
really trusted me with that. They helped me get my first
13:43
camera and it was kind of game over from there.
13:47
I fell in love. Especially once you have
13:50
something to do at the racetrack, you know, just
13:52
getting to be involved. I just, it brings out a whole
13:56
new love, I guess everything once you're involved in it.
14:01
And then from there, you know, I just built my Facebook page and
14:05
then I shot for, you know, Angola Motorsports Speedway as a
14:09
track photographer. I did some series shooting.
14:14
And then after that I kind of just did my own thing, just
14:19
started my Facebook page, tried to get some followers and then,
14:23
you know, shooting for drivers privately as more of a team
14:27
shooter type thing. Yeah, what I know, like, you
14:31
know, this year you followed Chloe around, right?
14:33
You've done with Adam Terry. You've been able to showcase a
14:36
lot of drivers in your time. And I was looking at some posts
14:40
and even back all the way in 2020, Jay Freet was calling you,
14:44
you know, one of our future ambassadors of, you know, the
14:47
industry and so or the sport, whatever we want to call it.
14:51
And so I think again, you know, you got Charlie Hannah the toad,
14:54
you know, one of the best. And that's something like, how
14:56
do you get to that point where you become, you know, one of the
14:59
best behind with all of that, right?
15:01
I mean, you know where you got to start at New Paris to now you
15:05
get to travel around, experience all these tracks and you're
15:07
going to Toledo for the first time.
15:10
Yeah, super excited about. That yeah and I know even Gary,
15:13
you know, has been in the comments, you know, going you
15:16
need to come to Toledo and all that.
15:18
So he was a. Huge help with me getting in
15:21
there. And he has been commenting.
15:24
It's just kind of crazy. You never know what a Facebook
15:27
friend request you know could lead to someday.
15:30
Yeah. So, yeah.
15:33
So how do you become the best? How do you stand up to
15:35
everybody? I.
15:37
I don't consider myself the best, you know, I'm pretty hard
15:42
on myself. There are a lot of other people
15:44
I look up to. Jay Free, definitely someone I
15:48
look up to. He helped me so much when I was
15:52
starting out, along with Jodie Prince.
15:56
He was the Barefield photographer at the time.
16:01
Ricky Klein helped a lot. He shot at South Bend.
16:04
So I kind of just had a lot of mentors and people that I looked
16:08
up to and I kind of, you know, combined everything I loved
16:13
about their images and kind of turned it into my own thing.
16:19
I feel like when you see my pictures, you can kind of maybe
16:22
say, Oh yeah, like Chelsea took that picture or that's a fast
16:26
Lane images picture. And I, I really like having my
16:30
own style. So I just feel like that's
16:32
helped a lot and make me maybe be a little different from other
16:36
shooters. Well, and that's where, you
16:39
know, obviously you follow reveal the hammer with Adam and,
16:43
you know, doing stuff for Chloe. You know, you've been at New
16:45
Parish where we've had like the Cody Guyer's come in, the
16:48
Kendall Lawler Maggart's come in the, you know, JF photography
16:52
this year. Cow, What?
16:54
What's her cow? Cow dog?
16:56
I'm like, yeah, you know, and you know, she's come in.
17:00
Of course, you know, you've had all of these different
17:02
photographers. Sometimes you're at the same
17:04
track at the same time. And so it's how do you stand
17:07
out? And so I think that's very much
17:08
the case where, you know, it's very easy out of every
17:12
different, you know, photographer where you can go.
17:14
That is a fast lane. And so for you, you know, you
17:17
have thousands and thousands and thousands of followers.
17:20
So when you first started all this did you even ever think
17:24
like Dang I'm going to have over 10,000 followers one day who are
17:27
loving my photos and sharing my photos and and looking forward
17:31
to any time Chelsea is on the property?
17:34
No, I, I never imagined, you know, I would have that big of a
17:39
following on Facebook. I thought maybe, oh, I'll get a
17:42
couple 100 and it'll stay just around there, you know, just be
17:47
my friends liking my pictures I take of their cars.
17:52
So I'm really proud of how how big the page has gotten still
17:58
amazes me sometimes, you know, I'll go to tracks and people
18:01
come up to me like, aren't you fascinating images?
18:04
And I love your pictures. And it's just so surreal
18:08
sometimes for that to happen because to me, I'm no one, you
18:11
know, everyone's there for the drivers, but it's still cool.
18:16
Well, and just think you might have people in the stands who
18:19
are trying to be like you, right?
18:21
They see what you do and they, and they're like, you know, I,
18:25
Jason Foy's son, Jace likes to follow me around when I'm at New
18:28
Paris and he was doing a little bit over this weekend at
18:31
Kalamazoo and and he's helped out at at New Paris, like he's
18:35
helped collect cameras for me on nights I've been by myself.
18:38
But when he's going around with me, the one day at new Paris,
18:40
he's like, you know, maybe I could be like a media person
18:42
someday like you. This is really fun.
18:44
And I kind of turned I went. It can also be stressful, but
18:48
but it is fun, right? And so, and I think that's the
18:51
the thing that we, you know, sometimes, you know, people may
18:56
not look at media as like an important part.
18:58
And then you of course have a vast majority who see it as an
19:01
important part. And so for you, what is it
19:04
something that you know, as you're shooting photography or I
19:07
know you've dipped into video editing and doing different
19:09
things, flyer making, hero card making, Like what is it that you
19:13
wish people maybe knew the misconceptions of like short
19:17
track racing media? Like what should people know or
19:20
what would be nice things that like, hey, like here's why we're
19:23
important and here's things that we can do for you that maybe
19:26
sometimes people don't understand.
19:28
I feel like that's a hard question.
19:30
I'm not really sure how to answer that.
19:38
I feel like sometimes people just think, you know, you show
19:40
up, you take the picture, you're going to post it.
19:42
They don't realize, you know, I take thousands of pictures and
19:47
you're maybe going to see a hundred of them that I.
19:50
Right, right. And then just looking through
19:53
all of them, you know, and then all the hours it can go into
19:58
editing and things like that, sort of there is a lot of work
20:02
behind the scenes rather than just, you know, showing up and
20:06
shooting the picture. Well, and I sometimes I had so
20:10
the reason why I asked that too, is it it's one that, you know,
20:13
I've talked with other photographers and even bit like
20:16
Mike McIntyre and I were on the roof together at New Paris for
20:19
the Summer Sizzler. And I was asking him some
20:21
different questions. Because you know, if it weren't
20:25
for Cody Guyer, who I think very much for the setup that I have,
20:28
like if it weren't for him, I wouldn't have the camera
20:31
equipment that I do because he said, here's what you can get.
20:35
Here's what we're getting for Great Lakes Super Sprint TV and
20:39
and different things. And so it's like because of him,
20:41
I've gotten to do that. Because of him, you know, I
20:44
found ways to get like audio this year.
20:46
Once I got audio, no longer think heavens for him.
20:50
And once I got audio, I'm like, I can't go back now, right?
20:52
Like it's like I got to make that happen.
20:55
But you know, you got someone like me who's a phonographer and
20:57
I claim it. I am what I am.
20:59
That's what I do. I'm like, there are plenty of
21:01
photographers. I don't need to get in that
21:02
lane. I will, I will do my phonography
21:05
and I will be happy with it. But over this week and I had
21:08
that conversation of, you know, like there's some spoiling, like
21:13
even with my camera that I download right away, edit on the
21:16
spot and post like short clips. But then I'm like, but I won't
21:20
post a full race that day. Like because I have to go make
21:25
the lineups and I have to go do different things.
21:27
And so it came to like photography and I said, well, I
21:30
can take a picture of my with my phone and sure it's ready.
21:33
It it can post that second. So, but that's not how it works
21:36
with like photography where they edit and they do the things.
21:40
And so that's why I wanted, I wondered from your perspective,
21:43
because in listening to other people over the weekend, like
21:47
they didn't, they didn't say it to be like ignorance, right?
21:50
They weren't doing it to be a put down.
21:52
But I don't think they're like, it takes all of that.
21:55
Yeah, like hours, hours. We might be at the racetrack for
22:01
four hours, but we're probably putting as much if not more into
22:05
the editing after that. Especially, you know, when
22:07
you're taking thousands and thousands of photos and you're
22:10
like, what are my best 100? You know what are my And it's
22:14
like and they see the great ones.
22:16
So what's your favorite bad, worst photo that you ever took
22:21
where you like you look at that and like creative, but not the
22:25
shot that I wanted. Like do you have a shot that
22:27
stands out or like one that you're like, damn, I was that
22:30
close to having the shot I wanted and I miss it by like a
22:34
inch or two? There, that happens all the
22:38
time. You know, you're just not ready
22:41
or you catch the back end of a wreck and you're.
22:44
Like yeah, I wish I. Would.
22:46
Have thought the beginning of. That, yeah.
22:49
Me and Cody, you know, like we like to lower our shutter speed
22:54
so you get the really blurred background, but then when you do
22:57
that and there's a wreck, you're not catching it cuz.
22:59
I'm right? Slow, slow, slow.
23:03
Yeah, like I got every other flip.
23:05
He flipped 9 times. I got three of them.
23:07
Yeah, it's exactly, exactly. But yeah, that so because the
23:12
reason I asked that, there's one photo that I have that's my
23:14
favorite like mess up photo. And it was a driver who was
23:18
flipping off someone else and I didn't get that on purpose.
23:20
I was actually trying to get they were coming too wide and it
23:23
was like really close. And I accidentally hit like the
23:26
zoom on my phone and I zoomed in and I'm like, I went to delete
23:30
the photo and then I saw the middle finger and I went, well,
23:34
I'm going to keep that. You never know when I might need
23:36
that for something. So that actually happened to me
23:38
at the Clash. Yeah.
23:41
I'm not really sure what happened, but it was a picture I
23:43
think of Kyle Ribble and when I took.
23:46
The picture. I didn't even know he had his
23:49
hand out the window or anything, but when I was going back
23:53
through editing I was like, is that a finger?
23:56
Off the window. Didn't you post that photo?
23:59
Too. Because I I commented going, we
24:02
just got, we got the ricochet of who that finger was meant to.
24:06
Yeah, I know it was pointed at the roof.
24:08
I could definitely tell you that I can and I could tell you, I
24:11
won't say it on here, but I definitely know who he's
24:13
flipping off. But it was not me.
24:15
So I just got you know how? I I didn't even know he was
24:19
doing that. And then I put back and I was
24:21
like. Yep, Yep, because when you post
24:24
it, I think I commented going, well, I know who it was for and
24:26
it wasn't me. So that's where sometimes I'm
24:29
like, I get the innocent, you know, like shrapnel, you know
24:34
when when they're flipping off at the roof, I'm like, well, I
24:36
know that's fingers. Not for me, at least this time.
24:39
I have gotten fingers before, but I know I have and I'm like,
24:44
whatever, I'm still posting the clip.
24:46
You shouldn't have done it, you know, you know, like, I guess
24:49
don't crash him next time. But but it's one of those things
24:51
that that's why that I thought like, what's a good photo to you
24:56
that stands out where you're like, it's not what you wanted,
24:58
but you're like, but that was a good one.
24:59
Or it was like, man, that's a crappy photo, but like someone
25:02
else might see it and go like, man, that's awesome.
25:05
And you're like, what is awesome about it?
25:08
But but, you know, obviously you're connected with John and
25:13
you get to travel around too, as he does all these racing things.
25:16
So what is it like for you to have a partner in life that you
25:19
get to share this with? I mean, you shared it with your
25:21
sister, but then they have someone like John, a legend in
25:23
himself, you know, to share that with.
25:26
Don't tell him that. OK.
25:30
It's pretty awesome, you know, we both show up to the track.
25:34
He helps me a lot with my Facebook page, you know, watch
25:37
it, he just yells. Yeah, I heard.
25:42
Yeah. He helps me a lot with my
25:45
Facebook page, You know, I'll post the picture real quick, but
25:49
I don't have the time to put the words with the post.
25:52
And I'll ask him, hey, can you hop on there real quick, say
25:55
this or that or I need to know who was QuickTime?
25:59
What was the time? Right, right.
26:01
He's. Really good at getting me all my
26:03
stats and it's just nice cuz you know, he does his thing and I do
26:08
my thing and then at the end of the night we both have something
26:11
to talk about. Like I seen this.
26:13
Did you see that or? Yeah, so so said this.
26:17
So what's a good story that you have from a track where you
26:21
maybe something was just so funny where non-stop, you know,
26:23
you just laughed about it all the way home or or maybe John
26:27
did something that you caught on camera.
26:29
You're like, I could post that buddy, you know, don't make me
26:31
mad or, or hey, I'm going to post that because it was so
26:34
funny or whatever it may be. Like what's something that just
26:36
really stands out to you in all the moments that you shared at a
26:39
racetrack or even something super special?
26:42
I'm not a great storyteller. If you ever want to hear a good
26:48
story, you got to have Jacqueline just tell you.
26:51
OK. Because he's a great
26:53
storyteller. I don't really have any funny
26:58
moments that honestly stand off top of my head. 1 might be
27:06
moment from the summer was just I was trying to get a picture of
27:10
Cody Geyer and I'm screaming Cody Cody so then can me and
27:18
Kendall now keep bringing up serfs up the chicken?
27:21
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't really have any funny
27:26
stories that are probably Facebook appropriate.
27:33
OK, so some censorship going on there, but you, if I recall
27:37
right, didn't John proposed to you at New Pair?
27:40
So not like a funny, but like a special moment.
27:42
He did that. Was nine years ago.
27:47
He proposed to me at the blowout and I guess something kind of
27:53
funny would be. I almost missed it.
27:57
He was talking. He's always on the microphone.
28:01
Yeah, yeah. Yep.
28:03
I heard him doing a thing on the microphone, and then I was
28:06
talking to my friends and they're like, Chelsea, you need
28:10
to, you know, go down the flag stand and I'm like, why, what's
28:13
happening? And then finally I like, I could
28:15
hear what was going on. So.
28:19
But yeah, that was a, that was an awesome day.
28:22
Great weekend. Yeah.
28:27
Favorite tracks that you like to shoot at or go to again, you've
28:30
been to so many and, and your time of doing this.
28:32
So what you know, what are your top 3 or 4 tracks that you just
28:36
absolutely love going to? Or even, you know, track that is
28:40
on your bucket list? So you're like, man, I just
28:42
whatever it's going to take one day I'm going to be here.
28:46
A bucket list track would probably to be to go down to the
28:50
snowball Derby and. Shoot, yeah.
28:52
I I really want to go down 1 winter.
28:56
It would be so fun. It sounds amazing.
29:00
I see all the awesome pictures that everyone takes.
29:04
One of my favorite tracks to shoot at would be Winchester and
29:08
it's just because of the access. You know, you get down to the
29:11
infield and you have this huge infield and you can shoot from
29:15
anywhere in the high banking. It makes for really awesome
29:19
photos. Awesome photos.
29:22
Another place I say I would like to shoot at is Berlin.
29:26
It's the same thing, nice infield, can shoot from
29:30
anywhere, you know. And then I guess a new track
29:35
that would be one of my favourites would be Ken Ross.
29:38
OK. That tracks.
29:40
Pretty cool. The cars are actually like
29:43
really close to you. I was a bit sketched out at
29:46
some. Moment but.
29:48
Yeah, that place is pretty cool. Have you been to Hartford?
29:52
Like to shoot in the Enfield in Hartford?
29:53
I I've been to Hartford, but I've never shot there.
29:57
I've only shot dirt at Plymouth. Actually, OK, so yeah, that that
30:02
Enfield at Hartford, I didn't, I did it one time because I before
30:06
I wasn't allowed. I don't have like a reflective
30:08
vest, but Leah's like, yeah, go down.
30:10
And so I went down for World of Outlaws and I was kind of
30:13
standing right by the kind of by the edge and Oh yeah.
30:17
But there's a moment where I'm like, I could have literally
30:19
died that moment, you know, like, but it's like that
30:22
adrenaline rush. I'm like, I and I'm in at
30:24
Kalamazoo, as you know, right, the car, you're right by the
30:27
cars too in the infield. But I'm like, but that moment at
30:29
Hartford, I'm like, I know at Kalamazoo I have a wall and a
30:32
fence. At Hartford, there's no fence
30:35
and it's barely a wall. And so I'm like, also would have
30:38
taken as one of them to like slip rung or whatever and go
30:40
straight. I'm like, I don't know, it's
30:43
kind of like cheating death a little bit where it's like an
30:45
adrenaline rush from it. But that I after that, I'm like,
30:47
This is why people have said you need to go in the Enfield like
30:51
once at Hartford. I was a little bit more sketched
30:55
out this summer, like safety wise, just because it seems like
31:00
so many people have been, I guess getting hit by.
31:04
Yes, yes, Yep. And so it's just kind of really
31:08
had me on edge to, you know, mind my P's and Q's.
31:11
I always try to listen for where I hear the car.
31:14
I don't really like to have my backs toward the car cuz then I,
31:18
I don't know where they're coming, you know, I just try to
31:21
be really mindful of that cuz there are a lot of fortunate
31:26
incidents I've seen over this summer.
31:28
And well, an insurance is cracking down on a lot of this
31:32
too, right? And so that's where I've seen a
31:34
lot of tracks do some different things from some of those
31:37
incidences earlier this year. And I know in talking with some
31:41
tracks and like their insurance is kind of like, well, you know,
31:45
only so many people out in the infield or, you know, so many
31:48
people out in this space or, hey, you know, we know you used
31:51
to be able to like not to me directly, but then talking with
31:54
people, hey, you used to be able to stand there.
31:56
Now we can't have you there. You need to be like way over
31:58
here. And that's the one thing that
32:01
like Slinger, there's not a lot of like great spots to like
32:05
fence and turn 3 and 4, which is where I took photos last year.
32:08
I'm like, well, now there's a fence in my way.
32:10
So it's like a Slinger. There's very like limited spots,
32:13
unless you're like photographer, you know, could go infielder,
32:16
whatever. I'm like, I don't, I don't need
32:18
to do that. That's for them.
32:19
I'll let them do that. But that's one thing that I've
32:22
definitely noticed like too, like some people who do
32:25
photography may be really like shocked going to 2027, you know,
32:30
for some rule changes for even media, like where you can be
32:33
where you can't be, you know, So what do you, you know, how do
32:37
you feel about like rules and infield?
32:38
Because that was like a Mansfield Speedway.
32:40
That was like a big topic where people were super frustrated
32:43
photographers. Where what do you mean I can't
32:45
go in the infield and I can't stand here.
32:47
So for like you, you know, what do you think of like when it
32:50
comes to safety for like us? Like what do you think is a fine
32:53
line? Like, Hey, I kind of signed the
32:55
same agreement as everyone else. So I feel like I know I'm taking
32:59
that risk, but then also like, is it worth the risk?
33:02
So like, where do you kind of fall within that debate?
33:05
It's hard. Because with me being in media,
33:08
I always want to be in the infield, but you don't always
33:12
get that access. And I totally understand, you
33:16
know, safety and limiting, you know, the number of people you
33:21
have down there. So maybe giving some access, but
33:24
only allowing so many photographers on a given night,
33:28
you know? But like at.
33:35
Owosso you kind of just have to make it work.
33:38
Like I wasn't granted access to the infield.
33:43
So that's where I shot outside of the track a lot.
33:48
And it, it did 'cause me, you know, go outside of my comfort
33:52
zone because I I still wanted to get those shots.
33:54
So you just got to kind of try to make it work and you got to
33:57
understand, you know, from the track side, like to do what's
34:01
best for them and just understand.
34:03
That. Yep, but.
34:05
I bet that could be frustrating too at times, especially when
34:08
you're like, I'm Chelsea Landis. Not that you've done that, but
34:12
it's like. My photos go everywhere.
34:15
You know, like, at that moment, though, right?
34:17
Like, I know that's where some were frustrated.
34:19
It's like, well, but you know, I've done it for years or
34:22
whatever. But it's like, you know, there's
34:24
plenty of great media people who, like, they have to follow
34:27
the same rules, too. Like, you know, and yeah, it's
34:31
OK to be frustrated, but what? There's something that as in a
34:35
spot at New Paris and one of the safety teams said you can't be
34:38
here. I'm like, OK, I moved, but then
34:40
they told that to another photographer and that
34:42
photographer, I won't say who they weren't from this area.
34:45
They definitely are out of area person and they were just a
34:48
little like feisty and I'm like, you just moved your ass.
34:53
Like don't like it literally says in their rules you stand
34:56
where they tell you oh. Yeah, it's definitely easier if
35:01
you just. Do what?
35:04
The track. Wants and then you're you're
35:06
always in the clear, just like at New Paris, you know, I wanted
35:10
to shoot at a specific spot. I took a picture of that spot.
35:15
You know, I said, am I allowed to shoot here?
35:17
They said, Yep, you're all good, that sort of thing.
35:20
And I always I try to pride myself and I always try to get
35:24
with the racetrack. I don't like to step on people's
35:27
toes. I want to have permission to
35:30
shoot, you know, that sort of thing.
35:32
So I do always try to ask and be mindful or be mindful of the
35:37
other photographers or if they have a track photographer, you
35:40
know. Yep.
35:41
Well, I think that's something that, you know, I learned a lot
35:43
from like J Free too. You know, in this area, a lot of
35:46
people have J Friedas like that mentor because he's been doing
35:49
it for a long time and you know, he's done video in the past.
35:52
He's now he's done photography and that's one thing that, you
35:55
know, hearing him talk and have like how he shares and but not
35:59
every track is that way or not every track photographer feels
36:02
that way. And that's why even too, like
36:05
I'm very careful about like Dan Redmond told me the earlier this
36:09
year at the 500 tour when we were talking, I said, you know,
36:11
a lot of people talk to me about coming down to Winchester
36:13
weekend, you know, what would it be there?
36:15
And he said, Oh yes, I'm like, you can't just show up.
36:18
And I went, I won't take offense to that because I know it wasn't
36:21
meant that way, but like, he's like, you're just too big.
36:24
You can't just show up and do what you do right?
36:27
And you know, but it's one of those things like there is a
36:29
process. And I think sometimes that's
36:31
like a misconception too, where someone's like, you should come
36:33
here and like, well, no, they actually have somebody like even
36:36
at Grundy, you know, they have James Devin.
36:37
And I'm like, I wanted to be very careful about like going
36:40
and videoing because like, man, he, he's put in his time and
36:43
hours there. I don't want to just show up
36:46
and, and do my thing on top of his thing.
36:48
And so, so that's where I know you've earned a lot of respect
36:52
from a lot of people, including owners and promoters.
36:55
You're very highly talked about amongst that group just because
36:58
of how you approach things, how you do things.
37:01
And again, you're incredibly talented behind that lens.
37:06
And so where are your talents taking you for the rest of 2026?
37:10
And what are some of your goals for 2027 as we wrap up here?
37:15
So our last race with Adam was Saturday for 2026.
37:20
Shout out to Adam and his dad. It's been a lot of fun
37:23
travelling this summer with them.
37:26
We made it to every single one of their races.
37:30
Saturday was a little emotional just because it was the last
37:33
race. This weekend I'll be going to
37:36
Toledo and then after that I'll be at Winchester for the 400 and
37:43
then I'm hoping to go down to Nashville for 40.
37:47
OK, you met. You never know.
37:49
Maybe I'll make it to the snowball Derby somehow, someway,
37:53
yeah. Well.
37:54
That's a bucket list for a lot, right?
37:56
Like that just looks incredible. So hopefully you get that.
37:59
Not to interrupt, but I'm like snowball Derby's like one of the
38:02
tops that everyone talks about. I don't.
38:05
I don't. Really have a plan yet for 2027?
38:09
I'm just kind of really hoping to.
38:13
Be with Adam again. Hopefully, I'll probably shoot
38:17
with Sean Grace. He'll be and I think a template
38:21
sportsman traveling around and then, you know, hopefully
38:24
shooting for Chloe again. Yep.
38:27
Well, and I know. You know, again, like I said,
38:29
your talents behind that lens. And so this is a question I plan
38:33
to ask another media person who's going to come on here in a
38:36
few weeks. They are a track photographer.
38:39
They like being at a track. You are someone who gets to
38:41
travel around to do different things.
38:43
So, you know, would you ever be just a track photographer again
38:46
and be at the same place every single week?
38:48
Or do you really like that travel aspect and being able to
38:50
kind of pick and choose where you go and what you do?
38:53
I honestly don't. Think I would ever be a track
38:56
photographer again, just because I get so much FOMO of missing
39:04
out on other great races. I want to be able to make it to
39:09
all the big races. And when you're a track
39:11
photographer, you know you're obligated.
39:13
No matter what race it is, you're going to be at your track
39:16
on Saturday night. So I really prefer traveling.
39:22
I like the obstacle of shooting somewhere new every weekend.
39:27
Keeps me learning, keeps me on my toes.
39:30
I'm always meeting new people. I think it's just funner.
39:35
Oh yeah. Well, and that's, I get asked
39:37
that kind of question too is, you know, would I ever step away
39:40
from being just at the same track every week and travel
39:43
around and do because they're especially in like August,
39:46
there's so many events that I was turning down where it's like
39:49
even on the same day, I could have been at 5 different events
39:51
if I had five of me like. I don't know what.
39:54
I would do with. 2 right? I definitely would.
39:58
Yep, because again. Your talent stand out and, and
40:01
here's another endorsement, right?
40:03
Not even just from you and others, but you got Tori
40:05
Stovall, right? One of my favorite people who I
40:08
wish I got to see more. She was so excited for me at
40:10
Plymouth in 2023 when I got my new iPad and when I still do an
40:14
iPad. She was so excited for that
40:15
while she had this fancy ass Cameron.
40:18
Next thing, like maybe someday I'll have something like that
40:22
and but she was always respectful to me and and so
40:25
she's definitely one of my favorite people too.
40:27
But you know, Chelsea is such AG behind the camera, amazing work.
40:30
Truly. People think it's so easy.
40:31
It absolutely is not. So again, I know you're like I
40:35
said, you might not consider yourself the best, but I know
40:38
it's because you're hard on yourself.
40:39
But I promise you, I get to talk in a lot of different circles
40:42
with a lot of different people. And when we talk about like
40:45
photographers or media, you're almost always the first name
40:48
that comes up. And if Oh no, you're welcome.
40:51
And I hope you know that like, and I'm sure inside you know
40:54
that, right? And sometimes it's kind of like
40:56
you're, I think the reason why I like you so much and I have such
41:00
a respect for you is because you stay grounded.
41:03
You stay very. Here's where I am here.
41:06
You know, you don't get pompous. You don't, you know, think you
41:10
don't walk around like you're the best out there and everybody
41:13
move out of my way. Here's my red carpet bitches.
41:15
You know, like and I know I still.
41:19
Very well. Remember when it felt like being
41:21
new? Just always.
41:23
Try to keep that. With me and and that's again.
41:26
Why I think? Again, you just stand out to.
41:29
Everyone is because you're really great at what you do and
41:32
you just do with your work. You show with your work.
41:34
You don't just tell people you're great.
41:36
You show it with your work and let your work speak for itself.
41:39
And that goes a lot further with people than saying, oh, you
41:43
know, I'm, you know, it's such a great photographer and, you
41:45
know, here's my work. And it's like, OK, so.
41:50
How do we measure that? Right.
41:51
You know, you're telling me you're that so, but I don't
41:56
know, I saw or I've seen like other photos that are just, you
41:59
know, a little bit better. But but again, you just you just
42:02
show up and you do what you do. And that's, I think again,
42:05
that's why you stand out so much.
42:06
So I'm really excited once I know the date for that media
42:10
roundtable where again, for anyone listening, I'm hoping to
42:12
have a media roundtable where the whole show will be like a
42:15
media roundtable. We're also going to do an
42:17
owner's roundtable, owners promoters roundtable, and then
42:21
driver once the rules start coming out, some driver round
42:24
tables where we kind of talk about different things.
42:26
And so I'll have you back on for that one once I get everyone
42:29
lined up. That way we can just talk all
42:31
about the different perspectives and even like, well, what's the
42:34
best camera out there? What's the best way to flash?
42:36
Or, you know, I'm a Canon girly, so.
42:39
Yeah. So I'm I.
42:40
Like my Canon camera, like I, I've seen some others like
42:43
Sony's, I'm like, oh, that's super fancy.
42:45
And then I look at the price of like it's fancy.
42:48
Yeah. Canon's.
42:50
Fancy, but some of those Sony's are really fancy and I'm.
42:54
Like I'm good with what I have. It was already enough.
42:57
But but you know, how do you flash at night?
43:00
How do you like? How do you get those shots with,
43:02
you know, poor track lighting or super bright track lighting?
43:06
And and some of that you've gotten this year.
43:07
You go to new Paris and you're like, wow, Chris, thank you for
43:10
putting in all those bright lights and you might go other
43:12
places like I can't see anything.
43:15
Yes, I've. Definitely had that.
43:18
But again, so we'll have you. On here in a few weeks once the
43:20
offseason settles down for everyone.
43:23
But of course with fast lane images.
43:24
You can find it on Facebook. Is there anywhere, anywhere else
43:27
that they can find your photos or a website or anywhere they
43:30
can connect with you? I don't have a website.
