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Had a Rough Night On Track & I See a Bad Trend in NASCAR | Coffee With Kenny · Kenny Wallace Media

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  Happy Friday morning to everybody.
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  Whoa. It's a steamer.
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  It's a steamer here in Daytona Beach. 8:30 in the morning and
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  already hotter than a whale digger's butt.
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  I don't even know what that means.
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  It just sounds funny. All right, let's get right to it
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  everybody. Last night at the Volusia
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  Speedway Thursday night, that was my first race of of the
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  year. The the last time I raced was
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  what was that December 4th, 5th, something like that at the Dome
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  in Saint Louis. We run ninth out of 60 something
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  cars. So you know, when you when you
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  race dirt and when I first started racing dirt, somebody
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  might say to you, how did you run last night?
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  And you'd say I won. And then the very first thing
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  they asked you is how many cars were there?
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  It used to aggravate the all get out.
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  I'm like, why does it matter how many cars were there?
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  Because that just don't matter because whoever was there, I
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  won. Well, as the years went on, I
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  realized that it does make a big difference, even though you
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  can't control it. So when you win races and you
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  can't control how many cars there, it just don't matter.
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  But I have learned to communicate with my dirt racing
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  friends. You know it.
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  It's let's say you're running a Cup race or an Xfinity race or a
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  truck race. There's a lot of lot of race
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  cars. So when you win, you're awesome.
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  All right, so last night, man, it was a tough night on me.
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  Oh my gosh, 65 race cars going for 24 spots or spots.
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  Why did I say spots? Like I gave up on my I gave up
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  on my talking right there. Spots See, my job is to chew my
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  ass out before you do. I learned that from Schrader.
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  Anytime I mess anything up, Schrader, he'd make fun of me
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  before I could even oh, oh, you can't say the word, you can't
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  say it. So anyway, last night at
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  Volusia, 65 cars. Now this is a a different event.
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  We're racing Thursday, Friday, they collect all your points
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  from Thursday and Friday. Then we line up for the big race
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  on Saturday, then we have Sunday off, and then we start the real
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  Gator Nationals on Monday. Now you'll probably see 3040
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  cars roll in from all over the United States on Monday.
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  Not everybody can take off 2 weeks to go dirt racing down in
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  Florida, you know, at the end of January and February.
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  All right, just want to explain to everybody where all this, all
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  the dirt racing community, how many cars were there 'cause they
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  want to see if it was a legit. So last night we had 65 race
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  cars, they only start 24. So 24344454644142 cars missed
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  the race. Say that again, 41 to 42 race
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  cars, they don't get to race. It was a close one for me last
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  night. I was, I started 24th.
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  I started dead last. So in my heat race, well, first
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  of all, I started 12th. I qualified 12th out of what,
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  3035 cars, something like that. No, say 32.
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  I think I qualified 12th out of 32.
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  Lined up, lined up six, and my heat race finished fifth.
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  Just couldn't get going. I got plenty excuses.
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  You don't want to hear them. I would say that I was rusty and
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  I wasn't Rusty Wallace, I'm Kenny, but I was a little rusty.
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  I I was, I was very disappointed in my performance last night as
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  a race car driver. I slept on and overnight we're
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  going to get better. So then we had to go into the
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  qualifier, they call it last chance qualifier.
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  You had to finish top four. I started 6th again and I
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  finished fourth and made the race, made the race but it was
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  too close to call. I did not like that.
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  So here's the take away. You know you, we can look at
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  things any way we want. Here's the way I choose to look
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  at it. I finished 21st and got in a
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  wreck right away in the feature first lap go down in the corner,
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  guy spins out and I'm there and I hit him like a pack of
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  marshmallows. But it broke my right front
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  shock off and at the same time broke a brake line.
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  So I got no right for a shock and brake lines broke off.
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  Let's just stop it right there. I finished 21st.
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  It was brutal. Oh my God.
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  All right, so we're going to go at it again tonight.
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  So as the great Dick Trickle told me, I finished 21st out of
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  65. So we, as my wife said, she
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  goes, Oh well, it's OK, You got more nights of racing left.
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  I went to Nick and I told Nick Hoffman, my car owner, just for
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  this week, OK, just for this week.
