Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Three Masts & Darlington Alumni Weekend Recap! | Mast Cast Ep 9

Transcript

Three Masts & Darlington Alumni Weekend Recap! | Mast Cast Ep 9 · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:00
  Nope, your eyes do not deceive you.
• 0:03
  This is an extra special mass cast.
• 0:05
  We've increased the amount of Mast on mass cast.
• 0:08
  He is former Cup series driver Rick Mast.
• 0:11
  I am his non driving son Ricky Mast and that is his non driving
• 0:15
  daughter, my sister Katie Mast. Hi, Katie.
• 0:20
  Hello thanks for having me it. Was it was hard to book you, but
• 0:25
  you know you're you're a busy person.
• 0:26
  Yeah, I'm very busy. I like how your your set looks
• 0:31
  honestly more organized than me and Dad's.
• 0:33
  It looks good. You got the mass times too.
• 0:35
  You and your well, our sister, your twins, Sarah.
• 0:38
  Like that? Yeah.
• 0:39
  I have a lot of academia. I have my three graduation caps
• 0:42
  back there and a little mass times too.
• 0:46
  Dad, how many? Speaking of academia, how many
• 0:48
  graduation caps did you accumulate in your academic
• 0:50
  career? Oh, I don't know, Ricky.
• 0:53
  It's hard to say off offhand. Yeah, I'm sure it is.
• 0:57
  A couple, I guess. Yeah, Where they're at, I don't
• 1:01
  know where they're at. Yeah, I think I accumulated a
• 1:04
  couple as well. I went to school for a whole
• 1:07
  bunch of years, and usually you kind of end up like Katie and
• 1:10
  Sarah and you end up with multiple cats.
• 1:12
  But I think I only got the two. No matter how long you go,
• 1:20
  that's OK. It all.
• 1:20
  It all worked out. Yeah, well, Katie's joining us
• 1:24
  this week because she went with dad with Rick here to Darlington
• 1:30
  for NASCAR alumni Weekend. And I was jealous seeing all the
• 1:34
  pictures and video and everything.
• 1:36
  I had a lot going on here in Atlanta.
• 1:38
  We're getting ready for for Braves home opener or just the
• 1:42
  season opener this week and got my little one Stevie.
• 1:45
  So I couldn't make it. But they went and they had an
• 1:48
  awesome time. And if you follow mass cast show
• 1:50
  on the social medias, you got to see a little bit of what they
• 1:53
  were up to. So where do y'all want to start?
• 1:56
  I mean, y'all would y'all get in like Friday night and y'all
• 1:59
  were, I mean y'all like busy like from that seemed like to me
• 2:02
  the time you got up to you, you had hit the pillow at night.
• 2:05
  Yeah, actually they had stuff for us to do, for me to do
• 2:08
  during the weekend. And you know, we I think had a
• 2:11
  couple things we could have done Friday, but Katie had to wait to
• 2:14
  get out of class, so we didn't. We got down there about 11:00 or
• 2:16
  12:00. I guess that about right, Katie,
• 2:19
  about 11:00 or 12:00 and man, great weekend, right?
• 2:23
  You know, the, we talked about the, the alumni group here on
• 2:27
  Mascas before. This is the third year of Ford,
• 2:29
  I think, and what it is for people don't know the NASCAR
• 2:34
  started the alumni Group 3 years ago, I guess.
• 2:37
  And you know, they're, they, they do one big deal a year and
• 2:40
  it's at Darlington, right? That's where all the guys come.
• 2:43
  They set up a big nice tent. What's more like a grand
• 2:48
  ballroom really, right? I mean, they really do it up
• 2:50
  nice. You're fed.
• 2:51
  I mean it's food in there all day long, breakfast, lunch,
• 2:54
  supper or dinner, everything all day long.
• 2:57
  And then what's neat about it are a lot of neat things.
• 3:00
  But it the, it, it's right between the motorhome lot of the
• 3:04
  drivers and owners and the garage entrance.
• 3:07
  So everybody coming in out of the garage going to the
• 3:10
  motorhome lot and that, you know, they go right by us to go
• 3:13
  in. So a lot of guys will stop in
• 3:15
  and probably the most involvement this year we had the
• 3:19
  most involvement we've had as more people, more my old peeps
• 3:23
  there right than than we've had. Each year gets bigger and
• 3:26
  bigger. And then of course they do other
• 3:28
  things during the year also, but force that we if we want to be a
• 3:33
  part of it. But this is their this is their
• 3:35
  big annual event that they do for us.
• 3:38
  Yeah, it seemed like, again, just watching from afar, it
• 3:41
  seemed like I was seeing a whole lot more people showing up from
• 3:46
  all three national touring series, crew chief, a lot of
• 3:50
  different eras. I mean, it just looked really
• 3:52
  cool. So what, Katie?
• 3:54
  What? What did y'all do on Saturday?
• 3:56
  You got up. What?
• 3:57
  What did y'all? What'd y'all get into first
• 3:59
  thing on Saturday? Yeah, we, well, we checked in
• 4:02
  Friday night. I should have.
• 4:03
  I should have brought it. Dad's little welcome bag at his
• 4:06
  hotel actually had a really cool personalized postcard that said
• 4:10
  welcome to Alumni Week and it was a picture of him.
• 4:13
  What year was that picture? I I'm not even sure.
• 4:15
  I believe with the IT was as as black or the skull uniforms got
• 4:20
  gold on it letters and go yeah why I know this I don't know but
• 4:24
  I'm pretty sure that was 93 with the gold on the uniform.
• 4:27
  So I I thought that was really cool because I thought that was
• 4:29
  just a cool little welcome. And then it turns out all of the
• 4:32
  everybody had a picture like that in their welcome packet.
• 4:34
  So I thought that was cool. Oh, everybody get a picture of
• 4:36
  me? Who?
• 4:39
  Each driver had his own individual picture.
• 4:42
  I saw I saw Mike Wallace posted his and his was a picture of
• 4:45
  himself. So I don't know, maybe you and
• 4:46
  him got your own gut. I.
• 4:48
  Really, I'll be honest, I really hope that everybody just got a
• 4:52
  picture of you. That would be, that would be
• 4:56
  all. I hope that's what happened.
• 4:58
  Yeah, yeah. But I mean, Saturday we got up
• 5:03
  and went over early and as soon as we walked in the tent, I
• 5:05
  actually texted Ricky because I thought it was cool.
• 5:08
  There was a whole group of current drivers kind of waiting
• 5:10
  in the tent, which turned out they were going to the parade,
• 5:13
  but they were still there to kind of welcome all of y'all.
• 5:16
  I felt like in a way, I thought we walked in and we saw like
• 5:19
  Suarez was talking to Dave Marcus.
• 5:23
  And I mean, the group that I remember was there.
• 5:26
  McDowell, Suarez, Stenhouse, John Honey, Mitch Nemechek, Ryan
• 5:32
  Priest. Who else, Dad?
• 5:34
  I don't know, Ricky Arcade. It's too many things.
• 5:36
  Anyways, I thought it was cool dad.
• 5:38
  Well, I just I think it's important to note, Dad has been
• 5:41
  saying for years that there needed to be a bridge between
• 5:44
  before the alumni, a group. There need to be a bridge
• 5:46
  between the current drivers and his the old timers.
• 5:50
  And I thought even just that was a simple little stepping stone.
• 5:54
  Dad thoughts? Yeah.
• 5:56
  Well, yeah, I mean that I guess one of the cool, it was funny.
• 6:00
  I was sitting there talking to Stenhouse, Ricky Stenhouse, and
• 6:03
  he was having a conversation with somebody in there.
• 6:05
  We were talking and he said, man, he said, I'm going to tell
• 6:07
  you this is the coolest deal. He says, I hope I I said I just
• 6:11
  hope and I know it will when I retire.
• 6:14
  I want to be I want to become a part of your y'all's group,
• 6:17
  right, to be able to come and hang out, do this stuff.
• 6:19
  So, you know, three years ago, two years ago or two, 3, two or
• 6:23
  three years ago, you know, it wasn't being noticed, I don't
• 6:25
  think by the Curt guys. But you know, Stenhouse saying
• 6:27
  now that was pretty cool. He was saying that he he thought
• 6:30
  what we're what this deal is, is cool and he wants to be a part
• 6:33
  of it when he retires. I'm like, come on, go go for it,
• 6:36
  buddy, go for it. And I thought the best.
• 6:39
  I'm sorry, I was going to say, I was just going to say I thought
• 6:42
  the best quote of the weekend and I texted it to Ricky as
• 6:45
  well. And I, I wrote it down here so I
• 6:47
  wouldn't mess it up. Was dad was talking to Richard
• 6:49
  Petty about it and how cool the group was and seeing everybody
• 6:52
  and all the different generations there.
• 6:54
  And Richard Petty and talking about the current drivers said
• 6:57
  everybody here had something to do with you being here talking
• 7:00
  about the current drivers. And I thought that was really
• 7:02
  cool when I heard that. Yeah, He said he he did his own
• 7:05
  long thing. His fingers are this long,
• 7:08
  right? And he said, you know, some
• 7:10
  people had this much to do with it and some people had this much
• 7:13
  to do with it. But everybody in this room has
• 7:16
  something to do with going to the sport.
• 7:19
  And they are. Everybody deserves to be here
• 7:21
  and be a part of this. That was pretty cool.
• 7:24
  That's what we're talking about, right, Katie?
• 7:25
  That conversation. Yeah.
• 7:27
  Yeah, and a messenger also just brought me the card.
• 7:34
  So what everybody did get that thought, everybody got that
• 7:36
  cord, I'd be doing OK. I mean, it's a pretty cool
• 7:39
  picture. It'd be all right if everybody
• 7:41
  got that cord. And that is 93, by the way.
• 7:44
  I'm pretty sure you wore that black and gold in 93.
• 7:47
  Yeah, the old open face helmet and everything.
• 7:50
  Well, that's really cool, honestly, in the fact that we're
• 7:52
  sitting here talking about that. I think with the amount of
• 7:55
  people that showed up and the attention to detail, getting
• 7:58
  each driver a welcome with their own picture on it and that kind
• 8:02
  of that, that's cool. It's little things like that
• 8:04
  that that really go a long way. I didn't.
• 8:07
  And Dad, you and I may have talked about this before on Mass
• 8:09
  Cast. I never realized until I started
• 8:12
  working in baseball the impact of having an alumni program,
• 8:16
  like what that does for your, your brand and, and your sport
• 8:20
  and everything like seeing what it means to the former players
• 8:23
  to come back and then to get to talk to the current players and
• 8:27
  just the relationships that are built there.
• 8:28
  It's just such a cool deal. And I'm just, I'm so thrilled
• 8:31
  that NASCAR is is doing that now and that y'all got to, to
• 8:35
  experience that. And I hope next year, hopefully
• 8:37
  next year, I can actually make it, make it up there for it.
• 8:40
  So I thought one thing that just from texting with y'all and
• 8:43
  texting with Katie that I thought was really cool was, and
• 8:46
  I've had this a little bit as I've gotten to interview some
• 8:48
  drivers for my Braves podcast in recent years, I've gotten to
• 8:52
  really become fans of more and more current drivers after
• 8:55
  having met them and talked with them a little bit.
• 8:57
  And I felt like y'all came away from this weekend with multiple
• 9:00
  guys that maybe you hadn't talked to before.
