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Our Long National NASCAR Nightmare Is Over | The Rick Mast Show · Kenny Wallace Media

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  Hi, everybody. The Rickster here reported on
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  the Kenny Wallace show. Will our long national nightmare
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  is over. The settlement has been made or
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  has been made. NASCAR and the race teams came
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  together a few hours to go and made a settlement and you know,
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  it's made so many people happy. I mean, what do we know about it
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  so far? We know that number one, the
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  teams are getting Evergreen charters, OK #2 we know that
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  front row and 23 X are going to get back or they'll have their
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  their original charters that they had.
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  So they'll they'll be operating racing this year and next year
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  with the charters. So that's all good.
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  What do we know past that? Really, really nothing.
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  I mean, we won't know anything until they release more details
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  or how many how many details they want to release.
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  But you know, it's a Merry Christmas holy up here, Merry
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  Christmas. You know, one of the one of the
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  first thoughts I had when I heard it settled the guys in the
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  trenches. Let me tell you what I mean by
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  that. For the last few weeks, I've
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  been talking to quite a few people in the garage, right or
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  in NASCAR community. And a lot of those guys are, are
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  the the guys in the trenches. But that I mean the guys that
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  work in the back, the guys that work on these cars, the guys
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  that work in the shops, not, not hierarchy, not executives, not
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  the leaders or owners, which we have had a few of those
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  conversations. But The thing is, the thing that
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  intrigued me when I when I was talking to these guys, they for
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  the most part, they all seem like they were where they did.
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  They told me they were torn. They they had allegiance NASCAR,
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  they had allegiance to the teams and they just didn't really, you
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  know, understand, you know, what side they should really be
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  pulling hard for because they didn't know, like most people
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  didn't even the fans really, we didn't really know.
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  But here's the one thing that bothered me about the whole
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  thing. Each one of those guys to fault
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  told me that they were all nervous about their positions.
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  What's that mean? That means they're they're
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  afraid they're going to lose their job.
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  They're afraid this thing's going to tank, they're going to
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  lose their jobs or it'll be restructured and such where they
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  won't have many employees. They didn't know, but they all
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  had this nagging feeling and and other thing they'd all been told
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  either by a couple of the guys with their owners told them as a
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  group, don't worry, this is all going to be OK.
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  Y'all all got good jobs. Some of those were told by hire,
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  hire management, don't worry, your jobs are safe.
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  Everything is going to be in place.
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  But as a racer, you know, if the racer mentality, you know that,
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  you know, you're 18 hours away of sleeping and waking up
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  saying, guess what, I don't have a job today.
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  That's that had been the case with a lot of the racing
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  industry, but you know, it's pretty stabilized now.
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  But anyhow, those guys were there.
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  There was some some concern, genuine concern that, you know,
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  we might have not have a job. So that makes for a very, very,
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  very Merry Christmas for those guys, for all you guys.
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  And you know who you are, you know, Merry Christmas, man,
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  Your, your jobs are safe, right. So this, you know, this really
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  leads us to OK, where do we go now?
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  You know what, what do we do? Well, you know, as I spoke a lot
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  a couple weeks ago to you guys or a week ago, I see a way for
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  NASCAR to really do or do OK with this.
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  And you know, number one, you're not going to have this bickering
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  in in fighting with amongst the teams and NASCAR.
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  These guys are going to all be on the same page now going
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  forward. They're all going to be together
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  in unison to support the sport and to grow the sport and all
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  that's going to be great. But, you know, we talked about,
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  you know, the bad things could happen with this trial before it
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  happened. We talked about it last week
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  and, and the things that come out of it, it's not going to be
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  good. And, and it's just, you know,
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  we've received a lot of bad press, a lot of things going on,
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  a lot of things being said. And I even talked about, you
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  know, if it goes to appeal, right, the the the ours, I don't
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  know if our sport could would have stood that because of the
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  pressures from the people that financially back this sport and
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  you know, the sponsors and all that.
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  And a good case in point, yesterday, Johnny Morris put out
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  a scathing statement. Johnny Morris, those you don't
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  know, he owns bass pro shops, good guy, right?
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  Started with nothing, built this multi billion dollar company and
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  has been one of the biggest supporters of NASCAR that the
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  financial wise with sponsoring race teams and different races
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  and a lot of things for a long time.
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  And he put out a scathing statement yesterday.
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  And it was really based around the, the, the, the remarks that
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  Steve Phelps made about Richard Childress.
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  And, you know, that's just one small example of what you know,
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  of 1 sponsor that that's really taking a negative view of what I
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  was going on here. And I mean, you, if you're, you
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  know, you don't want to alienate any of your sponsors, especially
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  somebody like Johnny Morris, who is so good for her sport.
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  And that's just one small example of what could have
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  happened, what could have went on.
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  Now I talked about, you know, going forward, it was back up a
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  little bit and we back to the trial thing.
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  We had Hendrick, Rick Hendrick and Roger Penske, we had Heather
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  Gibbs. Those all came forward with
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  their letters that they they shared with Mr. France about
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  wanting these permanent charters.
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  You know, Richard Children was on the stand pretty specific
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  about what he thought we needed that was permanent charters.
