Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Why NASCAR's All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Was So Good | Coffee With Kenny

Transcript

Why NASCAR's All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Was So Good | Coffee With Kenny · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:02
  Happy Monday morning, everybody. What a beautiful day here in
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  Arnold, MO, about 20 miles South, I guess you could say,
• 0:14
  southwest of Saint Louis. Alright, let's get right to it.
• 0:19
  That All Star race on Sunday night, What was that all about?
• 0:24
  I mean, seriously, there has been so much and moaning over
• 0:30
  the last month about NASCAR. Is this NASCAR?
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  Is that? And out of nowhere, out of
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  nowhere is one of the best races we've seen.
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  And well, I'll tell you what, I'll let you you respond right
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  here. What was it about that
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  racetrack? What was it about the fans?
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  What was it about the facility? I'm going to do my very best to
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  give my opinion on why I thought the All Star race was so
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  unbelievable. Hold on now, we got a lot more
• 1:03
  to talk about. Why was that truck race
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  unbelievable? Why was the Wayland Modified
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  race at 1:00 in the day on Sunday?
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  Why was that so unbelievable? Every once in a while, the
• 1:20
  perfect storm comes about. I think the All Star race was
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  the perfect storm. I really do.
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  And as I always say, here's why. I'm going to give you all the
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  reasons that the All Star Race was unbelievable.
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  Number one, every fan there wanted it to be.
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  They came there with a positive mental attitude.
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  Years ago, Alan Quickie won his very first ASA race at Lonesome
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  Pine, Virginia and Paul Andrews, he grabbed the chalkboard and it
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  was it was a a last minute caution and Paul Andrews on Alan
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  Quickie's chalkboard for his first ASA win, wrote PMA.
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  He was telling Alan positive mental attitude.
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  Don't let no gremlins come into your head.
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  Alan Quickie went on to win that race at Lonesome Pine, Virginia,
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  because Paul Anders said, remember Alan PMA positive
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  mental attitude. See, sometimes you can will
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  things into being no good. I ain't gonna be no good this
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  this next Gen. cards piece of it's no good.
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  I don't even know why we're going, but you know, that was a
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  sold out grandstand. Everything was sold out actually
• 2:47
  on this Monday morning. Adam Stern, as reported by Adam
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  Stern, the quote of the year comes from Marcus Smith, the
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  owner of Speedway Motorsports Incorporated and the owner of
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  North Wilkesboro. He said that North Wilkesboro is
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  now the Lambeau Field. It is now the Green Bay Packers
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  of NASCAR. What's that mean?
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  It is the throwback racetrack of all time, just like Lambeau is
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  the throwback football field of all time.
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  When you look at what happened to North Wilkesboro, you can't
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  help but the oh, man, this is awesome.
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  You're kidding me. This, you know, it's it's it's
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  the same old song. It's the same old song.
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  They paved Paradise, put in a parking lot, but they didn't.
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  They did not pay Paradise. They did not put in a parking
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  lot. They did not tear the racetrack
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  down. However, the racetrack was
• 3:53
  falling down. Wilkesboro was gone.
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  North Wilkesboro was gone, and we all know it.
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  And because of Allen Quickie and COVID, the COVID money was given
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  some what, $20 million here. Here's some money to make that
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  silly old racetrack that's falling down.
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  If you want to try to fix it up, here's here's $20 million.
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  And because of Dale Earnhardt Junior's tenacity to go, hey,
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  let's make an iRacing. Let let's go out there and let's
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  clean this track up so we can scan it and make it an iRacing
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  track for, you know, on iRacing on our computers.
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  They started pulling the weeds away from this gym.
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  And when they cleaned it all up, I was like, damn, it's like some
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  old man that's got, you know, got hair all over his face and
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  he's got long hair. And they're like, let's shave
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  him up. Let's cut his hair.
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  And that's what happened to Wilkesboro.
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  Little by little, they they peeled away and they said, why
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  the hell did we ever get rid of this racetrack?
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  It always provided the greatest races.
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  And that, my friends, is the next thing I'm going to tell you
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  what's turn one and two got in common with all the other race
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  tracks? Not a damn thing.