• 9:02
  They were like, man, I'm going to pull for those guys now.
• 9:04
  Is that a fair statement? Go ahead, Katie.
• 9:09
  Katie. Oh.
• 9:11
  Oh, OK. Yeah.
• 9:12
  I mean, I feel like every time we get to talk to current
• 9:15
  drivers, I've become a fan because you don't like y'all
• 9:18
  have talked about before, you don't really know them, they're
• 9:20
  shielded and such with all their sponsorship deals and everything
• 9:23
  that y'all always talk to talk about.
• 9:27
  We ran into Tyler Reddick and Dad shook his hand and talked
• 9:30
  about getting to meet you Ricky at the at Truest Park and and do
• 9:34
  a tour here a while back and that was cool and he couldn't
• 9:37
  have been nicer. I thought he was awesome and so
• 9:40
  that made me a fan of him. Any thoughts on that dad?
• 9:45
  Yeah, I mean, he, he, he Ricky had Ricky because you became a
• 9:48
  fan of Tyler Redicks when he had to interview him for you
• 9:51
  interviewed him for the one of the Braves deals, right?
• 9:53
  Am I correct in that? Yeah, about a month ago.
• 9:56
  Yep. Yeah, cool dude.
• 9:58
  And that's right. That's right before he started
• 9:59
  winning. I mean, that was before all he
• 10:01
  went on, that terror of winning, betting, everybody winning
• 10:04
  everything. That was he, he came.
• 10:07
  I I had him on behind the Braves as a guest because we've, it's
• 10:11
  kind of becoming a tradition now with the Braves, a really cool
• 10:14
  tradition with the first Atlanta race being the first race after
• 10:17
  the Daytona 500, the Daytona 500 winner as part of their media
• 10:21
  tour. When they get into Atlanta, they
• 10:23
  last two years. We have William Byron last year
• 10:25
  and Tyler Reddick this year. They come to Truest Park and do
• 10:29
  some things with us with the Braves.
• 10:31
  So he had just won Daytona, but he hadn't, he hadn't won the
• 10:34
  whole month's worth of races that he's won since then.
• 10:37
  Yeah. Little did little did y'all know
• 10:40
  or he knew anything when you did the interview, what was going to
• 10:42
  happen right and just to tear because.
• 10:44
  I'm going to tell you something, Darlington.
• 10:45
  Man, on Sunday he waxed them. I mean, he just whipped their
• 10:49
  butts. I mean, they, you know, the, the
• 10:51
  new rules package with, with more horsepower and less
• 10:54
  downforce. Everybody was fighting her,
• 10:56
  making their best educated guesses what to do with the race
• 10:59
  cars going there and 45 car hit it.
• 11:01
  I mean, whatever they came up with to, to, to, to be able to
• 11:07
  utilize that new rules package, man, they did it.
• 11:10
  They hit on whatever it was because he was, even though
• 11:12
  Keselowski was fast a lot and LED a lot.
• 11:15
  If Ready Kid had the battery problem, it would have been a
• 11:18
  boring ass race man because I think he he'd probably LED every
• 11:21
  single lap. That's how dominant that car
• 11:23
  was. And, and really it was through
• 11:25
  the center of the turns. Katie and I, after we left the
• 11:28
  alumni suite tent extravaganza, we before we left, we went turns
• 11:35
  middle turns 1 and 2 where our alumni parking is right and a
• 11:39
  good view of the race track. You can see all we through one
• 11:42
  and all we through two and the 45 car man through the center of
• 11:45
  the turn. He would just, he would just
• 11:47
  turn that car down and get under people coming off of 2.
• 11:51
  And I'm like, I'm sitting there watching that.
• 11:53
  Like, man, what does that feel like?
• 11:55
  Cuz I remember all the races I ran there, I could never get
• 11:57
  that done. He just, the car just wouldn't
• 11:59
  allow you to do that. And he was the only car I
• 12:01
  noticed doing the doing that Sunday.
• 12:03
  I mean, right, the center of the turn, his car was turning and it
• 12:06
  was gripping in the back and man, he was digging and gone.
• 12:09
  So I'm, I'm sitting there thinking, man, they have hit on
• 12:12
  something right to make his car so good today with the new
• 12:15
  rules. I don't think it has anything to
• 12:17
  do with his, his previous three wins, right, because they're
• 12:20
  you're the whole totally different style of racetrack.
• 12:23
  And this is a new rule and they they were able to, you know,
• 12:27
  capitalize on the new rules. So kudos to the 45 bunch and and
• 12:31
  Reddick and of course Reddick's getting it done, man, You know,
• 12:34
  what was so cool about him was so hot down and everybody uses
• 12:36
  the cool suits down. His alternator went out.
• 12:38
  So Reddick decided well, and I heard him talking about it, you
• 12:41
  know, I. I I.
• 12:43
  I could keep a cool suit on, but you know, my car is so friggin
• 12:47
  dominant today. He knew he had the best race car
• 12:49
  so but he also do if you're in the cool suit, the battery
• 12:53
  wasn't going to make it. So he drained the unhooked it
• 12:55
  and drained the stuff out of the water and persevered, won the
• 12:59
  race. So, you know, he's pretty, he's
• 13:01
  pretty determined little kid suddenly and it paid off for
• 13:03
  him. When you're talking about how
• 13:06
  you know your car never did that there, you're talking about like
• 13:09
  if you really dive down into Darlington your car, then
• 13:11
  naturally, like you see it all the time.
• 13:13
  You're you're basically just fighting to keep from getting
• 13:15
  too much of A Darlington striper.
• 13:17
  Like he was just diving down, going under people and sticking
• 13:19
  right. He wasn't having to fight that.
• 13:20
  Yeah, you're going. Yeah, you're going.
• 13:22
  The turns 1 and 2 are different from any race track in the in
• 13:25
  the country or the world. You know, you go in the turn and
• 13:29
  immediately soon as you slam in the bank and you jump back in
• 13:31
  the gas and get up next to the wall, then you have to get out
• 13:33
  of the gas to get off too. It's weird the way it works, but
• 13:36
  nobody could get through there with the speed he was carried.
• 13:39
  Nobody. Well, and MJ yet again, front
• 13:43
  and center, leaping over the wall and pit Rd. celebrating
• 13:47
  victory. I, I again, that has not gotten
• 13:49
  old for me. I love seeing that It's good for
• 13:51
  good for everybody, good for the sport.
• 13:53
  I can't. I don't know.
• 13:54
  I saw this tweet 20 times because somebody tweeted it out
• 13:58
  and then it it took off. And so then a bunch of other
• 14:01
  people just copied it and pasted it and we're running with it as
• 14:04
  if it was their own because that's a pretty popular thing to
• 14:06
  do on social media these days to get clicks and whatnot.
• 14:10
  But somebody said something. If whoever was kudos to whoever
• 14:13
  the originator was. So some of the effect of MJ
• 14:16
  don't care one bit about basketball March.
• 14:18
  He smells tires and and money right now, you know, trophies or
• 14:22
  what is something like that. And although that is a cool way
• 14:24
  of putting it, like, you know, this is in other words, they're
• 14:27
  saying that this is what this dude is passionate about now.
• 14:29
  This is what he's like. He's out here every Sunday.
• 14:32
  He's leaping over the wall. He's taking selfies with the pit
• 14:35
  crew guys, you know, giving a interview to Jamie Little every
• 14:38
  week like it's that was cool to see.
• 14:41
  And you know, this is always going to happen.
• 14:43
  Like especially feel like with, you know, Jeff Gluck does his
• 14:46
  poll every week. Was Darlington a good race?
• 14:49
  Was Dayton a good race? So went on so forth.
• 14:51
  And it's pretty unscientific. You know, people just vote yes
• 14:54
  or no. And I feel like I've I've looked
• 14:58
  at that and I'm like, man, it doesn't matter what you do.
• 14:59
  Nobody's ever going to be happy. Like are not not you're not
• 15:03
  going to ever make everybody happy is what I'm meant, right.
• 15:06
  I saw some people saying like that was boring.
• 15:09
  I didn't like it. I'm like, man, if you're if, if
• 15:12
  you're clamoring for a race like you had in the 90s, you kind of
• 15:16
  have one of those on Sunday. Yeah.
• 15:18
  But the thing of it is it's still, it was still over 70%
• 15:21
  positive I think on his pole. I believe I read that, you know,
• 15:25
  so it's just good numbers because so many races, so many
• 15:28
  races with that pole of Glux Band, it's like 40% positive, 60
• 15:31
  negative or 5050. It's a lot of races in the past
• 15:35
  have been like that, but all of this year, man have been through
• 15:38
  the roof, right, all through the roof and back back up to Jordan
• 15:41
  a little bit Katie and we were the race.
• 15:45
  I guess the race had just started.
• 15:47
  We're what we're on pit Rd. and you know, I talked to some guys
• 15:50
  talk Chase, talk to daddy, talk to some guys and some other
• 15:54
  folks on pit Rd. and it's kind of our true that's kind of Katie
• 15:58
  and mine's tradition when we go to these races.
• 16:00
  We scounds around and then right right as the guys are getting
• 16:04
  ready to get the cars, we run up on pit Rd. and grab them and yap
• 16:07
  right. But but anyhow, so they're all
• 16:10
  getting their cars. I guess they start the race
• 16:13
  Katie and and I guess they start the race.
• 16:17
  So we're walking up, we walk up down pit Rd. behind the pits or
• 16:21
  by the pit box. So we go all the way down, turn
• 16:23
  one. That's where the MJR, the
• 16:26
  Reddick's team is. So we're looking for Reddick's
• 16:28
  team because you know what we're doing?
• 16:29
  What are we doing, Katie? We were trying to find Michael
• 16:35
  Jordan. There you go.
• 16:37
  We wanted to try to chat with. Him and honestly, we get there
• 16:41
  and there's we're not the only ones, right, because piles of
• 16:44
  people behind that pit box and they're all just kind of looking
• 16:47
  around, you know, where's Mike and Katie asks where you reckon
• 16:50
  Michael is. Dad, I I don't have a clue, man.
• 16:53
  I don't have a clues. What did we find and figure out
• 16:55
  and we never saw? And I told her, I said, baby's
• 16:57
  in the alumni tent, right? Hiding in the alumni tent.
• 17:01
  But he wasn't in the alumni suite.
• 17:03
  So, so well, he must not be here.
• 17:06
  He didn't get him a postcard. So what did we decide?
• 17:17
  What did we decide, Katie? We didn't see him.
• 17:19
  Nowhere did we decide he wasn't there or he was hiding
• 17:22
  somewhere. I don't know, I'm convinced he
• 17:25
  teleports in when his driver wins because he's hidden until
• 17:28
  right towards the end. Yeah.
• 17:33
  I. Think, I think I saw, I'm not
• 17:36
  sure. I think I saw he was earlier in
• 17:38
  the race, he was in Bubba's pit. Maybe, I'm not sure.
• 17:41
  Maybe he bounces around between his three cars a little bit.
• 17:44
  I'm sure, sure he does. As a car owner, I'm sure he's
• 17:47
  tries to be in each, each, each pit a little bit.
• 17:51
  And obviously though by the end of the race he he was with the
• 17:54
  tower. It is true, at least on TV and
• 17:57
  watching as a fan, you know, really most of the time we're
• 18:00
  not really seeing him until all of a sudden his car wins and
• 18:03
  there he goes. He's out on Pit Rd.
