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I've Got A Good Story To Tell You... · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:05
  It's Thursday. Have you ever seen Louie so lazy
• 0:10
  and tired? He knows that rain's coming and
• 0:12
  he can sense it. So today's coffee with Kenny is
• 0:17
  something a little different. It's it's show and tell
• 0:20
  children. Did you bring your stuff to
• 0:23
  school today to show and tell? I was on social media on this
• 0:29
  Thursday morning and I get asked this same question over and over
• 0:36
  and over. You you get the point.
• 0:39
  So please allow me to just speak the truth, OK?
• 0:48
  I'm not bragging. I'm not doing anything except
• 0:53
  telling everybody the timeline. So in other words, 19868788 I
• 1:00
  raced in ASA, the American Speed Association, then in 89 all the
• 1:07
  way, you know, to 2015. I raced in NASCAR, I raced in
• 1:13
  the Xfinity Series, I raced in the Cup Series and I ran a
• 1:19
  handful of truck races. There was a time where I wanted
• 1:23
  to learn how to race dirt. I wanted to, I wanted to learn
• 1:27
  how to race dirt. Kenny Schrader would say,
• 1:30
  Herman, why do you want to learn how to race dirt so bad?
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  Well, for a while I couldn't answer.
• 1:37
  Kenny and I finally, about a year later, I said, you know,
• 1:41
  you asked me why I want to race dirt cars so bad.
• 1:45
  I said, I guess it's because I would watch AJ Foy Mary Andretti
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  run the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Indy 500, and then
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  like the next night or that night, AJ Foyt, Mario Andretti.
• 1:59
  They would be at the Terre Haute action track, Terre Haute IN,
• 2:04
  and then my dad raced dirt. My brother Mike ran dirt.
• 2:08
  However, I knew to make it to the big time.
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  I knew that if you were going to make a living like a good one, I
• 2:18
  had to be an asphalt racer in those days.
• 2:21
  So I went to ASA and I got very lucky in life and I made it to
• 2:27
  NASCAR and I made it. It worked out, right?
• 2:31
  It worked out. So I'm about 3/4 of the way
• 2:35
  through my NASCAR Cup career and all of a sudden I get this
• 2:43
  opportunity to race dirt cars. I go to the 2005 Prelude to the
• 2:51
  Dream at Eldora, win the damn race, get very lucky, win the
• 2:55
  race and had some really good drivers there.
• 3:01
  I mean, we're talking Tony Stewart Lasoski, you know, Kenny
• 3:05
  Schrader, Bill Elliott and and there's pictures out there.
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  So at this point in 2005, I'm not a dirt racer and so I win
• 3:16
  the race. Tony Stewart comes to Victor
• 3:18
  Lane. He goes, what the hell was that
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  all about? And I said, hell, I don't know,
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  maybe I should have been a dirt racer.
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  So I run my very first dirt race.
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  Very first dirt race like at 404344 years old.
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  Now that surprises me. Hey, why the squealy voice?
• 3:45
  Wallace, you try to make a point.
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  So I run my first dirt race at 4344 years old, CJ Rayburn, says
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  Herman, I'm going to give you a car.
• 3:57
  I'm going to let you use a car. So CJ Rayburn gives me a super
• 4:02
  Late Model. So here's the question I get
• 4:05
  asked over and over. Herman, how come you don't run a
• 4:09
  dirt super late model? Well, I I have.
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  I've. I started in dirt super late
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  models. So here's where Show and Tell
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  comes in. There you go kids, children,
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  There it is. So took this dirt Super Late
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  Model, went to Cleveland, TN in 2007 and lined up right next to
• 4:35
  Ronnie Johnson Schrader. They were all there and let me
• 4:39
  brag on myself for a minute. I won.
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  It was a big race. We won and then you know we ran
• 4:47
  10 races with this this car. So I I I started in dirt super
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  late models and I don't know, ran 20 dirt super late model
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  races. Well, I was, you know, Schrader.
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  So the car came from CJI, made a deal with Kenny Schrader, went
• 5:08
  directly to Schrader's and Joey, Joey Walsh prepared the car.
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  So anyway, I did really good in this car, but I at that time I'm
• 5:20
  in the Cup Series so I I didn't think of this as big time.
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  I thought of it as dirt racing, just simply dirt racing.
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  And I said I'm done with this, This is too expensive.
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  Have you ever tried running dirt super late models like on big
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  shows? Not not local big shows.
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  These son of a boogers are expensive man.
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  So I said OK, I'm going to get done.
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  I'm going to quit dirt super late model racing.
• 5:50
  And for me right now like right this minute, like 2023, these
• 5:57
  are easier to drive than modifieds because they stick so
• 6:01
  hard. I just raced them this year down
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  at a Paragould AR and 1. So for me, driving dirt super
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  late models are easy to drive. However, they're extremely
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  expensive and the competition is unbelievably tough, just like
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  the modifieds are. So I got rid of this.
• 6:24
  We, Joey Walsh, Schrader, we gave this car back to CJ
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  Rayburn, OK And I said, you know what, all my buddies around
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  Saint Louis are racing modifieds.
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  So we're we're not trying to make a living.
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  I thought it was. I thought of dirt racing as
• 6:43
  having fun because I was already in the Cup Series.
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  So I I went to Modifieds and these have saved my life.
• 6:53
  These things are so much fun, it's unbelievable.
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  And they fit my pocketbook. So right now these cars here, if
• 7:00
  you put a motor in them, they're about $130,000.
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  Now that's if you go buy one brand new, ready to go and and
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  you don't do anything. So if you call up Longhorn or
• 7:13
  you call up Rocket and you go, I don't have time, I'm busy.
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  And you say I want you to build me a dirt car, late model, ready
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  to go. I'm going to give you the motor,
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  the seat, the shocks. It's about 130 grand, 130,000.
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  If you build one of these and I just built one, it's about
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  75,000 total, all in seat shocks, everything ready to
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  race. So 75,000 versus 130,000 now,
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  you know that's everything brand new, that's for the people just
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  want to get in the sport. So anyway, the education today
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  is I grew up running dirt super late models, so as Paul Harvey
• 7:59
  would say, and that's the rest of the story.