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  So that was a big thing and everybody got that all right.
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  It looks like they settled on that, which is good.
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  But you know, moving forward, you know, what are we going to
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  do? What are we going to do?
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  We've we've taken a hit. NASCAR has taken a hit and the,
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  again, I keep going back, go back to this and the big thing
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  is Phelps remarks about children's, well, you know,
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  NASCAR, in my opinion, they have a perfect opportunity to maybe
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  not completely right to ship, but really come out of this
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  thing better. They're they're already going to
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  have momentum. They're going to have all the
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  things behind them. Everybody's going to be working
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  towards the same thing. But some of these, some of these
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  issues are going to have to be addressed, right?
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  And again, it's going to take a couple very tough decisions on
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  NASCAR's part and then, you know, just talk about, you know,
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  the error of our ways. You know, we looked at things.
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  We we understand there are ways we know.
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  I mean, all of us and me, especially me, I know NASCAR
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  intent is their intent is to always grow the sport and make
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  it great. And but no matter who you are,
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  what you do, sometimes you stumble.
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  And a few of these areas, there's no doubt NASCAR stumbled
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  and and they're aware of that. And but I think they could take
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  all of this with a couple very tough decisions to make and, you
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  know, just need a little bit of humble pie.
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  We are in a ways, we want to go forward.
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  We want to gain fans. We want to take care of the
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  fans. We've always had, you know, and
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  to do that, you know, we got to address what what we did wrong.
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  And you know, they can do that. I mean there there's no doubt
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  they can do that now, you know, if they do that and you know,
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  really publicize, you know what they did, what they're doing,
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  what they've done and go about their deal, the thing could get
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  good again. It could it could get very good.
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  I mean, we, you know, as, as Mr. France said on the court, court
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  steps outside the courtroom, you know, we get back to what we do
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  that's doing our business about the racing, concentrating on the
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  racing. And I thought it's pretty
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  striking. His remarks on the on the
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  courthouse square, courthouse steps.
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  You know, we, this is taking so much of their attention away
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  from what they should be doing and that's paying attention to
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  the sport and what's good for the sport.
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  I thought it I thought it kind of funny or or neat, really
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  happy that the video of all those guys in front of the
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  courthouse, you had Michael Jordan, you had Jim France, you
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  had Denny Hamlin, you had Lisa Kennedy France, you had all the
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  lawyers and everybody was smiling and grinning.
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  Everybody was happy and grinning and smiling.
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  And I that kind of tells you that, you know, maybe everybody
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  thought, man, this is not working out in any of his favor.
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  We've got to fix this. And you know, and for all the
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  critics of Michael Jordan, all right, you know, Mike come in
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  with his way of doing things in the NBA and what he saw and
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  thought he could help the sport by changing some of it in his
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  way from June France's side, You know, his sports, his family's
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  daddy's granddaddy or daddy started.
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  His brother ran it. His his little nephew ran it for
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  a while. He's been running for a few
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  years. It's it's you know, it's been a
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  very successful company for what 70 or 80 years?
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  And the way they do things, it's always been successful and no
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  need to change. Well, you know, these two got
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  together and and it and it seems like right now in the onset
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  outset, it seems like, you know, we've achieved something that
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  maybe we never would have achieved and that's something
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  that makes everything better. You know, that's that's what we
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  want. And and and for the critics of
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  Jim France, you know, I can tell you this, Jim France is a good
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  man. He's a good man.
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  He's an honest man. I'll tell you a real quick
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  story. 1990 or sometime by by rookie time in in the in the
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  Western Cup division Western in those days where Daytona to walk
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  through the garage area right there near my my my car in A and
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  a fan walks up to me starts talking a little guy not large
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  in statues got a ball cap on and he starts talking to me as a fan
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  and ask me different questions and you know, just really
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  talking about my car and you know what I think and this step
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  down a pretty neat little conversation and he walked away
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  and I walked in the garage and this guy said back one of my
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  guys said you know him. I said who they said the guy
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  he's talking to. I said no, I don't know him.
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  You don't know who that is. I said no, they said, what's Jim
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  France? I said, who's Jim France right.
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  That's how that's how unknowledgeable I was at the
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  time about these things. But then over the years, just
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  watching him, he's always been in the background, been real
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  quiet. You know, again, his brother and
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  his nephew ran the thing for years.
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  And once all that went away, you know, he had to step in and,
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  and, and, and, and take this thing over.
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  And, you know, it's just, he's been so steadfast through this
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  thing about not giving charters right or not giving permanent
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  charters that and he and explained these reasons on
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  trial. Why are why he was that way.
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  And then for him to go ahead today and give the charters
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  permanent to these guys and I'll work, work the thing out.
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  He understands. He, you know, he's got a big
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  picture. He understands this thing.
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  So anyhow, lot more on this thing to digest and to move
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  forward with, but that was that. Just wanted to give you my
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  initial quick thoughts. And we'll be, you know, Kenny's
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  out on the ocean somewhere on a boat, you know, I'm not sure
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  where he's at, but I'm sure he gets he gets his, he get his, he
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  gets him a little signal. You'll be hearing from him on
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  this real shortly. So anyhow, we'll talk to you a
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  little later guys. Bye bye.