• 18:05
  Big old grin. There he is talking to Jimmy on
• 18:09
  his on his way to pick up Tyler Reddick.
• 18:11
  You know it's a fun. Tradition.
• 18:16
  What did you say? He tell her what's Katie?
• 18:18
  He does what? Tell her what's?
• 18:21
  Well, I said, maybe he teleports.
• 18:23
  Teleport. Do you know what that is?
• 18:25
  No, not really. No, that's like in Star Trek,
• 18:28
  Yeah. You just getting that little
• 18:29
  tube thing and it goes like, like in theory, I'm in Georgia,
• 18:34
  y'all are in Virginia. If I had a teleportation device
• 18:37
  right here, I just hop in it and then I'd be sitting there right
• 18:41
  there in between. Y'all right now I'll.
• 18:43
  Tell you this, the 45 car was teleporting all day from the
• 18:47
  time they dropped the green of the checkered it thing was in
• 18:49
  teleport mode. The car was fast.
• 18:52
  But anyhow, back to the weekend Katie.
• 18:56
  You could go war about Saturday water what all we did on
• 18:59
  Saturday if you like. I spent most of the afternoon
• 19:03
  watching Dad host the Q&A panel for all the alumni drivers,
• 19:07
  which was fun. So I got to kind of sit back.
• 19:10
  Well, I actually went out in the fan zone and watched and took
• 19:13
  some pictures and videos and I thought you did a really good
• 19:16
  job. I had texted.
• 19:19
  Yeah, you're welcome. I it's funny.
• 19:20
  Ricky and I were texting a few weeks ago when you know, when
• 19:23
  when they asked you to host. We were like, there's zero
• 19:28
  chance that he preps for this and like, I'll feel like a lot
• 19:33
  of hosts for things would generally prep questions and
• 19:37
  thoughts and no, but it worked out perfectly.
• 19:40
  I think prep would have made your content were not not ideal.
• 19:45
  I think Amber too. I was talking with Amber about
• 19:47
  it and, and she said it was so good getting you to host because
• 19:52
  you're able to talk to them in a different way than an MC can
• 19:55
  because you have personal relationships with all of them.
• 19:57
  So I think you'd brought out funny stories and interesting
• 20:00
  stories. And you know, being out with the
• 20:02
  fans, I was able to hear a lot of them were laughing and and
• 20:05
  such. So it was good.
• 20:07
  And I even had a some somebody came up to me.
• 20:09
  I took a picture of it and brought an old program from a
• 20:12
  race in the 90s. And it was a Rick Mast fax sheet
• 20:16
  with your picture of you in fifth grade and a picture of you
• 20:19
  with your car at Natural Bridge and there.
• 20:20
  And she just said, I thought you'd want to see this picture,
• 20:23
  this of your daddy. I have no idea who she was, but
• 20:26
  that was really cool. That was cool.
• 20:28
  But I thought, I thought you did a good job.
• 20:30
  Well, thank you. Yeah, it's, it's easier with
• 20:33
  those guys, man, 'cause I know all the guys.
• 20:34
  I know all their stories, you know, from Golly.
• 20:38
  We had Donnie Allison and Dave Marcus and Bobby Labonte and
• 20:41
  Terry Labonte and Phil Parsons and Hornaday and Skinner and
• 20:45
  'cause I'm leaving everybody and then they're creating.
• 20:46
  She know with Golly Todd Parrot and and and Goss Petrie and
• 20:52
  every all the guys we had, man, what I say, I don't know who he
• 20:57
  is. A bunch of people.
• 20:58
  We did Ricky, I think we did Phil Parsons.
• 21:00
  We did 4-3 sessions on or three, four sessions, maybe 4 sessions
• 21:06
  on Saturday, Yeah, 4 sessions Saturday in one session Sunday.
• 21:10
  Phil Parsons. I mean, guys, the list just goes
• 21:12
  on and on, you know, and it, it is real easy to, to host with
• 21:17
  those guys because, you know, they all told me what we're
• 21:21
  going to do. You know, when Amber, Amber
• 21:23
  Wells, by the way, the, the, the, the founding member in the
• 21:27
  driving force behind the alumni group, she's kind of her and her
• 21:30
  team that, that pull this off right?
• 21:32
  And kudos to them, man, kudos to Amber, her, her group Golly to
• 21:36
  do a good job this thing and continue to do.
• 21:39
  But you know, when you're doing things like that, it it's pretty
• 21:41
  easy or it is for me just because it's very natural with
• 21:45
  all the guys. And it's just like, you know
• 21:47
  what a walk in the room and there was guys this time that I
• 21:49
  haven't seen since 2001 or 2002, right?
• 21:54
  And you fire up the conversation.
• 21:55
  It's like, you know, last week, it was just like last week when
• 21:59
  you talk to these guys and it's the same frigging conversations,
• 22:02
  you know, that you had then. And there's a lot of lot of neat
• 22:07
  stuff there, man. There's a lot of neat, lot of
• 22:10
  neat stories with all these guys.
• 22:11
  And there's a lot of emotions with these guys.
• 22:13
  You know, Daryl and Stevie, you know, Stevie Steve is one of my
• 22:19
  favorites. We had a good conversation and
• 22:22
  Daryl, I mean, it's just that Michael, everybody, I mean, I
• 22:24
  just keep going on and on about it, but it's just it's somebody.
• 22:28
  I was listening on SiriusXM today and I don't know if it was
• 22:31
  Moody, it was somebody of relevance.
• 22:34
  Was talking a little bit about it and they were saying maybe
• 22:37
  it's, I forget who it was, but any other saying well, might
• 22:40
  have been Mike Joy nostalgia. How did he put it?
• 22:43
  Nostalgia of this sport, rules of sport, the nostalgia rules of
• 22:49
  sport, something like that. And you know, we get caught up
• 22:53
  in that a little bit too much. I think some fans get caught up
• 22:55
  in that because the nostalgia is cool, but this is 2026, right?
• 23:00
  And we're we're worried about the present and going forwards
• 23:02
  of what we do, what we do with our sport.
• 23:05
  But I just, I just, I just think after witnessing so much of it
• 23:09
  this weekend and witnessing the current drivers, I don't know if
• 23:14
  they're in all or excited or just really interested in the
• 23:18
  alumni group and that, that, that mix, you know, and it's
• 23:21
  like, you know, The thing is really got to where I think we
• 23:25
  can start interjecting some stuff, you know, everybody
• 23:28
  intermingling a little bit. That's what we'd all like to do.
• 23:31
  That's what a new NASCAR would like for that to happen.
• 23:33
  Let us, let us do some intermingling with the, the
• 23:37
  modern current crop of people that, that, that are in our
• 23:41
  sport and do the entertaining and put their lives on the line
• 23:44
  and live the sport 24 hours a day because that's what they all
• 23:47
  do, man. That's why that's what they all
• 23:49
  do. And, and I think that's part
• 23:52
  it's, it's almost like you spending the weekend with these
• 23:56
  guys that we spent decades with racing with and against.
• 23:59
  It's almost like now you look back and and when you talk with
• 24:02
  everybody, it's like, I don't know, it's a weird kind of a, a
• 24:06
  bond there. It's like it's, it's like maybe
• 24:08
  you're in a foxhole. I mean, I've never had to serve
• 24:11
  my country in war, right? But you would think if you're in
• 24:15
  a foxhole and people are firing at you, trying to get there,
• 24:17
  trying to kill you and you got your buddies with you.
• 24:19
  I think that's something that, well, I don't do through,
• 24:22
  through through my dad and other folks I've known that served.
• 24:25
  That's something that that sticks with these folks forever
• 24:30
  through their life because they they were in that foxhole and it
• 24:33
  and it just seems like our group, it looks like when we're
• 24:36
  all together now, if it feels like that, it feels like we live
• 24:39
  through a a, a, a time that we're all in a foxhole together.
• 24:43
  You know, even though we're trying to outrun each other,
• 24:46
  we're still part of a part of something that bigger that was
• 24:49
  bigger than any of us individually, right.
• 24:51
  It is a group. It was a pretty big, pretty big
• 24:53
  deal. So, you know, it just lives on.
• 24:55
  I did. I you know, it's just, I don't
• 24:57
  know, you just kind of have to see it.
• 24:58
  Katie put it best and one of her Facebook posts or tweets or
• 25:02
  whatever it was, you know, and I can't remember exactly what she
• 25:05
  said. What did you say, Katie?
• 25:07
  Do you remember? Can anybody pull that up?
• 25:09
  I mean, you really I. Mean I.
• 25:11
  You said you really hit it, man. You really did.
• 25:13
  I felt like it was really like magical, not to sound all too
• 25:17
  cheesy, but you mentioned you mentioned you mentioned emotion.
• 25:22
  I mean, there was a Hall of Fame driver with tears in his eyes a
• 25:25
  lot of the the weekend because because he was just so happy to
• 25:28
  see everybody and hear the stories.
• 25:30
  And when you went up to him to give him a hug by, I mean, he
• 25:33
  was all but crying and just happy tears.
• 25:35
  And I think it was just really cool.
• 25:37
  And I kept saying to. You.
• 25:38
  But it's a Hall of Famer. And he wasn't the only one
• 25:40
  either, right? Yeah, and, and I and Sunday we
• 25:43
  were, I mean, as soon as you and I got there Sunday, it was like
• 25:46
  there were so many cool people there.
• 25:48
  And that's why I even texted Ricky.
• 25:49
  And I was like, I feel giddy. Like I don't know these people
• 25:51
  personally, but this is so cool. There's just so many cool people
• 25:55
  here. And I think like what you just
• 25:58
  said, I like what I posted was that it it, you could just tell
• 26:01
  how much it meant to all of you that that was a thing now that
• 26:04
  the NASCAR Alumni Association is a thing now.
• 26:07
  Yeah, and it is. It's hard, but I'm trying to put
• 26:10
  words to this, Ricky and I, I can't.
• 26:12
  I can't really. But the foxhole deal to me is a
• 26:14
  good analogy, and that's the best way I know how to put it.
• 26:17
  I don't. I don't know.
• 26:18
  No, it's, you know what it is that it's when you go through
• 26:21
  something that's unique and there's only a few other people
• 26:24
  on planet Earth that you know that were there with you or went
• 26:28
  through the exact same thing with you at that time, you're
• 26:32
  always going to be bonded to them forever, no matter what.
• 26:35
  Now, this is a much smaller scale thing to me, but if you
• 26:37
  look at folks, I'm not going to go into explaining what the MLB
• 26:42
  fan Cave was. There was something I did a long
• 26:44
  time ago, a lot of people, a lot of people applied to do it.
• 26:47
  And I got to do it with eight other people all from around the
• 26:50
  United States. And we went and lived in New
• 26:51
  York City for the summer and worked for Major League Baseball
• 26:53
  and kind of a dream job thing. That's the quickest way I can
• 26:55
  put it. And with the the small group of
• 26:59
  us, there's three other people in particular I like, I'd be
• 27:02
  happy to see any of the other 8 today.
• 27:04
  If they walked right in this room, I would, but there's three
• 27:06
  in particular that are still close friends of mine.
• 27:10
  And if you look at us on the face of us, we're we're from all
• 27:13
  all over the country. We're very different
• 27:15
  backgrounds, different people, a lot of different interests.