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  That's right In the truck race lane, Riggs goes down that front
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  straightaway, downhill, downhill, and can't slow his
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  truck up enough, and he goes sliding, sliding up into Corey
• 5:24
  Heim. What happened in the All Star
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  race? The same damn thing Christopher
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  Bell goes flying down into turn 1.
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  He goes sliding up in the Joey Logano.
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  See, it's that front straightaway everybody and going
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  into turn one and two, it's flat on the bottom.
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  It's banked on the top too. It's called progressive banking,
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  but almost D bank as you get into one.
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  So when you go flying down in there with your race car, the
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  left front kind of rares up. Oh no, I'm going to slide fly AD
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  wedges it. It means it takes pressure off
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  the left rear. The racetrack is built like that
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  by mistake, by mistake when you enter the turn one at a high
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  rate of speed and you smash that corn very hard on old tires to
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  hold that car down, especially when you're going hard.
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  Will Wilkesboro is the gym you look at.
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  You go, let's go back 30-40 years ago.
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  Ricky Rudd and Rusty Wallace, same damn thing, Same damn
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  thing. Ricky gets in, hits Rusty, Rusty
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  says I'll pay your ass back. They go flying down the back
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  straight away at Wilkesboro. Ricky Rudd, Rusty walls brother
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  Rusty pops Rudd in the ass, crowd goes nuts and Rusty wins
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  it all this racetrack. See, we didn't know what we had
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  years ago because everything was going so good.
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  We made all these cookie cutter race tracks.
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  They were symmetrically perfect. Everything's perfect.
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  Let's geometry beautifully eyes everything.
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  Word of the day, geometrically beautify everything.
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  Today, Wilkesboro is not geometry beautified.
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  It's a mistake. A beautiful mistake.
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  They built a racetrack crudely and it ends up being the best
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  race of the year. The asphalt is aged.
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  You know, even when you guys thought the race car was
• 7:24
  perfect, whenever they laid new asphalt down, it was one lane
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  for two years. It's the perfect storm.
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  The asphalt is aged. The racetrack design is perfect.
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  The fans wanted it. Positive mental attitude.
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  And so because of all this, now the next Gen. car is just fine.
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  That's just fine. The tire was perfect.
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  Joey Logano stays out. Christopher Bell puts on 2.
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  Now we're talking just like the good old days.
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  What's he going to do? Is he going to put on 4 tires?
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  Is he going to stay out? Joey Logano said I'm going to
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  stay out, Christopher Bell says I'll come in and get 2 tires.
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  You see, everything's just fine. I'll leave you with this,
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  everybody. The All Star race on Sunday
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  night was one of the greatest comebacks in NASCAR history.
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  It is it is to get excited about.
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  It is exciting. It is something to celebrate.
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  It is awesome. I don't want to hear from
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  anybody that oh, and now that's just one.
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  No, no, it's not just one race. It's a damn race.
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  We had races like this, the road race out that Circuit of
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  America. If you notice at the very end,
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  California Speedway was getting good.
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  They pay paradise put in a parking lot.
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  Don't it always seem to go, You don't know what you got in
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  California Speedway, but they pay paradise put in a parking
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  lot lot. You see, they tore it down.
• 9:18
  California Speedway was the tractor we thought was boring.
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  Oh, this thing's boring. The older it got, the older the
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  asphalt got. It got good.
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  You see what I'm saying? It takes a perfect storm.
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  You're not going to have good races on new asphalt.
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  When a track gets stupid weird like me, it's awesome.
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  There's a little cliche right there.
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  I may be weird, but I'm awesome. Wilkesboro may be weird, but
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  it's awesome. California Speedway, it got
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  weird, but it was awesome at the end, but we couldn't save it.
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  Tore it down. Rockingham's are next.
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  It's the next bad ass track that wasn't perfectly geometrically
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  designed. Both corners are totally
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  different at Rockingham. Both corners are totally
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  different at Wilkesboro. We got to quit building
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  beautifully, perfectly prepared, geometrically perfectly designed
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  race tracks. Put some character in them.
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  And that, my friends, is what makes a good racetrack.
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  It was the positive mental attitude, the perfect amount of
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  grandstands, night time, and yes, even Michael Waltrip
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  dropping the flag on purpose. It is my belief Michael Waltrip
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  dropped the flag on purpose and then he called it a mic drop.
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  It was a show, a buddy. They raced their ass off for
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  real. Happy Monday, everybody.