Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Dale Earnhardt Jr & Cleetus McFarland Save NASCAR | Coffee With Kenny

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Dale Earnhardt Jr & Cleetus McFarland Save NASCAR | Coffee With Kenny · Kenny Wallace Media

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  Happy Thursday morning, everybody.
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  Yesterday, Wednesday was a crazy day.
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  It was wild. People were given opinions,
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  motions were flying high, and late last night we got a new
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  topic. All right, remember now,
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  everybody, I'm always promoting, always talking about my local
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  track, I-55, Federated Auto Parts Raceway Park, 15 minutes
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  right here from my house. March 19th, 2020 First mods gone
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  wild, $5000 to win. Y'all come out now here.
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  All right, Hey, you can't blame me on promoting my local dirt
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  track. Trying to keep the place open.
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  OK, that was a quick monologue. Only one minute today, man, have
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  we got a lot to talk about today.
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  It's official everybody. On Friday night, April 10th, the
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  Freedom 500 down in Bradenton, FL Kenny Wallace, yours truly.
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  I will be racing in the crown Victoria race.
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  This started a, oh, a month ago. Cletus, Garrett Mitchell, He
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  called me up, Herman. So I called him back and I said,
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  hey, how's that April 10th date? Look, he says, man, any, any
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  race you want to run. So I will be racing.
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  It's official. The date is clear.
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  April 10th, the Freedom 500 down there in Bradenton.
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  You know, it's been a long time since I've been back down there.
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  I raced, I raced at that racetrack, used to be called the
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  Triple Crown. We would run Orlando, St.
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  Pete and Bradenton right there. So it's been a long time since
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  I've raced there. Yesterday, like I said, it was
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  crazy. I saw a lot of stuff happening
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  and let's go with the first one. The ratings came out for the
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  truck race in Daytona. The trucks, you know, trucks in
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  NASCAR, we race trucks, pickup trucks have been for years.
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  Looks like we got a lot of new fans and they're learning a lot
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  about NASCAR and that's awesome. Thank you.
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  Got one of the biggest ratings in truck history right there.
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  Top 2 like 1.6 million people on a Friday night.
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  A Friday night, mind you, isn't Friday night when you're
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  supposed to be out on the town not watching any TV.
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  So 1.6 million at its peak. It means that's you know, 1.6
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  million people you know at its highest you know it it bopped
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  around between 1.41 point 6,000,000.
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  Now, the biggest thing that I take from this is my my brain
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  works a little differently than yours.
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  That's a lot of people line up 1.6 million people.
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  How many stadiums would that fill up?
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  That would fill up the Big House, Michigan, It would fill
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  it up 16 times. The big House seats 100,000
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  people, right? 9900, so 1.6 million people,
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  that's insane watching the NASCAR truck race.
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  So you got to ask yourself why? Well, it's pretty simple and
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  everybody on social media is saying the same thing.
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  Now my buddy Eric Arneson who works for Fox PR, he's like, oh,
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  it was a good race. I'm like Eric, I hear you buddy.
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  Let's let's simmer down a little bit.
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  The reason it was 1.6 million people is we had Cletus
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  McFarlane there, we had Tony Stewart and Travis Pastrano.
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  But here's where the war starts. What which one of those drivers
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  really bought brought the people?
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  I'm going to tell you right now I know for a fact who who
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  brought the most was Cletus McFarlane.
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  Listen, I love Tony Stewart more than you do.
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  And Tony and myself are good friends.
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  He just texted me. Tony Stewart just texted me
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  wanting one of my helmets. And we we've talked about this
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  and Kim's got a helmet set aside.
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  Tony Stewart collects helmets. We're friends.
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  OK, So let's make that clear first.
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  But it's Cletus. This guy is a phenomenon.
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  It's unbelievable. I have so many people that go, I
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  didn't know anything about the Truck Series, but Cletus said he
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  was running a race at Daytona or something and so I tuned in.
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  So listen, I, I, you know, Dirty MO Media, those are my friends
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  over there. You know, Herman Schrader's
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  Dirty MO Media and then Kenny conversation lives on Dirty MO
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  Media podcasts. So everybody Dirty MO Media,
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  Dale Junior, Mike Davis, those are my friends.
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  I love those guys, but they got a little sideways the upset, you
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  know, that Cletus is getting all this attention and maybe he
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  shouldn't be running at Daytona because he doesn't have a lot of
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  experience. OK, We're, it's a new world,
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  everybody. We're in the advertisement
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  business. It just the way it is.