• 27:18
  But the three, like the four of us are, we consider ourselves
• 27:22
  family for life because nobody else knows what that crazy year
• 27:24
  was like for us. It was just, it was, it was, it
• 27:27
  was not foxhole, but it was like, so there's no other way
• 27:30
  you could explain it to anybody. You just had to like live
• 27:33
  through this life changing experience.
• 27:34
  And I think that's what it is that you you go through
• 27:37
  something that only a few other people, there's only a select
• 27:41
  amount of people that really know what it was like and they
• 27:43
  were right there with you in it. And it don't matter if you don't
• 27:46
  see each other for 25 years. It don't matter where you go in
• 27:49
  life after that time in your lives is over, when you see each
• 27:52
  other, you're right back in it. And and I imagine for you guys,
• 27:56
  especially if you competed against each other, even if it
• 27:58
  was somebody you didn't like back then, it's probably still
• 28:00
  good to see him now years later. It's like, it's like he probably
• 28:03
  brings a smile to your face thinking about the I won't even
• 28:06
  drop anybody there either, but it's probably, probably, you're
• 28:09
  probably even happy to see those.
• 28:10
  People, yeah, it was, I mean, heck, I got along with all of
• 28:14
  them and ones I didn't like that much I'm, I'm, you know, I like
• 28:17
  them fine now, right? And, and and most everybody I
• 28:19
  liked anyhow, didn't you chastise, didn't get caught out
• 28:24
  much on one of the on one of our Q&A sessions, Sax hit me up
• 28:28
  about reckoning one time at going in turn one at Rockingham.
• 28:32
  And did you? I don't know.
• 28:37
  I thought he wrecked me. I was leading the right.
• 28:39
  He was lapped down. I don't know.
• 28:41
  It cost me sometimes cost me little damage, but we've got it
• 28:44
  fixed and got back in the lead. I'd forgotten all about that.
• 28:46
  They brought it up. It's funny how people remember
• 28:48
  that stuff, right? It's kind of like Donnie
• 28:51
  Allison. I'm a funny story with Donnie
• 28:52
  Allison, man. And I learned this a while back
• 28:54
  in the autograph session 10 years ago with Harry Gantt.
• 28:56
  And Donnie was there and Harry said, watch this, Rick.
• 29:00
  And he looked at Donnie, says Donnie, you know, if you hadn't,
• 29:04
  if you, if you hadn't run Kale down in the dirt down at Daytona
• 29:08
  and wrecked him, he said, you might have won the race.
• 29:11
  You end up wrecking both of you. Well, Dottie takes this serious,
• 29:15
  right? I mean, Harry's sitting there
• 29:16
  giggling and laughing. So we get up on a quick Q&A
• 29:19
  thing, right? And I get up there and I said,
• 29:22
  Dottie, I said the the story goes, if you had to run Kale
• 29:26
  down in the dirt down at Daytona, you wouldn't have that
• 29:28
  big wreck. You might could have won the
• 29:29
  race, but I'd already gotten on Dottie once in front of some
• 29:32
  other people. So he was I guess he's ready for
• 29:34
  it. He says, all I'm going to say is
• 29:37
  how can the rear bumper of my car wrecked the guy behind me.
• 29:42
  That's all I'm going to say, right?
• 29:44
  But just stuff like that all weekend, all weekend long, man.
• 29:49
  I can hear Harry laughing now as he knows he's stirred it up.
• 29:53
  Oh, yeah, Harry's a good stir. People don't know that about
• 29:55
  her. And I want to tell you something
• 29:57
  else. Something else I noticed Harry
• 29:58
  Gant and Richard Petty. I heard more comments from
• 30:01
  people they like. What in the hell kind of what
• 30:04
  did they do? What kind of pill do they take?
• 30:07
  I mean, Richard's 88, almost 89, and Harry's, what, 87 or 6 or
• 30:12
  whatever? And I'm telling you, Richard
• 30:14
  could pass for 70. Harry Gant could pass for early
• 30:19
  60s. That's no joke.
• 30:20
  You agree with that, Katie? Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
• 30:24
  Yeah, I mean, I don't and I that's that's the one thing I
• 30:27
  noticed a lot of people picked up on.
• 30:29
  And how in the world is Harry getting Richard Petty stay
• 30:31
  looking so young, right. And you know, I don't and they
• 30:34
  both claim they don't use hair color to me.
• 30:36
  They so, you know, I accused I can use I can use both of the
• 30:40
  lines and they swore up to be what a line that they didn't use
• 30:43
  hair color. So I'm like, well, whatever,
• 30:45
  whatever, falling out, there's they even turning white.
• 30:51
  But you said, you said that's because there's just the brain
• 30:54
  is expanding so much. Well, it does.
• 30:56
  That's that's the reason why, yeah.
• 30:57
  I've lost my follicles, right. I know that's what it's about,
• 31:01
  so. Another another cool thing.
• 31:08
  Sorry. Go ahead, Katie.
• 31:13
  Follow me, folks. This is what happens.
• 31:15
  This is what happens. My kids get around me.
• 31:19
  You start making fun of. Me anyways we.
• 31:23
  Got to make a note of Follicules.
• 31:24
  Sorry, we got to write that one down, Kate.
• 31:26
  Follicules. That's.
• 31:27
  Part of the rectionary. Yeah.
• 31:31
  Another like going back to what you were just saying, I, I went
• 31:34
  up to Amber to thank her for letting me come because I, I
• 31:37
  mean, I'm just A tag along, you know, whatever.
• 31:39
  And I was talking to her and she was saying how part of it is she
• 31:42
  wants drivers to feel comfortable bringing, you know,
• 31:44
  in this space. And like somebody like you, she
• 31:47
  said, like, talk to a wall and be fine.
• 31:48
  Like you're, you're very, you chat with everybody and know
• 31:51
  everybody and others aren't that way.
• 31:53
  And she said. But more than anything, she
• 31:55
  wanted former drivers, owners, et cetera, to be able to kind of
• 31:59
  show off to their families what they devoted their life lives
• 32:02
  to. Like I like we're Rick, like
• 32:04
  Rickeye childhood and racing was different than mine because you
• 32:07
  retired when I when Sarah and I were 7.
• 32:09
  And so I love getting to go back and see it now.
• 32:12
  I didn't really get it. My, my perspective of the
• 32:14
  racetrack when you were there was who had the best playground
• 32:17
  and MRO Sundays and different things than what Ricky's
• 32:21
  perspective was. And so I thought it was cool
• 32:22
  that Amber said a big part of this is letting alumni show off
• 32:27
  what they got to do and what what they devote their lives to.
• 32:29
  So I thought that was important. I don't know if I told you that
• 32:31
  we talked about that, but I thought it's cool.
• 32:33
  No, no, you didn't. It was pretty cool.
• 32:35
  I'll tell you a quick story. Mass cast land.
• 32:39
  Few years ago we went to Richmond and I told this story
• 32:42
  down there to somebody with Richmond.
• 32:44
  Katie was with me. I'm standing there, somebody
• 32:47
  taps on the shoulders. Jeff and I thought Jeff Gordon
• 32:49
  right and hey Rick. And we talked a little bit.
• 32:52
  I said, you remember this is my daughter, one of my twin Katie,
• 32:55
  one of my twins Katie. He looked and said, oh Lord,
• 32:57
  Lord, Lord, y'all have grown up. He said I remember you girls, I
• 33:01
  remember y'all being naked up in front of the motorhome lot in
• 33:04
  front of the motorhome all the time.
• 33:07
  So again, my perspective growing up in racing was different than
• 33:10
  Ricky. Yeah, I, when I was coming
• 33:16
  along, we didn't have. It was only at the end of Dad's
• 33:19
  career that there was a motorhome.
• 33:20
  There were no motorhomes for me. And to my knowledge, my clothes
• 33:24
  are always on at the racetrack. When you and your sister were
• 33:29
  very little, y'all y'all? It was y'all with their phase
• 33:31
  where it was hard to when I was at the racetrack, I was helping
• 33:35
  babysitting. It was it was hard to keep you
• 33:36
  all close, man. Yeah, well, I'm glad we grew out
• 33:39
  of that. Yeah, Well, three of us on this
• 33:43
  call. I love that Amber said that,
• 33:49
  Katie, I love that so much. I, I last year with the Braves,
• 33:53
  I got to, I got a couple years ago, I got to know a guy named
• 33:56
  Chuck Goggin. He played for the Braves briefly
• 33:58
  in the 70s and he was a more I got to learn about him.
• 34:03
  He didn't get, he didn't get to play in the major leagues long.
• 34:06
  Part of the reason was he went his career got interrupted.
• 34:09
  He went over and served in Vietnam and literally got blown
• 34:13
  up a couple of times and came back as a hero with a bunch of
• 34:16
  medals. And even though he had all these
• 34:18
  injuries, he made it back, made it to the big leagues, got to
• 34:20
  play a little bit. But then, you know, shortly
• 34:23
  thereafter his career was over and he went on and lived and did
• 34:27
  a lot of other things in his life and still in good health.
• 34:30
  He's 8081 now. But I ended up getting to know
• 34:34
  him. I had him on my Braves podcast
• 34:36
  and ended up getting him set up for him to come back.
• 34:38
  And we honored him one night at at Truest Park.
• 34:41
  And I've gotten to do a whole lot of cool things in my career
• 34:45
  with in baseball in the last decade.
• 34:48
  Seeing a a packed ballpark applaud this man and salute him
• 34:51
  for his service was pretty much up there at the top.
• 34:54
  And I'll tell you why. The coolest thing was he's 80.
• 34:57
  When he retired, I think he maybe had one son.
• 34:59
  I'm not even sure he had his first son yet.
• 35:01
  And he had 20 family members there with him for this to see
• 35:04
  him last year. And I thought that was what made
• 35:06
  it special to me. And I thought because of and I
• 35:09
  thought very much because of NASCAR and dad and what you got
• 35:12
  to do. I'm like all these people that
• 35:14
  have just heard stories or maybe you've seen a couple pictures of
• 35:17
  him during his playing days during his career.
• 35:20
  They got to show up and see him get recognized.
• 35:23
  And and that's what it's all about.
• 35:25
  And that's what's so cool about what Amber and the alumni
• 35:28
  program are doing is like not just for you guys are rather
• 35:31
  competitors, but for people like Katie and just family who maybe
• 35:34
  didn't get to live it or just weren't around it much.
• 35:37
  And I just think that's that's awesome.
• 35:39
  I love hearing that stuff. Like I loved we all got to like
• 35:42
  dad, you know y'all went on the pit Rd. before the race like you
• 35:45
  were talking about and talked to Chase, talk to Danny, but you
• 35:49
  got to talk to Danny's mom too. Which I which, whichever one of
• 35:52
  you wants to tell that story, I love that.
• 35:54
  Go ahead, Katie. Well, I, I, I saw her walking by
• 35:58
  a couple of times and I, I told dad like, that's, that's Missus
• 36:02
  Hamlin. And so anyways, dad again,
• 36:04
  always no stranger kind of stood up and, and said hi.
• 36:07
  I introduced himself. And she was so sweet.
• 36:09
  She knew exactly who he was and she talked about, we talked to
• 36:13
  her for what, 10 minutes right before the race.