43:33
Yet so mainly it's just my fat my Facebook fast lane images.
43:37
OK, so. Again, and I know you'll have a
43:39
bunch of photos up from awash, so if they're not up yet,
43:41
they'll be up over the next couple days.
43:44
But again, follow Chelsea on Facebook.
43:47
And again, Chelsea, thank you so much for taking time out of your
43:49
Monday to finally join the Monday night rewind.
43:53
Thank you so much for having. Me.
43:54
It's been great talking with you.
43:56
Bye. Yeah, we'll see you later.
43:58
So again we have been talking with Chelsea Landis from Fast
44:00
Lane Images. I highly encourage you to follow
44:03
her on Facebook. She has provided me with some
44:07
photos for my cover photos at times and even cover photos for
44:10
some of the retro graphics and so again I appreciate her.
44:14
Now we're at a little bit of a pause in the show because Todd
44:17
Metz Junior will be joining on a little bit later.
44:18
He coaches with his son and so he's going to be coming on a
44:22
little bit. If you're wondering if you're
44:24
joining and wondering where is Boujou?
44:26
Boujou is not feeling well. So he's at home taking care of
44:29
himself. He even had to pause his own
44:32
podcast that he posts on Sunday because of that.
44:35
So again, we'll have Todd Metz Junior on here in a little bit.
44:40
What I, I do want to preview again is that we're, I'm
44:43
starting to get some of those champions scheduled.
44:45
So we had, of course, Bree Brady on a previous episode where she
44:49
got to talk with us. Jerry will be joining from
44:53
Kalamazoo, who just that was an impressive race last night from
44:59
Jerry. Like the like I said, Jerry, Oh
45:01
damn, how fast was he? Because he was also the fast
45:03
qualifier. But I thought with the number of
45:05
super late models, usually the rear wheel drive race at
45:08
Kalamazoo, right, Those super late models get upfront and
45:11
they're usually gone. But Jerry's limited layout, I
45:14
mean, once he shot out of the cannon, I'm like from the top up
45:18
watching the top. But one thing I do want to talk
45:20
about too. I didn't babysit the comment
45:22
section on last night. I kept getting the
45:27
notifications, obviously the video of the weekend.
45:31
I thought Matthew LC Junior and Matt LC, man, you know their
45:37
drag race. If you didn't get to watch the
45:39
little clip that I posted of their drag race, just wait until
45:42
you see all of it. They put on a side by side race
45:46
that was just awesome. And I thought for Christina
45:51
Rance, Matt's obviously Matthew LC Junior's mother man Christina
45:59
put on. Just an incredible race from
46:02
where she. Came from I, I will be honest,
46:05
internally I was rooting for her.
46:06
You know, the Adams, they're fantastic Raiders racers.
46:10
They do what they do. They go and win a lot.
46:12
But to see what, you know, Christina, who doesn't get to
46:15
get in a car as often, you know, this year especially, she hasn't
46:18
been in the car as much. To see her race and to do that,
46:22
I, I'm just going to be honest. It's one of those sad.
46:25
I'm like, I was rooting for her at that point because she'd come
46:27
from like middle of the pack and she just kind of one by one just
46:29
kept moving up, kept moving up, kept moving up.
46:32
And it's like, man, you know, she's out there doing the damn
46:34
thing. And and so I really thought, you
46:38
know, Keith got a really great jump and that gave the Addams
46:41
family, Doug and Keith the sweep, the Super shoe sweep that
46:45
they both won and so exciting for them.
46:47
But that's where I'm kind of like I and I feel for for
46:50
Christina because she just put together such an amazing race.
46:53
But but again, congratulations to all the Super shoe winners.
46:58
I but that that buddy had and Nick Pressler race out of all
47:02
the videos posted over the weekend, obviously that one was
47:04
the most super popular one and. I feel bad for the other.
47:10
Drivers who are in that race, because I'm just going to be
47:12
honest with you, they didn't really get TV time except for
47:15
like the start of the race. But once Nick and Buddy started
47:18
going side by side and doing all the things, I'm just going to be
47:22
honest with everybody, I stayed on them the whole time because
47:24
that's, that was a great battle. What I I don't mind when people
47:29
go into the comments section and critique or whatever, right?
47:35
I know not, you're not going to be fans of everybody and I
47:37
totally understand that. And obviously, you know, the
47:40
presslers and you know, you got gauge hairs in that group.
47:43
You know, obviously they are like lightning bolts and they
47:46
bring a lot of reactions one way or the other.
47:49
You know, the heads bring reactions one way or another.
47:51
There's names that do that. You know, the bulls bring
47:54
reactions one way or another. But you know, I think the one
47:58
thing that I wish a lot of people would have done, and
48:01
there's obviously way more to that drag race.
48:04
I at Kalamazoo, I'm only allowed to post certain things like I'm
48:07
not at Kalamazoo. I'm not allowed to post any
48:09
cautions or red flags during the day, like if that race is going.
48:13
So obviously after the event and when I got home is when Ralph
48:17
himself, Ralph Wine, the driver of the 25, one of that posted
48:21
because he hadn't seen it, he lived it, but he didn't get to
48:23
see it. And so because I guess, you
48:26
know, when you're scratching along the, the surface of the
48:29
track, you're probably not watching that happen and what it
48:32
looks like from the outside of the car because you're living
48:34
it. And so he, you know, he's like,
48:37
post it, put it out there. You know, I want to see it.
48:40
And so, you know, I put that out there, but at Kalamazoo, I'm not
48:43
allowed to post any caution of any sort of type on a race day
48:48
or red flags. And so that's why you don't see
48:50
that anymore at Kalamazoo. That's their rule.
48:52
And I respect that rule. Like I have to, if I want to be
48:54
there, I have to follow the rule.
48:56
And you know, but that's something that, you know, with
49:00
Buddy and Nick and their race, what I just wish that we would
49:04
have pulled from that and. If I could have showed more
49:08
laps. We would have seen more, but
49:11
it's like that was an incredible drag race for lap after lap
49:13
after lap and that there's just so many.
49:16
Vile comments. That I'm still probably going to
49:18
go back through and and hide or delete some of them because it's
49:21
like, you know, you can get on there and say I'm not a Nick
49:24
Pressler fan and I think he bumped him or buddy had did
49:27
whatever right. I will take credit for the line
49:31
that Joel said about at least Buddy had didn't run to the
49:34
parking lot and hide himself in a car.
49:35
I did feed that line to Joel. I popped myself when he said it
49:39
over the PA system. So I I got AI got a screenshot
49:44
from someone who said someone must have give Lewis a mic.
49:47
I didn't get the mic. I just by the guy who has the
49:50
microphone. So so, you know, I thought
49:53
buddy, you know, handled it in a way where it could have went
49:56
bad, but they didn't allow it to.
49:59
You know, Nick obviously didn't react any more than what he
50:01
needed to, but it's like, that's a great race.
50:03
I just wish people would have seen like for seven late models
50:06
because I don't know where the rest of them were.
50:08
But for seven late models, you probably look at that race, they
50:10
cut the laps, right. You look at the race, you're
50:12
like, OK, what's this going to be?
50:14
Is it just going to be turn left and turn left and turn left for
50:17
30 laps? Nick and Buddy put on a race
50:21
that better than what we probably deserve for seven cars
50:25
and a race. So that's why I just kind of
50:28
wish people take out of instead of going to the vile attacks and
50:31
and creepy comments. Some of them.
50:34
Are just downright creepy where once I got a chance to catch up
50:38
on some of the comments, I kind of stepped back and I went, OK,
50:40
don't just hide and delete. Let's see where it goes because
50:44
I know the Facebook ruled after 24 hours, everyone's going to
50:47
move on with their lives and forget it all about yesterday.
50:49
So I'm like, you know, by 24 hours nobody's going to be
50:52
commenting on it and keeping it going.
50:54
But obviously there was a big storm to start there for a
50:57
while. And it's like that's why I get
50:59
disappointed in are the just the attacks.
51:01
Like I don't I as I said in the one comment to someone, I wasn't
51:05
a Nick Pressler fan sitting at South Bend.
51:08
You know, any time Nick Presser's on the track, I'm
51:10
like, I hope he spends, you know, if he hits the wall, I
51:13
don't want him injured, but if he hit the wall, it wouldn't
51:15
break my heart, right, Like, whatever, I didn't want him to
51:17
win a race. I wanted same thing with Rich
51:19
Bowl. I was not a rich bowl fan.
51:21
I'm like if he doesn't fish, race, whatever it.
51:23
Doesn't impact me. I don't.
51:24
Want him to win anyways. But what I wish a lot of fans
51:28
got a chance to do and what they I wish they would do more of and
51:32
I wish and I don't know how to do it.
51:34
You know how tracks and fans can work together on this to maybe
51:37
get more time with drivers, You know, because after races, most
51:41
drivers leave at a lot of tracks and so you don't get a chance to
51:43
talk with them. Like, not to sound like a good
51:45
old day guy, but a good old days where you can walk the pits and
51:47
drivers are still there for 30-40 minutes after a race.
51:49
Now they're packed up and leaving while the races are
51:51
still going. But you know, I wasn't a Rich
51:54
Bowl fan. I was definitely not a Nick
51:56
Pressler fan. I wasn't a Gauge Harris fan.
51:58
He's part of that group. Anytime 32X came out, I went.
52:02
But on this side. Of media.
52:05
On this side of getting to walk the pit area, getting to talk
52:09
with drivers, getting to learn about them, getting to learn
52:11
about their story. I have a deep respect for a Rich
52:15
bowl and Rich will be the first one to tell you to him and I
52:18
have not always seen eye to eye, but he has that respect too, and
52:21
I look forward to any time that I see him.
52:24
Obviously we had Haley on and and and the things credible
52:27
things Haley did this year, right, You know, like they're an
52:30
incredible people. And so that's the that's the
52:33
thing that I sometimes wish fans would just have a chance.
52:38
More to. Talk with drivers and really get
52:40
to know them and get to another story.
52:42
Get to know like how they got into racing.
52:44
So you know, that's where I have a respect for Nick Pressler and
52:48
Corey and going over and talking with Gage Harrison, getting to
52:51
know them, actually having a conversation with them, not
52:54
letting my prejudice that I had sitting in the stands impact how
52:58
I treat them as media, right? And there's definitely drivers
53:02
who don't treat me well, but I will always treat them with
53:05
respect. If they win a race, they will
53:07
get the same treatment as then any other winner.
53:11
They will still get the same post even if they've treated me
53:14
like crap. Because at the end of the day
53:16
you have to set some things aside and racing is bigger than
53:18
top row. Top row is just a part of the
53:21
racing community. Racing is bigger than me races,
53:25
races is bigger than top row. But just seeing some of those
53:29
comments, I'm like, This is why people fall out of love with
53:34
racing, right? This is why people get out of it
53:37
is the mental health aspect, right?
53:39
You know, you're a driver, you're spending 10s, twenties,
53:42
30s, forty thousands of dollars to go race every single weekend
53:45
to make 500 bucks, maybe 10 bucks maybe, you know, 20 bucks
53:48
maybe. And then just to go on Facebook
53:50
and just which comes with the sport.
53:53
But then you just have to sit there and read comments over and
53:55
over again about people attacking you.
53:57
Like sometimes it's not worth. It and.
54:00
So I try not to be the censor police, but when I see attacks,
54:05
I'm not going to deal with it. I'm going to block you or I'm
54:07
going to hide the comment where only your friends will be able
54:09
to see it and you'll think it's still there, but only a very
54:12
limited people are seeing it and not the mass people who you want
54:15
to see it as. I tell people all the time, I
54:19
have many followers. Me blocking 1 is not going to
54:22
hurt me any. So and if it's someone who's
54:25
like, well, I got 20 people who unfollow you.
54:27
OK, unfollow you'll be back in a week and they always come back
54:33
so or they definitely watch the videos even if they don't
54:35
follow, they still comment and so I'm like you're back.
54:37
I thought you were done with my page.
54:39
So it's just one of one of those things that when the.
54:44
YouTube videos out which would. Probably be Wednesday ish.
54:49
Watch that whole. Race and just.
54:50
Appreciate it for what 2 late models out of seven dead?
54:54
Like they went out and they put on a show and a race that
54:59
probably didn't deserve that show with the number of cars
55:01
that were in a talent talent all up and down that lineup, great
55:06
drivers. It's nothing against those
55:07
drivers, but with, you know the drill, 7 cars sometimes can be a
55:11
snooze fest where all right, they're all spread out and
55:14
you're just sitting there doing this with your head.
55:17
All right, return left. Let's get this over.
55:19
Is it over yet? And it's just green, white
55:22
checker, which is cool. Sometimes 7 cars might crash all
55:25
the time. I've seen that too, but like,
55:27
right, boring get it over with bathroom break time.
55:30
And if you went to the bathroom during that race, you you missed
55:33
a heck of a race. So why don't we give those
55:34
drivers credit, buddy and Nick for putting on the drag race?
55:38
You know, there's contact. I've seen people in their
55:40
comments. I'm like there's contact
55:42
multiple times coming out of four.
55:43
You know, there they were equal opportunity and if they deny
55:48
that, then they're both lying. So and I don't think they will.
55:52
I think they know what happened and it's on video.
55:55
I mean, again, I was on them for probably 29 out of 30 laps.
55:59
And so you're not going to miss much.
56:01
And but it's like I walked away from that.
56:04
I had low expectations for that feature.
56:06
I didn't put a in car camera in that feature.
56:09
Someone asked and I went, I'm not putting a in car camera in a
56:11
feature with seven cars. I'm going to quite a few more
56:15
over in the V8 a feature so where there's going to be a full
56:20
field of cars and so. Which kind of sucks because the
56:26
one car that would have. A camera would have even better
56:28
view of everything going on, too.
56:29
But it's like I walked away from that feature going man, Matthew
56:33
Elsie, Junior, Matt Elsie, They put on a race, but you know.
56:38
Nick and Buddy basically said. Hold our beers and they went out
56:41
and put a great feature. So so I hope that's what people
56:45
take from that and appreciate that.
56:46
So again, Tom Metz junior will be on here shortly.
56:52
Like I said, he coaches and so he doesn't.
56:54
He didn't get back until late. I do want to go over some
56:58
things, but I thought watching the comment section and I just I
57:01
was sitting with Penny Schaefer after the races and we were
57:04
talking and I kept looking at my phone and watch and I'm like,
57:07
oh, I don't want to babysit the comment section.
57:10
I just did not have the energy or anything my body.
57:14
Some people know that I got injured at my previous job in
57:18
the in the classroom. I got injured and put in the ER.
57:21
And since that since February 20th, 2025, since that injury,
57:25
I've had back issues. And so when it gets cold like it
57:27
did over the weekend, my back was very, very sore.
57:32
And by the time all the addendum rolled, you know, wore off that
57:36
pushed me through the weekend and running around the pit area
57:38
mounting all the cameras. Again, I apologize to those on
57:42
Saturday, I didn't get a chance to get all of them.
57:44
If I would have had 10 minutes, I would have gotten them.
57:46
I was really hoping with the line UPS being about 15 minutes
57:50
posted later than what they were last year where I had plenty of
57:53
time to get 20 cameras out this year, you know, with a 5 minute
57:58
warning to get out of the pit area or you're everybody's going
58:01
to be trapped and then feel like I don't have time, you know, so,
58:06
so I didn't get all 20 out. So I apologize to a couple
58:09
drivers who didn't get a camera that you know, it is what it is.
58:12
The I can't control that aspect and and I don't fault anybody in
58:17
the tower. You know, that's a lot of names
58:19
to move over and the system was acting up.
58:21
So it's not their fault either. They look, I can't be mad at
58:24
anybody. It is what it is.
58:25
I just hope drivers understand sometimes things are out of our
58:27
control and but if they'd said, hey, you know, lineups were
58:31
posted late. So instead of starting at six O
58:33
clock and running the shindig, we're going to, you know, push
58:35
it back, you know, 10 minutes just to give everyone a little
58:38
bit more time knowing that the lineups literally were posted
58:41
before the five minute warning of hey, we're going to we're
58:43
about to start this thing to the front stretch.
58:45
And so 10 minutes I would have got every camera mounted.
58:49
That's all I needed was 10 minutes, but show must roll on.
58:52
So I had to do what I got had to do, but I forgot how I got.
58:57
Over here in that but. Oh, talking with Penny Schaefer.
59:03
So I kept looking at and I'm like, I don't want to babysit,
59:05
just tiring, right? So but obviously with running
59:08
around doing all the cameras, all the things, my body just got
59:10
to a point from that injury. It impacts me around this time
59:13
of year and all winter where I'm like a man.
59:16
I just I got to push through because no one else is doing
59:18
this for me. So I have to and but got it
59:22
done. But again, I want to see it's
59:25
Monday. I'm now editing.
59:26
Someone take a guess. So Sabrina BB, why don't we all?
59:29
If anyone wants to throw a guess, I'm going to guess it's
59:31
5000 photos, at least 5000. But if that includes the
59:36
wedding, Sabrina was at a wedding on Saturday and then
59:39
came and did super Shoes. So she was up early, went and
59:41
did thousands of photos at a wedding and then came to super
59:44
shoe and did thousands of photos.
59:45
So I'm going to shout out while we're at it and waiting for Todd
59:49
to come out about 8:10. Want to give a shout out again
59:53
to Sabrina and Peter. If it weren't for Sabrina,
59:56
Sabrina and Peter, the onboard camera program, wouldn't it be
59:59
where it is at Kalamazoo? They, you know, Peter can, you
1:00:03
know, takes care of the top part for us and Sabrina takes care of
1:00:06
the the bottom infield and turning on the camera.
1:00:09
She mounted a couple cameras on Sunday to help swap over.
1:00:13
Without them, it wouldn't be where it is.
1:00:14
And so I definitely, you know, appreciate Sabrina and what she
1:00:18
does. I know you know, sometimes it's
1:00:21
you know, it's easy to like miss a camera.
1:00:24
She gets caught up somewhere and sometimes people have been mad.
1:00:26
I'm like, dude, she's taking photos too.
1:00:28
Like, you know, we need to give grace because Serena handles so
1:00:31
much at one time. So if you haven't gone over and
1:00:35
bought photos from her or seen her photos, I know she her
1:00:37
digital price is the same, but she lowered her price on prints.
1:00:41
Head on over to her pics Pixie website.
1:00:46
It is linked on top row where you can find it.
1:00:50
You know, we'll go over there and see what she has once that
1:00:52
comes out, support her because again, it wouldn't be what it
1:00:56
is. And she's going to be down at
1:00:58
Bahama Brackets with me at Grundy.
1:01:00
So we'll be able to do onboard cameras there.
1:01:02
Like I said, Grundy sign up will be coming out on Wednesday and
1:01:05
Grundy is asking for 10 cameras to kind of be reserved for
1:01:09
Grundy to pick drivers with rewards and different things
1:01:12
that they're they want to reward a driver with having an onboard
1:01:14
camera from top row. And so I appreciate the promoter
1:01:18
Steve for doing that and Brian Kuseva for helping to get that
1:01:21
set up. It was Steve's idea to do that.
1:01:23
And he messaged me saying, Hey, we would like to do this over at
1:01:25
Grundy. And I'm like, absolutely, let's
1:01:27
make that happen. So, so Sabrina will be down at
1:01:31
Grundy if and if she wasn't, I want to be able to do the
1:01:33
onboards at Grundy. So definitely, you know, I'm so
1:01:37
thankful for her and and what she's done.
1:01:39
I want to give a shout out to to Tina Lewis who definitely
1:01:42
deserves a happy Monday after Super Shoe.
1:01:46
If you want to talk about someone who busts their butt
1:01:47
around, you know, the area tracks between running the tower
1:01:52
basically at Galesburg or scoring system, I should say at
1:01:54
Galesburg, doing it at in the tower at Kalamazoo and having
1:02:00
all that. Of course, you know she has Kim
1:02:02
BB with her two up there and they manage that.
1:02:05
You know, there's a lot that falls on Tina's shoulders to
1:02:07
keep that program going and moving and keeping timing
1:02:10
scoring going and moving. And I know people get frustrated
1:02:13
when timing goes down or where things go down, but I'm just
1:02:16
going to tell you my race pass sometimes it's so easy for a lot
1:02:20
of things. You know, like I was telling
1:02:22
Sabrina, when we're at Grundy County, we need 4 different
1:02:25
programs to do what we do with one program on Friday nights at
1:02:28
Kalamazoo. And that's frustrating from a
1:02:32
organizational standpoint, but it's also like it is what it is
1:02:35
and it works for them. So we got to adjust, right?
1:02:38
But that's where my race pass sometimes doesn't connect with
1:02:41
my laps or orbits or whatever timing and scoring W hold that
1:02:46
tracks used. And so my race pass can be super
1:02:49
frustrating. It goes down quite a bit
1:02:52
nationally. It's not just Kalamazoo.
1:02:54
There are other tracks are having issues at the same time
1:02:56
Kalamazoo is having it. So it's more of a my race pass
1:02:59
thing too. And that happens, you know, we
1:03:02
just got to roll with it. I know I, or at least I, I heard
1:03:06
through the Grapevine, I don't know they can confirm, but I
1:03:08
think they're doing some hand scoring at times and that's
1:03:10
nobody likes to do that, right? So that's so old school.
1:03:13
But Tina also helped with the campground stuff and, and taking
1:03:17
orders and reservations for that.
1:03:19
So huge shout out to Tina Lewis and everything that she did to
1:03:22
help on that camping side of things and long hours doing all
1:03:26
that. So definitely, you know, she
1:03:28
deserves a huge shout out for what she did over this weekend
1:03:32
to do that. I want to get on JD.
1:03:36
So you know J DS on here, Dick and you know Dixon from he raced
1:03:42
Jeff fibs old mini stock this past weekend.
1:03:45
The green. This is 72.
1:03:48
JDI can't remember the number right now, but or yeah, I think
1:03:52
it was 72. But he's also raised St. stocks.
1:03:55
But if you've not seen seen JD on the flag stand or if you've
1:03:59
not seen JD on the mic or heard I'm on the mic, he got to
1:04:04
announce the rear wheel drive C feature at Kalamazoo on Saturday
1:04:08
and he did an incredible job as I told him.
1:04:11
That's not surprising to me that he did an incredible job because
1:04:14
he's announced at South Bend, The Gambler, He's announced at
1:04:17
other tracks and it's so awesome to hear him.
1:04:20
He's a ball of energy. I've seen him paste in and move
1:04:24
in while announcing and doing that and you're just like, you
1:04:27
know, when you then see him in the flag sense, like what how he
1:04:29
doesn't flags and he's kind of contained.
1:04:30
He can't move around and jump around and do all the things,
1:04:33
but he's flagged at new Paris. I think he's flagged at South
1:04:36
Bend a couple times. So 78.
1:04:38
Thank you, Sabrina, but and JD too.
1:04:42
But you know, if you've not seen JD flag erase or heard him on
1:04:46
the mic, you're missing out. He's definitely a voice that
1:04:52
it's natural. You can't just coach that.
1:04:54
Obviously you can get pointers, but you know, when you're
1:04:57
announcing out of track, that just has to be that just kind of
1:05:00
has to come natural to to do that.
1:05:03
And and JD is definitely in someone who's natural on the
1:05:05
mic. So I'm going to give him a shout
1:05:07
out since I saw he got on because he did an awesome job on
1:05:10
the mic himself. And so I'm kind of checking the
1:05:13
other comments here just to make sure I didn't miss anything
1:05:15
else. Crashers I don't.
1:05:26
I don't remember what I said at that moment in time.
1:05:29
So, Donald, if you want to remind me what I said, I don't
1:05:34
even remember all of yesterday's conversations, just to be quite
1:05:36
honest with you. I know Penny and I talked and I
1:05:40
was tired and I'm like, if I sit on this couch any longer, I'm
1:05:44
going to fall asleep here. And I don't think they want to
1:05:45
Take Me Home as like a pet. And but let's shout out while
1:05:50
we're talking about Penny Schaefer, Obviously Penny and
1:05:52
Joe Schaefer KTSKTS had a three man crew this weekend and they
1:05:56
busted their tails. I, you know, this, this super
1:06:00
shoe, you know, they did a lot of work.
1:06:04
I sometimes I feel like they did a little bit more work at this
1:06:07
super shoe than they have in the past or a lot of cars that got
1:06:09
torn up and torn up really good. And three man crew.
1:06:13
They did what they could with the with the resources they had.
1:06:17
But I want to shout out KTSI know Joe doesn't always like
1:06:20
when I say this, but they are definitely one of the best
1:06:23
safety teams and the in the nation undeniably.
1:06:27
I hope when they travel with Reveal the Hammer and they
1:06:30
travel with 500 Sprint Car Tour to other race tracks at those
1:06:32
race track owners and promoters appreciate the KTS team when
1:06:37
they come on their property. You know when KTS is there,
1:06:39
they're not there to take over for the safety teams that are at
1:06:42
those tracks. But I'm just going to be honest,
1:06:43
there are a lot of safety teams even in this area that could
1:06:45
probably learn a lot of things from KTS.
1:06:47
And that's not a knock on those safety teams.
1:06:49
They do good for what they have and the resources they have.
1:06:52
But when you go to Kalamazoo and you watch KTS operating and go
1:06:55
to other tracks and watch their safety teams operates, it's not
1:06:57
even in the same ballpark. That doesn't mean they're not
1:07:00
talented, that they just don't have all the equipment that KTS
1:07:03
does, in fairness. But sometimes the skill set is
1:07:06
just not at the same level. It passes for what it needs to.
1:07:10
But, you know, I just hope that when KTS does come around that
1:07:14
those owners or promoters see it as an opportunity for their
1:07:18
people to learn from a team that's been documented
1:07:22
nationally and magazines and publications, a team that trains
1:07:25
NASCAR of safety team officials. If you don't know that KTS goes
1:07:31
and does that. And they actually, we're going
1:07:32
to have KTS on here in a few weeks because they're going down
1:07:34
to Vegas to work with some NASCAR officials and train their
1:07:37
people and also work with some different groups and also be a
1:07:40
part of the show and part of those safety teams.
1:07:43
And they'll be at Springport this weekend.
1:07:45
I know that's probably a big lift off of Donnie's shoulders
1:07:47
to have KTS. You know, they had a good team
1:07:50
at Springport. But Donnie would be the same one
1:07:53
to tell you too, that, you know, there's just they had the
1:07:55
equipment that they had. Sometimes they couldn't do like
1:07:57
what a KTS could do, but you know, Ronnie, BB, Mark Mcguffey,
1:08:01
all of them, they did incredible job on that team.
1:08:03
That's they are definitely super talented.
1:08:05
It was great to see them at Kalamazoo when they could be
1:08:08
there. But again, I just shout out to
1:08:12
KTS. So I hope when they go to other
1:08:14
tracks that people appreciate that and don't see it as a
1:08:16
threat to their team or whatever cuz that's not what KTS is there
1:08:19
for. I was excited to see them at New
1:08:22
Paris and, and, and get to see what they could do at new Paris.
1:08:26
And anytime I see KTSI just know we're in good hands.
1:08:31
And so I think that's the thing to take that from is, you know,
1:08:34
there's a they, but they love learning too.
1:08:36
And then when they work with other teams, they learn stuff
1:08:38
from other teams. So they definitely don't go in
1:08:40
thinking they know it all. They're down to earth people.
1:08:42
So if you haven't had a chance to talk with KTS, talk with
1:08:45
them, learn from them, learn about them because they're
1:08:48
amazing people too. And then I want to check out the
1:08:51
comments about Todd's getting set up and relaxed and I got the
1:08:56
thumbs up from him. So OK, I'll be bring him on a
1:08:58
second. Oh, definitely.
1:09:01
You're welcome, Tina. You're welcome, JD.
1:09:04
And let's see this one. Thanks for being there, Anthony.
1:09:10
Anthony rant. Congratulations on your win
1:09:12
again over at Kalamazoo on Saturday and got Tony on here.
1:09:17
Tony, by the way, and I know Todd, you can hear me.
1:09:20
I I know I haven't brought you on yet, but if you haven't gone
1:09:22
by the loop area for super shoe, Tony was telling me everything
1:09:27
they had in their pit area or their camp area.
1:09:30
And I'm like, it's like a freaking buffet over there.
1:09:32
And I never did make it back that night, but I'm like, which
1:09:37
I'm kicking myself. I should have made it that way.
1:09:38
But you know, again, I just appreciate the Luke family,
1:09:41
Tony, you know, and their kindness that they have.
1:09:45
And I also, I don't want to forget it's in the car.
1:09:48
I was supposed to wear it, but it's cold outside.
1:09:51
But Bailey Powells, I want to thank his family.
1:09:53
At the end of the show yesterday, I was talking with
1:09:56
Johnny Russell. Crashers was there.
1:09:59
Don Porter was there. We're all talking.
1:10:01
And they came down and gave a T-shirt and they said, you know,
1:10:05
we just wanted to get this for you because you've been such a
1:10:07
huge supporter for Bailey. And I thought that was pretty
1:10:10
awesome. I did.
1:10:11
I don't ever expect anything from anybody.