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  Now. If Cletus went to the Cup
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  Series, now that'd be a different story, right?
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  Because Cup is our biggest. That's where all the big boys
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  are. Have you been approved to run
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  the Daytona 500? Remember, you got to get
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  approved. Well, Cletus got approved by
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  NASCAR to run the Truck Series. He spun out on his own.
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  He didn't. He didn't wreck nobody.
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  And he finished 11th in the ARCA race.
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  So it's Cletus, everybody. Cletus is the one.
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  Cletus is the one why because he relates with this generation of
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  doing wild things like, you know, taking a boat and putting
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  a motor that's too big on it and land in an airplane in the
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  water. And so a Cletus does and the
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  fans eat it up. They love him.
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  So I know there's a lot of people in NASCAR, some of our
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  purest on door bumper clear there.
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  You know my buddy Tommy Baldwin. I love Tommy.
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  I'm starting to meet everybody there, but they were a little
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  sideways that Cletus got all that attention.
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  It's Cletus, everybody. It's all there is to it.
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  Yes, Tony and Travis through their people, but it was all
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  Cletus. All right, as Larry Mac Reynolds
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  say, I think we'd beat that like a dead horse.
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  Switching subjects, Dale Junior on, you know, his his Dirty MO
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  podcast, out of nowhere, he shocks the nation.
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  Dale Junior says, laid in bed last night and he says you ought
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  to just run the Daytona 500. Dale Junior's like what?
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  So you know he's going to you've heard it here.
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  Second, Dale Junior told you first.
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  I'm telling you second, it happens all the time.
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  And I, I called Dale Junior three or four years ago.
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  I said, Junior, I had a dream. I got to run one more Xfinity
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  race, which is now O'Reilly Auto Parts.
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  Dale Junior said to me, Herman, no, you need to run one of my
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  CARS Tour race to get it out of your system.
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  I said, OK, so I ran South Boston had a had a time in my
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  life. But when that race was over,
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  when that Cars Tour race was over South Boston, I was done.
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  I said that's it, that's what I need.
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  I have that one last ditch. So damn expensive to run those
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  races. I can run 15 dirt races compared
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  to one Cars Tour race. It cost me when I prorate, I'm
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  giving you my business right here.
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  I'm going to learn you a lesson down South.
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  They say I'm going to learn you a lesson when I prorate my
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  stuff. Prorate is a term like, you
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  know, I've got, you know, 25,000 in my motor, 40,000 in my race
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  car and you and you divide it all up for me to drive down that
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  driveway. It's $1000 if I go to peebly and
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  I run my local race, no matter what, prorating, it's $1000 to
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  drive down the driveway, tires, everything, motor pit passes.
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  Well, if you go run a car's toll race, it's 15 grand because
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  that's what it cost. Prorate and all that.
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  So Dale Junior says yesterday, Amy says you need to run the
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  Daytona 500. Well, now this is just my
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  opinion and Dale Junior watches all this.
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  I Junior, I love you buddy. Haven't seen you in a while.
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  We text too much. I I imagine here's what
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  happened. They got Chris Stapleton, they
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  have Chris Stapleton. They got that, that whiskey
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  sponsor and Justin wrecked out and they probably just a little
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  disappointed. And I guarantee you, Amy said
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  you should just run it Junior. And he's like me, so he's got 11
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  itch to scratch. And I'm going to end like this.
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  Everybody like Cletus, there's one equal.
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  And respond right here, if you've made it this far, who is
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  equal in popularity to Dale Junior?
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  It's Cletus. Cletus right now in this era, in
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  this modern era. Now listen, I know Dale Junior
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  is like the most famous race car driver we've had since Dale
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  Senior, since his father. But in my, in my mind, you know,
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  in their worlds, Cletus McFarlane and Dale Junior are
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  the same in popularity because it's not just with Cletus, it's
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  just not NASCAR. Cletus has got this whole other
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  world of people, not just racing people.
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  Well, Dale Junior, if he runs the Daytona 500 next year, well,
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  they're already sold out. They'll just have more people in
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  there and bigger TV ratings. Let's see how Junior does.
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  And that's what would happen. You've heard it here first.
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  Dale Junior will run the Daytona 500 next year.
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  Kevin Harvick will be the next one in the superstar college
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  truck. And we're saving NASCAR.
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  Have a great Thursday, everybody.