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Coffee With Kenny | How Did NASCAR Cup Racing Get So Expensive?! · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:02
  Happy Monday morning, everybody. It's about seven O 5 and I'm
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  going to meet Charlie Marlowe and Kenny Schrader at 9 O clock
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  and we're going to start testing for the new Kenny and Kenny
• 0:19
  podcast show. They tell me that this one's not
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  going to this is not a real one that we that we're going to
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  start testing. I said, well, we're going to act
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  like it's real because I made all the notes and I prepped and
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  I prepared. OK.
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  So Julie, she Julie asked me on social media last night.
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  She said, Kenny, here's the question.
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  She said, did the Charters what what caused the sport of NASCAR
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  to get so out of control? That that's a great question.
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  And I don't think we've ever talked about this.
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  We always just talk talk about everything getting expensive.
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  So Julie, the charter system was put in place to make sure that
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  each car owner had something of value.
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  What we were witnessing was great team owners like the
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  legendary Bud Moore, Junior Johnson, some of these great car
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  owners, you could even say Richard Petty, Petty Enterprise,
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  but now he's part of the legacy. But a lot of a lot of these car
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  owners, they owned a NASCAR race team their whole lives.
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  And at the very end, it was very sad that all they had, really,
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  all they really had at the very end of their lives was what we
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  call brick and mortar. They had a building to sell and
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  some welders and, you know, fabrication equipment.
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  That's all they had after a lifetime in NASCAR.
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  And it became very sad. So behind the scenes it was
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  talked about, how are we going to make it to where the owners
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  have something, what that's worthy?
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  You see all these baseball teams, these football teams, the
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  hockey teams, these owners, they own the Dallas Cowboys, you
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  know, the Washington Commanders or whatever you call them
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  nowadays, They own these teams and they're worth something.
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  And if the owner ever wants to sell them, you get money.
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  Well, so NASCAR said, OK, let's create this charter system to
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  where if the owner wants to get out of the sport, he has a team
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  to sell, not just a building and some welders and some
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  fabrication equipment. Now addressing, I think that
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  addresses the charter system specifically.
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  That's what the charter system does.
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  It gives the owner something that is worth money.
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  If you have a team, it's worth money and you can sell it.
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  And we've watched it happen. The teams, the charter systems
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  are going for like say $40 million.
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  Well, not the team, just the charter.
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  And now the owner can still sell his building and, and you know,
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  equipment. So if the owner wants to get
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  out, he can sell his charter, which is a starting spot in the
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  Daytona 500, and he can also sell his building.
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  That's one. Now #2 why do the teams have to
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  have all these different sponsors now?
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  There was a day where you just had one sponsor, Miller Genuine,
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  Draft, STP, Hardee's, Budweiser, FedEx.
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  Now these big sponsors can only afford like 12 races.
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  Even FedEx. FedEx was the last sponsor that
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  was a big sponsor that sponsored Denny Hamlin the full year.
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  Now they're only there's talk that they're getting out of the
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  sport and that maybe they'll only be able to sponsor 8 to 12
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  races. Why?
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  Why didn't NASCAR get so expensive?
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  Here's your reason. I witnessed it myself.
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  I know what I'm talking about. I went to Penske Racing.
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  Here's what happened. They were making these cars very
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  light, very efficient to where they were only good for one
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  race. Yes, one race.
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  They would make the body so light that if they barely bumped
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  into each other or, you know, they just, the bodies became
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  very weak. Listen to this crazy story that
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  I witnessed when I went to my brother Rusty's Penske Racing.
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  There I said it by brother Rusty Herman.
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  I used to get so mad at you when you would say my brother Rusty.
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  But you know, Rusty and Rodger Penske they were.
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  Rusty was part owner, Rusty Wallace and Don Miller.
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  Of course, Rodger owned the biggest percentage.
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  So I was allowed to go in. They cleared me to go in Penske
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  Racing just two years ago when Rusty was gone.
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  So two years ago I go to Penske and they showed me everything
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  and I thought, my God, I'm going to leave this shop and I'm going
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  to go straight to Mike Hilton and tell me what a piss poor job
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  they did. They let this sport get out of
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  hand. Listen to this.
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  They would build a car, they would run one race 1, and it
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  would come back to the shop on Sunday night, Monday morning.
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  And in three hours the car was completely torn apart and the
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  body was taken completely off of it.
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  And they had to start over. And at times they were running
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  one car per race because NASCAR's tolerance level, their
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  inspection process was so tight, they were loose using lasers to
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  measure and that after one race, the car was already done.
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  It couldn't it it would not go through tech inspection.
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  So the sport got out of hand because Joe Gibbs started this
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  process where he would run one car race or one body race.
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  Maybe the framing cage kept going.
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  But in the Timmy told me they would start like at 8:00 or 8:30
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  and by like they had it down to like 10 or 11:00 that their car
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  that they just got done racing on Sunday was completely ripped
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  apart and down to bare bones. The cost of of they didn't, they
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  weren't running lead anymore. They were running tungsten.
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  Tungsten is a is a weight weighs the car down that it's 10 times
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  more expensive than lead. Just expenses inflation.
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  What we're going through right now, the cost of metal running
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  more races, engineers, the cost of engineers.
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  So the sport spiraled out of control because of the cost to
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  go faster. Engineers running one car per
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  race, team airplanes, jet setting across America.
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  And here's the reason it got out of control.
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  And we're going to end like this because sponsors could not keep
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  up. The sport got so expensive that
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  you cannot find a sponsor to keep up with the cost.
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  So instead of 1 sponsor per year, as you see right now, most
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  teams have got 6 to 8 sponsors. So Julie, hopefully I answered
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  your question. All right, I'm getting in the
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  shower and go to meet Charlie Marlow and Kenny Schrader at
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  9:00. And I believe some of these
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  things that we do today you're going to see out and about.
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  And there we're going to start promoting the Kenny and Kenny
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  Show or whatever they call it. Have a great Monday, everybody.