• 36:16
  I mean, it was during driver intros just on pit Rd. and, and
• 36:20
  she was saying how when Denny was growing up, she always or
• 36:23
  she always rooted for Virginia drivers.
• 36:26
  So she rooted for dad. And she was saying the quote
• 36:28
  that stuck in my mind. She said, all I ever wanted for
• 36:32
  Denny was to have a chance to be able to race against somebody or
• 36:35
  guys like you. And I thought that was really
• 36:38
  cool. And look, and look what he's
• 36:40
  done. The funny part of this story was
• 36:41
  like, we, we were talking for 10 minutes, you know, hugged her.
• 36:45
  She couldn't have been sweeter. Dad immediately went over to
• 36:48
  Denny and said, hey, Denny, just talking to just talking to your
• 36:53
  mom. She's such a sweet lady.
• 36:55
  What happened to you? And I wasn't right there.
• 37:01
  I was. What did he say to you?
• 37:03
  I had to say it twice. He didn't understand the first
• 37:05
  time right then I said it again. Now I don't know what he said.
• 37:09
  He was grinning the whole time. I mean, he he he cool.
• 37:12
  He was fine. But I have to admit, man 1
• 37:15
  sweet. She reminded me of all the moms
• 37:19
  in the 80s and 90s to me, you know, all the, all the moms and
• 37:23
  wives that we all came through with and grew up with and all
• 37:26
  man, she just just a sweet southern proud mother, right?
• 37:31
  And just just as sweet as she could be, right?
• 37:34
  And I still don't know what happened to Denny.
• 37:37
  When she alluded, she alluded a little bit to how you got onto
• 37:41
  the subject of Denny being like the villain in the sport and how
• 37:46
  that's tough on social media. And you kind of said our meme
• 37:49
  all your mom would not have handled that well social media,
• 37:53
  neither would, neither would mom.
• 37:57
  No, no, no, it wouldn't. Social media wouldn't have
• 37:59
  worked very well for my, my wife and my and my and my mother back
• 38:04
  in those days. It would.
• 38:07
  Of course, they all got to do it, right.
• 38:10
  They've all got to take care of me.
• 38:11
  They're all, I'm sure they've all been schooled.
• 38:13
  You know what I mean? I mean, I'm sure they all
• 38:16
  understand that's the world we live in now, this stuff.
• 38:18
  But yeah, yeah. Such a sweet lady, man.
• 38:21
  Just such a sweet lady. You're so right about the moms
• 38:25
  in the 80s and 90s that immediately made made me think
• 38:28
  Dad. I believe this was at Rockingham
• 38:30
  in the early 90s talking about the King.
• 38:32
  Well, you had the Queen. Linda Petty, rest her soul, she
• 38:37
  was, you know, the king is the king.
• 38:41
  But I I think when it came down to it, if there was somebody
• 38:43
  that was more powerful than the king, it was probably the Queen.
• 38:46
  Linda Petty This was AI believe this was at Rockingham and I I
• 38:50
  remember the the singer's name, but I, I won't I won't name drop
• 38:53
  them here in case them case I'm wrong.
• 38:56
  But I believe it was a country singer that was kind of popular
• 38:58
  at the time. And I don't know if he was
• 39:00
  coming to play pre race concert or something.
• 39:02
  But anyways, he brought his bus with him into the infield and
• 39:05
  wherever and this and Katie, this is when I was coming along.
• 39:08
  We didn't have playgrounds in the infield.
• 39:10
  You just kind of found you a dirt patch somewhere, your
• 39:13
  playground. But I guess there was some place
• 39:17
  there in the infield where in Rockingham where kids were
• 39:19
  playing. And the singers bus gets parked,
• 39:23
  right. Like they bring that bus in,
• 39:24
  they park it right where we were playing.
• 39:26
  And so I guess a few people were upset and like trying to get
• 39:30
  them to move the bus out because it's kind of where kids are
• 39:32
  congregated or whatever. And they weren't moving it.
• 39:34
  Then Linda Pende found out that this country singer had parked
• 39:39
  his bus right where the kids were.
• 39:41
  And I don't know who exactly she went to or what exactly she
• 39:44
  said. But when I tell you that bus got
• 39:46
  moved, I told him to move that bus.
• 39:49
  We got moved and they got moved in a hurry and that that space
• 39:54
  was cleared out. And I just always thought that
• 39:56
  that was just a good little, that's a good, a good.
• 39:59
  I mean, the moms and the grandmas, they're, they're still
• 40:02
  even the NASCAR world, the travelling circus it is, they're
• 40:04
  still the moms and the grandmas that are that that everybody
• 40:08
  respects and that everybody listens and follows, you know,
• 40:11
  a. Little story about Linda
• 40:13
  Petty's. There's more stories like that
• 40:15
  about Linda. A lot, A lot of stories with
• 40:18
  Linda Petty. Excuse me?
• 40:19
  With Linda Petty and gate guards and some wife or mom getting
• 40:25
  stopped at a gate somewhere and Linda getting involved, right?
• 40:30
  May have been something like that with your mom, guys.
• 40:33
  I can't remember. But I do know this.
• 40:38
  I do know this. Early on when I first came on
• 40:42
  the scene incorporation, Linda Petty took your mom a little
• 40:46
  bit, I guess you could say under a wing at the race tracks.
• 40:50
  She would, each time we go to the track, Linda would show
• 40:53
  Sharon, your mom where to go, what to do, how to do this, how
• 40:57
  to do that. You know who to pay attention
• 41:00
  to, who to blow off, who you know who, who to buck up against
• 41:04
  and all that. And I I just thought it was so
• 41:07
  cool that Linda Petty, the queen of our sport, man, that just
• 41:11
  took to Sharon and IA couple of nobodies coming up through,
• 41:14
  right, or at least I was. Sharon wasn't, but I just
• 41:18
  thought that was cool that she did that for for for Sharon, for
• 41:22
  your mom. It was a cool deal and it went
• 41:24
  on. It went on through each track,
• 41:26
  right? I mean, each track we go to as a
• 41:28
  new place. And of course, you know, we
• 41:30
  didn't know exact what doing. Sharon didn't know as a wife
• 41:32
  what to do or where to be or what where to go or what to do
• 41:35
  right. And Linda, Linda Petty kind of
• 41:38
  took care of her, looked over for it's like a mother hen to
• 41:41
  her there for a good while. That was, I don't know.
• 41:43
  It was just so cool, right? And it it it is.
• 41:47
  It goes back to alumni group, man, every friggin thing you
• 41:49
  think about. Of course, you know, racing has
• 41:52
  its bad side. It has its downside.
• 41:54
  It has its its negatives right from a for a racing family that
• 42:00
  that that the world doesn't get to see or doesn't really need to
• 42:04
  see. It's a lot of lot of lot of lot
• 42:06
  of stuff that's not good that goes on that you have to deal
• 42:08
  with in racing. But the good stuff that
• 42:11
  everybody sees, man, you know, it is cool.
• 42:13
  And just stories like Linda Pitt, you know, Kyle being there
• 42:17
  and all weekend and just thinking back about that.
• 42:20
  And everybody has stories like that.
• 42:22
  Everybody in that in this group of ours has stories about Linda
• 42:26
  Petty or you know what I mean, or Ned Jarrett or, or or
• 42:29
  whatever. You know, it's just, it's just
• 42:32
  so interconnected and intertwined.
• 42:34
  It's I don't know. I'll tell you what would be cool
• 42:37
  somehow if every single person that come through that deal next
• 42:40
  year had a GoPro, you had to wear that GoPro all day and you
• 42:44
  had the producer sitting there downloading all that stuff.
• 42:47
  Now the producer would have to be very, very, how can I say
• 42:51
  very trustworthy because a lot of stuff would have to be cut
• 42:54
  because of stories to told that that don't need to go out
• 42:57
  public. But just to see the camaraderie
• 42:59
  and all the interactions with everybody.
• 43:01
  You know, it would be a it would be a cool little mini series
• 43:05
  thing just as just showing the interactions of everybody.
• 43:08
  You know, it's like Katie spoke earlier about you're 1 Hall of
• 43:11
  Famer, you know, really being emotional all weekend, right?
• 43:14
  And we witnessed it. I witnessed it.
• 43:16
  I hugged him, told him I loved him.
• 43:18
  When we left there, we got emotional again, right?
• 43:20
  And then you know, it, it's, it's, it's, I don't know, just
• 43:24
  kind of special. They did have, they had camera
• 43:27
  crews all weekend. So I'm curious.
• 43:30
  I, I don't know if some of it, I, I haven't watched the
• 43:33
  recording, but I don't know if some of it was aired during race
• 43:34
  day or what, But they had during the parade through Darlington.
• 43:37
  They had a camera crew up there and they had a, they had
• 43:39
  multiple camera crews throughout the tent all weekend.
• 43:42
  So I don't know, maybe maybe they'll surprise us with a
• 43:45
  little I'll. Tell you the problem with that
• 43:48
  is and I and I noticed that myself and I, I know everybody
• 43:52
  else is like it. We were we you were trained
• 43:55
  somehow in racing with reporters and cameras to see him and then
• 44:02
  go into a different mode. Like I noticed that a lot of
• 44:05
  times, K, we'll be talking, having conversations and here
• 44:07
  come that Mike above us, you know, listening, you know, and
• 44:10
  me and I look at everybody else. We'd immediately we'd
• 44:13
  immediately change gears and get OK, we got to protect
• 44:16
  everything. Our protector sales, right.
• 44:19
  We can't be talking about this and that, you know, for the pick
• 44:22
  up on. So you don't you know, I I did
• 44:24
  see that. I mean, it would be normal
• 44:26
  conversations. And when the cameras come
• 44:28
  around, you know, you tone it down.
• 44:30
  You know, that's just what we're seeing.
• 44:32
  Bread in US, I guess 20-30 years ago.
• 44:36
  You, you just natural instinct. Oh, there's the camera.
• 44:39
  Hush up. You know, change the story.
• 44:41
  So, yeah, but they were OK. You're exactly right.
• 44:43
  They were. They had a career there the
• 44:45
  whole time. You didn't tell them about the
• 44:46
  parade man or girl, man, girl. You didn't.
• 44:49
  Tell me I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
• 44:53
  There was a parade I got to ride.
• 44:59
  I, I got to ride in the NASCAR car to the parade grounds with
• 45:03
  Amber and her team and they were a blast.
• 45:05
  Amber Carey, all of them, They were blasts.
• 45:08
  They were honking horns and getting the fans fired up.
• 45:10
  And y'all were all up puddled in your little short school bus
• 45:13
  together. And, and then we got out and got
• 45:16
  on the float and y'all were throwing rubber ducks and candy
• 45:20
  at lots of fans and that was cool.
• 45:23
  I think what you and Jeff Hammond were sharing a bucket.
• 45:26
  Yeah. Of candy and the problem was
• 45:29
  though, why did your bucket keep getting lower?
• 45:33
  We'd be lower. Well, Dad started just partaking
• 45:37
  in the candy. Oh, well, no, no, Hammond kept
• 45:40
  throwing out too much, Cannat said.
• 45:41
  Man, pace yourself. You got a $5 bucket here.
• 45:44
  We got 3 miles of candy to throw, dude.
• 45:47
  One the best. And then one time dad.