1:10:14
And you know, they brought me that T-shirt and you know, Van
1:10:17
Avery said that a few weeks ago at the Van Avery Memorial, they
1:10:20
just brought over a shirt they had.
1:10:22
Jesse reached out and said, hey, what's your shirt size?
1:10:25
And I'm like, oh, you don't need to get me anything.
1:10:26
I'm there to be there. Unfortunately it rained and I
1:10:28
already committed to Grundy the next day, but things like that
1:10:33
I'm like, I don't expect anything.
1:10:34
I just show up and do what I do and hope it's good for everybody
1:10:36
and that they're getting what they expect and deserve.
1:10:39
I always like to say what they deserve out of my coverage and
1:10:42
so that but that was pretty awesome.
1:10:44
So you will see me wearing it at New Paris on.
1:10:47
I'm always a brand guy. Although I am wearing their
1:10:49
night instructions since I'm not at New Paris this weekend, I'm
1:10:51
wearing their sweatshirt, but I'll be wearing the Bailey
1:10:55
Powell shirt at New Paris. It's going to be one of the few
1:10:57
times at racetrack that I'm not going to have a top row shirt
1:10:59
on, but I felt like that's pretty awesome for them.
1:11:02
So to do that, I again, thankful to them.
1:11:05
I want to make sure before I bring on Todd from the ticket
1:11:07
people. Oh yeah, so from the.
1:11:10
Ticket people to the bathroom. Cleaning, you know, everyone who
1:11:12
did that and everyone cleaned up.
1:11:14
I mean the parking lot didn't look brutal.
1:11:16
I don't I didn't see all of it. Maybe there's spots that I
1:11:19
missed, but but it looked pretty decent even going through the
1:11:24
pit area. And then Tina, I'm going to
1:11:28
ignore that comment. I don't need any thank you.
1:11:30
I just go and do what I supposed to do and hope that it meets
1:11:33
everyone's expectations and what they deserve.
1:11:37
Again, I'll be at Springport this week and I'm excited for
1:11:39
that. But someone who I know is race
1:11:41
at Springport, some who's sage their car before race at
1:11:44
Kalamazoo, although it didn't go as well, definitely reminded us
1:11:48
that the bird is the word. So why don't we bring on Front
1:11:52
wheel discussion founder, owner Big Kahuna, who's also hosted
1:12:00
his show Right Fresh in Virginia for the short track Nationals in
1:12:07
Tennessee, got to host it over in Virginia there.
1:12:10
Let's go ahead and let's bring on Todd Metz Junior again.
1:12:15
Todd, welcome to the Monday night Rewind.
1:12:17
I know usually I was in the comments section of your front
1:12:20
row discussion shows. And so now you get to be on the
1:12:24
rewind. So I'm excited for that.
1:12:28
Yeah, I get. Well, you get to flip.
1:12:29
It on me usually I'm the one asking questions and and tonight
1:12:31
I get to I get to answer stuff. So I'm also usually a brand guy,
1:12:37
you know, I usually wear my stuff.
1:12:38
And yeah, things went hectic, but you were talking.
1:12:40
Race shirts. And stuff.
1:12:41
So I I've got the 23 Bahama brackets shirt on the last one
1:12:45
from Rockford. So yeah, I thought I would, I
1:12:47
would, I wore, I wore it for soccer coaching.
1:12:49
And so I wear I wear the time slot we are tonight.
1:12:52
So yeah, I thought, I thought I'd show that off so well.
1:12:55
And I and I don't know if anyone from.
1:12:57
Grundy's watching tonight. Obviously last week we did a
1:13:01
super show. You know, I don't think any of
1:13:03
us planned a three hour show to talk about brackets 'cause we
1:13:06
usually try to keep it to two hours and maybe a little
1:13:08
overage. But as we were going, I'm like,
1:13:12
oh, but I'm like, oh, but most people who are watching are in
1:13:14
Illinois. So it's actually still, you
1:13:17
know, like, yeah, well, plus daylight savings time it.
1:13:19
Just it all adds up and subtracts it works so but you
1:13:23
know we. Had a super show we.
1:13:24
Had incredible guest last week talk about Bahama brackets.
1:13:27
So I and and Steve, their promoter messaged me saying hey,
1:13:31
we appreciate all this and I'm like, you know, it's worth it in
1:13:33
the end because you know, we have about 10 I think we're up
1:13:37
to 10 or 11 drivers from this area who are committing to go
1:13:41
down to the brackets. It's like and a lot of that has
1:13:44
happened since I went there Labor Day weekend.
1:13:46
I think that's AC Grundy and it's like now it's in the
1:13:49
ecosystem now people are like, oh, I know what Grundy is now
1:13:52
like I maybe heard of it or heard it in a song Grundy
1:13:54
county, you know, down in Grundy county.
1:13:56
But it's an awesome track so I'm excited to get there for the
1:14:00
brackets. So that's pretty cool.
1:14:01
I wouldn't know. I honestly I.
1:14:03
Wouldn't know because this one was.
1:14:04
This was the last one from Rockford.
1:14:06
I wanted to go. This was the last event they
1:14:08
had. You know, they, that track isn't
1:14:09
more, it doesn't exist. And so my brother-in-law, you
1:14:12
know, John Culp, goes to the brackets.
1:14:14
He started going years ago. And you know, we went, I went to
1:14:17
the last one to Rockford. It didn't matter because I blew
1:14:19
up in the second practice. I drove all the way over there
1:14:21
for nothing. But I was there.
1:14:23
I got the T-shirt, so it counts. But yeah, I've never actually,
1:14:26
I've never seen Grundy. So it's on the list.
1:14:29
You know, it's kind of the whole the last couple years it just
1:14:31
didn't work out. You know, the whole tearing the
1:14:34
car up pretty bad at the Super shoot last year and making good
1:14:37
making good content for a few people.
1:14:41
Well, that the so when? Crandall had his.
1:14:45
Chest seat on right and he was down there, had it turned on.
1:14:49
I think people enjoyed more the bleeps, the like the the I've.
1:14:53
I've explained that to a few people.
1:14:55
I, I've explained that to a few people.
1:14:57
I, I we'll try to keep the bleeps in here too.
1:15:00
But I, I've tried to explain to a few people that it's like,
1:15:02
yeah, like if you watch that video, like you can see from
1:15:04
safety crew guy, you'll hear my voice, you'll hear other.
1:15:07
And then you'll just hear silence.
1:15:09
And then you'll hear me and then you'll silence.
1:15:10
And I'm like, pretty much every silence was me was me using a
1:15:14
word that that's banned on most public television.
1:15:18
And it was, it was, yeah, I'm, I'm, you know, this is my 19th
1:15:23
season in racing. And that was, that was the first
1:15:26
time I've expressed that much displeasure with the driver
1:15:28
immediately after the fact. And, and the thing that got me
1:15:33
is, is, you know, I don't know if you've got the video of it.
1:15:35
I, I, I probably didn't advertise it too much.
1:15:37
I, I let him know through the windshield and he didn't look at
1:15:40
me. He didn't see it.
1:15:42
And, and that kind of upset me more.
1:15:43
And so I actually sat on the, the side of the car, I sat on
1:15:46
the door and I let him know again without the windshield,
1:15:49
the way I thought maybe the glass was the problem.
1:15:51
And I let him know again. And then that was the case.
1:15:54
He was like, what did I do? And, and I had to explain the
1:15:56
situation to him and eloquent words.
1:16:00
And it was, it was legitimately if most people that know me that
1:16:02
that race, like I usually try to keep a level head and a calm
1:16:06
head, that one, that one upset me because all the work, all the
1:16:09
effort and the car I was driving was cursed.
1:16:11
It was just cursed. There's no other excuse for it.
1:16:14
I owned it for four years and I never finished a feature.
1:16:18
I had hundreds and hundreds of hours into that car and it just,
1:16:21
yeah, that is deaf that day. So yeah.
1:16:24
Yeah. Well.
1:16:25
So some of the, some of the. Silence in the video you.
1:16:28
Hear is you're not on the camera, but your voice is there.
1:16:32
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That, that was what I was
1:16:35
saying. That was that was the point was
1:16:37
that you could hear the audio, you can hear the audio of me
1:16:39
saying some things that that shouldn't be said in PG
1:16:43
settings. And so, yeah, it's, it's pretty
1:16:46
rare for that to happen, but it, it, it, it did yeah.
1:16:49
There's a few skips in that video that I, I've I've
1:16:51
explained to people what happened during those brief
1:16:54
moments of of Yeah, so. Well, and I know.
1:16:58
Obviously, you kind of talked. And, and you already said, you
1:17:01
know, you've been doing, you know, racing for 19 years.
1:17:04
And obviously you got, you know, legend in your family too, with
1:17:07
Yogi and everything that he's done in racing, you know, kind
1:17:11
of peel the onion back a little bit.
1:17:13
And for those who maybe don't know Tom Matz junior or front
1:17:18
wheel discussion, if you want to get the onion back and kind of
1:17:20
go over your career. And then even how you got to
1:17:24
create your podcast that at one time when you had your podcast,
1:17:27
I thought like, man, it'd be awesome to have a podcast on top
1:17:30
row and you had built a channel with 8000 followers.
1:17:33
I'm like, man, I'm never going to get there.
1:17:34
That is, you know, ever. And oh, you're far past me now.
1:17:38
Yeah, you're far past me. I, I I've still, I've still hit
1:17:40
to yet yet to hit 10,000. Now you know, to, to kind of
1:17:43
back it up. I started racing at O 7.
1:17:45
I actually answered a Craigslist ad and I, I came out at I know,
1:17:49
yeah, yeah, Craigslist got me into racing.
1:17:53
It's, it's it's kind of wild. So I went to school for
1:17:56
automotive. I went up to Berry State.
1:17:59
I always just wanted to do car stuff.
1:18:00
Circle track was fun to watch, but I never realized how easy I
1:18:04
could get into it. Came back from college and was
1:18:06
just looking for work and answer to Craigslist Dad that was, you
1:18:10
know, paying X amount of dollars per hour to Weld race cars.
1:18:13
And so I answered that and it turned out that it was, you
1:18:17
know, Patrick McNamara, which that name, some people know it,
1:18:20
some people don't, some people like it, some people don't.
1:18:22
That's OK. I will always give Patrick
1:18:24
credit for getting me started with all of this.
1:18:27
Went to the shop and was working for him.
1:18:30
Some of his deals fell through and I ended up with a race car
1:18:32
as payment and that's I started racing in O 7 and I have raced
1:18:37
the front wheel drive ever since.
1:18:39
It's just, it's just worked for me.
1:18:42
You know, we, we started in O 7. I had a Dodge Daytona, moved to
1:18:46
a Dodge Neon. I started racing in O 7 and I
1:18:48
actually brought my dad racing in O 8.
1:18:51
Most racing families that have generational, you know, it's
1:18:55
been well, my dad did and his dad did and my uncle did and my
1:18:58
grandpa did. And I'm the opposite.
1:19:00
I started racing and then I brought my dad into it and then
1:19:02
a few years later we got my mom into it and then my sister
1:19:06
married a guy who races. And so, you know, the family
1:19:09
grew up racing, but it's just been it was easy.
1:19:13
You know, we started in the Dodge Neon, it was stock.
1:19:16
We just slowly started collecting parts and then, you
1:19:18
know, had a lot of success in that one.
1:19:20
Some championships, you know, kind of raced all over.
1:19:23
You know, we talked super shoe in 2010 was the first year that
1:19:26
they ran front wheel drive separate.
1:19:28
I started going in O 8. We raced O8O9 when it was all
1:19:32
together there was one class. There was no late models and
1:19:35
front wheel drives and blah blah blah.
1:19:36
It was all one class. So we had to weigh 2900 lbs in a
1:19:40
single Cam automatic Dodge Neon and race against the V8 guys.
1:19:46
So it was kind of crazy. But did that for a few years and
1:19:49
I actually won the 1st Super Shoot, the mini shoe they call
1:19:52
it. Then they split up front wheel
1:19:53
drives and wheel drives. I was the first winner, so I won
1:19:57
it in 2010 for for Nostalgia Stakes.
1:20:00
I, I, I like to point this out sometimes.
1:20:02
I went 1634 that first year on a Sumitomo HR200A185 Tiger so.
1:20:10
This year I almost went that fast on some Falcons in a
1:20:15
different car, so, but yeah, we had a lot of fun and I've just,
1:20:19
I've always ran for drives. I've been lucky enough to be
1:20:21
involved in some traveling series with doing the Boris
1:20:25
Compact Touring Series and with doing the National Compact
1:20:27
Touring series. And it just sort of it's all
1:20:31
I've ever really done. And so I've been able to race
1:20:33
all the way down in Florida. You know, I I LED Bristol with
1:20:37
VCTSI LED for half a lap and then had the right rear come off
1:20:41
and again made some great content for some people.
1:20:44
The pictures were pretty awesome.
1:20:47
But I've had I've just found a lot of success with these cars,
1:20:50
always have. And a few years ago, the man, I
1:20:58
apologize for this because it just escaped my brain.
1:21:01
There was a channel that that started here on Facebook that
1:21:04
was doing sort of local shows and, and that, and they were
1:21:08
partnered with the national series and they're kind of doing
1:21:11
a front wheel drive show and it dropped out.
1:21:12
I the the heads were involved with the buddy head was doing
1:21:15
it. I, it escapes me right now.
1:21:17
Somebody twist, yes, twist network.
1:21:20
So they were looking for doing some front drive stuff.
1:21:23
They, they lost the front drive stuff.
1:21:24
And I actually reached out to Larry Richardson who was helping
1:21:26
all the time. And I'm like, hey, like, I'd
1:21:27
like to be involved. You know, like there's a lot of
1:21:30
front drive stuff out there. I like to talk.
1:21:31
I'm good on camera, you know, I'd like to be involved.
1:21:34
And he said, well, we don't really have anybody doing it.
1:21:36
Do you want to do it? And I said, sure.
1:21:39
And so I started the show. I started front discussion.
1:21:42
I wanted something that, you know, the FWD front drive, blah,
1:21:45
blah, blah. So we came up with possible
1:21:46
discussion and it just sort of took off because there was
1:21:50
absolutely nobody doing anything that was front with a specific.
1:21:54
And you know, the beauty is, is that I could sit and talk to
1:21:57
somebody for an hour and just have a conversation with them.
1:22:00
And, you know, the biggest thing that we showcased was is I I
1:22:03
would talk to the big winners. You know, I'd talk to guys like
1:22:04
Kyle Stark, who'd won all across the country and all these big
1:22:08
races. We talked to Andrew Smith, who's
1:22:09
won $100,000 racing frontal drives, but I'd also talked to
1:22:13
people who'd never won a feature before.
1:22:15
You know, it, it's just anybody that that raced the front drive.
1:22:18
I wanted, you know, they had a story to tell.
1:22:20
And that was the biggest thing for me is, is everybody has a
1:22:22
story and, and, and try to talk to them, get that out.
1:22:25
But the big thing that we tried to focus on was tech.
1:22:27
We do lives and, and do that. And so, I mean, we had, I had
1:22:32
one show, it's 2 1/2 hours of I put my race car on camera and I
1:22:35
said here, what do you want to know?
1:22:37
I said, here's the spring rates, I'm running, here's what's in
1:22:39
the motor, here's the camshaft, the Pistons, rods, the, the
1:22:42
suspension. Here's my scale numbers.
1:22:43
Like I, I got accused of, I got accused multiple times of, of
1:22:46
faking that. Then I would scale the car on
1:22:48
camera and then I would reset it to something else afterwards.
1:22:51
I'm like, why would I do that? I don't care.
1:22:52
Like I, I don't care if you know what my scale numbers are like,
1:22:54
you don't have my car, you don't drive with it, It don't matter.
1:22:57
And, and it was stuff that nobody's done, nobody's ever
1:22:59
done that kind of stuff. And there's a few people who've
1:23:01
picked up the mantle now, some YouTube channels and, and some
1:23:04
stuff that are doing some really good stuff, but there's still
1:23:06
very, very little as far as right specific.
1:23:08
And I'm not going to lie, stop doing it for a little bit.
1:23:10
It's been a while, the last year, year and a half, I haven't
1:23:13
done a lot of content. Just been battling some of my
1:23:17
own personal demons and you know, fighting through some
1:23:20
stuff. Life's just kind of kicked me
1:23:21
hard. But I, I haven't been able to go
1:23:23
racing and that's it. It's really really hard to do 2
1:23:27
shows a week talking. About front.
1:23:28
Wheel drive race cars. When I'm depressed, I can't go
1:23:31
racing because I don't have a car ready and I don't have, you
1:23:35
know, my job keeps me from being able to work on the car and it
1:23:37
keeps me from being able to afford the parts for the car
1:23:39
and, and things like that. And so we, we kind of step back
1:23:42
from it. My life has changed again in the
1:23:45
last few weeks. It sounds like the wife might be
1:23:47
going back to work and I might have more free time doing part
1:23:50
time stuff. So it's not dead.
1:23:53
There might be a resurgence or threat will discussion.
1:23:56
You know, we are, I'm, I'm sitting in the studio.
1:23:57
It's, it's, you know, the, the, this, this is a studio for it.
1:24:00
It's got a couple things in it now.
1:24:02
It's not set up as much. So it's it's not dead.
1:24:05
We're still going to do it. There's still more coming.
1:24:08
I don't know when, but but it'll be, it'll be soon.
1:24:10
So, well, it's kind of interesting that you talk about.
1:24:13
Twist, you know, cause a lot of some people know about twist,
1:24:16
some people don't and I know buddy Head and I have had a lot
1:24:18
of conversations about twist where you know, he's very
1:24:23
interested in top row, maybe even taking that on and taking,
1:24:27
you know, bringing twist back and doing that.
1:24:29
And so obviously nothing's official that's you know, but
1:24:32
him and I have definitely had discussions.
1:24:35
We. Just haven't had a chance.
1:24:36
You know, we're always had a race track together.
1:24:37
We just doing our own race check things that we haven't always
1:24:40
had. You're a little busy.
1:24:42
Yeah, he's like, hey, let's sit down.
1:24:44
This weekend while he's running his booth, right, you know,
1:24:46
until 2:00 AM and, you know, I'm running around doing other stuff
1:24:50
too. And I'm like, you know, we
1:24:51
talked about it last year and then, you know, this year he
1:24:54
reminded me like, Hey, I didn't forget.
1:24:55
When are we going to sit down? And it's like, oh, because I
1:24:59
ordered loaded fries from his thing.
1:25:01
And I and he said, why don't we talk over this weekend and.
1:25:04
Then I didn't. Even get a chance to see him
1:25:06
again. I'm like, this is how it goes.
1:25:08
But you know, when we talked, I'm like, I don't even know if I
1:25:12
have the infrastructure for it. That and that was in Ohio.
1:25:14
What we talked about, it was kind of ironic.
1:25:16
That. Not ironic, but it's like we're
1:25:17
not even in our own state and we're talking business.
1:25:21
It worked. Out really well.
1:25:22
I really do want. To, you know, we we had split
1:25:24
ways, but I really do thank buddy head for giving me the
1:25:27
space and the opportunity to to be on twist and and to grow.
1:25:32
You know, it just it didn't work out well for both of us together
1:25:35
and, you know, kind of split, but it was a good it was a
1:25:37
really good thing that they were doing.
1:25:38
And, you know, we had, you know, Seltzer had a show on it and,
1:25:42
you know, a few others. I just my my, it has been a long
1:25:45
weekend and a long weekend so. Because I I wasn't.
1:25:49
Going to super shoe last last week, you know, last week
1:25:53
Monday, I wasn't going to super shoe and that all changed.
1:25:55
I had a few I you know, I'm not afraid to say it.
1:25:58
I had I just my position works. I'm, I'm unemployed now, just
1:26:03
some, some, some bad things happened and it kind of screwed
1:26:06
my boss over and it all rolled downhill.
1:26:08
And so I got laid off for a bit and I, you know, my family comes
1:26:11
first. I always preach that on the
1:26:12
show, like if you can't afford these things, you can't afford
1:26:14
to race. And I went, you know, I can't
1:26:15
spend $250 to go to super Shoe because that's $250 and I'm not
1:26:20
spending groceries. And, and I had, I had, I had
1:26:22
three friends that, you know, they all, they, they said they
1:26:25
didn't want the recognition. They don't want their names
1:26:27
mentioned. If they're watching this, they
1:26:28
know who they are. But they, they stepped up when I
1:26:31
said, you know, I can't afford to go.
1:26:32
And they're like, hey, well, I'll, I'll buy your pit pass.
1:26:33
Hey, I'll, I'll give you some gas money, like what it was
1:26:35
going to take to get you down here, come help, you know, and
1:26:38
stuff like that. And so I just, I was super,
1:26:41
super lucky to be able to do that.
1:26:44
And you know, it's one you talk about, like with, with buddy
1:26:47
talks about business and stuff like that.
1:26:49
Like he, he gave me a lot of big opportunities for that.
1:26:51
So I am, and we're really grateful for that.
1:26:53
I've had a lot of people, really, I've had a lot of people
1:26:58
help me get where I am with racing and, and the show and
1:27:01
stuff like that. And, and buddy is one of them
1:27:03
that I'm still, I'm still very appreciative for the
1:27:05
opportunities that he gave me with twist and, and you know,
1:27:08
some of the shows that they had and, and it was a good thing.
1:27:11
It just sort of, I think part of it was is that a lot of people
1:27:13
just sort of their situations. Changed and it was.
1:27:17
Again, kind of like my show, it was just hard to keep the shows
1:27:19
up with the way the situation had changed so well.
1:27:23
And that's where I mean. You know, we've kind of had like
1:27:26
even Buju and I have talked where, you know, at one point
1:27:28
we're doing 2 podcasts a week with the Thursday night Throttle
1:27:31
This plus I'm editing, right? Like I have like he gets to go
1:27:37
be a race fan and he gets to, you know, do all that.
1:27:40
But you know, when it comes to like our graphics, I'm doing all
1:27:43
the graphics, I'm scheduling all the guests.
1:27:44
Yes, I'm then editing on board cameras and editing full
1:27:47
programs and recording those and doing like like, yes, there's
1:27:51
stuff on his plate, but it's like, but my plate and it when
1:27:55
it comes to all this, it's like we got a now that's off season.
1:27:57
We got to cut back a little bit because I, you know, Thursdays
1:27:59
are like when my mom has off and it's like if we want to go do
1:28:02
things, it's like, well, we can't go and do this because I
1:28:05
got to do the podcast at 7 right, You know, and that kind
1:28:08
of in the. Summer that impacts.
1:28:10
Things right and so you know obviously we plan.
1:28:13
Around. It and like, like, you know,
1:28:15
Mondays we you know, we plan around for the podcast where we
1:28:18
have, you know, dinner together where it's usually like pizza or
1:28:22
it'll be something that that's. Just like an.
1:28:24
Easy day then know that you know some guy was going to be coming
1:28:28
on the property and you know, and doing weird things at the
1:28:31
start of a show that was unexpected.
1:28:32
But but it's one of those like we know a Monday routine, what a
1:28:36
Monday routine looks like. We knew what a Thursday routine
1:28:38
looked like and, but it's like, but I'm also kind of looking
1:28:43
forward to and excited to wind down the throttle for a few
1:28:46
months and do it like once a once a month or whatever because
1:28:49
it's like there, it takes a lot of work.
1:28:51
And I don't, you know, like you also have the subscriber group.
1:28:54
I don't do a subscriber even though Facebook keeps telling me
1:28:57
to make a subscriber thing. I'm like, I don't want to commit
1:28:59
to something even though I could like, say, hey, $1.00 to
1:29:02
subscriber or whatever and you get like this.
1:29:04
So so I I will. I will tell you this, this is,
1:29:07
this is, this is. I'm doing this on air because it
1:29:10
doesn't matter. I can tell you that that
1:29:11
community, the community, the subscriber group, I haven't made
1:29:15
content in a long time. I still have some people that
1:29:17
are part of that that are still contributing, they're helping,
1:29:20
still helping pay bills for me. I've got to get back in there.
1:29:24
And and that the community that I had from that was insane.
1:29:27
They were some of the best I have.
1:29:28
I have lifelong friendships now from that.
1:29:32
You would be surprised, Lewis, the amount of people, you know,
1:29:34
mine was $5 a month and I did that and they, they let you
1:29:38
pick. Facebook tells you I could have
1:29:40
picked $100 a month as a subscriber.
1:29:42
You know, I wanted something that, that, that helped because
1:29:46
for the longest time, any money I made from that, like we were
1:29:48
literally, I was buying supplies and, and stuff.
1:29:51
I mean, it was paying for me to go to races, Like it was letting
1:29:53
me make content with it, you know, but it was $5 a month.
1:29:57
And I, I said from the beginning, if you're there for
1:29:59
one month, that's awesome. Like you're a subscriber, you
1:30:01
always will, but you've always been a supporter.
1:30:03
You know, what we did was we made stickers.
1:30:05
And so for the longest time, if you're a subscriber, you got
1:30:07
stickers, you know, and I would go live in there from time to
1:30:10
time. I tried to go live in there
1:30:12
every week, but I'd go in there and just shoot the shit and and
1:30:16
just hang out. It is something for you.
1:30:19
I would definitely look into it just because the community that
1:30:22
you have, the amount of people that want to support what you
1:30:25
do. You know, the beauty of that is
1:30:27
too is it, you know, we had a rule.
1:30:28
What happens in the group stays in the group.
1:30:30
They got a more raw version of me.
1:30:32
I, I have a thing that I try to be.
1:30:33
This is why I never flip people off during racing a lot.
1:30:37
I try to stay publicly positive because I try to see the
1:30:40
positive side of everything. You know, you and I have talked
1:30:42
about this privately. There are some racers involved
1:30:44
with racing I don't care for. I'm a human being.
1:30:46
There's people I just don't like.
1:30:48
But you won't know that based on the show.
1:30:50
Like I, I have talked to some, I have had a couple drivers that I
1:30:54
have told them when I asked them to be on the show, like, hey, I
1:30:56
want you to know like I know we have, we've had our differences.
1:31:00
This is like nothing is coming of that.
1:31:02
Like I'm not bringing you on here to ambush you.
1:31:04
There's nothing negative that's about to happen in the group.
1:31:07
Somebody might be like, and and I might see a rack and be like,
1:31:09
well, you know, it's kind of a racing deal.
1:31:10
I might say it might have went towards the number 79 a little
1:31:12
bit in that group. I could go in there and be like
1:31:14
79 drove that dude. Like I'm telling you that I
1:31:19
don't know if that guy has no talent.
1:31:20
Like I could go in there and I could just be raw.
1:31:23
And for you, you could do the same sort of thing where you're
1:31:25
going to be like, hey, should I go to this race or that race?
1:31:27
Or, you know, like you, you could go in there and do that
1:31:30
with some of these drivers and fans and stuff like that.
1:31:33
And, and it gives you a private space to be able to do that.
1:31:36
And you would really be surprised with the community.
1:31:38
And you can, again, you can keep it cheap.
1:31:39
You can make it a dollar or $2.00.
1:31:41
And I bet Louis, you would be really surprised at the amount
1:31:43
of people because at $5 a month, my other thing was it's $60.00 a
1:31:47
year. So I'm not bankrupting anybody
1:31:49
trying to support me. So I, I guarantee you, I would
1:31:52
bet Louis, I'll make you publicly, publicly bet that if
1:31:55
you do the subscriber thing, I would bet you have 100 people
1:31:57
within the first month. And I don't know, you know, even
1:32:00
even at a dollar or you know, like so I don't know.
1:32:05
I just realized. This is how tired I've been
1:32:07
today that when I did, I didn't change the byline because that's
1:32:12
that's a new byline. I never changed it at 3 weeks.
1:32:15
Ago where I started like customizing I.
1:32:18
Didn't even notice that, John. No.
1:32:20
Yeah, John called me out. On it.
1:32:22
And I'm like, what the hell is he talking about?
1:32:25
How the shooter has attended all 30. 4 brackets.
1:32:28
I'm like, oh geez, I've been so. This one I've been I've.
1:32:31
Been at 23 John J Hey listen that's yeah so those of you
1:32:38
don't know John is my brother-in-law that's you know
1:32:41
he's got coms auto salvage Union City speed shop down there if
1:32:43
you guys need something down in the down in the southwest
1:32:45
Michigan area there John's got to go to Union City speed shop.
1:32:49
If they don't have it in stock, which they have a ton in stock
1:32:52
they get lane orders every week they're happy to special order
1:32:54
for you stuff like that. So if you do need some arts
1:32:56
pieces, whatnot Union City speed shop John did post in the
1:33:00
comments, you know, saying you know that you're welcome.
1:33:02
Like John is one of them that did help me come down there.
1:33:05
He threw give me some money to be able to come down.
1:33:06
Some guess that now we also changed the motor in his truck.
1:33:10
He he he snapped the crank in half during the first practice
1:33:14
on Saturday. And we were talking and I made a
1:33:17
joke about borrowing a buddies motor for the brackets and he's
1:33:19
like, well, I have that motor sitting at the shop.
