Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / The Fans Want To Hear Vintage NASCAR Stories | Coffee With Kenny
Transcript
- 0:00Happy Thursday morning, everybody.
- 0:04I'm pretty sure it's Thursday. Respond right here.
- 0:10OK everybody, let's get right to it.
- 0:14I see on social media the fans are asking for the NASCAR race.
- 0:21They show back at the racetrack. Brother Rusty says to me all the
- 0:27time and I share with all of you, Brother Rusty says Herm,
- 0:32it's sad to say you got to remind people they remember what
- 0:37they want to. So let me remind all of you
- 0:41right now. For the last three years or
- 0:44more, I have been doing about a 10 or 11 trackside live shows
- 0:52and we have been getting thousands of people, a sea of
- 0:57people. The pictures are out there.
- 1:00I'll share pictures with you. However I will.
- 1:05I will meet all of you halfway. I see a lot of the people say
- 1:12you need to bring your show to Talladega and that's fair.
- 1:18So let me explain the process and, and everything.
- 1:23About 5-5 years ago or so, Marcus Smith called me about
- 1:31five years ago and he said, Herman, I want you to bring that
- 1:36show back that you did on speed. And I said, Marcus, I said I
- 1:42moved back to Saint Louis and I just want to run my dirt car.
- 1:46I want to watch my Cardinals and Blues play.
- 1:50I really don't want to do that anymore.
- 1:54So the last year that they put dirt on the Bristol racetrack,
- 1:59they called me up and they said, Herman, come on, come to
- 2:04Bristol, we want you to do to be the ambassador of the dirt race.
- 2:10I said, OK, well, this is a little different deal.
- 2:14So we move forward with it and I'm kind of speeding this up.
- 2:19But I went down to the racetrack.
- 2:20We did a lot of social media, like months before the last dirt
- 2:25race at Bristol Motor Speedway for the Cup Series.
- 2:30Well, all goes good and I get up on stage for the very first
- 2:36NASCAR race day. We were calling it at that time.
- 2:40We were calling it NASCAR race day.
- 2:43We get up there and I'm telling you what there must have been.
- 2:46Now, I'm not exaggerating. I'm guessing there was 5000
- 2:51people. Now I know that's a lot of
- 2:52people. It was a sea of people.
- 2:55They were between the souvenir haulers.
- 2:58They were as far as you could see.
- 3:01So the show is over. It's a one hour show.
- 3:04We're still doing it to this day.
- 3:07Marcus Smith looks at me and goes, holy moly.
- 3:12He says, shake my hand that we'll just keep doing this.
- 3:16So we talked a little bit. We made a deal.
- 3:19So now it's Johnny Roberts and myself and Jose Castillo's Jose
- 3:25is the Jose takes care of all the talking at all the SMI
- 3:33tracks. So you got to remember Marcus
- 3:35Smith owns Speedway Motorsports Incorporated.
- 3:38So that means they own Bristol, Charlotte, Sonoma, they rent
- 3:44Circuit of the America, so on and so forth, right?
- 3:47Wilkesboro, Loudon. So anyway, we also went to the
- 3:53Media Center right after that race and it was unbelievable.
- 3:59We just did an impromptu press conference right there.
- 4:05But with the success came Fox Sports called us up ring a Ding
- 4:12Ding. At that time it was funny.
- 4:16Steve Craddock said, hey, right now we have NASCAR race day.
- 4:21It's still airing on TV. You guys got to change your
- 4:24name. And so we we, we changed it to
- 4:27trackside live. So right now we are doing
- 4:30trackside live and we are getting big crowds.
- 4:33And what we're doing is we're bringing the drivers outside.
- 4:36We are bringing the drivers out about 3 or 4 hours before the
- 4:41race and I mean, you name it, Chase Elliott, you know, Ross
- 4:46Chastain, Kyle Larson. Now, on a side note, we are
- 4:52doing Kenny Wallace live right here at the Saint Louis track.
- 4:59Now Chris Blair, the general manager, owner Curtis Francois,
- 5:08they said we want to call the one here Kenny Wallace live.
- 5:12So Kenny Wallace live with John Roberts, we do that one right
- 5:17here and it is probably one of the biggest crowds of all of
- 5:21them probably battles right there with the Bristol crowd.
- 5:25So anyway, respond right here and I will say this.
- 5:32If you want Trackside Live to come to your track, that most
- 5:35likely means that you wanted to come to a NASCAR track which was
- 5:40ISC International Speedway Corporation.
- 5:43So you have two entities owning all the tracks.
- 5:47You got SMI Speedway Motorsports Incorporated, which is which is
- 5:52Marcus Smith and then ISC sort of speak now NASCAR bought all
- 5:58the stocks back, but basically NASCAR owns half the tracks.
- 6:03Marcus Smith owns the other half now.
- 6:07A major NASCAR executive told me this and he cornered me last
- 6:13year. One of the highest executives at
- 6:16NASCAR, he said. Herman, he said I really like
- 6:21what you all are doing for Marcus.
- 6:26And I will say this, Ben Kennedy came to watch our Kenny Wallace
- 6:32live show at the Gateway race here in Saint Louis.
- 6:36Ben Kennedy was there. So Ben, if you're watching this,
- 6:40you know what you saw was was a banger of a show.
- 6:45It was probably one of the most entertaining shows we've ever
- 6:48done at Saint Louis. Really, really awesome show.
- 6:52Want to thank Chris Blair, Curtis Francois.
- 6:55But anyway, NASCAR executive came up to me last year and I
- 6:59don't mind sharing this with you because I think it's a good
- 7:01thing, He said, Herman, I want you to grab Schrader and Dale
- 7:06Junior, kind of kind of like you want me to do this And I'm like,
- 7:11you're NASCAR. But he said, Herman, I want you
- 7:15to grab Schrader, I want you to grab Dale Junior, and I want you
- 7:20to come to the NASCAR tracks like Talladega.
- 7:23And I want you guys to just sit there for one hour and tell some
- 7:26stories about the good old days. And he says, I want you to bring
- 7:31some of your other friends back. I mean, it, it could be Kurt
- 7:34Busch, it could be Jeff Gordon, it could be Bobby Labonte.
- 7:42So if you want these shows to come to more race tracks, you
- 7:48have to put it on social media, bring Trackside live.
- 7:52And we could maybe we could name it a little different because
- 7:57what NASCAR wants, they want us to bring that show, but they
- 8:04want us to talk about the good old days and tell some good
- 8:07stories. So that's my response to all of
- 8:10you. I see you out there.
- 8:12Respond right here and then tag NASCAR if that's what you want.
- 8:17I'm willing to give up some of my dirt races a weekend.
- 8:21I don't got a race every week in 2026.
- 8:25I, I would, I would welcome that.
- 8:28I would welcome to, you know, a moderate tell some great stories
- 8:32at the NASCAR tracks, NASCAR tracks.
- 8:35That means Talladega, Daytona, Pocono, so on and so forth.
- 8:43All right, everybody have a great day.