• 45:50
  Dad was eating a thing of Pop Rocks and it was pretty windy
• 45:54
  and so the wind caught his pop rocks and then a little and it
• 45:57
  fell on the floor and a little kid went running and got his
• 45:59
  empty bag of pop. Oh, I didn't see that.
• 46:02
  Oh man, oh man. But he had a parade was really
• 46:06
  cool. The funny story of the parade
• 46:08
  last year, evidently horny day he he ran out of candy at the
• 46:12
  end and at the end towards the end of the parade did have any
• 46:14
  candy and the little kid hollered candy candy.
• 46:17
  Horn Estate said I'm sorry, I'm out of it.
• 46:20
  And the little king made a derogatory mark towards Hornaday
• 46:25
  that we can't repeat. We can't repeat on mass cast and
• 46:29
  a hand gesture that we can't repeat on mass.
• 46:31
  Two hand gestures. Two hand gestures and a comet to
• 46:35
  Hornaday. That was probably the that was
• 46:39
  the the top of the that was. That was pretty cool and pretty
• 46:42
  funny, yeah. The parade was fun, though.
• 46:45
  I thought when we got back from the parade, I think it was when
• 46:47
  we got back from there, remember I I all thought it was cool.
• 46:50
  Steve O'Donnell was waiting in the tent and he went around and
• 46:53
  said hi. He, I was watching.
• 46:55
  He looked like he made an effort to say hi to everybody in there.
• 46:58
  What did, what did you say? Would you talk with?
• 47:00
  Him that, that was the other thing.
• 47:01
  It was cool, right? Maybe Saturday spent or maybe
• 47:07
  Sunday morning, I forget when it was spent a fair amount of time
• 47:11
  talking to Ben Kennedy, right. And we know who Ben Kennedy is.
• 47:15
  He's you know, he's, I guess he's listen, this is in Kennedy
• 47:21
  Francis son, right? And everybody knows Ben.
• 47:24
  Ben, I would assume, is next in line to to take this thing over
• 47:28
  as time goes. And good guy, by the way, a neat
• 47:31
  guy. He's raced a lot.
• 47:32
  You know, he's run some tracks and stuff.
• 47:34
  So he's being prepared for that, but spent a lot of time with him
• 47:37
  and he was genuinely interested in what we were talking about,
• 47:41
  right. And I was just talking about the
• 47:43
  state of the sport and you know, maybe our missteps and our steps
• 47:47
  we need to do right and all of this.
• 47:50
  You know, when you talk to some, when you talk to folks in charge
• 47:53
  of the and Steve O'Donnell the same way to get somebody as much
• 47:55
  time as Steve, But but just because the time and not because
• 47:59
  of him, but did did was able to speak with him a little bit.
• 48:04
  But you know what, what you found out when you talk to
• 48:07
  people of I shouldn't say of importance, but people that have
• 48:11
  larger roles and companies and corporations and stuff, because
• 48:14
  I was involved in that for a couple decades have to deal with
• 48:17
  CE OS COSCFOS, right? And what you learn the good
• 48:24
  ones, there's good ones and there's bad ones and there's
• 48:26
  ones that don't care. But you get a sense when you
• 48:29
  talk to these people, are they listening to you or just, are
• 48:33
  they being polite? You know, just being nice and
• 48:35
  being polite and, and, and chatting with you and all that
• 48:40
  wasn't the case with Steve O'Donnell or Ben Kennedy.
• 48:42
  You know, they, they, it wasn't, they weren't being nice.
• 48:45
  They were they were genuinely interested in my point of view,
• 48:49
  kind of like Mark did a lot in a, you know, earlier, but he was
• 48:51
  doing it as as quite a few of us were expressing our thoughts
• 48:55
  about the state of our sport, right and where we're at.
• 48:58
  And, you know, all of us agree we wanted to succeed.
• 49:01
  Everybody wants to see that. We want we want Ricky Stenhouse
• 49:05
  10 years for 20 years from now going to the alumni tit right
• 49:08
  and and and doing what he just said he'd like to do in the
• 49:10
  future. So to do that, we have to
• 49:12
  preserve the sport. We have to grow it and make it
• 49:14
  great and make it good and it is great and good in my in my
• 49:17
  perspective. But for those guys to listen,
• 49:23
  it's really take an interest in what you're saying and, and, and
• 49:26
  you know, it's not always been that way.
• 49:29
  You know, it's not, it just hasn't.
• 49:31
  I mean, you could go you and you, it was an open door anytime
• 49:34
  you wanted to go. You could call him, you could
• 49:36
  talk to him, right? But I don't think I don't think
• 49:39
  I I noticed the the the sense of really receiving what you would
• 49:45
  say to them the way it's being done right now.
• 49:48
  And I watch that for a lot of guys.
• 49:50
  They talk those guys, Donald and Kennedy, they talk to a lot of
• 49:53
  people. A lot of the alumni group.
• 49:55
  You can see them around there talk and it's serious
• 49:57
  conversations at each one of them was when when I got my
• 50:00
  turn, you know, kind of laid out there what I thought.
• 50:02
  And they're like, you know, you know, the biggest thing I got
• 50:06
  for Ben. Well, how do we do this, Rick?
• 50:08
  The the what I what I told him needed to happen.
• 50:10
  I thought needed to happen, right.
• 50:12
  He says, yeah, I hear you. I understand.
• 50:14
  I think you're 100% right, But how do we do that?
• 50:16
  Right? Like man, I'm not sure he so if
• 50:18
  he figured out, please call me, you know, so but but what I like
• 50:23
  the point of that whole story is they they're they're you know,
• 50:26
  they're listing, you know, they're real big interest in
• 50:32
  what everybody thinks. And again, that's that wasn't
• 50:36
  norm for a long time. Well, a couple things on all
• 50:41
  that. Did you see where Ben watched
• 50:43
  the race from? You see where he tweeted?
• 50:46
  He actually went up and stands. Him and his colleagues, they
• 50:49
  went up and they were fans for the day.
• 50:50
  And I thought, oh, that's cool. And even if you're you're doing
• 50:54
  it to be seen to be doing it, that's fine.
• 50:56
  You're still up there doing it and experiencing it.
• 50:58
  And I think that's and I thought.
• 51:00
  That was really cool. Got a lot.
• 51:01
  Jim Franchise used to do that. Ricky, he used to do that years
• 51:05
  and years ago. Francis was ball cap on sitting
• 51:08
  the stands. Nobody knew it.
• 51:09
  But anyhow, go ahead. I'm sorry.
• 51:12
  No, I think that's one of the best ways.
• 51:14
  I know my bosses with the Braves, they do this regularly
• 51:20
  during the season. They just like when we got a
• 51:22
  home game, they walk around the ballpark, they take laps during
• 51:25
  the game. They just just to see what fans
• 51:28
  are talking about, what they're doing, what they're interested
• 51:30
  in the ballpark, what their, what gear they're wearing, just
• 51:34
  no set agenda other than just to walk around and see like, what
• 51:38
  are, what are our fans into, you know, and just see how our fans
• 51:41
  are doing. And I think that's exactly what
• 51:44
  what Ben was doing there and what NASCAR should be doing.
• 51:46
  I'll tell you something else. And I, I, I totally get what you
• 51:49
  were saying earlier about not wanting the cameras around
• 51:51
  everything. But I would say this from what
• 51:53
  I've seen, at least from marketing perspective so far
• 51:56
  this season, NASCAR is doing a really, really good job of
• 52:00
  marketing the sport and tapping into they're they're tapping
• 52:04
  into the right level of the nostalgia, I feel like, while
• 52:07
  still also trying to show off their current stars and the
• 52:10
  current product that that they have right.
• 52:12
  And there's just little things. I'll see.
• 52:14
  Some things are pretty in your face, but little things too.
• 52:16
  So I whatever comes of everything they captured of
• 52:19
  y'all and the alumni 10. I feel like from what I've seen
• 52:21
  so far, they'll they'll use it in the right way, however they
• 52:24
  use it moving forward, But we'll we'll see.
• 52:28
  Katie, what were some of your is there any some of your like
• 52:30
  standout moments or memories from the weekend that we hadn't
• 52:33
  touched on? No, how was how was talking to?
• 52:37
  So I mean my daughter's name, Stevie, and after there's a few
• 52:40
  Stevie's I'm aware of in the world, but only a couple that
• 52:43
  are women. And when we decided we were
• 52:44
  named my daughter Stevie, Stevie Waltrip was one of the people I
• 52:47
  thought of. So how was it talking with
• 52:49
  Stevie Waltrip? Well, so dad, that was, they
• 52:52
  were a couple of the first people I think we talked to on
• 52:55
  on Saturday, weren't they? Or Sunday, Sunday, I guess.
• 52:59
  And we walked up and Dad was yapping with both of them.
• 53:01
  And then I kind of, I'm always just a little shadow in the
• 53:03
  back. So then I came around and, and
• 53:05
  just introduced myself to Stevie and she kind of stopped me.
• 53:08
  And she goes, you're a spitting image of your daddy and stuff.
• 53:13
  Apparently I got more follicules.
• 53:18
  But no, she was so sweet and so kind.
• 53:21
  And and then before we left, I didn't before we left, I wanted
• 53:24
  to make sure that we told her that dad now had a granddaughter
• 53:28
  named Stevie, your daughter's name Stevie.
• 53:30
  And so I told her that right as we were hugging them, saying
• 53:33
  bye. And she just goes, well, it's
• 53:35
  the best name. So she was cool.
• 53:39
  She was, really. Sweet Stevie's sweet man, I told
• 53:42
  her. I got a picture hanging up.
• 53:43
  I'm looking for it now. We're Poconos somewhere and
• 53:47
  Daryl's sitting in the car. I'm getting getting my car.
• 53:49
  Stevie's there and I did something out what it was, but
• 53:52
  Stevie's throwing a cup of Coke on me or water dumping it on me,
• 53:55
  so I don't know what that was about.
• 53:57
  I love. That picture, I don't have it in
• 53:58
  front of me, but it's ingrained in my mind because it's one of
• 54:01
  my favorites. And Daryl's all like he's
• 54:02
  already getting, like you said, he's in his car getting buckled
• 54:05
  in. He's got the serious face on,
• 54:07
  looking down, you know, like that.
• 54:08
  All serious and there you are just just cackling like this,
• 54:12
  Amy Walter throwing a drink on you for for whatever you did.
• 54:16
  And I just. I love.
• 54:17
  That's a great picture. I love that.
• 54:18
  Katie. What were some other like when
• 54:19
  it what else stood out for you? Yeah.
• 54:21
  I mean, I think me personally, other, I mean, we touched on
• 54:24
  most of them. I got to spend a lot of time
• 54:26
  talking to people like some of the wives like Kim, Kim Labonte
• 54:31
  and Kim Irvin. And then I talked to Matt Martin
• 54:34
  and different, different folks that were, were also the
• 54:37
  Tagalongs I think for the week. So that was fun.
• 54:41
  And then I mean, yeah, I think it was cool.
• 54:44
  They all everybody who wanted to got to go the drivers meeting.
• 54:48
  I thought that was cool. And they all got recognized
• 54:49
  during the drivers meeting. But I just, I don't know the,
• 54:54
  the I, I felt like because I went two years ago with that the
• 54:57
  first year that they had it. And I felt like in the last two
• 55:00
  years, it's amazing how much it's grown in just two years.