1:33:20
I said go get the bitch. I'm like, we'll put it in.
1:33:22
I'm like, go get it. And now I'm only going to take
1:33:25
2% of the credit because there was a large group of us that
1:33:29
helped. I bet there was 1520 people that
1:33:31
were over there turning ranches. Mark Eaton loaned us the cherry
1:33:34
picker. Donnie Ritter actually helped us
1:33:36
out immensely. Donnie, we went over and talked
1:33:38
to Donnie about trying to get the wreck or whatever.
1:33:40
He's like, well, Marl Marks and I was like, OK, I'll reach out
1:33:42
to him. Donnie actually took me up in
1:33:44
the golf cart. We threw the cherry picker in
1:33:47
his truck and he came back down with it between classes of
1:33:51
practice so that we could actually work on it and get it
1:33:53
out. But we actually had John back
1:33:55
out for his heat race. So there was a ton of people
1:33:58
that helped. So I was only a very small part
1:34:00
of that. But John made his heat race and
1:34:01
his feature and we swapped the motor down there in turn 3 and
1:34:04
4. So I'd like to think that I, I
1:34:07
earned it like I, I, you know, we did, we did choose some help.
1:34:11
So I kept looking over. Going because we were at a point
1:34:15
where even Sabrina, if there was time that Sabrina was going to
1:34:18
head over to put the camera on because she knew or I said,
1:34:21
well, Todd's over there, he's on cameras too.
1:34:23
If you're like, hey Todd, can you please help with this?
1:34:26
I'm sure someone over there would have helped with that.
1:34:29
So good news, good news. So Mike, my buddy Mike there,
1:34:32
the 5 W Mike Westfall had a pure stock in a street stock fight.
1:34:37
Literally he he actually put his GoPro on John's car.
1:34:43
So we do have an, we do have a video of John.
1:34:46
It's from the it's from the middle of the roof, basically
1:34:50
like up on the windshield area. So we did get John a video of
1:34:53
the race. So we absolutely, because John's
1:34:55
even the one that told you don't worry about it, like put it on
1:34:57
somebody else because he we don't know if it's going to
1:34:59
work. Plus, I know you were
1:35:00
scrambling, you were trying to get back across the track.
1:35:03
So, you know, I know I'm speaking for John right this
1:35:06
minute, but we did get him a video.
1:35:09
So it's going to be, it's going to be all good.
1:35:11
So you don't have to feel too bad about that one.
1:35:13
Well, he's already on the list for Bahama.
1:35:14
Brackets like he's already on that list.
1:35:17
He's going to get a spot just because that's the next time
1:35:19
I'll see him. And you know, but it's one of.
1:35:22
Those things that I mean. When they when Ryan warning came
1:35:25
over and said you have everybody, if you're not in the
1:35:27
pit area or need to be in the pit area, you have 5 minutes.
1:35:30
I'm like the lineup just. Got posted.
1:35:33
I'm like, Oh my, my. I mean, my stress just went from
1:35:36
I'm already like tears to like I have more cameras to put.
1:35:40
Out and so I'm like. It's fine.
1:35:44
It's fine. I I will live another day.
1:35:47
I can get people back in the future, which I have done at
1:35:49
other events, but I'm like, yeah, yeah, really.
1:35:54
Like I didn't. Need that right now.
1:35:55
You need. That special access pass that
1:35:57
they. They just let you cross.
1:35:58
You know, or they give yeah, get you a scooter or something, you
1:36:01
know, so no scooters anymore. I you just.
1:36:05
An exception. For you, you know, no, no, no,
1:36:07
no. When you got like 80 cameras,
1:36:09
you know I fell off last night, no scooter.
1:36:11
Shoe. Oh, that's right.
1:36:13
Oh, that. Yeah, sorry, sorry, sorry.
1:36:16
I got home now because a. Lot of people, they said, well,
1:36:19
didn't Springport buy that for you?
1:36:20
I'm like, yes, Springport, you know, Ronnie BB got yeah, yeah,
1:36:23
yeah, said yeah, yeah, you know the one.
1:36:25
Night, he's like, we need to get you a scooter.
1:36:26
Or something, because I'm running like a maniac like usual
1:36:29
and so then. The the.
1:36:31
Next event, Drew Ritter came back and he said we need you on
1:36:35
the front stretch right now. And is it, like, in a very
1:36:37
serious tone? Yeah.
1:36:38
Like, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
1:36:41
OK. So I got in the.
1:36:42
Cart. And he's like quiet the whole
1:36:44
way down. I'm thinking yeah, yeah, did.
1:36:47
I post something I wasn't. Supposed to or whatever.
1:36:51
It's all running through your. Head what?
1:36:52
Did I do? What did I do?
1:36:53
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, Drew takes me to
1:36:55
the front and. They got the safety truck there.
1:36:58
Sean's there now. Sean's smiling.
1:37:00
So I'm like, they're up to something and they knew they're
1:37:04
not allowed. To be up to.
1:37:05
Something, anytime, ever. Then Mark is getting in his
1:37:09
truck. Ronnie's getting in the truck.
1:37:10
Donnie's coming up there. He's smiling and and grinning
1:37:14
ear to ear and I'm like, and then they presented that to me
1:37:19
on the front stretch for everybody to see, everybody to
1:37:21
know to thank me. And I'm like, I just that
1:37:25
doesn't happen like a lot, right.
1:37:28
So, you know, it's one of those that that's why I called it the
1:37:31
spring Porter. But I definitely there is no
1:37:34
spring to it last super shoe. So I I have.
1:37:39
Parked. It since the time it got home
1:37:41
after super shoe and I have not been on it since.
1:37:44
Plus I've gained weight over the winter since I'm not teaching
1:37:47
anymore and doing like 4 miles a day.
1:37:50
In the classroom. And so I don't do 4 miles in a
1:37:53
day every now. So I'm like, now I'm just fat
1:37:58
and I'm like, I need to work this off.
1:37:59
So I walked all year at every track I walked.
1:38:02
I usually Kalamazoo be two laps. I'd walk the whole 3/8 and not
1:38:06
that. That always helped because, you
1:38:08
know, if I just ate my feelings again on Monday, it didn't
1:38:11
matter how many miles I walked on.
1:38:12
Saturday and Sunday. But or Friday, right?
1:38:15
It's like, well, that might be part of the problem is that I'm
1:38:18
not back to my feelings. But yeah, it happens.
1:38:21
It happens, right? So I'm like.
1:38:22
Yeah, this winter maybe I'll lose the weight.
1:38:24
Or I'll be, you know, the US park.
1:38:27
Service is. Having all this fun with the
1:38:28
bears. I don't know if you've seen
1:38:30
their Oh yeah, Fat Bear Week. Oh, I love fat.
1:38:31
Bear week Fat bear week rather than like honka Tonka racket
1:38:35
style. For the, for the.
1:38:37
Biggest chunks and yeah, yeah, I'm like, so I'm like.
1:38:42
I guess maybe if I get to like an air.
1:38:44
Cartman level where I'm like, I'm not that bad at his bones,
1:38:46
you know then. Maybe we're at a level.
1:38:50
Of I need to do something but as as.
1:38:53
As somebody who is, who is 3/15 at one point and is, you know,
1:38:57
I, I, I rock steady about 2:50 right now.
1:38:59
I still big boy, I get it. I get I get eaten.
1:39:02
Your feelings so. I like to.
1:39:04
I like. To I like to do the old flex
1:39:05
where I'm like it's it's muscle, you know, it's it's muscle
1:39:07
that's the but just you know, you always got to pull it down
1:39:10
over there. I get it.
1:39:11
I get that one, you know. So when Christina Rance made my
1:39:15
new. Shorts I'm like large and can I
1:39:18
get a bigger size? Yeah, see, I'm right.
1:39:20
This is a 2XL Lewis. This is A2 XL.
1:39:23
OK, so large is still pretty good.
1:39:25
All right, so now I, I will say I, I do understand the whole
1:39:29
like being surprised and not knowing how to take it.
1:39:32
It. It's that's why I like I tell
1:39:33
you all the time, you know, when we talk and it's, it's something
1:39:35
that I know a lot of people do. You and I are a lot alike in the
1:39:38
same words. Like one thing that I do when I
1:39:40
walk up, I, I, I remember faces, but not names.
1:39:43
But, and I'm sure you know this as well.
1:39:45
It's my face is out there. People know my name, they know
1:39:47
my face. And so they come up and they're
1:39:49
like, Oh, hey, Todd. And I'm like, Hey, buddy, I, I
1:39:52
don't remember names and I, I, I try to remember faces, you know,
1:39:57
and I get a lot of people that come up and, and want to say
1:39:59
thank you or, or talk to me or this, that it's, it's hard.
1:40:02
I. I assume anybody knows who I am,
1:40:04
I can be wearing the frontal discussion shirt, holding the
1:40:07
microphone, walking up with my buddy Mike, holding the camera,
1:40:10
and I'll be like, hey, it's Todd with frontal discussion.
1:40:12
If you ever seen the show. And they're like, yeah, like,
1:40:13
dude, I comment all the time. I'm like, cool, I'm not gonna be
1:40:16
a Dick head and assume you know. Who I am.
1:40:18
It's hard to take that thank you.
1:40:20
It's, it's hard to take the praise.
1:40:22
So it, it is one of them. I understand it, you know, but
1:40:26
it is, it's why so many people say thank you all the time.
1:40:28
I mean, it really is. I, I've had, I've been
1:40:30
approached at tracks before by people wanting to do videos and
1:40:34
they're like, yeah, it's only $25.
1:40:36
And I'm like, I'm not paying you $25 to make it go to make a
1:40:40
YouTube to put it on your YouTube channel.
1:40:42
You know, like I, I, there's no value in that to me.
1:40:46
Now there is for other people. And I do not knock the business
1:40:49
model. I do not knock that, you know,
1:40:51
anybody who pays it, I'm happy, you know, it's cheaper than
1:40:53
getting their own camera, especially if they're, it's
1:40:55
awesome. I I appreciate that right, but
1:40:57
the fact that you do it at no cost to people and you know, and
1:41:00
you've done it with lost money for a long time.
1:41:03
You know, I mean, you not talk to me, you we, we, we talked
1:41:06
about a few times about how how much money Facebook was holding
1:41:08
from you and I went, I would drive to Palo Alto for that much
1:41:12
money. Like I brother, I don't know how
1:41:14
you're so calm about this, you know, so it's, it's hard to hear
1:41:17
that. Thank you.
1:41:18
I know it is, but people, people are genuine.
1:41:22
When? They say that.
1:41:22
To you they they, you know top rows they they.
1:41:26
They've done it well, like you you.
1:41:27
You've built something that's really awesome and the community
1:41:30
that you have is bigger than you realize so well, and that's
1:41:35
where you know. Two years ago when we had some
1:41:38
Canadian racers down with Reveal the Hammer, I got to meet people
1:41:42
who are in Canada who watch my races, right?
1:41:45
I always tell people I got AI have Australia because of your
1:41:48
connection and and I like you know because of him.
1:41:53
Now top rows over in Australia and there's quite a few who
1:41:56
follow now from Australia. It's the fourth country and my
1:42:00
list Canada's number 2 and the United Kingdom is #3 which the
1:42:05
which is more England. Do you have anybody from South
1:42:08
Africa? Not really from South Africa.
1:42:12
So. It is crazy to me.
1:42:14
Because, you know, frontal discussion, right?
1:42:18
The UK, Australia, Canada, obviously right.
1:42:21
Those are big ones. I have South Africa, one of the
1:42:25
one of my top ten cities for the longest time was Johannesburg,
1:42:29
South Africa. I have AI have a couple people
1:42:33
who is on my friends list that I try.
1:42:35
I wanted to get on the show and when we resurrect this thing,
1:42:38
I'm going to try to there are some guys in South Africa racing
1:42:41
front wheel drives down there. So that that's the and that's
1:42:46
why I like the top row. Thing and me with the.
1:42:47
Show it is insane. I have a buddy who came over
1:42:50
from Australia 2 years in a row hung out with us we tried to
1:42:55
make him go get him to go race in the first year it rained out.
1:42:57
It was no fault with my own. It rained out he finished
1:43:02
features in the car that was cursed for me but you know, you
1:43:06
put the put the GoPro on him. You know he came over from
1:43:08
Australia because he watched my show and he was like hey, we're
1:43:11
visiting in Canada. My family is and I'm going to
1:43:13
come hang out with you. Is that cool And I'm like yes,
1:43:17
absolutely. He was the first in person guest
1:43:21
I had in the studio was my buddy Ben from Australia.
1:43:24
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. It was just it was so to me
1:43:28
that's such an awesome thing. I love the Australian.
1:43:31
It's like they're, I, I get, I get messages from a few
1:43:33
different people over in Australia and it's just, yeah,
1:43:37
it's, we were trying to hope it would work out at some point for
1:43:40
me to go to Australia, but it's about a $10,000 trip.
1:43:42
So yeah, you know, by the time, yeah.
1:43:48
I don't sleep anyway. The AD.
1:43:49
HDADHD is a killer. I don't sleep that much anyway
1:43:52
but but yeah, it's just that when Ben came over it was he was
1:43:56
on an airplane for 24 hours. It was a 4642 hour trip from
1:44:02
when he left his house until he got to my house.
1:44:04
But it was a it was a 24 hours on the plane.
1:44:06
But yeah, it's, it's just crazy. It's just absolutely crazy to me
1:44:10
how how wide this stuff can go. So yeah, you, I mean, you've
1:44:14
been able to film somebody from Australia racing here in America
1:44:20
so well, and that's where with Tri.
1:44:22
State. Sprints is South Africa, you
1:44:23
know, from South Africa, you know, they've had a race and but
1:44:27
that's something that, you know, I always when I meet people and
1:44:31
I go to other tracks, like when I went to Painesville, the
1:44:34
first, even Lorraine when I went for the first time, they're
1:44:36
like, you're the guy from Kalamazoo, like they already
1:44:39
knew who I was. And and and I and names stick
1:44:42
well, pretty much to me once I hear it once or twice or get,
1:44:45
you know, once. I'm envious of that.
1:44:47
And and but I. Think that's part because of my
1:44:50
job that I had right And I worked at a college for 10
1:44:53
years, so I was. Constantly interacting.
1:44:55
With hundreds of people a day where it's and you get to know
1:44:59
them, you get to know faces and. But sometimes I tell race car
1:45:01
drivers. So this happened to Draven.
1:45:05
She's talking mushrooms now. I can't think of the last name
1:45:08
from Gayle. I'm really, really good with
1:45:10
names. Oh.
1:45:10
I can't really. Yeah, it stands poor.
1:45:12
I had to think. So he because he, you know.
1:45:15
He. Saw me at Love's Truck Stop, him
1:45:19
and, and Matteson and who's Matt Frazier's daughter.
1:45:23
And you know, they'd see me and he came up and I'm like, I know
1:45:26
the face, like remind me. But I'm like, if you're in a
1:45:30
race suit next to your race car, I would have remembered.
1:45:32
Like, so there are times that I see people out in public where
1:45:35
I'm like, OK, you're not in a race suit, but I know who you
1:45:38
are. I need to think about it.
1:45:40
And, and it takes me a little bit, but it's, you know, I typed
1:45:44
the names. I can do the, I can do the
1:45:47
spelling bee with these, with the racer names as many times as
1:45:49
I type them. But, but it's still crazy to me
1:45:52
that even in Grundy, you know, there are a lot of people who
1:45:55
already knew who I was, even though I don't get to that
1:45:58
ecosystem too often. And, you know, but I have people
1:46:02
who have messaged me from, you know, New Mexico and they met me
1:46:05
at Bristol a few years ago. And it's so it's still just kind
1:46:08
of crazy just to we had a guy come all the way from South
1:46:11
Carolina to Kalamazoo for a race in 2024.
1:46:15
His. Son's.
1:46:16
First ever racing experience was at Kalamazoo.
1:46:18
Brought him up. He was an Army vet on 2 or No 3
1:46:22
Red Bulls. I'm going to say it's 3 Red
1:46:23
Bulls came up, made the drive right after work.
1:46:27
We almost rained out that day because we had rain.
1:46:30
But we did features. Only so we still did the
1:46:33
program, but he almost made that drive for a rain out and but he
1:46:37
came up because my car was still there.
1:46:39
So they knew I was there. I'm easy to find out the car's
1:46:42
there. It stands out, right.
1:46:43
And the whole logo on the side helps.
1:46:46
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
1:46:47
And I'm standing. On the front stretch talking to
1:46:49
Patrick. Hare and we're just talking
1:46:51
about things. Talk about the night guy's
1:46:54
coming up and he says, hey, are you top row?
1:46:56
And sometimes it's like, do I say yes or no?
1:46:59
Maybe I. Can get the guy are you mad at
1:47:02
him? I I can get him cuz he you know,
1:47:05
but Patrick had a top row. Shirt on too so.
1:47:07
It's like, which way do I answer this?
1:47:08
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm top row and he said I'm all
1:47:10
the way from. South Carolina introduced
1:47:12
himself, told his story, told his background, and I went.
1:47:15
Can you message that to the Facebook page at Kalamazoo so
1:47:18
they see why what I do and how I do brings awareness to their?
1:47:24
Track that. Literally, I mean.
1:47:25
We would have never had on our bingo board someone driving all
1:47:28
the way across the country, you know, several hours to come to
1:47:32
our races because they literally came because I watch your videos
1:47:36
on top row and that's when. That's Hunk.
1:47:40
In this is this is you know. This is a bit of a, a flex and a
1:47:43
humble brag because of my, you know, because of frontal
1:47:46
discussion, because of the show. And this is I, I want to point
1:47:49
this out. I tell the story and I tell
1:47:50
stuff like this too. I want to encourage anybody
1:47:51
who's watching start doing YouTube, start doing videos,
1:47:54
start doing this stuff. Lewis and I aren't special.
1:47:56
We, we talk well on camera, but like, but you, you can get over
1:48:01
that. You can work on that.
1:48:02
Just start making videos. You'd be surprised so many,
1:48:05
there's a lot of Youtubers that make money doing this.
1:48:08
If you can make $100 a month on YouTube and Facebook, that's
1:48:11
$1200 a year you can put towards your race car, right?
1:48:14
So that's part of this. Like it, it is a humble flex,
1:48:17
but like I, I want to tell these stories to try to encourage
1:48:19
people like you can do this. Like, you know how Lewis started
1:48:22
was wasn't this big fancy that you didn't start out with
1:48:24
$10,000 worth of cameras. You know, you started out with
1:48:26
your cell phone. Just so you know you can do this
1:48:29
kind of stuff, right? So I had the opportunity.
1:48:32
I was a really lucky point in my life.
1:48:34
I got invited to come out to California to go to Olga's dream
1:48:41
and names. It has been a long week, Bob.
1:48:46
Bob invited me out. I was going to try to take the
1:48:49
car. It didn't work out.
1:48:50
We blew the car up, so I was going to take it.
1:48:52
I ended up flying out there and you know, Bob says, hey, Carl
1:48:56
Fredrickson's going to be the Grand Marshall.
1:48:59
You know Carl Fredrickson, you know, the the editor of Speedway
1:49:03
Illustrated. And I'm like, man, like I'm
1:49:05
going to be, I'm going to be able to like be introduced.
1:49:09
To this guy like he's a. Personal friend of Bob, so I'm
1:49:12
going to be able to be introduced to him.
1:49:14
So I'm like, I'm going, it worked out financially.
1:49:16
We had money. Facebook was paying well.
1:49:19
Then I was making some good money through their bonuses and
1:49:22
stuff. So like I had the money.
1:49:23
I'm like cool, let's fly out there.
1:49:25
I went out there and I'm walking around recording and talking to
1:49:28
people and it was about 1/3 of the people there knew me, knew
1:49:32
the show, blah, blah, blah. But the something that's stuck
1:49:36
with me as I'm walking around interviewing and it is 110 out
1:49:40
there. It's August in California.
1:49:41
It was so hot, but I'm walking around and a guy comes running
1:49:46
over and he, he sticks his hand out and he's like, I just, I
1:49:49
just want to shake your hand, man.
1:49:50
I'm like, oh, hey, like, you know, how do you think?
1:49:52
Yo, I, I love the show and I'm like, oh, like, what do you race
1:49:54
front will drive? Like?
1:49:55
Which one are like, which car are you like, or you know, we're
1:49:57
going to be like, Oh, no, no, I don't run a front wheel drive.
1:49:59
And I'm like, oh, he's like, yeah, he's like, I just stumbled
1:50:01
upon your show. Somebody shared it.
1:50:03
He's like, he's like, you've actually helped me a bunch with
1:50:05
the safety on my car. He's like, I drive that.
1:50:08
And it was like a, it was like a mod light or something like
1:50:11
that. Like it was a rear wheel drive
1:50:12
something just completely different.
1:50:14
He's like, your show's on safety really helped.
1:50:16
He's like the setup stuff's not quite the same.
1:50:18
He's like, but like the safety and the fabrication tips and
1:50:20
stuff like that. He's like, dude, he's like, I
1:50:21
watch the show all the time and I'm like, oh, awesome.
1:50:24
He's like, yeah, I'm a nobody. It's OK.
1:50:25
And I'm like, well, everybody has a story, man.
1:50:26
Like that's not not to say that, but like he came over.
1:50:29
Here's a guy who lives somewhere near Fresno, CA, who's watching
1:50:34
my show, who, you know, because I had I had just done one of my
1:50:37
rants on safety. If it was probably the show.
1:50:39
I had about 700 people TuneIn live, but I went off on safety
1:50:43
and like this stuff's not that hard.
1:50:45
Like care about living, like care about you, you know, and
1:50:48
and he's talking about this like this dude came over just to say,
1:50:50
hey, man, like I watch your stuff.
1:50:51
Like that's awesome. Thanks for doing what you do.
1:50:53
And it's like that is that is wild.
1:50:56
Like this is not I, I didn't make the show for late.
1:50:58
And I tell that because I have friends, I have friends that
1:51:00
I've had for 15 years that don't watch the show and every time
1:51:04
and I'm like, you're not my target audience.
1:51:05
It's fine. Like I'll take it personally,
1:51:06
you know, one or two of them. I might take it personally and
1:51:09
I'll TuneIn sometimes, you know, but it's, it is what it is,
1:51:12
right. But here's these people from all
1:51:14
over the country. I I, I took a road trip down to
1:51:16
Scrabon in Georgia and then we went to Florida the next week
1:51:19
with my buddy Mike a couple years ago.
1:51:21
Again, just super lucky the show was making enough money.
1:51:23
We could we could make those trips.
1:51:25
Went down to cover the winter freeze.
1:51:27
And then I went down to race at Freedom Factory and I had people
1:51:31
who were so excited that I was coming to the Freedom Factory
1:51:35
because man, I live 3 hours away from there.
1:51:38
I could come watch you race and it was, it was actually super
1:51:42
humbly because it was the first time I'd ever ran AB mate.
1:51:44
I've been super lucky to have a lot of success in my racing.
1:51:47
I got started, there wasn't that many cars and I was able to, to
1:51:50
get fast. When all the outlaw stuff
1:51:52
started coming out, we were at the forefront of it.
1:51:55
You know, we were able to, to build with the class.
1:51:57
You know, I, I was setting track records, picking up wins as as
1:52:00
we went along and was able to get fast.
1:52:02
I was super lucky that I just, I got in at the right time and so
1:52:06
I had never ran AB main. I just, I've never been in one.
1:52:11
I've always been in the A main. I'm not always winning, but I
1:52:13
just, I've always been looking to be in the A main and I went
1:52:15
down to Florida and it is the single worst handling car I've
1:52:18
ever had. Like I was embarrassed with the
1:52:20
car that I had and the qualifying format that they had
1:52:23
that year. I finished I I was 18th which
1:52:26
every year after that would have solidly put me in the A main.
1:52:29
But they only took 16 that year so I was off by less than 1/10.
1:52:35
I think I was like point O 8 or like .12 right around a 10th off
1:52:39
from making it on time. Brandon B main start in the
1:52:42
back. Drove all the way up.
1:52:44
Was battling for the lead 1st and 2nd transfer spot with a
1:52:47
couple to go. Put on a hell of a show with
1:52:49
again the worst handling card I've ever had.
1:52:51
I was deject like crazy. We worked on a thing, you know,
1:52:54
my buddy Mike, you know, my Westfall went down with me.
1:52:56
He him and I put in a ton of work on that car while we were
1:52:59
there. Like we did so much.
1:53:00
I owe him so much for that trip, for even being able to make that
1:53:03
be made. It was the worst I'd felt about
1:53:05
a night of racing in a long time.
1:53:07
And I mean, I, I'm, I'm like, why, why the hell did I make
1:53:10
this trip? This was so stupid.
1:53:11
I'm so embarrassed with what I did right?
1:53:14
And it was, it was out of character for me a bit because,
1:53:18
you know, I try not to let my ego get in the way.
1:53:20
And like I, I tell everybody, we need BCDE main cars just as much
1:53:24
as we need a main cars. I will stand 10 toes down on
1:53:27
that. I should not have felt so bad
1:53:29
for not being an, A main car, but I'd gotten so used to it
1:53:32
that I, I didn't, you know, I had set expectations for myself,
1:53:37
but I had three people who were, you know, subscribers or
1:53:40
followers that it came to for the Express.
1:53:43
Purpose that I was. There and they came up and
1:53:46
they're like, holy shit, dude, you wield the piss out of that
1:53:49
thing like that looked like it was a handful from the green
1:53:53
flag go like I didn't realize what a wheel man you were like
1:53:57
you talk about how well you do and we see some of the videos
1:53:59
and like you do well, but like I didn't realize because again, at
1:54:02
that time that first year, we had some of the heaviest
1:54:04
hitters. I mean, we had, you know, we had
1:54:06
represent from the BCTS, the national series, we had the
1:54:09
northeast mini stack tour, we had, I mean, we had hitters in
1:54:13
that race. Like to be 18th quick in that
1:54:16
field with a poor handling car was saying something.
1:54:20
And and you know, and, and it was all lost on me until I had
1:54:23
these guys just come up to me. They're like, hey man, like we
1:54:25
need to watch you. And like, we came all the way
1:54:27
here just for you and you did awesome and like and really put
1:54:30
it into perspective. And I got one last quick one on
1:54:34
the whole being noticed you talked about in and out of
1:54:36
helmet and stuff like that at super shoe.
1:54:39
We borrowed markings cherry picker.
1:54:41
I'm strapped into the car right before I get strapped in the
1:54:44
car. So I got to give a thanks to
1:54:45
that one before we we end all this.
1:54:46
I do have to talk about that for a moment, but I'm, I'm getting
1:54:50
ready to get strapped in and, and John's like, hey, someone
1:54:53
came in over and asked about the cherry picker.
1:54:55
I told him it's Mark's, but I told him they have to talk to
1:54:58
you because I don't know Mark. You asked Mark blah, blah, blah,
1:55:01
right? And so I'm like, cool, they
1:55:04
didn't come back. And I'm like, OK, cool, I go get
1:55:06
strapped in the car, helmet, gloves, strapped in the car,
1:55:10
right, Getting ready to go out for either second practice or
1:55:14
the heat race. They come over and they're like,
1:55:17
hey man, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, you got to get a
1:55:18
hold of Mark. You know, here's how you spell
1:55:20
it. Reach out because it's MARQ,
1:55:22
which, you know, like for a loss of people.
1:55:24
So I'm like, you got to reach out to Mark.
1:55:25
I'm like, I'm fairly positive Mark's going to have no issue
1:55:28
with you using it. But it is not mine.
1:55:29
I cannot give you permission, but you just have to reach out
1:55:32
to him. And so.
1:55:33
OK, cool, thanks. So I go out and do my thing.
1:55:35
And later I'm standing up by the fence and same guy comes over
1:55:40
and he's like, are you with the truck?
1:55:41
And I was like, yeah, he's like, so I talked to Todd, who told me
1:55:44
to talk to Mark and and I went, you can skip the first part.
1:55:48
I'm Todd and he went, he goes, he goes, no, no, no, I I talked
1:55:52
to Todd. He was in the car and I was
1:55:53
like, yes, I had a helmet on. I was wearing that suit and.
1:55:57
My friend Steph was wearing my fire suit.
1:55:59
Jacket, I was like, no, no, Todd, you know, And so he's
1:56:02
like, oh, OK. And like, I don't think he, I
1:56:05
don't think he believed me. Like I think he thought I was
1:56:07
lying to him. And I'm like, I would not claim
1:56:09
to be me. If I was going to claim to be
1:56:11
anybody, it wouldn't be me, brother.
1:56:12
OK, I'll say. That right now.
1:56:14
It's just but, but you talk about the helmet on, helmet off.
1:56:17
I literally had that happen this weekend where it's like I talked
1:56:19
to Todd. You can shift that part on Todd.
1:56:21
He's like. No.
1:56:22
And I was like. Yeah, I'm pretty sure like I've
1:56:26
been. I've been odd with a capital T
1:56:28
for 41, almost 42 years. I'm pretty sure my dad and my
1:56:32
son have the same name. We're we're we're committed to
1:56:35
this like I'm Todd. So yeah.