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  I'm driving Nick Hoffman's car just for Volusia.
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  We get back home, drive my own race car.
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  I, I told Nick, I said, Nick, I'm so sorry.
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  I said I, I have no idea what that was about.
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  And Nick just, he just did a really good job of settling me
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  down. The whole team, they're very,
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  very nice to me. And I said, well, it, it was a
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  bad night of driving for me. I drove bad and I'm going to
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  tell you what I learned that from the best.
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  Sometimes you just drive bad. And I drove bad last night even
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  though we we made the race and finished 21st out of 65 that you
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  know that that was not a good night.
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  OK, let's take drink coffee and talk about something on my mind.
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  The NASCAR Cup season has not even started, has not even
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  started yet. The cars are not even on the
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  racetrack. And the NASCAR president, Steve
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  Phelps, he did something that he thought would be nice.
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  Steve Phelps wrote a letter to all the race fans and it was a
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  nice letter. It was, it was, it was thanking
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  the race fans. You're the best race fans in the
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  world. And, and he reminded everybody,
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  we just came off of a record year, record amount of passes,
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  record amount of photo finishes. And it was a nice letter.
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  You definitely don't expect the president to talk badly before
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  the year even gets started. So you know, what's the
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  opposite? So anyway, right away I see fans
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  just start bashing him. And, you know, I just don't like
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  NASCAR anymore. And I'm like, what the hell?
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  So, OK, no problem. That's pretty common.
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  And then all of a sudden I see the NFL or no, the NBA
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  commissioner, National Basketball Association, he comes
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  out with an idea of thinking about shortening the periods or
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  something like that. So the NBA said they thinking
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  about shortening something a little bit, you know, because,
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  you know, they don't get very good ratings.
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  I mean, we all love basketball, but they just don't get very
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  good ratings. In other words, not a lot of
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  people watch basketball. So in one day on Thursday, you
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  got the president of NASCAR saying, hey, thank you, fans,
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  we're coming off a record year. We're ready to go again.
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  Then you got the NBA commissioner saying, hey, look,
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  we're thinking about shortening these periods a little bit.
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  And oh, my God, they blasted him how horrible the game is.
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  And so I woke up this morning, I thought to myself, friends, I
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  didn't have the night I wanted at the racetrack.
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  And we haven't even got started going yet this year.
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  If you're going to start the year out like this, it means
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  you're going to have a long year.
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  You're going to have a long year.
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  PMA, positive mental attitude. Now I'm a studying in sports
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  therapy. I'm a I'm a sports therapist for
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  you. Maybe that's just what you like
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  to do. That is your sport, isn't it?
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  Your sport is You love to complain about everything, but
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  yet you can't do it. You can't do it but you like to
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  point out how bad everybody is, even though there's nothing
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  wrong. So I'm just going to leave it
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  there. Think about yourself before you
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  start talking bad about everybody, before anything even
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  starts. NASCAR ain't even started and
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  you all are already at it. You're already at it, and it
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  ain't about the sport. It's about you.
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  I'm trying to help you. If you're going to think like
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  that about everything, you know, what's in your brain is the way
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  your life is going to live. Whatever your thoughts are,
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  that's what you think. Now, if you think, hey, man,
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  it's a new year, I can't wait to see this race at Bowman Gray.
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  They're going to go to Mexico. That's the new, you know, the
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  races were good last year. Let's go.
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  You cannot start out something fresh being negative, All right,
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  I'm not preaching to you. I'm just, I'm just saying y'all
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  are having a y'all are having a tough time.
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  Whatever's in your brain is the way you are.
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  If you think good thoughts, it's going to be good.
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  If you think bad thoughts, you're going to be bad.
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  All right now, I love y'all. All right, positive mental
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  attitude. PMA, quit complaining so much.
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  Breathe. It's a beautiful, it's a
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  beautiful day. It's beautiful.
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  It's already, it's already 80° at 8:30 in the morning down here
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  in Daytona. Daytona Beach, FL, home of the
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  big one, the Daytona 500. God, I love Daytona.
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  Alright, happy Friday everybody, and it's Friday.
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  It's Friday.