• 55:05
  The tent was bigger itself. There was just, there were so
• 55:08
  many people there and it was, it was really, really cool.
• 55:11
  I was, I was posting a lot of my stories and friends of mine in
• 55:15
  class who do have no idea what anything NASCAR is.
• 55:19
  We're asking me all about it and what it meant and this and that.
• 55:22
  And that is one thing. Michael Jordan being in NASCAR,
• 55:25
  all of my classmates know that he's a NASCAR team owner.
• 55:28
  They don't know much about NASCAR, but they know that he
• 55:30
  owns a NASCAR team, which I think is neat.
• 55:32
  But yeah, I just, I had a blast the whole weekend.
• 55:35
  I, I love going to races anyways.
• 55:37
  Like, I love following dad around.
• 55:40
  And now I can kind of go off to the side and try to make my own
• 55:43
  friends while he continues yapping.
• 55:46
  So yeah, it was blast. Well, what's one thing that's
• 55:48
  happened over the years? You've been going with me so
• 55:50
  much, you know, that's what they all grabbed me.
• 55:52
  Where's Katie? People grabbed.
• 55:53
  Where's Katie yet? Katie?
• 55:55
  Not here. Where's Katie?
• 55:56
  I'm like, how the hell do you know Katie?
• 55:58
  You know what I mean? It's just, you know.
• 56:01
  Katie Winston Kelly Winston Kelly came over to say hi to me
• 56:04
  first. Ron Hornaday always says hi to
• 56:08
  me first. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 56:10
  Katie's. Katie's better.
• 56:11
  Katie's. She could you.
• 56:14
  Katie could gab too. Ricky, Katie has you got the
• 56:17
  gift of gab also Fuss. Y'all fuss about me all the
• 56:20
  time. We both of y'all got it.
• 56:22
  Both of y'all can do that crap. Katie, I've got a I've gotten
• 56:26
  better at it through the years. Katie's definitely better at it
• 56:28
  than I am. I think naturally I've had to
• 56:30
  like I've had to work at it, not.
• 56:33
  Mom is definitely the best. Who?
• 56:36
  Who is mom? I said.
• 56:39
  Mom. Oh yes, Oh yes, she's a bit one
• 56:41
  thing. We'll back up real quick.
• 56:43
  I meant y'all were talking about this a minute ago and I I had to
• 56:47
  fill in for Kenny Wallace on Herman Schrader show this week
• 56:51
  for Dirty MO media. We're going to be doing it again
• 56:54
  next week. I guess Kenny's off to Europe or
• 56:56
  somewhere. But anyhow, we talked about and
• 57:00
  and and Schrader bought this up and the guy or Alan, our Co
• 57:04
  host, he was talking about it because he's in turn one at
• 57:07
  Darlington in the grandstands and he brought this up and I and
• 57:10
  I and I had to second it. And I kept noticing this.
• 57:14
  All the people out there in the fan zone, right?
• 57:18
  I'm looking and it's like, it's like all of a sudden we've got a
• 57:21
  different audience. All of a sudden I'm looking at
• 57:24
  all these frigging 20 something year old people with racing
• 57:30
  apparel on that. I'm like like 6 or seven years
• 57:34
  ago, all I saw was old people. It seemed like that these race
• 57:38
  tracks, I'm telling you what we've, we've, we're gay.
• 57:41
  We've gained some younger people in this deal because it was very
• 57:44
  evident to me at, at Darlington that, man, this is a younger
• 57:48
  group again, right? This looks like the group that
• 57:52
  came along when I was racing in the 90s.
• 57:54
  You know, they're all like young and energetic.
• 57:56
  You agree with that? Did you notice that, Katie?
• 57:59
  Yeah. Well, remember, you and I have
• 58:00
  talked. Yeah.
• 58:01
  Well, you and I have talked about, I feel like since you and
• 58:04
  I have been going back to the track, like what we, I started
• 58:07
  going with you again probably like 09:00-ish or so.
• 58:10
  We've been going to try to go every year to the close ones.
• 58:12
  And I feel like, you know, especially in the last maybe
• 58:15
  five years, there's so much more driver involvement out in the
• 58:19
  fan zone than there ever had then.
• 58:21
  That's what I know. It used to be that way when
• 58:22
  y'all were racing, but I feel like when I was coming along
• 58:24
  with you 15 years ago, you couldn't see anybody.
• 58:27
  You couldn't find anybody. And now, I mean, this year I
• 58:30
  noticed on Saturday and Sunday there's drivers doing
• 58:32
  appearances all day long, which I believe is how y'all used to
• 58:35
  do it. And I mean Ricky Cenhaus was
• 58:38
  doing an hour long Lego building contest in the kids zone and
• 58:41
  Gregson was in there. And then all of the drivers had
• 58:44
  their autograph sessions going on Saturday and Sunday.
• 58:46
  And I remember we've talked about, I feel like that has
• 58:49
  changed a lot in the last like five years and they've gone back
• 58:51
  to having a lot more of that than they used to.
• 58:54
  Yeah, they have. There's no doubt.
• 58:56
  And, and, and and man, that whole deal, the fan experience
• 58:59
  to do it. Darlington I told Katie I said,
• 59:01
  man, because it was the whole front stretch outside of the
• 59:05
  racetrack. I mean, from one end of the
• 59:07
  other, you had the big, the manufacturer set up with all the
• 59:09
  cars. He's doing smoke burnout things
• 59:11
  and just every frigging thing. You think I told Katie I said
• 59:14
  this is the way it was at all the race tracks in the 90s,
• 59:18
  right? We go to the racetrack and heck,
• 59:20
  man, halfway outside of the racetrack where all this stuff
• 59:24
  was set up was just such a big to do, you know, and just hordes
• 59:28
  and hordes of people and they're doing their thing right and
• 59:30
  having fun and souvenirs and all the stuff going on.
• 59:33
  And, you know, the last few years we go to some of these
• 59:37
  tracks that would be like, you know, a couple dozen souvenir
• 59:40
  trailers set up. And I'm like that always
• 59:42
  dejected me. It always I'm like what did?
• 59:45
  They they had that. Remember when they went through
• 59:47
  that phase where they just had everything in one big tent?
• 59:49
  Yeah, they took away the haulers.
• 59:52
  Yeah, they took away the haulers, did the did the
• 59:54
  contract with the one company I'd I never liked that, you
• 59:57
  know, and but like at Darlington, when I told Katie, I
• 1:00:01
  said, man, this is a way every single racetrack.
• 1:00:03
  Was did the same thing right and it's just like the event right,
• 1:00:07
  you know before the big before you go inside, you got to go
• 1:00:11
  you've got to go do this. You got to go check all this
• 1:00:13
  stuff out because a lot of giveaways you know the
• 1:00:15
  manufacturer it's a lot it's a neat deal man and hopefully all
• 1:00:20
  the race tracks, other other race tracks will start doing
• 1:00:22
  this. You know, you do that and then
• 1:00:24
  what it does, it allows the drivers to come out and do some
• 1:00:28
  stuff other than just setting in a souvenir trailer, which is
• 1:00:31
  fine, right? That's no, no problem.
• 1:00:33
  But there's other things you can do and other things fans could
• 1:00:36
  do. And I don't know man, it was
• 1:00:39
  just it, it was a younger looking bunch, right, Walking
• 1:00:43
  around and the enthusiasm was good.
• 1:00:46
  The racing, the race itself was extraordinarily good, right?
• 1:00:51
  And the only thing, the only thing I didn't care for Sunday
• 1:00:57
  in our banquet hall alumni tent, we went back in when the race
• 1:01:04
  started. Kate and I run back in there to
• 1:01:07
  watch the race on the big screen and eat where they had, what are
• 1:01:10
  they have, Kate? They had wings and they had
• 1:01:13
  these big old meatballs. Sliders.
• 1:01:15
  They had meatballs. They had like BBQ sliders,
• 1:01:19
  meatballs, salad, all kinds of sweets and a hot dog station.
• 1:01:24
  And a hot dog station, of course.
• 1:01:25
  So anyhow, I finished eating all that and I'm sitting there maybe
• 1:01:28
  5 or 10 minutes. I'm like, I'm going to get me
• 1:01:30
  some more wings and no more BBQ. I go back up there.
• 1:01:33
  They took all that out and replaced it with nachos and
• 1:01:37
  Nacho sauce and all this other stuff that that I didn't really
• 1:01:40
  care for. And I'm like, man.
• 1:01:42
  But they still had the hot dogs there.
• 1:01:44
  So we were OK. We were OK.
• 1:01:47
  That's pretty. Tough.
• 1:01:49
  We made it. I will say, going back to what
• 1:01:51
  you were just saying, I think the most important thing about
• 1:01:54
  getting more fans is people simply going to an in person
• 1:01:57
  race. Like I took, as you know, as you
• 1:01:58
  all know, I took some friends to the races of the past few years.
• 1:02:02
  People had never once even watched a single lap.
• 1:02:05
  And they went and they couldn't believe everything that goes
• 1:02:07
  into it and how fast and loud and smells and everything.
• 1:02:11
  And they started watching it some.
• 1:02:13
  And so, yeah, I mean, I'm with you with the and, and like my,
• 1:02:16
  my class, I'm, I always tell them, I always tell my friends,
• 1:02:19
  like you just have to go to 1. You just have to watch one.
• 1:02:22
  It's different than TV. It's what when when Tyler
• 1:02:25
  Reddick, when I interviewed him a month ago on the Braves
• 1:02:28
  podcast, he and I were comparing baseball and, and NASCAR, and he
• 1:02:33
  was talking about baseball and he was talking about how he's
• 1:02:36
  got more into it. His wife's late father was a was
• 1:02:39
  a MLB player back in the day. And so he's learned more about
• 1:02:42
  it through her and how he's gotten into.
• 1:02:44
  And he was talking about how like he tells people like, you
• 1:02:47
  know, going to a baseball game, like that's the best way to get
• 1:02:50
  into it. I'm paraphrasing a little bit.
• 1:02:51
  He's like going, I said, well, it's funny you say that.
• 1:02:53
  I was like that the same sales pitch we're given for baseball
• 1:02:56
  here is the same one I give for NASCAR.
• 1:02:59
  Go to a race. That's the best thing you do is
• 1:03:01
  just go. And the more that you have that
• 1:03:03
  atmosphere that you're talking about there, dad, because you're
• 1:03:05
  right in the 90s when you were in it, it didn't matter where we
• 1:03:09
  were. We, this is especially free
• 1:03:11
  motorhome days and we're staying at a hotel somewhere and
• 1:03:15
  whatever the nearest town was, we drive to the racetrack and
• 1:03:18
  every week, no matter what part of the country.
• 1:03:20
  And you felt like you're going to Woodstock because the stuff
• 1:03:23
  would start like miles away stuff.
• 1:03:27
  Meaning like you had the bootleg souvenir and you had people
• 1:03:31
  selling parking in their yards and beer and whatever else.
• 1:03:35
  And then the closer you got, the more crazy and the more that
• 1:03:39
  stuff that would just it would build up and get more and more
• 1:03:41
  and more until you got to the real deal.
• 1:03:43
  So it was like you were you're going to race, but you're going
• 1:03:46
  to like a all day event and there's all this stuff you want
• 1:03:49
  to do and experience beforehand. And so if you're starting to
• 1:03:51
  capture that, again, that's part of it.