1:56:38
So so yeah, that's. But that's funny.
1:56:42
I laughed. I.
1:56:43
Laughed pretty hard. Like, well, and it's like.
1:56:46
The fact that even convinced him like, no, I am.
1:56:49
I am. I'm the person who you talk to.
1:56:51
No, I promise you. It's me.
1:56:53
Yeah, this is a weird. Thing to lie.
1:56:56
About brothers. So it's it's it's OK, I get it,
1:56:59
You know, I mean, he had come over to say like it is super
1:57:03
shoe I. Had not been drinking.
1:57:04
You know, so not yet, but he he he had come over to say like,
1:57:09
hey, I talked to Mark, Mark said it's OK.
1:57:10
And I'm like, that's awesome beer.
1:57:11
There you go, man. Do you need a change?
1:57:12
You can borrow ours, You know, and they were with the O1.
1:57:16
I know they went racing again. I don't know if they just swap
1:57:17
on a big pics, but but the the red O1 just down from us, which
1:57:21
was which was good as like 8 cars down so they could they
1:57:23
could get down there. But yeah, I just it, you summed
1:57:26
it up where it's like with or without helmet and and driver's
1:57:29
suit and stuff and it just yeah, I talked to Todd.
1:57:32
You can, yeah. OK, Yeah, well, now we're.
1:57:38
You know, think about. That too it.
1:57:40
Was at Super Shoe 2022 when I talked with Ryan, Gary, that
1:57:46
whole group, they were kind of where you were part.
1:57:49
We're not, but John was part yeah yeah partner that year and.
1:57:52
They came up to me and they said.
1:57:53
You're the guy from Top Row and went yeah.
1:57:56
And they introduced themselves and they the Grace at Toledo and
1:57:58
Flat Rock. They said we watch your videos
1:58:00
all the time and I'm like in Toledo and Flat Rock like that
1:58:04
was like that part of that and it's just gone where more and
1:58:07
more people like to get some from South Carolina.
1:58:09
So, you know, I would, we were talking about that 'cause they
1:58:12
actually people like race and watching videos.
1:58:14
Yep. Well, and they so.
1:58:16
They camped across from us with where Sabrina Beebee was, 'cause
1:58:19
I stayed with Sabrina, Peter and everybody.
1:58:21
They were literally parked across.
1:58:22
And so that was pretty cool to, you know, have a chance to talk
1:58:25
with them a little bit, 'cause as I tell people, you know, I'm
1:58:29
not a, I'm not a big fan of super shoe.
1:58:32
You know, I like the racing and I love the class racing.
1:58:35
Like I love that aspect of fishing cup like I didn't in the
1:58:38
past. And everyone's different, right?
1:58:40
Like I I just, I always, I like class racing at Michigan Cup.
1:58:43
I don't like class racing at Super Shoe.
1:58:46
Yep. Well, and I and that's where.
1:58:48
I like the classes for classes 'cause I just felt.
1:58:50
Like Donnie's? Like this is our program, this
1:58:51
is what we do, this is how we're gonna do it.
1:58:53
And it's just on steroids, right?
1:58:56
And it's like, yeah, you get like instead of 14 St. stocks
1:58:59
for normal Saturday night, you get like 40 of them, right?
1:59:02
And so it is on steroids, but possibly that aspect I.
1:59:06
I'm not like a big. Sideboard person, but I
1:59:08
understand. They're cool.
1:59:09
They're cool, but for me they are.
1:59:11
I just, I don't know, I kind of just like classes, class.
1:59:14
Here we go. I think for fans, you know, like
1:59:17
a few years ago when Kalamazoo did all these fancy names, rear
1:59:21
wheel drive, not that or dot front wheel drive, not that.
1:59:25
Like that was the name, not that.
1:59:27
And it's like, couldn't we come up with something like fancy to
1:59:30
call that, you know, so there's just all these different names
1:59:33
and all these things. We we could do a whole show on
1:59:35
that. One about the split of that
1:59:36
class and why it was a bad idea. We could, we could publicly
1:59:39
positive. We're going to be publicly
1:59:40
positive about that one. I, I, I can agree with you on
1:59:43
that one. Yeah, well, I did.
1:59:46
I did a publicly positive version of that show.
1:59:49
We talked about it because there was some controversy because the
1:59:53
1st and 2nd place of the dot winners did not follow the dot
1:59:56
tire rules. And the only difference between
1:59:59
the two classes were the dot tire rules.
2:00:01
And so there was a lot of us that went Why the hell did?
2:00:05
You do this. If you're not going to enforce
2:00:07
the only difference, why would you not do that?
2:00:12
And so that was the whole splitting, you know, and I, I, I
2:00:15
could say having been involved in, in Michigan or Super Shoe
2:00:19
from from the beginning when we ran, everybody ran one class to
2:00:24
where we are now. I legitimately think there was
2:00:28
better racing. Now, I agree with the split
2:00:30
between rear wheel drive and front wheel drive.
2:00:31
I do like that that happened because it was becoming front
2:00:34
wheel drive dominant. We had, we, we had when we were
2:00:38
all running together and that first year that we had the first
2:00:41
few years we'd have 110 front wheel drives and 80 rear wheel
2:00:45
drives. And you had guys that should not
2:00:48
be trying to weigh 2729 hundred pounds trying to, to race super
2:00:52
shoe. And so splitting them like that,
2:00:56
it works really well. I do like that split.
2:00:58
It's, it's safer, it's better for both parties.
2:01:02
But what I can say is they used to have last chance races.
2:01:06
You know, Super shoe, not that long ago you ran a, A A/B A/C in
2:01:09
the D and then you had a last chance race.
2:01:12
You had two last chance races for the A, the B, the C and the
2:01:15
D. And you know, everybody got a
2:01:17
heat race. And the thing was is that those
2:01:20
those last chance races were some of the best racing you
2:01:26
would watch. And because it was close, you
2:01:30
know, my my buddy Mike there with the pure stock, he was so
2:01:33
far off the pace of the top ten St. stock guys, but he was on
2:01:37
pace with. Some of the rear.
2:01:38
Wheel drive, Super Shoot guys and the Crown Victoria guys
2:01:42
weren't that far off from some people.
2:01:43
And you know, there's, there's you get the bottom of some
2:01:46
classes that'll race with the top of other classes and you
2:01:49
get, you get this intermingling of them.
2:01:52
And by doing that, you have better racing.
2:01:55
You have an umph dirt late model running against super late
2:02:00
running against St. stocks, running against dirt late models
2:02:03
running because because if you show up, you're going to race
2:02:06
against cars. Your time.
2:02:07
If I, if I have a car that, you know, a pure stock is a great
2:02:11
example of it. You know Mike's pure stock it
2:02:13
has cast iron manifolds it and they're not ram horns they're
2:02:16
not even good ones. It has 2 inch exhaust it has a
2:02:19
10 inch converter. It goes through a turbo 350
2:02:21
transmission. It goes through a stock rear
2:02:23
end. You know it has all stock
2:02:26
geometry with stock upper and lower front end.
2:02:28
You know front pieces well, that's not a shree stock.
2:02:32
I mean, you got guys with Camaro front Subs with flipped rears
2:02:35
with, you know, running Falcons and and, and, you know, 700
2:02:39
horsepower, right, But a slow. Street stock.
2:02:44
A fast pure stock, a dirt modified and you know, a a like
2:02:50
a Flat Rock St. stock that doesn't fit the rules of our
2:02:53
street stocks, but does fit the rear wheel drive super shoot
2:02:56
rules. All of those cars can race
2:02:58
together because they're very similar in times.
2:03:00
And so if I have a car that doesn't fit the street stock
2:03:02
rules, if I come for the rear wheel drive show, well, is it
2:03:06
all late models? Am I going to be 3 seconds off
2:03:09
the pace? And the B main and C main, you
2:03:11
know, but when you had 110 cars and you just grouped them by
2:03:14
time, it was really good racing. I'm not saying that the racing
2:03:18
this weekend or the last little bit's been bad, but there are
2:03:21
instances where it's like, oh cool, there's like 3 cars in
2:03:24
this race that are second and a half faster than everybody else
2:03:26
because, and it, you know, I, I'll flat out say it, aside from
2:03:31
the top two cars, that template late model race was pink, You
2:03:35
know, just watching paint dry. If I wanted to watch hot laps,
2:03:38
I'll watch hot laps. Right, right, right, right.
2:03:41
Throw those seven cars in with the rear wheel drive guys
2:03:43
though, where do they fall? Yeah, you know, and I know all
2:03:47
the arguments of well, now the street stock guys have a chance
2:03:50
to win. Well, they got a chance to win.
2:03:52
They got a chance to win the B main or the C main, you know,
2:03:55
but but the but the slower St. stock guys now they don't have a
2:03:58
chance to win the D main. They're getting screwed because
2:04:01
they're second and a half off fast time in the B main and
2:04:03
there's only 10 St. stocks in the B main, you know, so it
2:04:07
helps some people. It hurts some people.
2:04:10
Springport with Michigan Cup has always been class racing.
2:04:14
You know, I I started I started racing in O7.
2:04:18
My first Michigan Cup was O 7. My first super shoot was 08.
2:04:21
So I'm not the old timers that have been doing this since, you
2:04:24
know, I remember the first Michigan cup when when, you
2:04:27
know, we had two classes and they were really, you know, like
2:04:30
I'm not quite that old. You know we're we're 1718 years
2:04:33
doing this, right? But but I've been around for
2:04:35
Michigan. Cup, you know, it was class
2:04:38
racing and but it was the classes that ran there and so,
2:04:42
you know, it was a wide range of them.
2:04:44
Super shoe was always just this. If you have a car, you can race
2:04:48
it. Super shoe, it doesn't matter if
2:04:50
you fit the class. And so for me, those two events
2:04:54
just had this the brackets, right, The brackets.
2:04:57
I've heard people, well, they should open up.
2:04:59
That time rule's stupid. They should open up.
2:05:00
They get more cars, the late bottles that show up, the
2:05:03
organizers of the brackets. You know, this is the story I've
2:05:05
heard. This is what I've seen.
2:05:06
And they flat out say we don't want them.
2:05:09
We don't want late models to show up.
2:05:11
We're trying to give St. stop guys, you know, a chance to win
2:05:14
a big show. The the front wheel drives.
2:05:17
There's a lot of fast front wheel drives that they got a
2:05:19
sandbag like crazy. That's why I didn't go to the
2:05:21
brackets for a long time. I had a car that was too fast.
2:05:24
I'm not the kind of guy that can sandbag.
2:05:25
I can't, I can't have a 15 second car and run 16 notes.
2:05:28
I can't do it. Like I just I'm not that.
2:05:30
So that race wasn't for me. So, but that's the brackets.
2:05:34
That's that event. It's not supposed to be about
2:05:37
Cyborg late models, right? And so you can have that
2:05:42
separation. And that's why, in my personal
2:05:45
opinion, this is Todd Metz. This is not opinions of frontal
2:05:47
discussion. This is me speaking as a racer
2:05:50
and as a fan. You know, I love the ABC format
2:05:54
of Super Shoot. I love the class racing of
2:05:57
Michigan Cup. And I think that they can
2:05:58
coexist separately and you can keep the heart and soul of those
2:06:01
events by doing that. So when I definitely, you know.
2:06:05
In that 30 ish minutes that I had between Chelsea and you, you
2:06:09
know, that's where I use time to kind of talk about some of the
2:06:11
content from this weekend, some of the things how I didn't want
2:06:14
to babysit the comments section. You know, it's some things that
2:06:18
I'm allowed to post to Kalamazoo thinks I'm not allowed to post
2:06:20
to Kalamazoo. So why you can't see everything
2:06:22
at one time sort of deal because I limited on what I can do that.
2:06:28
You know, I I said that that that late model feature was
2:06:32
better than it deserved to be because.
2:06:36
Of. Those. 2.
2:06:38
You know, and I that's where it's like, and I had said that I
2:06:40
felt bad for the other late models in that race, even though
2:06:43
there's only four more behind them or whatever because they
2:06:47
didn't get a lot of TV time. I literally watched the drag
2:06:50
race because that was the race. Everyone else was spread out.
2:06:53
You know, I can tell you I wasn't.
2:06:55
I couldn't. I couldn't tell you what anybody
2:06:56
else was doing except for when the leaders were over where I
2:06:59
couldn't see them. When I was standing by the
2:07:00
fence, I kind of glanced with cars coming by me like and it's
2:07:03
and, and listen, I've been involved in a three car feature
2:07:05
before, OK, I've been there. Like we had a feature way back
2:07:09
in the day of Springport. There was only three cars that
2:07:11
showed up for the for the 4 cylinder class.
2:07:14
We ran many stocks and there were three of us.
2:07:17
There was me, my mom and a guy named Joe Joe is a rookie.
2:07:20
I set fast time and I had one and 1.4 seconds faster than Joe
2:07:25
and Joe is almost 2 seconds faster than my mom, right.
2:07:29
So. If we had went out and.
2:07:32
Ran that race and I just went hammer down.
2:07:34
I'd have lapped both of them, right?
2:07:37
They came to us and they said, hey, we're going to let you run,
2:07:39
but we're going to cut you to 12 laps.
2:07:40
And I said, that is absolutely perfectly fair.
2:07:42
I went over to Joe. I, I said, hey, do you want the
2:07:45
high, high groove or low groove? And he says, well, what do you
2:07:47
mean just just run and I'll, I'll follow you.
2:07:49
And I said, no, no, no, brother. I said, I said the speech, I'm
2:07:51
like, we're going to put on the show.
2:07:52
Do you want to run the higher group, low group?
2:07:54
And he didn't understand it right away.
2:07:56
He says, well, I'll, I'll take the high groove or the low
2:07:58
group. And I said, OK.
2:07:59
And for 12 laps, 11, for 11 laps, everyone in his crew
2:08:04
thought he was going to win that thing.
2:08:06
And he led 5 or 6 laps right we took.
2:08:10
The white flag and coming out of two.
2:08:11
I left my foot in it. We put some distance because I
2:08:13
didn't want something stupid to happen.
2:08:15
I'm not going to let him win the feature.
2:08:16
I'm not quite that generous but but we put 12 laps on that.
2:08:21
You couldn't, it looked like, you know, head and presser there
2:08:25
like it. You couldn't have told who was
2:08:26
going to win, but I wanted to make sure that nobody watched
2:08:29
that race and went why, Why are they here?
2:08:32
What's going on? Like it was a show.
2:08:34
By the end of the year we had 20 cards, you know, like we worked
2:08:37
up to it. And I, I won the first, I think
2:08:39
four or five. I got a bounty put out on me
2:08:41
that year. That was pretty cool because I
2:08:42
won the first few and then some fast guys showed up.
2:08:44
I don't think I won another race that year.
2:08:46
It was what it was. But you know, the next week my
2:08:49
dad showed up and so I'm racing my dad.
2:08:51
Well, we almost lapped Joe. Well, then a fast guy showed up.
2:08:54
We did lap Joe twice. And so Joe's like, I understand
2:08:56
what happened opening night. And I was like, yeah, brother,
2:08:59
like I'm not, we're not doing hot laps.
2:09:00
Like I know how fast, brother, I went to 18 one.
2:09:04
You went to 17 two like or 19 two.
2:09:08
Like I'm not, I'm not that guy. You know, like I want the fans
2:09:11
to watch us, right. If not for those top two guys,
2:09:14
it would have been the exact same situation in that in that
2:09:17
late model race, it's hot laps, you know?
2:09:20
So I, I, you know, Joel. Joel has a cool point that could
2:09:25
kind of go with yours, like when it was all kind of thrown
2:09:27
together because that's why people like Boone Nationals.
2:09:30
At Boone Nationals, you have Sprint cars, race racing with
2:09:32
late models and Modifieds and you have all these weird things
2:09:35
going on. You know, some of this is that
2:09:38
Joel has like or not Boone Nationals.
2:09:40
What is that? But it's at Boone the the IMCA
2:09:45
supernatural. It's the what do they call that
2:09:47
race? I know what you're talking
2:09:49
about. It's it's a special race.
2:09:51
They take the like top 2 sprints, the top 2, the sprints
2:09:53
I think start like 3 laps down and you know, you know what,
2:09:56
they don't let run that race by the way front wheel drives.
2:10:00
Front wheel drives. Yeah.
2:10:02
But the front wheel drives are basically just as fast as the
2:10:05
street stocks in IMKA and they probably get real upset that,
2:10:08
you know, like Joel Stalk and how the top five qualifiers this
2:10:11
shoe would have been, you know, fast time for the street stocks.
2:10:14
That's been happening most all year.
2:10:18
It's been happening for the last three, 4-5 years now.
2:10:22
Go to Springport St. Stocks kick the.
2:10:25
Shit out of. The front wheel drives, they got
2:10:26
a lot more motor. Kalamazoo Spartan, stuff like
2:10:31
that. Front wheel drives can run tree
2:10:33
stock times, you know like Dan Ragoni or Dave Simpson or LZ,
2:10:42
you know junior or senior there. Whoever sat fast time a lot of
2:10:47
times for the last 2-3 years would have been.
2:10:50
Top two or three. Qualifier in the tree stocks
2:10:52
right now the front wheel drive split with the rear wheel
2:10:55
drives. You know 3200 lbs tree stock.
2:10:57
I have been on track. This is this is the other part
2:11:00
of my opinion on this, that that some people believe me, some
2:11:02
people don't. I've been on track with the
2:11:05
Rocket car in its full glory. The year it went, 9 or not, not
2:11:11
the year 19 fours it went. It was the first year I think
2:11:14
they broke into the nines in practice.
2:11:17
Bozel went like a 10/5. I was on track with that car
2:11:22
because we all ran together. They weren't split.
2:11:25
I have been the guy who's been 7 seconds slower, Well, 5 1/2
2:11:31
seconds slower. I went like mid fifteens to his
2:11:33
10s, right? I have been there.
2:11:37
I've I've put my money where my mouth is.
2:11:39
I've raced 3500 LB cars in a 2300 LB Neon.
2:11:45
It sucks when they decide they don't like you being faster than
2:11:48
that. It's happened.
2:11:50
You get beat up and, or you know, the neons don't take it.
2:11:53
So I, that's part of why I'm for that separation.
2:11:55
But I've been there. I've been on track with CRA late
2:11:58
models out of Springport. I've been on track with giant
2:12:02
side boarded late models. I've raced in call of the wild
2:12:05
and super shoe against late models and dirt mods and dirt
2:12:09
late models. And you know, I, I, if you, if
2:12:11
there's been a, the only classic car I have not put my Dodge Neon
2:12:15
against basically is a Sprint car.
2:12:18
And I just haven't had the opportunity, you know, not that
2:12:21
I think I could beat them. You know, I ran AC main for, for
2:12:24
call of the wild before they split them.
2:12:26
You know, like I, I ran against these guys and it's, it's a ton
2:12:30
of fun, but it's, it's a little dangerous.
2:12:33
And so I do agree with the split of the front wheel drive and
2:12:37
real drive. But like, if you go down that
2:12:38
list, like where would the fast St. stock guide be in relation
2:12:41
to the real drive class? You know, I mean, look at the B
2:12:43
main, the B main for the real drive class.
2:12:45
You had a Camaro bodied car against wedged sideboard cards,
2:12:50
you know, Yeah, you had, you had, you had Flipper out there
2:12:53
with his, you know, Clash. But he finished on the board of
2:12:57
the Clash. I think he finished 19th or 20th
2:12:59
at the Clash running against a Camaro, Yeah.
2:13:05
Like. You know, so you could you.
2:13:06
Could have that. You could have that.
2:13:08
That's what that event's for, Yeah.
2:13:09
So I do like at the rear wheel drive.
2:13:11
Like that I do like, you know, that mix because that's always
2:13:15
cool. I I was really surprised with I
2:13:17
shouldn't say I was surprised, but I feel like I was surprised
2:13:20
with Jerry with his limited late model thinking like, Oh, there's
2:13:24
all these supers in here. I mean, we had the summer
2:13:26
sizzler winner in there. We had, you know, all these
2:13:28
things and they the supers didn't really do a hurting on
2:13:32
the limited late model. So in fact, the top if I want to
2:13:35
other than Mark Shook and the 14 because that is his outlaw super
2:13:39
late model that he's raced with reveal if I remember maybe that.
2:13:43
Wasn't. Because his.
2:13:44
His 14 maybe it was I maybe, but let's I know of a lot of those.
2:13:51
Guys, I don't know which car is which, I'm not going to lie.
2:13:54
Like I like Jared Blanchard was up there and I.
2:13:56
Think he did 3rd and that was definitely a limited late model
2:13:59
that it's kind of interesting that a lot of the reveal cars
2:14:04
weren't up now obviously you didn't have Tyler Roark, you
2:14:06
didn't have Steve Needles, you didn't have you know, with
2:14:09
having yeah with the nationals having their.
2:14:11
Big race for outlaws. I mean, you know, like Adam
2:14:13
Terry wasn't there and and you didn't have the Bozels, you know
2:14:16
that Jerry probably would have. Went, you know, went well.
2:14:21
And you know, and this is me. I'm a front wheel drive guy.
2:14:23
I get reminded this often. But the biggest thing, if you
2:14:26
look between at the rules, between the limited lights and
2:14:27
the Super outlaws, they're not all that different.
2:14:30
They're all the same chassis. You know, they have, you know,
2:14:33
the bodies are relatively the same, especially for super
2:14:36
shoot. You know, it's, it's more like a
2:14:38
wet drive, something shocks situation, you know, and and no
2:14:41
active rear, which at that point there's some of those limiteds
2:14:44
that might swap that over for shoe and stuff like that, you
2:14:46
know, but they're not at this giant massive disadvantage.
2:14:49
But the beauty of this is too is you've had guys with with
2:14:51
legitimate modifieds put a super shoe body on and they look like
2:14:54
an outlaw super late. You never know.
2:14:57
It's it's efforts like they've got five on five wheels.
2:14:59
Why don't they buy 5? So, well, it's because it's
2:15:00
modified, you know, and they're, they'll run top 10, you know,
2:15:04
because they've got the arrow now and they've got the let you
2:15:06
know. And so that's why for me, super
2:15:08
shoe is such a stand alone amazing event because I
2:15:11
personally, I, I can understand how you, you know, I can respect
2:15:15
your opinion and not liking the sideboard cards and stuff like
2:15:17
that. Having ran sideboard cards, you
2:15:19
know, or cars, you know, it's still, you know, here's a fun
2:15:22
fact. I still actually hold the all
2:15:23
time front wheel drive record at Kalamazoo, which I am to this
2:15:26
day shocked that I still own it took a giant sheet of Lexan to
2:15:31
do. It's only a 1462, so it's not
2:15:34
that. I mean, guys have gone sixes,
2:15:36
they've just not gone A2 with it.
2:15:38
Guys have gone sevens and eights, you know, I mean, I
2:15:41
think Elsie went A7 or a low, low 8 just on a regular night.
2:15:46
Like I am legitimately floored that record.
2:15:48
So this, I said it in 2014, but I did it with a giant sideboard
2:15:52
for a while, you know, so I love those cars.
2:15:56
I love the Super shoe cars. I love the sideboard.
2:15:58
I love seeing guys with street stocks put sideboards on.
2:16:01
I love seeing, you know, the dude with the Crown Victoria
2:16:03
that had the sideboard stuff on the front wheel drivers that do
2:16:06
it. Like I love seeing that stuff.
2:16:08
I love the creativity because there's so much of that stuff
2:16:10
that's free. And some of the wildest outlaw
2:16:13
bodies have come from super shoe.
2:16:16
You know, I think you posted some of the pictures of Trenton.
2:16:19
You know, he took him out of fight, had a wild body on it.
2:16:22
You know, that's the kind of stuff you'll never get that with
2:16:27
class racing. Because if I had, if I have a
2:16:30
street stock, why would I, why would I go through a Dick with a
2:16:33
body when I can't do that? Because I got to have, you know,
2:16:36
'cause when they first split this a few years ago, you know,
2:16:39
they, they gave the street stocks and they, they gave them
2:16:42
super shoe rules. And so you had a few St.
2:16:45
Stock guys hang outlaw bodies on it and do some other stuff and
2:16:50
they ran top 10 times with the outlaw rear wheel drive super
2:16:55
shoe stuff. But they were in the street
2:16:57
stock class. What's the point?
2:16:59
Why do you have that rule? Well, then we went to St. stock
2:17:01
rules. What makes sense if you're going
2:17:02
to split the class like that, OK, well, then they got to be
2:17:04
St. stocks, you know, but but now we're robbed of that.
2:17:07
We're robbed of a of a street stock guy going you know what?
2:17:10
Let's see what we can do with this and run top ten in the A
2:17:12
main with a with a stock clip. You know, so This is why I love.
2:17:18
That kind of. Stuff.
2:17:18
This is why. This is why the class racing is
2:17:20
super shoe bothers. But then I'll argue.
2:17:23
Everyday that. Michigan Cubs should have
2:17:25
classes right when I think the sideboard.
2:17:28
Like when you talk about like your big, you know, Lexan that
2:17:31
you had at Galesburg a couple weeks ago, they had for the van
2:17:35
Avery was going to be open and Ryan Osborne had a big board
2:17:40
Bentleyfoot. I think if it was like that, it.
2:17:43
Would stand out more but the fact that the boards can only be
2:17:45
like roof height or a little bit more like I I I.
2:17:49
Agree with that. You know, The thing is though,
2:17:52
is that you can still get very creative with an outlaw body
2:17:55
with a because like the rear wheel drives, it's a 42 inches
2:17:58
off the ground. You know you're going to be 42
2:18:00
inches high off the ground right with the front wheel drives.
2:18:02
They do a roof height and I actually really like that rule
2:18:05
for the front wheel drives because it does simplify things
2:18:07
because if you've got this year it's this height, you know it
2:18:10
gives you an easy marker. Now I even went the one year, so
2:18:13
2017 was the last year I won it. I won super shoot three times.
2:18:16
So it was the last year I won it.
2:18:17
I went through and built a new high board for super shoe and
2:18:20
when I tell you brother, the amount of work that I put into
2:18:22
the thing, I had a level and I'm like, OK, the highest point of
2:18:25
the roof is over here. Like this is the high point of
2:18:27
the roof. We had a six foot level and I'm
2:18:29
like, OK, we come from here all the way over.
2:18:31
OK, that bubble says that we're level.
2:18:33
OK, what's the degree measurement of this level?
2:18:36
OK, well these are the tire pressure.
2:18:37
If we increase the tire pressure this much or this much or that
2:18:39
much for this or here, where like how much is it going to
2:18:41
change the level of this? Do I need to make it a head?
2:18:43
I literally went to the nearest eighth of an inch on height that
2:18:47
I could for the sideboard and I was prepared to argue that it
2:18:50
was roof height. I had an hour long argument in
2:18:53
my hand prepared and I and I went through and they went looks
2:18:57
good and I went you sons of bitches.
2:18:59
Not one of you is even going to measure it.
2:19:01
Like all right, cool. You know, like I was just
2:19:03
prepared. For that fight, right?
2:19:04
Remember you talking about this? Yeah.
2:19:06
Yeah, yeah. But.
2:19:08
But the beauty of that is is you guys, you know, I, I never cut
2:19:11
the body off the new car that I was building is, is going to be
2:19:14
able to do that. But you get guys like Corey
2:19:19
Woods who put a late model on Paul Biddle was actually the
2:19:22
first one that ran like a a late model body.
2:19:26
He had kind of the outlaw body. He was the first one to really
2:19:28
do that. That was all the way back, I
2:19:30
want to say in like 2015, right? But you had guys doing that and
2:19:36
and you know, you had guys that were doing that in the rear
2:19:38
wheel drive stuff too. So you still have that
2:19:40
creativity in the front wheel drives because we can, because
2:19:43
it's, you know, hey, does it power the front wheels?
2:19:46
Yeah, cool, you're good. You know, very simple rules, 7
2:19:49
inch wheels, you know, front wheel drive nothing taller than
2:19:52
the roof, you know, arm restraints, otherwise super easy
2:19:56
to detect, you know, and and that's why I love that stuff.
2:20:00
So yeah, I I do miss call in a while.
2:20:02
I miss the sideboard stuff but I understand when when Andy backed
2:20:06
in the wall when the left rear D beaded on the inside.
2:20:09
I understand why they stopped trying to go faster than 9.4,
2:20:12
but I do miss it. I do miss it.
2:20:16
Well and. So as you're talking.
2:20:18
John made a point that I've heard so many times because
2:20:22
there are a lot of drivers who won't race Super Shoe.
2:20:24
This is before last year's Michigan Cup, which is obviously
2:20:28
not at the same level as it had been, right, for various
2:20:32
reasons. But you know, a lot of people in
2:20:35
2025 for for 2024 talked about wine.
2:20:40
Yeah, I'm. Going to Mission Cup, I'm not
2:20:41
going. To super shoe because I don't
2:20:44
want to change my car, Pressler said.
2:20:46
There's a whole bunch of drivers to this where they're like we, I
2:20:49
don't want. To put.
2:20:49
Work in my car and tear it apart and do all the things for Super
2:20:53
Shoe and then stay the week and hope that I didn't tear up the
2:20:57
car or do whatever and that I only have to do sideboard stuff
2:21:00
for whatnot to get it ready for Mission.
2:21:02
Yeah. So I, you know, I don't know if
2:21:05
they would do it because I think these weekends have been pretty
2:21:07
historic. But you know, I think some
2:21:09
people have proposed that if Michigan Cup were before Super
2:21:14
Shoe, then you can have your class racing kind of close that
2:21:17
out because most other tracks have had class racing still to
2:21:20
that point, you know, do Michigan Cup.
2:21:22
And then if you want to get crazy wild sideboards, all the
2:21:26
things 'cause you're probably tearing your car part for the
2:21:29
rest of the year anyways, that you know, then you could do
2:21:32
Super Shoe. And now that Bahama Brackets is
2:21:34
at Grundy, maybe for a lot of people they can keep the car the
2:21:37
way it is and go right to Grundy.
2:21:39
Where now if people want to do Super Shoe and they didn't
2:21:42
change or they changed stuff, but now they got to get it ready
2:21:44
for Michigan Cup, you have got to change it back.
2:21:46
And then you can change it back. So then.
2:21:48
If you just kind of organized it, I, I fully, yeah.
2:21:53
Yeah, no. And honestly, like, I don't
2:21:55
disagree with that. I have talked to people and
2:21:57
this, this goes to the front wheel drives when you have a
2:21:59
roof high sideboard and that's all you do because that's all
2:22:02
I've ever done, man. It's just some bolts and rivets
2:22:04
and I'm ready to go racing again.
2:22:06
Right. I do understand that, you know,
2:22:08
the guys that are doing full blown, you know, aluminum late
2:22:11
model bodies. Yeah, that sucked, right?
2:22:15
Michigan Cup this year, though, Donnie said the front wheel
2:22:17
drive rules are super shoot rules.
2:22:19
So if you did all that to your front wheel drive super shoot,
2:22:21
you get to do that now. And I honestly, that doesn't
2:22:25
bother me just because it's not that far off from the front
2:22:28
wheel drives anyway. It's it's just the body rules
2:22:31
are really all that's different. But I understand that validity
2:22:35
from a street stuck guy who's going to hang a different body
2:22:37
on it, who's going to put a different motor in it, who's
2:22:39
going to change up the rear suspension?
2:22:41
Or you know, I do understand that.
2:22:43
The one thing that I did like that they tried to do a couple
2:22:45
years ago, I want to say it was 24.
2:22:47
It might have been before that they tried running a super shoot
2:22:51
class at Michigan Cup. So the late model guys who
2:22:55
didn't want to change the body or you know, because like so
2:22:59
John, his truck doesn't fit the street stock rules.
2:23:03
He has a he has a quick change rear end.
2:23:06
Back in the day, they had a series called the Short Trek
2:23:08
trucks. It was a travelling series.
2:23:10
They allowed them quick change rear ends and it's got well, it
2:23:14
doesn't anymore because it's now a super shoe in a brackets car.
2:23:18
But it had all stock mounting points.
2:23:20
Like it still has stock front geometry and everything like
2:23:22
it's it's more St. stock than a lot of St. stocks, but it had a
2:23:26
quick change we're in. So it didn't fit well.
2:23:29
John can't run unless he wants. I mean legitimately, unless he
2:23:32
wants to run with like the sportsman, he can't run super
2:23:35
shoe or Michigan cup. Sorry, he can't run Michigan
2:23:37
cup. Well, the rear wheel drive
2:23:39
Michigan Cup or the Super? Shoe class at Michigan Cup.
2:23:43
Like he could have ran it, you know, So I do.
2:23:46
I do love that they did that. They didn't have a lot of cars
2:23:50
show up because a lot of guys are like, well, I just hung the
2:23:52
old body on it and I can run late models or I just took that
2:23:54
stuff off and I could run St. stocks or you know, so it didn't
2:23:58
it didn't pan out as much. But I also, having been involved
2:24:02
Michigan Cup for a long time, Michigan Cup would get cars, but
2:24:06
it didn't get what Super Shoot got.
2:24:08
And, and, and it's kind of went it's kind of, it's kind of
2:24:12
evened or switched a little, you know, Super shoot.
2:24:16
Things have changed with Super Shoot.
2:24:17
The parties changed with Super Shoot, good or bad, some could
2:24:22
argue both ways, but this the. Party's changed the.
2:24:26
Crowd's changed a little bit, the racing changed a little bit
2:24:28
and it's not that it's it's not this dropped off.
2:24:30
I love super shoot. I've gone every year since O 8.
2:24:32
That's why I'm so appreciative of everyone that helped me this
2:24:34
year so that I can keep that streak.
2:24:37
But it's it's just different and Michigan Cup, it's just been
2:24:40
different and you get the guys and gals that are like, I don't
2:24:43
want to run kazoo. I don't want to camp down there.
2:24:45
I don't want to run super shoot. I love Springport, I want to run
2:24:49
Michigan Cup and and there is a contingent of 50 cars that.
2:24:55
Michigan Cup could probably. Do whatever the hell they
2:24:57
wanted. Those fifty cars are going to
2:24:59
run it no matter what, but they'll never go to Super Shoe.
2:25:03
And you've got, you've got a lot of the Indiana guys and, and
2:25:07
kind of that area like the M40 guys and stuff like that.
2:25:09
Guys and gals, they're probably never going to come to
2:25:13
Springport. It's just a little too far.
2:25:15
They don't want to pull. You know, it might be, it's only
2:25:17
40 minutes to pull the camper in Kalamazoo.
2:25:19
It's an hour and 40 minutes to pull it to Springport, you know,
2:25:23
and then, well, the car, the car's not geared or it's not
2:25:26
quite set up or it's not, you know, any number of reasons why,
2:25:30
but they're not going to pull Michigan Cup.
2:25:32
And so those two events do share a lot of cars, but they also do
2:25:37
not share a lot of cars. And and and it's.
2:25:41
It's the. Same as.
2:25:42
You know, Owosso, Owosso shares some cars, especially now that
2:25:46
they're throwing cash at it like it's, you know, dancing for
2:25:49
them. You know, they they pulled a lot
2:25:52
of cars this last weekend in the late models and the templates.
2:25:55
I don't think they pulled any St. stocks.
2:25:57
I don't I don't really know if they pulled more than 345 of
2:25:59
them that were going to run super shoe anyway, you know, and
2:26:03
and I don't think they pulled, but maybe one or two front wheel
2:26:06
drives that were going to run super shoe.
2:26:09
You know, there are there are front wheel drive guys that went
2:26:12
and ran Owosso because Springport closed.
2:26:15
But there was a lot of them. They didn't just park their cars
2:26:17
for the season because they don't want to run anymore in
2:26:18
Springport, you know, and, and, and so that's why like Michigan
2:26:22
Cup, the rules, in my opinion, the class racing works that way
2:26:27
because you do have a group of people that are going to race
2:26:29
there anyway. And I understand the argument
2:26:31
from the, from the 10/15/20 cars that are like, Hey, I'm not
2:26:35
going to do the work to convert my car back for Michigan Cup to,
2:26:39
you know, it's either that they don't want to convert it back
2:26:42
for that one race or, you know, because I would, I would
2:26:46
venture, and you'll, you'll be able to tell this because you're
2:26:48
going to be at all three. I'll bet you there's going to be
2:26:50
less than 5 cars that were at Super Shoe that are going to be
2:26:54
at Springport and then are going to go to Grundy.
2:26:56
I'll bet there's less than 5, right?
2:26:59
It's just the geographical anomalies for those tracks.
2:27:02
You know, you're not going to get many people that do it.
2:27:05
And so in that case, you're not switching to switch back, you
2:27:09
know? And so, so, so that's why like,
2:27:12
that's why in, in my opinion, as a fan, as a racer, you know, I'm
2:27:17
also a little crazy. I used to run stock rules and
2:27:19
then run outlaw rule on Friday, run outlaw rules on Saturday and
2:27:22
have a stock class race on Sunday with the same car.
2:27:25
I spent five hours switching from one to the other back
2:27:28
within three days. I used to do that.
2:27:29
I've done some crazy stuff. So swapping the body over for
2:27:33
over the week might not be as much work for me, you know, but
2:27:37
well and as we get ready to wrap up here.
2:27:39
Only because I'm like, it's 9, almost 930 and brother, yeah,
2:27:43
see. We're good on camera.
2:27:45
We talk good on camera, right? No.
2:27:46
Yeah. Just feel like.
2:27:47
That, but that's where, well, the only reason I noticed is
2:27:50
because again, I'm sitting outside and raccoons come up and
2:27:54
they are very consistent with their timing.
2:27:56
And so they hate it on Mondays. But I'm out here because they're
2:28:00
like, I don't get, they're waiting for the lights to go off
2:28:02
there. They are and I so the.
2:28:04
One came. Oh, you're still there?
2:28:06
Yeah, yeah, the one I call. It Big Bertha, you know, came
2:28:10
around because it's. Bigger.
2:28:11
Than our bulldog. That we used to have that passed
2:28:14
away a few weeks ago, that I'm like, oh, she's mad now.
2:28:17
I think it's a she. It looks like a but, but as we
2:28:21
wrap up, you know you're talking about class.
2:28:22
And so I feel like because you're a front wheel drive guy,
2:28:25
I feel like you can ask this to you and I think you'll have an
2:28:27
answer because you, I believe you've also done a show on this
2:28:30
too. So I'm a big proponent.
2:28:33
So I'll give the background. I'm a huge big proponent after
2:28:37
being introduced to it at Springport for the ABC front
2:28:41
wheel drive format. The point system I understand,
2:28:45
as it's even been explained to me many times that many places
2:28:48
gets wonky. But I I like the aspect that,
2:28:52
you know, drivers can kind of, if it's similar rules and ABC
2:28:57
kind of the you are where you are.
2:29:00
You know, you could go race at Kalamazoo on Friday ABC and then
2:29:03
go race at Galesburg next year. Springport, I think a WASA was
2:29:08
doing ABC. They might have changed it
2:29:10
again, but I think they were doing ABC.
2:29:11
You could go race at Corrigan and probably not have to do too
2:29:16
much difference to your car. Whereas if I'm if I want to race
2:29:21
Saturday or Friday at Kalamazoo, then on Saturday then 40 for
2:29:26
example, I'm either an extreme stock or I'm going to be a road
2:29:31
warrior. If I want to go race at
2:29:32
Kalamazoo on Friday and then race at New Paris on Saturday.
2:29:36
I'm either a Hornet with a 17 second breakout rule and if you
2:29:40
break out twice and you go up to the front wheel drivers anyways,
2:29:43
or I'm a 4 cylinder which is their combination of mini stocks
2:29:46
and outlaws. Although at New Paris it's heavy
2:29:49
mini stocks. Where at Galesburg or excuse me
2:29:52
at and 40 it's heavy front wheel drives.
2:29:55
It's kind of the new pairs has always been mini stock country.
2:29:59
So with you having been on both sides, haven't done stock front
2:30:05
wheel. Dr. Outlaw Front.
2:30:06
Wheel drive kind of move around you've done.
2:30:08
I know I just would have to find in the archives.
2:30:10
You've done a show like this, so for you, are you a proponent or
2:30:14
an aunt or an opponent to like the ABC format?
2:30:18
And if you were to argue for one way or the other, which why
2:30:21
would or what would be your arguments?
2:30:23
So I have talked. About this, I get this question
2:30:26
a lot because I always get asked what rules do you think we
2:30:29
should run? And I'm going to tell you and it
2:30:31
might sound like a cop out answer but I have an explanation
2:30:33
for it. It depends on the track, it
2:30:36
depends on the owner and the tech people.
2:30:39
OK because I am I I actually believe having 2 front wheel
2:30:44
drive classes is a good thing because I believe in the outlaw
2:30:49
style Hornish Stinger, road warrior, 4 cylinder blah blah
2:30:53
blah blah blah blah. I'm going to refer to them as
2:30:56
outlaw and stock OK? However, whatever name your
2:30:59
track wants to use, whatever, OK, I believe Outlaws should be
2:31:04
at every track for frontal grabs.
2:31:06
You're going to have a basic set of weight rules to try to even
2:31:09
things out a little bit. I am a fan of, you know, like AK
2:31:12
series Half and away, more if it's swapped in, stuff like
2:31:15
that. Give single cams, away breaks
2:31:17
and stuff like that. Lower horsepower combinations.
2:31:19
Give them a break. You know, try to just eat.
2:31:21
Give it some parity, right? But they're going to be on race
2:31:25
tires, they're going to have built motors, they're going to
2:31:27
be allowed to do those things. They're going to be able to, you
2:31:30
know, allow to, to make race cars out of these things, right?
2:31:33
Because the beauty of this is, is that it doesn't matter what
2:31:36
your car is built to, you can run under that rule set, right?
2:31:39
That is that, that outlaw is your ABC style.
2:31:42
So if anybody, if any track runs an ABC, they're going to be an
2:31:45
outlaw style. I'm a, I'm a big fan of that,
2:31:48
right? But I do believe a track can
2:31:51
have and see great success with a stock class, right?
2:31:56
The issue is, is that you have to have a common sense set of
2:31:59
rules and you have to enforce it with an iron fist.
2:32:04
Because if I have a set of rules, and this kind of goes
2:32:07
back to that super shoe thing with the dot and the tires.
2:32:10
If I have a set of rules that said and, and, and I'm all for
2:32:14
some common sense stuff. You're allowed racing wheels
2:32:17
because they're safer. You have to have a good cage.
2:32:20
I do not give a shit if you are a track that doesn't make your
2:32:23
your racers wear proper safety equipment in a cage.
2:32:25
I think you're a dumb ass. I've said it on the page, it's
2:32:29
just not something I'm publicly positive about.
2:32:31
If you don't care about the safety of your racers, just tell
2:32:34
them that you're there. You're opening the track for
2:32:36
them to come race and pay you. You don't care if they live or
2:32:39
die. OK, I, I'm, I'm, I've, I've said
2:32:43
I've lost friends as promoters because of that, right?
2:32:48
Yep. I, I've had some tell me they
2:32:49
used to like me, but they don't now because I'm too outspoken
2:32:51
about it. Cool.
2:32:53
I have some words I can't say now for you about that, right.
2:32:57
But it's a case of if it says stock motors if it isn't stock.
2:33:03
Cool, you run. With the front wheel drives, you
2:33:04
know, with the Outlaws and you will for the rest of the season,
2:33:07
you get if you've got, if your camber's a little bit too much,
2:33:10
if you're 10 lbs underweight, we have some leniency.
2:33:14
If I find you with a ported head, cool, you're with those
2:33:16
guys. I don't give a shit.
2:33:18
You cannot appeal it. You cannot get reinstated.
2:33:20
You are racing this car will never race this class again for
2:33:24
the rest of the year. If you can prove next year you
2:33:26
fit this rule set, you can come back next year.
2:33:29
You cheated in a stock class, you're bumped up right.
2:33:32
You don't have to leave the the track.
2:33:34
You don't have to leave you know, but we have common sense
2:33:36
tires. You're going to have a 300
2:33:38
treadwear higher. You're going to have a 70 series
2:33:41
sidewaller taller, you know, and and you can run a 14 to 15 to 17
2:33:45
whatever you need to fit your car.
2:33:46
But we're going to have tall, not racing tires.
2:33:50
We're going to let you have camber.
2:33:52
We're going to have some common sense weight rules so guys
2:33:55
aren't gutting cars down to the absolute bare minimum, but
2:33:58
you're allowed to make them look like race cars.
2:33:59
You know, you can put a nose cone on them, You can, you can
2:34:02
put some tin on the doors. But because we're going to have
2:34:05
a little bit of weight and stuff like that, I think if you can
2:34:08
see great success with that because you get a lot of guys
2:34:10
that go, I don't have $20,000 to build an outlaw.
2:34:13
Well, you don't have to. You could run the B main, but
2:34:15
they don't want to run the B main.
2:34:16
They want to win the A main. So they're going to sandbag down
2:34:18
into the stock stuff, you know, so you can have success with
2:34:22
both of classes, but if you are attracted is not willing to
2:34:25
enforce the rules or check the rules or have somebody that
2:34:28
knows the rules or knows these cars just run ABC style and then
2:34:32
everybody's welcome. And and I'm such a huge fan of
2:34:35
that. So yeah, I'm a big I'm.
2:34:39
When I first. Went to Spring Port I.
2:34:41
Didn't quite understand what that was.
2:34:43
It gets iffy with the points. If you ask me about points for
2:34:46
the A to B to CI, have to sit down with some paper and figure
2:34:50
out a good way to do that. I, I, I, I, I fully agree with
2:34:53
that. That's difficult to figure out
2:34:56
as far as actually racing goes. Cool.
2:34:58
Here's the times. This is a logical split.
2:35:01
This is a logical split. This is a logical split.
2:35:03
Here's your A, your B, and your C Yep, and I and.
2:35:07
So what would you say? So, so there's a driver I'm
2:35:10
thinking of, I won't say their name, obviously, but there's a
2:35:13
driver I'm thinking of who their track has a breakout rule and
2:35:20
all that. But they have gone and they have
2:35:22
had success at tracks that have the ABC format where they've
2:35:27
actually won those features. But I don't like, I don't like
2:35:30
breakout rules by the. Way I don't I don't like I don't
2:35:33
like tracks that limit their cars with a time.
2:35:38
I think it's a lazy way out. I think it's a lazy way out and
2:35:42
well, and that and I think. Some of that is too right.
2:35:45
I think the philosophy behind some of that is you try to stop
2:35:49
them from going like faster or whatever it is like, you know,
2:35:52
you're trying to keep. So make rules and enforce.
2:35:55
Them, but yeah. I always say on the time thing
2:35:58
because I'm like it attracts different but and I and I don't
2:36:03
know enough to like. I just know some of the
2:36:05
philosophy of what I've heard. But, you know, I think of like
2:36:09
new pairs, Jasmine Reams, you know, a few years ago she had
2:36:13
the championship one. All she had to do was start the
2:36:16
feature and she could have coasted.
2:36:20
She could have went around with a process wave and with Jasmine
2:36:24
Roberts now not reams, but you know, she could have went and
2:36:26
did this and, you know, just rolled around and.
2:36:29
She could have parked in the infield.
2:36:31
For the rest of the race and it was locked up.
2:36:34
She's a racer. She raced one to win.
2:36:37
Go up front, I got caught speeding for the second time.
2:36:40
That year, literally on championship night, 2 laps from
2:36:43
winning the championship racing instead of just parking it
2:36:47
knowing that's all she had to do, she lost that as a.
2:36:51
Fan was. Hard for me.
2:36:53
To chew on, it's like you're penalizing them even though it's
2:36:56
the rule. I know.
2:36:57
And if Chris is watching too, he'll or Tracy, well, that's our
2:36:59
rule. I know they'll say that.
2:37:01
I hear them in my ear saying that right now.
2:37:03
That's our rule. That's too bad.
2:37:05
But I felt bad because I'm like, she got penalized, which was the
2:37:11
rule, but she got penalized because she was racing, Yeah.
2:37:16
So for me so. Me for me with with breakout
2:37:19
racing, right, something like. The brackets.
2:37:24
A stand alone show. I think it's I think it's
2:37:26
awesome. OK, it's a stand alone show, all
2:37:29
right. It keeps out the Super fast
2:37:31
cars. It really makes guys play some
2:37:34
games, guys and gals. It actually works really well
2:37:36
for stand alone show. I hate it as a way for tracks to
2:37:40
enforce speeds because you're not enforcing speed, you're
2:37:43
you're encouraging people to drag race and hit the brakes is
2:37:47
all you're doing because you have your top five to 10 guys or
2:37:52
gals can go a half second faster.
2:37:55
I will almost guarantee it. They figured out ways not to,
2:37:58
and so they'll accelerate how they need to, they'll slow down
2:38:00
how they need to, and day after day, week after week, it gets
2:38:05
boring and you get to a point where you just have the top few
2:38:07
people cycling through because nobody wants to break out.
2:38:10
The racing isn't better. If you don't want cars to go
2:38:13
over a certain time, make rules to slow them down.
2:38:16
Spartan, for the longest time, you know, when I started racing
2:38:19
at Spartan, you, you know, they only allowed certain makes and
2:38:22
models of cars, which is an antiquated way to do it now
2:38:25
because you can't eliminate some of the cars, right?
2:38:28
But we had camber limits, we had tire limits.
2:38:33
You can only go so fast on A1957014 with a 300 treadwire
2:38:39
tire. I do not care if you have 900
2:38:41
horsepower. If you put a super late model on
2:38:44
a 235 tire, they will only go so fast.
2:38:49
It doesn't matter. Right.
2:38:52
But you get tracks that well, I don't want to tech tires.
2:38:54
Well, I don't want to tech these.
2:38:55
I don't want to tech 100 front wheel drive guys and get it just
2:38:58
makes sense to say you can't go faster than 15 O you guys work
2:39:01
it out. It to me, it's a lazy way to
2:39:03
slow them down. And and I've had this discussion
2:39:06
with promoters, promoters who have seen, you know, my point of
2:39:09
view with it, promoters that have said, I don't care.
2:39:11
It works and we're doing it And and hey, I don't own a
2:39:13
racetrack. I don't run a racetrack.
2:39:15
If it works for them and they get a bunch of cars, awesome.
2:39:17
It is the rule. If I show up and I know week in
2:39:20
and week out, that's the rule and I lose a race because of
2:39:23
that, You're right, it's a rule. It sucks.
2:39:24
I should have known better. It happens.
2:39:26
You know, I get that. I've broken out.
2:39:28
I've lost races because of breaking out on a normal
2:39:30
breakout rule. I do get that.
2:39:32
It's the rule. I, I, I don't, I don't complain
2:39:34
if you race that you know the rule.
2:39:36
That sucks losing a champion that way.
2:39:37
I think Curtis Town did it at Kalamazoo a couple years ago.
2:39:44
Yes, yeah, I think Elsie Junior. Lost his championship that way
2:39:47
too. I've known 234 guys and gals
2:39:49
that have done it at at Kalamazoo when they had the zoo
2:39:52
stocks and they had a break up time rule and, and it was the
2:39:56
same deal, but you had guys that had built motors and you know,
2:39:59
lightweight stuff running in that class sandbagging it.
2:40:03
And then next thing you know, they bought a set of Hooters.
2:40:05
On they were on a. Top ten in the Outlaws.
2:40:07
Well, I. Couldn't afford to run in.
2:40:09
That. Brother, you didn't change
2:40:10
anything. You bought tires, and they were?
2:40:13
Buying entire they were buying more tires, running the the
2:40:16
street tires because they were tearing them up than they would
2:40:19
Hooters, you know, and so it it's it's I don't like it.
2:40:23
I don't like bracket racing for a weekly class.
2:40:27
One off show it it works. It works good, It's fun.
2:40:31
To watch when there's 200 cars trying to make 80 spots, it's a
2:40:37
good show. When you've got 30 front wheel
2:40:41
drives, just check the tires. Just tech them, make a rule set
2:40:44
that makes sense. And listen, if you're watching
2:40:46
this in your promoter and you're like that guy's an asshole, he
2:40:49
doesn't know what he's talking about.
2:40:50
It's really hard to find all this.
2:40:52
Message me. I'll help you.
2:40:54
I'll help you write a rule set. I have offered this for as long
2:40:57
as I've been doing the show. I have been taken up on it.
2:41:00
I've had some very serious conversations with track owners,
2:41:03
promoters, and tech guys and I have helped to do this.
2:41:06
I will put my right now, I'm not putting as much money where my
2:41:09
mouth is because I don't have as much.
2:41:11
But if you're willing to help me, help me a we can do videos,
2:41:14
we can do whatever. I will help you teach your tech
2:41:16
team how to tech these cars. I will help you write a rule set
2:41:20
that makes sense. I have sat in on rules meetings
2:41:23
for local tracks and said here is how you slow me down.
2:41:28
Here is how you take me, who has set fast time 8 of the last 12
2:41:33
races at this track. Here's how you slow me down for
2:41:38
better racing. And they went well.
2:41:41
This guy who's never ran a front wheel drive who, who couldn't
2:41:44
tell you how to tech him. He said we should do this.
2:41:47
Cool. Hey, you're all a half second
2:41:49
faster. We don't know what went wrong.
2:41:52
You listen to guys that don't know these cars, right?
2:41:55
Willing to help. Do that now and you've had a
2:41:58
promoter. Who has always been in your
2:42:00
comments section? Quite often when you're live.
2:42:02
Rick Young, Yeah. Yeah, so Rick Young, yes, so
2:42:07
Rick Young and I actually publicly had a conversation in
2:42:10
the comment section of my personal Facebook and it wasn't
2:42:13
front wheel drive related. I made the comment that it is
2:42:17
stupid in the year of our Lord 2020, whatever the fuel
2:42:20
injection is not allowed in stock car racing.
2:42:22
I said it's absolutely asinine, especially in divisions like
2:42:26
street stocks, late models and modifies.
2:42:28
It is stupid that electronic fuel injection is not allowed.
2:42:32
And, and I pointed out that like, you know, especially stock
2:42:36
PCM based programs, like there's no reason I can't take a
2:42:39
junkyard LS1 and put it in a modified.
2:42:42
There's no logical reason. And his thing was, well, how do
2:42:46
you, you know, how do you, how do you like, stop people from
2:42:50
changing the tune? And I said, do you make people
2:42:53
bolt on a, a, a box stock quadra jet and a, and a, and run
2:42:57
factory timing in an hei? He said, well, no, that's
2:43:00
stupid. I said, so why is it stupid that
2:43:02
a fuel injection isn't allowed to change the fuel in the spark?
2:43:06
That's all tuning is. And we, and, and mind you, you
2:43:09
know, we, it was a very civil conversation, but it was about
2:43:12
12 different things. And I pointed out he's like,
2:43:15
well, then people are going to have to change this if they're
2:43:16
not because carburetors make more horsepower than fuel
2:43:20
injection. They do.
2:43:21
Peak horsepower is better with a carburetor.
2:43:24
The atomization of fuel through a carburetor by the time it hits
2:43:26
the valve is better for power. So guys that are spending. 50.
2:43:30
$1000 to build a motor for a street stock.
2:43:33
They're not going to switch to a factory LS1 based fuel injection
2:43:37
because it's illegal. They're going to keep their
2:43:39
$3000 carburetors that they've had tricked out.
2:43:43
Right. So, you know, once I laid this
2:43:45
all out, Rick actually was like, that makes sense.
2:43:49
And you know, he joins in and he'll, he'll, he's defended
2:43:52
Shady bowls a few times. And I'm like, Hey, this is kind
2:43:54
of a dumb decision of tracks to it.
2:43:56
And Rick's like, hey, This is why Shady bowl does it.
2:43:57
I'm like, OK, I can understand that viewpoint, you know, and I
2:44:01
when I do the safety, he's like, you're right.
2:44:03
That's why we have a truck with 12 fire extinguishers on it.
2:44:06
And that dude never leaves that truck.
2:44:08
He drives that truck to a wreck and there's just a flatbed full
2:44:11
of fire extinguishers. You know, so I, I give if you
2:44:14
read the comment section of some shady bowl stuff, Rick is, is,
2:44:17
is something that I'm not saying he is, but you know, he's always
2:44:20
been right by me. I mean, he, he's been in the
2:44:22
comment section of front discussion.
2:44:23
He's he's, he's put it out there as the viewpoint of a promoter.
2:44:27
You know, I can have a civil discourse with people with
2:44:30
promoters. The big thing for me is just
2:44:32
safety stuff. You know, I had a promoter tell
2:44:34
me that they can't, they can't man, mandate that people wear
2:44:38
gloves because then their insurance company, if they
2:44:40
mandate somebody wears gloves and they get burned, then then
2:44:44
then somebody could come back and say, well, he said it was
2:44:47
safe because I was wearing gloves.
2:44:48
They mandated I wear gloves and I burnt my hands.
2:44:50
And I said, if your logic is that you might be liable for
2:44:55
somebody getting burned if they're wearing gloves, is why
2:44:58
you can't mandate gloves, but you're OK with them burning the
2:45:01
skin off both hands because they're not wearing gloves,
2:45:06
That's you. Don't care about the.
2:45:07
Racers, at that point, you know, that's one.
2:45:10
I'll die on that hill. Like if you can't make us, if
2:45:13
you can't make a rule that says you got to cover your hands with
2:45:16
fire resistant materials, but but you're OK with me racing and
2:45:21
getting burned on my hands, then it's not about the racer like.
2:45:26
So so there are some things. But that's just my personal
2:45:29
opinion. I just happen to carry that
2:45:30
over. You know, I'm I'm willing to
2:45:32
help you guys and gals out if you need it.
2:45:35
I'm willing to be that person and and you can make me the bad
2:45:38
guy. You'd be like, hey, Todd Metz
2:45:39
junior helped us with this rule set for the front drive.
2:45:41
So if you guys don't like it, you can curse him out like how
2:45:44
many? I mean, willing to be that guy.
2:45:45
So I know you're trying to wrap this up.
2:45:48
There's one thing I gotta do yet.