• 1:03:54
  You get people because the race itself wants to be.
• 1:03:56
  If you get somebody there and they see the race, they're going
• 1:03:58
  to love it. That when when I took my wife
• 1:04:01
  Laura to her first race here in Atlanta in 2021.
• 1:04:05
  So this is still, we are kind of had some of the COVID
• 1:04:07
  restrictions. So there wasn't a whole lot of
• 1:04:10
  the stuff outside, but that wasn't because of any other
• 1:04:12
  reason other than, you know, we still had all the COVID stuff
• 1:04:15
  going on. But they take the green flag and
• 1:04:18
  we're sitting not too far past the, the, the flag stand.
• 1:04:21
  They come around at full speed for the first lap and they go,
• 1:04:26
  you know, they come by that roar.
• 1:04:27
  She experiences that roar for the first time and I'll never
• 1:04:29
  forget it. She looks at me.
• 1:04:31
  I was like about to pop out of her head with a giant grin and
• 1:04:34
  she goes holy shit that's. What my friends did too,
• 1:04:40
  exactly. Just a huge grin like she was
• 1:04:43
  like, Oh my God. And now she watches with me
• 1:04:46
  every week. She's in our NASCAR fantasy
• 1:04:48
  league and she cares like she thinks about like her lineup,
• 1:04:51
  She's picking everything. She sits there doing racing.
• 1:04:54
  She's checking like like if, if like this week I forgot.
• 1:04:57
  I can't remember who it was she picked, but somebody that that
• 1:05:01
  got into some trouble relatively early and she was sitting there
• 1:05:04
  cussing and mad because she has she's like, I knew I shouldn't
• 1:05:06
  have picked the other way. But the point is she is in,
• 1:05:09
  right? And it all started with just
• 1:05:11
  bringing her to a race and letting her experience that part
• 1:05:13
  of it. And, and I've heard that from so
• 1:05:16
  many people over the years. So it happened with Katie.
• 1:05:19
  I mean, Katie's, she did a medical registry deal.
• 1:05:22
  They have Colorado the last four years.
• 1:05:24
  And those people are her her cohorts.
• 1:05:26
  I mean, they I don't do they even know what the word NASCAR
• 1:05:30
  was right So or what? But man, Katie took him and
• 1:05:34
  they're like hooked, hooked. Now I will say some of her girl,
• 1:05:40
  her lady friends from that she took seem to have an attraction
• 1:05:46
  or they really seem to like the maybe the pit crews stood out to
• 1:05:51
  him more than the drivers did. Am I right in saying that,
• 1:05:54
  Katie? My friends did feel that way,
• 1:05:57
  Yeah. No, but I think no.
• 1:06:01
  But actually going back to earlier when you asked about do
• 1:06:05
  we get to talk to any current drivers?
• 1:06:07
  I think when you actually talk to these people, they're so
• 1:06:09
  cool, all of them. Like, what's the one Dad what
• 1:06:13
  who was one of my favorites that we saw that is one of the best
• 1:06:16
  of all time, that you'd never know how cool he is, how nice.
• 1:06:21
  Well, how how nice he is. I don't know.
• 1:06:24
  Jimmy called Jimmy Johnson. Oh, yeah.
• 1:06:27
  Oh yeah. Like he's just, every time we
• 1:06:29
  talk to him, he's so nice and cool and he does all this cool
• 1:06:32
  stuff in his own life and you just never really knew that
• 1:06:35
  about him other than he was really good and won a lot.
• 1:06:37
  But I don't know all these people.
• 1:06:39
  I said that to you yesterday or Sunday driving back.
• 1:06:42
  I think I like when you talk to them.
• 1:06:44
  They're all really nice, cool people.
• 1:06:45
  Everybody that you've talked that I've, I should say I've
• 1:06:48
  talked to you, I've watched you talk to, they're cool.
• 1:06:52
  I wish more people could see that.
• 1:06:54
  So we had a conversation with Kyle Busch.
• 1:06:56
  He's cool and nice, right? So yeah, we dispel, dispel
• 1:07:01
  Kyle's deal if if people don't like him, he's a cool guy, good
• 1:07:04
  guy. You know, all these guys.
• 1:07:06
  It's just when you strap on the helmet, you know, Logano and I
• 1:07:10
  don't do, I don't know Joey Logano at all other than I spoke
• 1:07:13
  to him one time and everybody's talks about him being so nice
• 1:07:16
  and so cool. But he goes through the biggest
• 1:07:18
  transformation of any driver there and being so nice and cool
• 1:07:22
  and he straps in the car and turns into Tasmanian Devil,
• 1:07:25
  right? That's, that's, that's, that's
• 1:07:28
  what everybody to God says about him.
• 1:07:30
  And but you know, it is what it is.
• 1:07:33
  It is what it is. Well, fine.
• 1:07:36
  This has been fun and Katie, I think you should be a recurring
• 1:07:39
  Co host on Mass cast when you have time.
• 1:07:42
  Thank you. You're you're as die hard of
• 1:07:44
  NASCAR as any of the rest of us, Mass.
• 1:07:46
  Probably more so than a lot of us, to be honest with you.
• 1:07:49
  Yeah, she drove me to these races years ago.
• 1:07:51
  I don't feel like going, man. Right.
• 1:07:53
  And Katie want to go, so I'd like OK.
• 1:07:55
  And I dread it. I didn't look forward to it.
• 1:07:58
  I would dread going. I didn't want to drive, I didn't
• 1:08:01
  want to get up. Yeah, I don't want to do this.
• 1:08:03
  That we get to the track, right? Katie would drag my butt to the
• 1:08:06
  track and we get to the track and soon as I get in there and I
• 1:08:10
  get one good hot dog in me, man, I'm liking my mother's womb,
• 1:08:13
  right? This is cool.
• 1:08:14
  This is where I should be. And so then it would be all
• 1:08:17
  exciting and good, right? Then we'd leave and come home
• 1:08:21
  and then Katie would hit it be about the next race.
• 1:08:23
  I don't want to go. I don't want to get there.
• 1:08:25
  And it's I'm all, I'm in happy land again.
• 1:08:27
  So to thank Katie for dragging me to these deals, man.
• 1:08:31
  She got welcomed. Into it.
• 1:08:33
  You like going now, you look forward to going again.
• 1:08:36
  Me. Yeah.
• 1:08:37
  Oh, yeah, yeah, it's cool now. We got hard cards.
• 1:08:39
  That makes it easy. It was hard not to having a hard
• 1:08:41
  card. It was hard, you know, and that
• 1:08:44
  that's the thing of everybody, all the guys that I talked to,
• 1:08:47
  that was the big deal for everybody, man.
• 1:08:49
  You know, a lot of it said they had told NASCAR this.
• 1:08:52
  Get these guys hard cards. You know, we know what to do.
• 1:08:56
  We not we don't know how how to not abuse them.
• 1:08:58
  You know how you don't abuse that stuff with I mean, we're
• 1:09:01
  all part of that sport. Same.
• 1:09:02
  So you know what you're supposed to do and not do so, but all the
• 1:09:06
  guys did did did agree that that was a very integrable important
• 1:09:09
  part to this deal, right. So, you know, because it I mean,
• 1:09:15
  for years, I mean I would call Mike Hilton.
• 1:09:17
  Mike would always get my pass and let me and get me in and all
• 1:09:20
  that. But you had AVIP pass right or a
• 1:09:23
  hot pass in those days and they didn't get you everywhere the
• 1:09:27
  hard car would get. I remember being at Richmond,
• 1:09:29
  Oregon somewhere one day and you know, I was sitting on his own
• 1:09:32
  pit Rd. I want to go see somebody there.
• 1:09:33
  I want to go talk to and went to go there and they stopped me,
• 1:09:36
  right, security guards because I didn't have hard car.
• 1:09:39
  And I'm like shit, you know, and honestly, you feel a little bit
• 1:09:44
  deflated and other guys went through the same thing and and
• 1:09:47
  talked to these guys. A lot of other guys had the same
• 1:09:49
  thing happened to them. So, you know, it's just a deal,
• 1:09:53
  man. You're part of something for 30
• 1:09:54
  years, you know, and, and, and, and the, the alumni group that I
• 1:09:59
  told everybody, man, when you leave the sport in our deal,
• 1:10:01
  when you leave the sport, when you walk out that gate the last
• 1:10:04
  time, you're pretty much 100% isolated unless you stay
• 1:10:08
  involved with a team or with the media somehow like Michael, some
• 1:10:12
  of them have done. And but everybody else, you
• 1:10:15
  know, you're, you're totally isolated.
• 1:10:17
  And this deal here bridges that. It bridges that gap of being
• 1:10:21
  isolated, which should never what happened, you know?
• 1:10:24
  But, you know, thank goodness for Jim France and those guys
• 1:10:27
  and Amber coming up with this and making it happen for
• 1:10:30
  everybody. Well, I was already jealous, but
• 1:10:33
  now I have her to haven't talked to you all for over an hour,
• 1:10:35
  listening to you all for an hour.
• 1:10:36
  I'm extremely jealous. So I'm I'm going to make it my
• 1:10:39
  mission to to go next year. I'm going to recruit a
• 1:10:42
  babysitter and I'm going to go with you next year.
• 1:10:46
  I got to go. Got to go.
• 1:10:49
  Well, Katie, thank you for taking time.
• 1:10:51
  I was just like taking time out of your busy schedule.
• 1:10:54
  And that's actually true. You're, you're quite busy these
• 1:10:56
  days. You're actually taking this
• 1:10:57
  interview from or this the show from your study from PA, from PA
• 1:11:01
  school right now. So so thank you for the time.
• 1:11:05
  No, it was good to take a break from endocrinology, to talk with
• 1:11:07
  a little racing with my peeps. I can't make fun of dad like
• 1:11:12
  trying to say because I'm now I'm getting ready to say the
• 1:11:15
  word and I can't. Endocrinology.
• 1:11:16
  What is it now? Endocrinology.
• 1:11:19
  Study of follicules. Sure.
• 1:11:21
  Yeah, yeah. Just go with that.
• 1:11:23
  OK, well this was fun guys, and I hope everybody out there in
• 1:11:31
  mass cast land enjoyed it. And Katie, we're going to have
• 1:11:36
  you back on again. I think you have elevated our
• 1:11:37
  show and yeah, I believe. So.
• 1:11:40
  We'll get your twin on here sometime.
• 1:11:42
  We'll never get mom on here. We'll try.
• 1:11:47
  We'll try. We'll try.
• 1:11:49
  Yeah, All right, well, we appreciate y'all listening,
• 1:11:53
  watching, following us on on all the socials Mass cast show.
• 1:11:56
  He's at Rick Mass 22. I'm at Ricky Mast and Katie, if
• 1:12:00
  you want to plug your socials you can.
• 1:12:03
  I mean, I'm at Katie Mass but I spelled my name weird so good
• 1:12:05
  luck. OK, there you go.
• 1:12:07
  That's your mission. Good luck, everybody.
• 1:12:11
  He's rich. Thank y'all.
• 1:12:13
  He's Rick. She's Katie.
• 1:12:14
  I'm Ricky. Did I say that right?
• 1:12:16
  He's Rich. She's Katie.
• 1:12:17
  I'm Ricky. All right.
• 1:12:18
  Nailed it. Good to lose, see you next week.