2:45:50
I have. I was watching the possum come
2:45:52
up now, OK. Raccoons.
2:45:53
The possums get a. Skunk.
2:45:56
Hey, I'll trade. I'll I'll trade just.
2:45:58
Raccoons and possums for the groundhogs I have living out
2:46:00
here. We have groundhogs, but we have
2:46:02
a, we have a like silver. Skunk.
2:46:04
And it doesn't care if we're sitting out here.
2:46:06
It just does its own thing. We I call it stinky.
2:46:10
Yeah, it's not creative. But I'm like.
2:46:12
She doesn't. He or she doesn't make me
2:46:14
stinky, then we're. Good.
2:46:15
But so yeah, exactly. I'm impeding on.
2:46:18
Their time. And that's OK.
2:46:19
Like they understand on Mondays that I impede on their time, but
2:46:22
they're they kind of peek around the corner.
2:46:24
So that's why if you see my eyes go that way, I'm listening.
2:46:26
You're in my. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
2:46:28
Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, I got.
2:46:29
My earbuds in. Yeah, like peeking like.
2:46:32
Oh, he's. You know.
2:46:33
They're probably, if they curse like us, you know, cursing me.
2:46:37
But no, you're good. That's because.
2:46:39
I asked these things. Because I have you on right.
2:46:42
So it's like, you know, here's what I'm a proponent of putting
2:46:45
it out there. But then, you know, a lot of
2:46:47
times when I talk about ABCI, always hear the drivers who are
2:46:50
in separate classes go well, I don't want to.
2:46:52
I don't want to spend money to race in the A.
2:46:53
I'm like, but you're already racing where you would race like
2:46:57
you're AB car every other track. Except here because.
2:47:01
Because it's an A feature, but I said it's still 3 champions.
2:47:04
It's still like something that I wish.
2:47:07
Something that I really wish people would just be more honest
2:47:10
about is the amount of people that I've heard.
2:47:15
I hear this argument as far as safety and as far as going fast.
2:47:18
I can't afford to run that right.
2:47:21
I can't afford. I had a racer telling me they
2:47:24
can't afford to buy a full containment seat and a head and
2:47:27
neck the year. That that winner before.
2:47:31
That they put a $6000 motor in the car the year before that
2:47:34
they put a $7000 motor in the car.
2:47:36
They blew that one up, hence the $6000 motor.
2:47:39
And I said, you know, if you put a $3000 motor in, you could buy
2:47:42
$3000 worth of safety gear, probably not blow that motor up
2:47:45
and go faster next year, right? But they didn't want to hear
2:47:49
that logical. I can't afford the safety
2:47:51
because the motor costs too much, right?
2:47:53
And I hear that the same. I hear that with a lot of other
2:47:56
people. I can't afford to run the A you
2:47:58
can. And this is where this has been
2:48:00
hard for me. I've always been a top five car
2:48:03
for a long, long, long time. I was a top five car.
2:48:05
If I rolled in people, people who knew me knew that I was
2:48:08
there to win. Like I didn't come to run 5th.
2:48:11
I came to win. And it's harder for me running
2:48:14
7th in the B main, right? I get that, but I've been honest
2:48:18
when I go somewhere and I have a 15th place car, I'd rather
2:48:22
finish 15th in the A than win the B, right?
2:48:26
I, I can't at the end of the day, I personally, if I win, I
2:48:32
want to be able. And This is why I share so many
2:48:35
secrets so freely. I want to know at the end of the
2:48:38
night that I'm better than you. And I know that is such an
2:48:41
asshole way to say it. OK, I do know that right?
2:48:45
But I want to be able to know that I did not hinder you.
2:48:49
If you come to me for advice, I want to give you the best advice
2:48:53
because I want your I want to beat you with the best car
2:48:57
you've ever had and I want to drive around because I want you
2:49:01
at the end of the night to go. There wasn't a damn thing I
2:49:03
could have done to stop him. The car has never been better.
2:49:06
He out drove me. He out set up to me, he out
2:49:08
built me. He outspent me.
2:49:09
I get accused of that one much. You know he out did me right.
2:49:14
I don't want them to go. Damn.
2:49:16
The car slowed down with the advice he gave me.
2:49:17
I think he I don't think he was honest with me.
2:49:20
I would so much rather lose to a guy because I made.
2:49:24
His. Car better than beat somebody
2:49:27
whose car I made worse. And that mindset of mine
2:49:30
trickles down into the sandbagging and the class racing
2:49:34
of that of like, well, I can't afford to go racing.
2:49:36
You can't because I know guys that are building $5000 motors
2:49:40
to run the B main places. I know guys who are spending
2:49:42
five grand to build a motor to pull street tires on to run as a
2:49:45
Hornet, right? You can spend.
2:49:48
That money wisely. And run much faster in the A
2:49:51
than you think you do. Like when I won super shoe in
2:49:54
2010 and I went 1643 on dot tires right and and people it
2:50:01
was a stock rebuilt neon motor. I had stock cams, stock
2:50:05
replacing the Pistons, an unported head, a stock intake
2:50:08
manifold, the big stock throttle body.
2:50:11
I had a Mopar performance PCM. I did have a long 2 head.
2:50:17
Oh, you got animated. You're you're.
2:50:22
You're muted now. Oh, there, there's my.
2:50:30
Headphones died so it suddenly. Popped up they're like it's dead
2:50:34
I'm. Like, oh God, here we go.
2:50:37
So that was why they just a second I know I'd be back with
2:50:39
sound. So it's a battery's low and then
2:50:43
it's. Like 2 minutes before it dies.
2:50:50
Oh, now you're frozen. OK, am I back now?
2:50:57
Yeah, you're. Back now and I got another
2:50:59
possum up. While we're in this like awkward
2:51:02
pause because of everything dying, I do want to send out
2:51:04
condolences to the Vitalia family.
2:51:06
Marcus just joined, you know, they lot, they found out about a
2:51:11
loss. What was it yesterday while
2:51:13
we're at the racetrack. So I definitely want to say
2:51:15
condolence. Condolences out to the Vitali
2:51:17
family. Definitely thinking of that.
2:51:20
Definitely condolences. To them also thank you to
2:51:23
Marcus. So we actually when we were
2:51:26
swapping the motors in John's truck there, we didn't have a
2:51:29
drain pan because who plans on changing the oil at Super Shoe?
2:51:33
And I actually went walking around and Marcus actually gave
2:51:37
me a brand new drain pan to make dirty for us to be able to do
2:51:41
that. So and Marks is the one he was
2:51:44
like, hey man, I like I sent you a message and I was like, oh,
2:51:47
like, I apologize, like I didn't, I didn't sew that.
2:51:51
But yeah, he actually helped us out.
2:51:53
So yeah, I was, I was really, you know, sorry to hear that.
2:51:57
I know my dad's, you know, done a lot for me with my racing.
2:51:59
I would be pretty tore up to lose my dad too.
2:52:01
So I definitely condolences for that.
2:52:04
But yeah, I mean, Marcus, Marcus is good people.
2:52:06
They they like I said, he he helped us out this last weekend.
2:52:09
So it's good to. It's good to see you too, Sir.
2:52:11
There for, you know, a minute or two.
2:52:13
Yeah, but I know. You were talking about, and I
2:52:16
kind of forgot because everything died and everything
2:52:18
went. And then now I'm like sad
2:52:19
because I'm like now thinking of that, right?
2:52:22
But, but you're talking about, oh, just basically the different
2:52:27
rules and, and how cars adjust up and down and, and just, I'll
2:52:31
give a 9 minute warning. So we'll, we'll end at 10.
2:52:35
We can do that. And this and this is 1 I love
2:52:38
giving my opinion as both a racer and a race fan because I I
2:52:42
attend a lot. I love watching when I go to
2:52:45
race, I love watching and I go to races just to watch.
2:52:48
So like I have I have opinions as both and it is one for me
2:52:52
that with the whole you know, well, I'm AB main car, you know,
2:52:55
I can't afford to run the AII can understand it from
2:52:59
viewpoint. Charles Anderson gave me this
2:53:01
viewpoint. He was a subscriber for a long
2:53:02
time. He gave me this viewpoint of I
2:53:05
want to win a feature. And so when the class is
2:53:07
combined of the the zoo stocks and the outlaws, they combined
2:53:12
into one. You know, he was upset about it.
2:53:14
And I'm like, Hey, man, like you, you're doing all the same
2:53:16
stuff. Like you still want to feature,
2:53:17
You still want to be man. He goes, yeah, and he says, but
2:53:19
I want to win an A main, he says, and I'm not going to beat
2:53:22
Elsie. You know, I'm not going to beat
2:53:24
the top five guys. Like, right.
2:53:26
I I have a 8th to 12th. Place.
2:53:28
Car, he says. And I'm happy with that, you
2:53:30
know, but but I want to win an A main and so I don't want to slow
2:53:33
down and run the B because I don't want to win AB man.
2:53:34
I want to win an A main. I can understand.
2:53:38
That logic. Right.
2:53:39
But Charles also didn't slow down to run the B.
2:53:42
But you had you had guys that were running trying to win the B
2:53:46
main on street tires that were complaining they had to run
2:53:50
against the Outlaws now. And well, we can't afford to
2:53:53
spend that money. And I'm like, you're already
2:53:55
buying brand new rims and brand new tires for the car.
2:53:58
The only difference is you are now allowed to run Hoosiers.
2:54:01
You don't have to, but you're allowed to.
2:54:02
Well, we can't afford to run with the top five guys.
2:54:06
You're not running with the top five guys now, right?
2:54:10
You're running the B main in the street tires.
2:54:13
So which you know, the street tires, the zoo stocks were more
2:54:16
stock. They weren't supposed to do as
2:54:17
much. And it's like, so you don't have
2:54:19
to change anything. And if you bolt Hoosiers on,
2:54:22
there's a good chance you're going to be top five in the B
2:54:24
main because the top so many street tires are going to go
2:54:27
into the A. And then then you're going to be
2:54:28
like some of the A main cars might slow down, you're going to
2:54:31
intermix, but you can still run for the B.
2:54:34
So how are you going to run for the B in the street tire class
2:54:36
and celebrate that and then get pissy that you're going to run
2:54:39
the B main in the outlaw class and I just see this huge rift
2:54:45
of, you know, well, I don't. I don't want to run. 10th in the
2:54:50
A and. And I do understand wanting to
2:54:52
win. I've won a lot of races, right?
2:54:54
I've won a lot of races and and I hate not winning.
2:54:57
Winning changes racing. It ruins racing.
2:55:00
I, I told that to a buddy of mine and, and he thought I was a
2:55:02
Dick head for saying it because I finished second and I didn't
2:55:05
enjoy it and he thought I was a Dick head for it.
2:55:07
And then he won some races and then he finished second and he
2:55:11
felt like shit. And I was like, and I'm talking
2:55:14
to him. He's a great run.
2:55:14
He's like you, you know, you told me that a year or two ago
2:55:17
that winning ruins racing for you because if you don't win,
2:55:20
blah, blah, blah. And he says, and I never
2:55:22
understood. I thought it was a dickhead
2:55:23
thing to say. He's like, I get it now.
2:55:24
Like I get. And I said, yeah, I said I, I, I
2:55:27
said there are days I, I wish I didn't win because then I
2:55:30
wouldn't be used to it, right. So I understand the drive and
2:55:32
the desire to want to win. And I understand the drive and
2:55:35
desire to want to win the B main.
2:55:37
What I don't understand is guys that'll spend $10,000 to run the
2:55:40
B main complain they can't spend 11,000 to compete for the win in
2:55:44
the A. You know like and it's a mindset
2:55:48
and racing thing. I can understand both
2:55:50
viewpoints. I want to run the best
2:55:53
competition I can. I won two championships at
2:55:57
Spartan 20/10/2011 under stock rules and we went outlaw racing
2:56:02
and I've never been back to stock rules and I've never
2:56:05
claimed I had a stock motor. I've never claimed I had stock
2:56:07
stuff. Ever since then I'd come back
2:56:09
and run the open shows because you were allowed to do whatever
2:56:11
you wanted at that point. But I never claimed to have
2:56:14
stock stuff again. And I could have easily kept
2:56:17
doing the stock stuff, kept running the same lap times, kept
2:56:21
running, kept winning, kept winning championships I didn't
2:56:23
want to. And that led me to running all
2:56:26
the way down in Florida against the best in the country.
2:56:28
It led me to Bristol, TN running.
2:56:30
My dad's are running top the qualifying 4th against some of
2:56:34
the best drivers in the country. You know, it's my desire and
2:56:37
drive to constantly run. It's why I've been on track with
2:56:41
the Rocket car, because I want to run the best that is out
2:56:45
there and that shapes my opinion of these things.
2:56:48
But yeah, so I know I've only got a few minutes left, so I've
2:56:52
got to get this one in there. Even if you go a little over,
2:56:54
it's fine. Because I'm going to point
2:56:56
something out. Go ahead, go ahead.
2:56:58
Because my. I'm I'm not leaving before I say
2:57:01
what I need to say. Oh no no no, this doesn't count
2:57:03
as. Part of your time, me doesn't
2:57:05
count. But I was going to say that you
2:57:07
must because I've watched some of your, many of your shows
2:57:10
where you've been on about this late, right?
2:57:13
Yeah. So one thing I've noticed in
2:57:15
this whole time is our audience usually at 9:00, by about 9:00
2:57:20
to 9:10, we'll go, we'll be in the 30s or whatever and we'll
2:57:23
easily drop TO109, whatever. And it's kind of like it's time,
2:57:29
right to pull the plug. But tonight we have hovered
2:57:34
consistently near 20, sometimes a little bit above 20, sometimes
2:57:37
a little bit. But we haven't bottomed out.
2:57:40
And this is also not encouraging everyone to be like, oh, we're
2:57:42
leaving, but I wanted to say no. I wanted to say thank.
2:57:47
You because whoever's watching now, I mean it's been consistent
2:57:51
where it's been 15221522 kind of hovering.
2:57:56
And so I wanted to shout out everyone who's watching because
2:57:59
usually and usually by 9 Buju and I are doing like our post
2:58:03
recap. It's not the most exciting part
2:58:05
of the show. Usually guests are done by then.
2:58:07
Last week we still had Brian on Talk Bahama.
2:58:10
But so yeah, that is a count against you.
2:58:11
I'm not going to count that against you.
2:58:12
I just want to do a shout out to those who are still watching
2:58:15
because as I've watched the numbers which is why I've not
2:58:18
thought of like like I said usually.
2:58:21
That's when I looked. I'm like, oh, it's almost 9:30.
2:58:24
Because I'm like, well, they're enjoying the conversation.
2:58:27
They're part of this. So I'm like I've told Buju.
2:58:30
Sometimes I'm like if people. Are enjoying the conversation.
2:58:32
I have a hard time ending it. You know we're not going to be
2:58:35
on here by 11 by the way, because we're not do it, but but
2:58:39
I will give you your time as I promised, even though, you know
2:58:41
the clock says 2 minutes, you're going to have your time, But I
2:58:44
just wanted to shout out everyone who's still watching
2:58:46
because that just that means they're enjoying they're either
2:58:50
enjoying or they're MF ING us, whichever way it is.
2:58:53
You know, I was a little surprised I'm.
2:58:55
Surprised that more people haven't been like God you talk
2:58:57
too much Todd. Like you're such an arrogant
2:58:59
Dick head but it feels natural like person.
2:59:02
Yeah, some of some of them say that behind my.
2:59:04
Back, you know, but it's you could tell me in my face.
2:59:07
Too. It's OK.
2:59:10
But no, I, I, I know that struggle like doing the show.
2:59:12
I've had that. I'll have a night where I'll
2:59:13
have like 30-40 fifty viewers. I'll tell you.
2:59:16
So when I first started doing front discussion and this is
2:59:18
this is an encouragement if you're watching and you want to
2:59:20
start doing your own stuff. OK, word of advice, and this is
2:59:24
for anybody watching that goes live for anything, have the
2:59:27
first minute planned out, hit live and start talking because I
2:59:32
will not watch your live after the fact.
2:59:34
If I have to wait a minute and a half where you're like, I'm just
2:59:37
waiting for everybody to get in here.
2:59:41
Start talking. OK, say.
2:59:43
Something all right, playing a minute out where you're just
2:59:45
like, yeah, I'm here at Kalamazoo, we're walking around,
2:59:47
we're going to do this. We're going to play them in and
2:59:48
out. OK, But don't get discouraged if
2:59:51
five people watch. When I first started doing
2:59:53
frontal discussion, my wife can. Attest to this, I came.
2:59:57
Upstairs from a basement studio that I built the first night
3:00:01
that I hit a dozen people who tuned in at once.
3:00:05
I went upstairs and you'd have thought that I had 100 people.
3:00:08
Like I was so excited that I had a dozen people tuned in and I
3:00:13
have been up to, you know, I, I the one night I did a safety
3:00:16
rant, which I still is one of my favorite shows.
3:00:19
I'm sad that Facebook deleted it.
3:00:20
I love doing that one. There was 694 people at one
3:00:24
point tuning live and there were people there like who the fuck
3:00:27
are you? You don't know what you're
3:00:28
talking. About you're dumb and baby baby
3:00:30
bear, I'm like you're watching me talk.
3:00:32
So who's the one that doesn't know yet?
3:00:34
You know, like we had a bit of a tube that night.
3:00:37
You know, I, I started that one out with like you're going to
3:00:40
hear swearing tonight. I normally keep this PG.
3:00:42
We're going to say some words tonight because I'm pissed off
3:00:44
right? It it's so sitting there
3:00:50
watching the numbers go from 4050 to 5, you're like, all
3:00:53
right, so nobody cares what I have to say anymore.
3:00:55
So we're just going to wrap this up you.
3:00:56
Know but. So yeah, if you're watching,
3:00:58
awesome. You can comment down if you
3:01:00
think I'm a Dick head, it's OK. John Will.
3:01:02
I know he'll say it. I can comment on mine.
3:01:04
I can say I. Think he's no because it come in
3:01:07
as national compact touring series, which I won't do to Drew
3:01:10
top row, top row. So it would be like 3 comments
3:01:12
all saying the same thing. But but I'll do that now.
3:01:15
But but I just want to say I mean that's incredible to see
3:01:18
that people are still watching and and someone asked me over
3:01:20
the weekend and this is not to be braggadocious, but you know,
3:01:23
we're 33 episodes and I've made graphic mistakes from time to
3:01:27
time and all that. Like apparently tonight,
3:01:29
although I did fix it, it does now say while you were talking
3:01:32
and I'm like, OK, time talking, I do have time.
3:01:34
You switched that? Yep.
3:01:35
Well, I doubt it's. Real small on my phone screen?
3:01:38
Yep. I doubt most people.
3:01:39
Notice it. But now that it's pointed out,
3:01:41
that's what made me think like, what is he talking about?
3:01:44
And I'm like, you're shitting me, right?
3:01:46
But someone asked me and I was just honest because I track
3:01:50
everyone's numbers. I look at everyone's numbers
3:01:52
from Bubba's Broke podcast when they're doing Facebook stuff to
3:01:55
Horsepower Happenings and 32 episodes we've had on top row
3:02:00
over 100,000 views. And in that same time frame, not
3:02:04
counting the two shows, one was on a Thursday, one was on a
3:02:07
Wednesday. So not counting those weeks and
3:02:08
that same time frame on Facebook, Horsepower has had
3:02:12
65,000 view or 66,000 with that last week's episode.
3:02:17
So in that time we've had almost 40,000 more views than
3:02:22
horsepower on Facebook, where they get us on Spotify and all
3:02:26
that. They have a big, they have a
3:02:28
long standing there that I, I can't beat them on on Spotify,
3:02:31
but but when it comes to Facebook Live, we beat
3:02:34
horsepower happenings almost every week.
3:02:37
So there was a. Few.
3:02:39
When I started doing this, there was a few and one dude I reached
3:02:45
out to a few guys to see about like collaborating and doing
3:02:47
some stuff and like and some general questions.
3:02:50
And I had one guy who would read my messages and then I watched
3:02:55
his show and he was sneak dissing me and.
3:02:59
Yeah, you're like, we're so good at.
3:03:00
What we do, like you got guys from all across the country
3:03:03
reaching out, trying to, you know, ride my coattails.
3:03:05
And I'm like, OK. And so I.
3:03:09
Started tracking their metrics and it didn't take long until we
3:03:11
started kicking the shit out of them.
3:03:13
And then he only went about another year, mind you.
3:03:17
Yeah, I'm also doing the same stuff, right.
3:03:21
But it I took it personally, you know, with that one show.
3:03:25
And yeah, it's, it's I've told you, Lewis, you're doing good
3:03:27
stuff. You're going to have people
3:03:29
support you. I look, I got, I got people in
3:03:31
the comments. I mean, it's Marcus, you know,
3:03:33
talking about how like I'm, you know, like I do good stuff, you
3:03:36
know, and and, you know, and Charles is watching, but you
3:03:39
know what's up? Chucky.
3:03:40
Yeah, Chucky always. But like I would have.
3:03:41
He's loyal. Yeah, yeah.
3:03:44
Oh dude, Chucky's. Loyal to both of us like I but
3:03:47
the amount of people that I would have that would just
3:03:49
comment like, hey man, I'm here again like I'll, I'll watch this
3:03:51
later like I'm coming to the public, you know yeah.
3:03:54
And I, Marcus, Marcus even said it.
3:03:55
I you can pin that comment, but I did like the way he said that
3:03:58
of I have a unique way of having conversation with myself while
3:04:01
keeping info flowing. Yeah, the reason I'm so good at
3:04:05
this is the ADHD Adderall days aren't so good days that I just
3:04:08
let it flow. And that's why my favorite shows
3:04:10
to do they my my favorite shows that I've always done were
3:04:14
nights I was in the shop and they were just question and
3:04:17
answer. And I'll be honest with you guys
3:04:19
and gals, I can let this out now.
3:04:21
Some of those shows were because I didn't know what the hell to
3:04:24
talk about. I didn't know I didn't have a
3:04:25
show planned. I couldn't think of anything.
3:04:27
And I was like, what do you guys want to know?
3:04:29
And I loved it because I could walk over and I could grab parts
3:04:31
and pieces and I could explain how things work.
3:04:33
I could just, I'll if fed the ADHD part of my brain.
3:04:36
Those are my favorite shows to do right?
3:04:38
So yeah, it's, I understand it, man.
3:04:41
And you and I have geeked out over some of the numbers before,
3:04:43
but I do want to say I've yet to hit 10,000.
3:04:46
And you're at what, 4050 now? How how many followers do you
3:04:49
have on Facebook? 45 I'm the third.
3:04:51
Largest page, if you just look at short tracks, if you take out
3:04:55
Michigan International Speedway, which none of us are beating,
3:04:58
yeah, Berlin's at Berlin's at like 55, Kalamazoo's at 52, top
3:05:02
row is at 45. And then I want to say the next
3:05:06
closest is Hartford at like 30 something and then it kind of
3:05:10
goes down from there where like Corrigan's at 20, Owosso
3:05:14
somewhere in there and 40s below them, below Hartford, Spring
3:05:19
ports below them for now. So when it comes to Michigan,
3:05:23
and I haven't looked at every track, maybe there's a track
3:05:26
within that, but at least within this.
3:05:27
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Region, you know, yeah.
3:05:32
So, yeah, there might be some who are close to me, but when
3:05:34
it. But I'm.
3:05:36
But, you know, I don't boast about that too often.
3:05:39
I mean, it's cool. You know, it's like at Michigan
3:05:41
Cup two years ago, we were celebrating 17,000.
3:05:45
Yeah, Yeah. And.
3:05:46
Before that. At.
3:05:48
That same year at Kalamazoo in May, it was 10,000.
3:05:51
So it's kind of just gone crazy. Every now and then I'll pull out
3:05:55
the flex. Like I just had a track in Ohio.
3:05:57
I won't say the track, but I was at a track in Ohio and there was
3:05:59
a kid who came out a driver that they liked one and they are
3:06:02
allowed, fans are allowed to come on.
3:06:04
Not everybody, but you know, they allowed fans out to do like
3:06:07
photos or whatever. Obviously track photographers
3:06:10
have priority. But this kid, he's standing
3:06:12
right there. This is, I almost said the event
3:06:15
that would tell you what track. So we're at this event and this
3:06:19
kid is taking a picture and one of the photographers who's been
3:06:22
doing it a while, he sat there and he said, I hate
3:06:26
phonographers. So I kind of puff up.
3:06:30
And once the kid walked away doing his photos, who he is just
3:06:35
so damn happy to do his photos, right?
3:06:37
And then his driver won, His running back mom, he won.
3:06:39
He won. I looked at the photographer
3:06:42
because there's some downtime to transition, and I went how many?
3:06:46
Followers, do you have? Which I knew the answer, by the
3:06:50
way, because I track everybody, you know, just for my own
3:06:54
metrics. I track everybody for
3:06:55
comparison. I don't care who you are ever.
3:06:57
I track everybody. And, and he said.
3:07:00
And I went, oh, I said, OK, well, I built a page of 25,000
3:07:05
followers. At that point, it's 2525
3:07:07
thousand followers on an iPhone and an iPad.
3:07:11
And I said, what? I just heard you say that you've
3:07:13
been doing this for 13 years and you've had this many followers
3:07:17
on Facebook. If this are Yankee Stadium on
3:07:19
Fox Sports, I would be sitting behind home plate getting waiter
3:07:25
service directly to me while I'm on TV with all the executive
3:07:28
sitting around me. And you'd be all the way up in
3:07:30
the nosebleeds where no one would even know that you're
3:07:32
there. And he didn't bother.
3:07:35
He didn't bother that kid cuz that kid came out a couple all
3:07:37
the times and I and he let him do his thing.
3:07:39
And I don't do that too often. But I said like, let the like
3:07:44
the kid wasn't doing anything. The kid didn't get in the way.
3:07:46
He didn't step in the photos. But that photographer has not
3:07:49
talked to me since then. But he didn't bother me that
3:07:51
night. But it's like I am.
3:07:53
You could put all the photographers out there that
3:07:55
night. I was bigger than all of them by
3:07:57
three, 3 * 3 easily. And that's if you duplicated
3:08:02
everybody. I have some great friendships.
3:08:05
With some track photographers, I have a deep appreciation and
3:08:09
love for track photographers. We used to have a guy, his name
3:08:13
was John. I don't remember his last name.
3:08:15
He was like an event photographer, but he would take
3:08:17
photos at Spartan and he took some amazing.
3:08:20
Photos I bought everyone. Picture I bought from him.
3:08:22
What's that John? John Berglund.
3:08:24
No, no, no. This guy this.
3:08:26
Guy he only did Spartan and he got out of the game years ago.
3:08:30
Just a local guy up here in Holt.
3:08:32
So Jon takes good pictures. I stand it next to him.
3:08:35
I think it was him. I've actually, but he was down
3:08:38
there by me takes good pictures. But like I have a deep
3:08:43
appreciation. I bought a lot of.
3:08:44
Track. Photographer photos.
3:08:45
I've offered to buy some from that.
3:08:47
I have seen some on Facebook where I'm like your.
3:08:52
Fucking ego is. Crazy for taking pictures.
3:08:56
I film videos, I know. That I'm not.
3:08:59
Look, if I stopped going to a racetrack today, nothing in the
3:09:03
sport of racing would change. I'm a nobody in the school of
3:09:06
everything, right? I have no doubt about that.
3:09:08
I have no qualms that I am important to this sport as a
3:09:11
whole. I think I've helped change it in
3:09:13
a few ways, I'd like to think. But there are some track
3:09:17
photographers that I've seen that it's like.
3:09:20
Yeah, like there's people trying to take.
3:09:23
Win win winning photos with an iPhone.
3:09:25
You're right, they're they're not as good as your your $9000
3:09:28
camera setup. But that person you berated that
3:09:32
asked you a question like they might want to get a camera and
3:09:36
they might actually want to do this and like you just.
3:09:38
Took somebody's spirit out of this and like.
3:09:41
And don't get me wrong, as a driver, I've always tried to be
3:09:45
nice to people who ask questions because even if you are a
3:09:48
competitor of mine, like, or you want to be a competitor of mine,
3:09:51
like, I don't understand gatekeeping this sort of stuff.
3:09:56
Videography. I just had a flipper.
3:09:58
You know, flipper, right? I just had a.
3:10:00
Conversation with him I took. Some gear to super shoe and I
3:10:04
was like you need to buy this because your YouTube videos
3:10:08
Lewis, how many times have you and I had this conversation Yeah
3:10:10
yeah absolutely like. When you when you first started
3:10:13
I. Was like, here's what you need
3:10:14
to do. Here's how you make this better.
3:10:16
I've had people who have other front wheel drive.
3:10:19
Kyle Jenks was front wheel drive Friday.
3:10:21
I've had him on my show to promote his.
3:10:25
I gave him gear. Recommendations.
3:10:27
I've talked. Message with him like I'm If
3:10:30
somebody has a YouTube channel that does this stuff, cool,
3:10:33
let's talk because nobody can do what I do, right?
3:10:38
I know the videos. I make I know the.
3:10:40
Conversations I can have. You might make better videos
3:10:44
than me. You might have more tech than
3:10:46
me. You're probably not going to
3:10:48
interview people better than me. You might interview people
3:10:51
better than me, but you probably don't have the tech ability that
3:10:53
I right, right, right. You know, stuff like that.
3:10:55
Like there's a. Combination of things that I am
3:10:58
that you can't be. You might be better at 8 out of
3:11:00
10 things, that's fine. But there's two of them I can
3:11:03
do, right, right, right. Don't understand the gatekeeping
3:11:06
of photography for this. And and and I don't understand
3:11:10
and I'm not, there's only one or two of photographers I'm talking
3:11:13
about. If you're watching this and you
3:11:14
take track photos, I probably very much love you for what you
3:11:17
do and and feel more people should buy your shit like but
3:11:21
there's one or two where I'm like you're not that.
3:11:25
Good. Like it's they're pictures and
3:11:28
you take 10,000 of them and then you edit them and and that's a
3:11:32
skill I don't possess. So I'm like, I'm also not
3:11:34
shitting on the skill of it, but it's like it's not something
3:11:38
that like like you can take a course to to take good pictures.
3:11:43
If you buy good equipment, you can learn to take good pictures,
3:11:46
right? If you help somebody to do that,
3:11:49
you might gain a friend and a valuable resource.
3:11:52
Like I don't understand the gatekeeping of it.
3:11:55
So yeah, well, that's where I think like Cody Guyer.
3:11:57
I wouldn't have the camera that I do.
3:12:01
Amazing photos by the way Cody takes them.
3:12:03
I follow him on everything TikTok, Facebook all that.
3:12:06
I like all his shit like he he makes some great stuff.
3:12:08
So. But it was you at Springport.
3:12:11
Who allowed me to know like battery packs and all that where
3:12:15
I'm like, wait, what? And you know, and it was because
3:12:17
of you that now I've been able to do like that part.
3:12:20
I mean, you're you're living memory card doesn't run out,
3:12:23
does it Louis? It's the.
3:12:24
Battery that dies, the battery dies, you get like an hour.
3:12:26
Out of it, I'm like, cool. So here's what you do you go get
3:12:28
a 10,000 milliamp battery pack and A and a USB cord and you get
3:12:32
this phone holder and it has a cold mount that you can put your
3:12:35
GoPro on and you mount this here and you just plug it in and you
3:12:38
can get 4 1/2 hours out of it and and then the next.
3:12:43
Time I see you in Palo Zoo. I see a GoPro with.
3:12:45
A battery. Pack underneath.
3:12:46
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because I want you to take
3:12:48
the best. Videos you can I might be in
3:12:51
those videos yeah it's literally because of you that I.
3:12:53
Was able to do that. I tell people all the time that
3:12:56
it the the the track cameras have been because of Tom Metz
3:12:59
Junior. If I didn't know that trick,
3:13:01
that wouldn't have happened. But but now that it's 1012, yes,
3:13:06
all right. I'm going to let you do your
3:13:07
little wrap. Up thing, I got one thing, I got
3:13:10
one thing and. I should have started with this.
3:13:12
I should have started with this. I was able to race at Super
3:13:15
Shoe. I had help getting down there.
3:13:17
I had a couple anonymous people. John Culp gave me some money to
3:13:19
come down with some gas money. I had help with with the
3:13:22
financial part of getting down there.
3:13:24
I got I got down there and I had taken my gear because I'm a
3:13:28
driver and I went to a racetrack, so and I'm staying
3:13:31
there. So I took my gear.
3:13:33
Scott Gates approached me Friday and said, hey man, I might put
3:13:39
mine and Amanda's car in the A man would you be?
3:13:43
Willing to drive Amanda? 'S car if that happens and I
3:13:46
went the only thing I ask is you give me enough heads up.
3:13:49
I'd like one practice that way I got that way.
3:13:53
The heat race isn't the first time I'm driving it.
3:13:55
I'd like one practice. And so he said, cool, make sure
3:13:58
you got your stuff tomorrow. We'll flush it out.
3:14:01
And so Saturday morning I went down and Scott came over and
3:14:05
says, hey, I'm going to practice the car to start, which if
3:14:07
you're watching this Tina, like, yes, it was me and all practice,
3:14:11
but he went on the first practice to start.
3:14:14
We had 45 minutes for practice. So he went out in the first, the
3:14:17
first bit of practice, shook the car down and he came in and he
3:14:20
says, hey, you hop in it, you hop in it and we'll go from
3:14:24
there. And so I hopped in it.
3:14:27
I went the same times as he did in that practice, but he did go
3:14:29
faster Friday night. So I got to give him that.
3:14:32
He went faster than I did in the car, but we got done and I'm
3:14:36
talking to him about the car and this and that and and I says,
3:14:38
well, hey man, I'm just, I'm asking like, are you going to
3:14:41
race it? Because it looks like it's going
3:14:43
to be in the B looks like you're going to be in the A like are
3:14:45
you going to race it or, or what?
3:14:46
He said, well, what do you think?
3:14:48
And he asked Amanda. Amanda says, I don't care.
3:14:51
He says he goes, he goes, why don't you just drive it?
3:14:54
And so, you know, Amanda's pregnant, which is no secret.
3:14:57
So I'm not like revealing anything, you know, Amanda's.
3:15:01
Pregnant. So with Alamos, Scott Gates and
3:15:05
Amanda Weatherwax, this was this my 19th season since I got
3:15:09
started in racing and it was going to be the first year that
3:15:13
I did not try to race a car for the longest time.
3:15:15
I went racing and then I had Doc and then I tried to go racing
3:15:20
because that cursed piece of shit, we didn't finish features.
3:15:24
We took the car to the track, but we didn't finish a feature.
3:15:26
So I tried to go racing just like this year just kicked my
3:15:30
ass and I wasn't going to be able to keep that streak alive.
3:15:35
It wasn't anything that I told very many people at all.
3:15:39
And so I went from not being able to go to shoe, which I've
3:15:42
gone to every shoe since 2008, not being able to go to super
3:15:46
shoe, to having people help me to being able to actually keep
3:15:50
my streak alive of of racing. And without those people,
3:15:54
without Scott, without Amanda, I wouldn't have been able to do
3:15:57
that. And it meant significantly more
3:16:01
to me than just being able to drive Amanda's car in the B
3:16:04
main. So I I think them a whole bunch
3:16:07
in person. But you know, this is an
3:16:09
opportunity to do it publicly. And This is why I should have
3:16:10
started with this. Like I should have said this in
3:16:13
the very beginning so that that everybody could hear more.
3:16:16
But I do have to publicly say thank you to Scott and Amanda
3:16:20
Scotty. I even made the joke of like,
3:16:22
because now here's the other part.
3:16:24
I should not have frontal discussion.
3:16:26
I harp on safety all the time. Her seat was too high, it sat a
3:16:30
little too high. And I'm not going to lie, I bet
3:16:32
my own rules and I like I said before, I understand sometimes
3:16:35
why people do this. I bet my own rules and I race
3:16:37
that car. If I had ended up rolling over,
3:16:40
I don't know if I'd be walking or talking right?
3:16:42
So I, I shouldn't have, but that's how much it meant to me
3:16:47
that I was willing to take that risk.
3:16:48
But I am deeply appreciative of them for that.
3:16:50
And so I asked Scott jokingly, I'm like, so you got time this
3:16:54
week to, to drop that seat down. So it's, it's safe for me to
3:16:57
ride at Michigan Cup, you know, and he's like, well, I don't
3:17:00
know. It depends on what I got it
3:17:01
because he hadn't ran the A main yet, you know.
3:17:02
And he says, well, depends on what I got to do, blah blah.
3:17:04
Blah. And I said.
3:17:04
No, no, I said. Man, I'm just you.
3:17:05
Know we're just I'm just kidding, like I don't want you
3:17:07
to blah, blah, blah. And he'd sent me some pictures
3:17:09
today of the rear suspension coming apart from from some from
3:17:14
some Midwest loctite happening. And he's like, hey man, I'm
3:17:18
sorry, I just I don't have time this week to fix it.
3:17:20
And I was like, well, First off, thank you for looking at it.
3:17:23
But secondly, like, I, I was joking, like being able to race
3:17:25
it at, at, at, you know, super shoe was, was amazing.
3:17:29
Like you don't actually have to, to try to do that for me.
3:17:32
But yeah, they went out. Scott, Scott and Amanda have
3:17:34
supported front wheel discussion for a long time.
3:17:37
You know, we've hung out at, at, at PRI, we, we've hung out a
3:17:40
bunch. They've been subscribers the
3:17:42
whole time. Like they've they've really
3:17:44
supported what I've done, but allowing me, especially after
3:17:48
last year of, of, you know, totaling the car out on the
3:17:50
first lap. I did have to chuckle because
3:17:54
there was AI don't remember who it was.
3:17:56
I know the car, I know the number.
3:17:57
I'm not trying to shame them. There's something to say.
3:17:58
But I, I said, I told a man, I'm like, yes, this car back here is
3:18:03
one of them that was involved in that wreck last year.
3:18:06
And I said, well, hopefully things are different this year.
3:18:09
And we laughed and then red flag came out and with a couple laps
3:18:13
to go there one lap to go and I slowed down and I stopped there
3:18:18
and I got blasted in the back and I'm like who?
3:18:21
The just hit me. Mind you, I stopped in front of
3:18:23
all my crew and Amanda just kind of starts laughing and I see
3:18:28
that same car come rolling up to the side and I was like, oh, it
3:18:30
was them. I was like man, 2 for two.
3:18:32
I was like, do they got an ounce for me?
3:18:35
They don't like it was a joke. They don't like it was just it
3:18:38
was a funny thing. Like I'm not I'm not trying to
3:18:39
shame that driver because they're tired.
3:18:41
They had to change their tired. Nothing happened to me.
3:18:43
So like it was it was OK, you know, but it just did make me
3:18:46
chuckle that the last two B mains I've ran I've I've kind of
3:18:49
got raced the same goal, but you you had that car sporty I.
3:18:53
Told Scott afterwards. I said it was sporty out there.
3:18:55
It was, it was racing. We got, I know you got bumped up
3:18:59
into the top groove and kind of lost momentum there for a little
3:19:02
bit, but we made it up to second.
3:19:05
We we started. We started 10th, we started in
3:19:07
side row five. We made it up to second.
3:19:09
I didn't have any. The, the, the guy who was
3:19:11
running second two won. So, you know, we didn't have
3:19:13
anything for him. Everybody that got around me, I
3:19:16
think there was one car, maybe 2 cars that got around me that,
3:19:19
that I actually think we could have held off.
3:19:21
But like Christina rants and and Keith Adams was up there.
3:19:27
Yeah, there was. There were two or three like.
3:19:28
Mini stocks that they, they out qualified Scott by half a second
3:19:34
and Scott was 2/10 faster than I went.
3:19:36
So they had six 7/10 on me. I wasn't holding off.
3:19:40
I was quite happy with the 7th place finish.
3:19:43
I, I, I had a ton of fun. We put a couple marks on the.
3:19:47
Car I got to. Apologize to Sheldon Lindlag.
3:19:50
We got together. I was I He's blaming me.
3:19:53
I've heard through the Grapevine.
3:19:54
I'll take the blame. I I think I held my life.
3:19:57
I know how we can tell. I know a guy who had a camera,
3:19:59
so he'll be able to tell. But we were three.
3:20:03
Wide and we ended up just bumping and my bumper popped his
3:20:06
right rear tire. So I do want to apologize
3:20:09
Sheldon, it wasn't on purpose. I promise you I wasn't trying to
3:20:11
wreck anybody. We were just, we were three wide
3:20:14
and jostled around. So like we we put a couple dents
3:20:16
on the car. But yeah, we had fun and I
3:20:19
probably have it on video. Because I was following your
3:20:21
group there for a while because I think Keith was leading at
3:20:24
that point already. Christina, I think was behind
3:20:27
you guys still at that point. If I remember I think she was
3:20:30
think she had just gone. Around me, yeah, yeah, it was
3:20:33
like a lot that they were. Yeah.
3:20:35
Yeah, yeah. Because there's about 5 or 6 of
3:20:36
you who were kind of just together.
3:20:38
And I'm like, well, something's gonna happen on the track.
3:20:40
It's gonna be in this group because Keith was already gone
3:20:45
there for a while. Most because you guys were
3:20:47
racing. I mean, you were racing and kind
3:20:50
of, you know, battling each other.
3:20:51
Then there's kind of like pockets behind you like 2 cars
3:20:55
here, one car there, two cars that you know, like it's spread
3:20:58
out a little bit. And so I mostly stayed on you
3:21:00
guys for several laps. And I try like, OK, I should
3:21:03
move around a little bit. But then every time I move,
3:21:05
someone would do something in the group.
3:21:06
I'm like, I knew it this moment I moved from the group.
3:21:09
But because that happened and another feature where I was on a
3:21:14
group there for a long time and then the moment I moved, they
3:21:17
pile up on each other. I'm like, I see how it is, but I
3:21:20
know my turn 3 camera got it. So I might not have got it, but
3:21:23
it might turn 3 camera did. So this would be this would be
3:21:26
real quick because we're. 20 minutes past our limit.
3:21:29
I don't envy you for that. I have watched plenty of videos
3:21:32
where somebody filming like the A main that I'm running right?
3:21:36
And I'm like, man, there's two or three really good moves that
3:21:39
I made that I really hope they catch right?
3:21:42
And without fail it'll they'll be like following where I'm at
3:21:45
or the group I'm in. And then they'll pan and I'm
3:21:48
like, that was it. That was the last thing to
3:21:50
happen. Or, and this is the thing that I
3:21:53
give you credit for. OK.
3:21:54
And this is for other videographers watching.
3:21:56
I know that you want to film your driver if you're going live
3:22:00
or you're going if you're filming your racer.
3:22:02
I understand you want to film your racer if your racers by
3:22:05
himself. Film the group, film the guys.
3:22:08
Going 234. Wide, because I promise you
3:22:11
that's what you actually want to watch.
3:22:13
Your driver running a single file I don't care about but I
3:22:18
will watch your. Video.
3:22:19
If I can see chaos or possible chaos compared to one person,
3:22:25
just you know, there are some track, like there are some
3:22:28
places where it's a a streaming and they're the camera operators
3:22:32
just told to follow the leader. And it's like that's the rule.
3:22:35
And you'll hear the announcer going crazy.
3:22:36
They're throwing fighters and they're 5.
3:22:38
Wide and they're doing this and it's like.
3:22:42
Because so I. Learned even talking with James
3:22:44
Dimmet at Grundy. So when because he has worked
3:22:47
for track TVA couple times when they've come down to Grundy and
3:22:50
they've used him because he videos there and I give him
3:22:53
credit. I'm like I don't racing videos
3:22:55
right yes, yes, yeah, Yep. I watched a bunch of his.
3:22:58
From Rockford and and stuff like that so.
3:23:01
And I've told him I'm. Like I don't think I could.
3:23:03
Be produced and he's like you could do it because I talked so
3:23:06
the the national scheduler for racing America follows top row
3:23:10
is a fan of top row. I, you know, I talked with him
3:23:13
at 500 tour and I said, I'm just not at your, I'm not at racing
3:23:16
America level, like I'm not at that level.
3:23:19
And, and he's like, well, we can talk.
3:23:21
Here's my e-mail and here's my number and all that.
3:23:23
And, and I'm like, I don't know, I'm just not at that level,
3:23:26
right, I don't. But then you got like Chris
3:23:28
folk, he'll be like, you're at that level.
3:23:30
You're, you're good. You know, you know what you're
3:23:32
doing. And Chris is always excited.
3:23:35
He's like, what I like Chris will say, what I appreciate is
3:23:37
that once you realize, like when you watch the top row race and
3:23:40
then for those who know that it's one person who's doing all
3:23:44
of this, that there's more of an appreciation, you know, when
3:23:47
there's others, but I've been told at times, y'all, you can't
3:23:50
do it unless it's A2 camera operation.
3:23:52
So for people to understand if it's a single car operation,
3:23:55
camera operation, oftentimes they're going to follow the
3:23:58
leader because that's the lead camera.
3:24:00
Then if there's a second camera and usually with some streaming,
3:24:03
there's two cameras. The second camera is the battle
3:24:06
camera. So the battle camera will jump
3:24:08
around. You have then, so that's two
3:24:11
videographers. Then you have a producer who's
3:24:13
somewhere either on the property or at their home in California,
3:24:17
wherever they are, you know, they could TuneIn they can like
3:24:21
jump in right wherever that producer is, is then picking the
3:24:24
camera angles and picking all the things like so I'm one
3:24:28
person, I'm the videographer, I'm the social media uploader,
3:24:31
I'm the producer, I'm the audio tech.
3:24:34
I have to do my own audio. I have like there's and like a
3:24:38
racing American videographer gets $300 to do it.
3:24:41
I get not $300.00. So everybody knows.
3:24:44
And then the audio guy gets another couple 100 bucks to
3:24:48
himself. So that's two positions the
3:24:50
producer gets paid. That's three positions that I do
3:24:53
is 1. And but that's something that
3:24:55
I've, you know, when someone says, well, you need 2 cameras,
3:24:57
OK, buy it for me because I said my camera alone that I have is
3:25:01
$2000 and that was on sale on Amazon.
3:25:04
And I said that doesn't include the tripod, that doesn't include
3:25:07
the headphones, that doesn't include the audio cords, that
3:25:09
doesn't include anything, right? That's just the camera.
3:25:11
Not even the SD cards, which are ridiculous now.
3:25:14
But but so like Colin Bozell, and I know why he did, because
3:25:19
you're talking gear, Gear and expenses.
3:25:21
This is a 32 inch shadow box on top of my $250 light, you know,
3:25:27
and this is on 10%, but that's why I have really good lighting,
3:25:30
you know, so Yep, but that's where Colin Bozell, the one time
3:25:34
he. Messaged he's like, you know, I
3:25:35
appreciate what you do and I understand him and I talked
3:25:37
about it in person and he wasn't doing it to be rude.
3:25:40
He's like, but I made some really cool moves and you didn't
3:25:43
get it. You followed the leader.
3:25:44
I watched the leader for five laps.
3:25:45
The problem is then if I I'll get a message then from the
3:25:49
leader or I'll get a message from the car owner of the leader
3:25:52
who's like, how come you didn't like how come you didn't follow
3:25:55
the leader for five laps? How come you didn't follow me
3:25:57
for five laps? And I'm like, well, they were in
3:25:59
Sturgis by themselves and everything else goes behind
3:26:03
here. So it's like, you know, he hit
3:26:05
the cruise control on button and you know he'd occasionally find
3:26:09
a lap car. Meanwhile you had a 7 car battle
3:26:12
back here. Hornets nest going on so.
3:26:14
I do try to jump around and I do try to get every car in the
3:26:17
frame release once. I'm not going to zoom in on
3:26:19
everyone's sponsors and all that kind of deal.
3:26:22
Sometimes they do tight shot, sometimes they do wide shot.
3:26:24
It just really depends. Sometimes they do wide shot
3:26:26
because I think shit's about to hit the fan and it's easier to
3:26:29
catch because I'm looking at the viewfinder, which is different
3:26:33
from a phone. Like when I did my iPad, I never
3:26:36
ever looked at my iPad. Someone noticed that they're
3:26:39
like you were looking to turn 3 and 4, but you're pointing to 1
3:26:42
and 2 and you didn't have to adjust anything.
3:26:44
I'm like, because I know what I'm pointing at for the this
3:26:47
sometimes I like on Sunday I was battling bees and spiders.
3:26:52
So there's some weird random dooms and some like this.
3:26:55
And these are the spiders that charge you.
3:26:57
Like if you try to get them, they're like, I'm after you now.
3:27:01
And I'm like, get. And there's some of.
3:27:03
Them were like the clear, like like see through spiders and I'm
3:27:07
like, Oh, I don't need that going on.
3:27:09
I had a web that was being built on the from my microphone to my
3:27:12
lens. I'm like, no, we're just not
3:27:14
doing all this. So between swatting that so
3:27:16
there's times and then Joel, the mic was cut out, which feeds
3:27:21
into the audio. So then my my ambient mic was
3:27:24
too low for some classes. So then there's going to be and
3:27:27
then there's a lot of times I'm mad at Joel.
3:27:28
I know he didn't do it on purpose, but I'm like, the music
3:27:31
is still playing Joel and we just took the white flag.
3:27:33
The music is still playing Joel. We just took the green flag.
3:27:35
The music is playing Joel. We just now took a red flag.
3:27:38
And so who knows what that's going to be.
3:27:40
You 2 may mute it. I may have to be get creative
3:27:42
and use one of my on boards for a couple laps just to get around
3:27:45
the copyright stuff. Hey, how?
3:27:46
How come there's no sound in this?
3:27:48
Section here. Yeah, and he didn't do it on
3:27:50
purpose. But I almost wanted to go down
3:27:52
and be like, if you're not down here by the time the white flag,
3:27:54
don't play music because you're, you're impacting me.
3:27:57
I gotta do more work now because you're playing music and.
3:28:01
And that's one that people don't think about the.
3:28:03
Amount of times that I've had people like my live got taken
3:28:06
out. Oh, so haters.
3:28:07
Are I'm like. You literally live stream
3:28:09
copyrighted music. It's getting taken out.
3:28:10
There's there's absolutely. It's not even human being.
3:28:13
It's not even human being. Facebook has a whole program for
3:28:15
that. Yeah, yeah.
3:28:16
And you can try to. Protest it and that program will
3:28:18
go against you. I've had that happen where I'm
3:28:20
like, it's my content with my logo on it and I've had to go
3:28:22
through the protests. But but yes, so that's where I
3:28:25
so there's one point in the camera where I zoomed out
3:28:28
because I'm trying to cut his feet here.
3:28:30
Just watch it all. I'm, I'm and you'll.
3:28:32
Hear it it's it's during I. Think the street stock rates are
3:28:35
rear wheel drive where all of a sudden like he's announcing like
3:28:37
I heard that he turned off the music so then now I'm adjusting
3:28:40
that so that the audio comes back, which is what I want.
3:28:43
But I'm like I can't rely on you right now to help the pedals.
3:28:47
Do you have foot? Pedals for what?
3:28:51
The. Audio.
3:28:52
No, it's not. It's on the so it's.
3:28:54
On the camera itself, so the OK, so we might, we might have to
3:29:00
talk. We might have to talk about
3:29:00
that. Because I, I learned this for
3:29:02
streaming, some of the streamers, they have foot pedal
3:29:05
setups that you can actually use to help switch between stuff.
3:29:08
So you can combine it with like a stream deck and stuff like
3:29:11
that to be able to actually cut in and out different
3:29:14
microphones. So like if they're playing
3:29:16
music, you could hit a mute button and then it would mute
3:29:19
their feed and stuff like that. So yeah, a lot of those.
3:29:21
Streams are not allowed to have the music.
3:29:23
That's a big thing. So, so so yeah.
3:29:26
But I know it's almost not gatekeeping.
3:29:28
Information. Well, that's where I helped.
3:29:31
Like. Crashers adventures I've you
3:29:33
know he does he does chapters now because I the comments under
3:29:39
his videos. From last year when I with the
3:29:42
bird was the word a bunch of like.
3:29:44
Why did he get mad at that guy? And I'm like, 'cause he caused
3:29:47
the. Entire King thing.
3:29:51
That's why 'cause my car got sold it out because that guy
3:29:53
decided he needed to go from the outside pole back to the outside
3:29:58
pole across the nose of something like.
3:30:01
So yeah, Crashers Adventures. I've watched a few of his
3:30:03
different videos and stuff and like, he's got some good angles
3:30:05
and stuff and these videos I just, it cracked me up 'cause in
3:30:08
the comes, like, I don't know why he's mad at him.
3:30:09
Like, I know why he's mad at him 'cause that guy caused it, yeah.
3:30:13
But but that's where again, I want to thank everyone who
3:30:16
stayed around for an extra marathon.
3:30:18
This is now officially our longest show that we've ever
3:30:20
had. You know, it did feel like it
3:30:23
though, and in all honesty didn't feel it until like 2
3:30:27
hours, no. Because you started at 8:00. 10
3:30:30
you were pretty. We got you on at 8:10 and it's
3:30:32
now 1029, so it's like we've done our own show and I changed.
3:30:38
Graphics mid show. But it definitely didn't feel
3:30:40
like it till I got to 9:30. I'm like, OK, now we're long.
3:30:43
But people were hanging around. But now it's now it's hit that
3:30:45
nine. Now it's kind of gone down,
3:30:47
right? So it's like, OK, now, next,
3:30:48
next time you want a long show that people stick around.
3:30:50
You know, ask them for some controversial subjects and then
3:30:53
I'll come on and give my, my opinion on them and, and we'll
3:30:56
just we'll explain it out, you know.
3:30:59
Well, so that's where now. I'll have you stick around for
3:31:02
the show rundown as we prepare for the rest of the week.
3:31:05
And then since Buju's not here, So what we usually do at the end
3:31:08
of the show, Dalton Irish did a really great impression of how
3:31:12
we do the closing. Like I gave it to him like it
3:31:14
was. I tell him it's like in a creepy
3:31:16
way, like really good. Like I'm not offended by it, but
3:31:19
I'm like, man, he did such a like he had it like on point.
3:31:23
And so it now I go, OK, I got a reset, so I do it right.
3:31:28
So I always say, all right, Buju, it's almost time to turn
3:31:31
left and go fast because and then Buju says, we'll see you at
3:31:34
the races. So I'll let you do so.
3:31:36
We'll see you at the races part. I'll do my part.
3:31:39
And then that's how we end the show.
3:31:41
You think you got that All right?
3:31:43
I think so. All right, so I want to remind
3:31:46
everyone, even though this is well past time when I would
3:31:48
usually remind it, but we do have the throttle up.
3:31:51
I don't know what I'm doing on Thursday yet because I got to
3:31:53
get past the editing first. So just bear with that.
3:31:57
But it is Thursday night throttle.
3:31:59
This Thursday we are back and we'll talk a lot about Michigan
3:32:01
Cup. If Donnie or somebody from
3:32:04
Michigan Cup has a 10 minute window that they could come on
3:32:08
and do some last minute promotion stuff, I'll try to get
3:32:10
someone on. If not, we'll just talk about it
3:32:13
and maybe I'll make Buju do like I said, he got saved tonight
3:32:16
from the rewind roulette, but maybe I'll make him do it on
3:32:18
Thursday if he's feeling well by then.
3:32:20
Other than that, we have been talking with Todd Metz Junior
3:32:23
since about 8:10. So the last 2 1/2 hours have
3:32:25
been all Todd Metz Junior and it's been 1 conversation.
3:32:28
Next it's it's truly flowed like I didn't know what time it was
3:32:32
until then. But to start, we did talk with
3:32:34
Chelsea Landis, who is not the race director of Grundy County
3:32:37
Speedway. Just so you know, I missed a
3:32:40
part of the graphic. I just operating on fumes and I
3:32:43
apologize to Chelsea that I didn't fix that part.
3:32:46
I didn't notice it only because I didn't notice it on yours
3:32:49
until John pointed it out. So it would have escaped me
3:32:52
until then. And but I'm sure someone
3:32:54
screenshot it and let her know. So I will send her a message and
3:32:57
say I apologize. I did not realize that it said
3:32:59
you're the race track director on the county Speedway.
3:33:00
But also congratulations on your promotion that you didn't know
3:33:03
you got. But other than that, although
3:33:05
Brian could say we have something to say about that, but
3:33:07
we have been watching the Monday Night Rewind on Facebook and
3:33:11
YouTube. And of course our answer to the
3:33:13
Rewind brain Buster was it was B&K Speedway, although it was
3:33:18
owned by Kits Miller on his farm property.
3:33:21
And so and it was dirt for two years and then they paved it and
3:33:24
put the front stretch wall and around that time, but Kits
3:33:28
Miller was a part of the ownership group for 10 years.
3:33:31
So that's where that 10 years comes in.
3:33:33
But it was a dirt track for two years and they did have racing
3:33:36
on that dirt track for a little bit.
3:33:38
So the history is hard to find on B&K Speedway.
3:33:42
Everything pretty much starts at Kalamazoo Speedway when it's
3:33:45
changed over. But that's those are the answers
3:33:48
for those who stuck around to get the answers.
3:33:50
If not, I do know, Todd, that a lot of people do listen on
3:33:53
Spotify too. So you're welcome to listen on
3:33:55
Spotify. And of course, once this is on
3:33:56
Spotify, it would also disperse out to iHeartRadio, Amazon
3:34:00
Music, and Apple Podcasts. So wherever you listen, it's
3:34:04
there. And as everyone who does
3:34:06
generally watch knows that I try not to post anything on Facebook
3:34:09
until about noon the next day after a show so that it hovers
3:34:12
around for a while. And I'm also still very careful
3:34:14
about what I post in at that time.
3:34:16
So other than that, we have been, like I said, talk with Tom
3:34:19
Metz Junior. So now I get into mode and I say
3:34:25
all right, Todd. It's almost.
3:34:26
Time to turn left and go fast because we will see you.
3:34:31
At the races, see everyone.