Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / 9-Time USMTS Champion Kelly Shryock Talks Racing From My Shop | Kenny Conversation

Transcript

9-Time USMTS Champion Kelly Shryock Talks Racing From My Shop | Kenny Conversation · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:05
  Before we introduce ourselves, this is the biggest crowd I've
• 0:09
  ever seen at my house. Thank you, Kelly Shyrock,
• 0:15
  everybody, but let's get it started right up.
• 0:18
  Hello everyone, and welcome to Kenny.
• 0:20
  Conversation brought to you by Jags, the Leader in high
• 0:24
  performance aftermarket car parts.
• 0:27
  Remember to go to jegs.com for everything you need to fix your
• 0:30
  car up or even that hot rod that you have at your house.
• 0:35
  That's right, That's right. We probably got 1000 people here
• 0:39
  and man, we are packed and we're excited.
• 0:42
  So this is the Kenny Wallace open house.
• 0:44
  The boss is next door, my wife. But this next guest is somebody
• 0:50
  that I admire. Look up to the great Kelly
• 0:54
  Shyrock. How you doing, Kelly?
• 0:55
  I'm doing really good. I was when we couldn't get up
• 0:59
  your hill here, I had to walk up.
• 1:00
  I thought I was going to die, but.
• 1:03
  You know what I find, Kelly? The older we get, it's like, oh,
• 1:07
  when we're racing the race car, we're OK, just don't make me
• 1:11
  run. Definitely.
• 1:15
  All right, so you called and you said, Herman, I'm thinking about
• 1:19
  stopping by your place, and you probably feared it wouldn't be
• 1:22
  difficult when you showed up and you saw these people.
• 1:25
  What do you think? No, when you sent that text I
• 1:27
  was thinking no, but this is pretty cool to be part of this,
• 1:34
  so we just got to bump through it here and try to get your
• 1:38
  questions answered the best I can.
• 1:40
  All right, Kelly Shyrock, Nine time USMTS champion, 158 wins
• 1:49
  this year, 2025 IMCA Stock car champion.
• 1:53
  Let's start right there for a minute.
• 1:56
  I followed you. How hard was it to win this
• 2:00
  championship compared to the other nine in USMTS?
• 2:04
  How hard is stock car compared to mods?
• 2:06
  Well, so our points deal goes back to with USMTS is a little
• 2:11
  different, a lot more points involved per position.
• 2:15
  And you know, my dad, I didn't give him a long time to help me
• 2:20
  with racing, but some of his information was is number one,
• 2:26
  have fun #2 do the best you can and #3 load that race car up in
• 2:31
  one piece knowing that always the fastest car doesn't win.
• 2:35
  So throughout my points chasing for like USMPS and track points
• 2:40
  and such, that was my motto. But in the in the, in the I'm
• 2:46
  say world, you throw out your worst finishes, you get 25 of
• 2:50
  your best fit, 50 finishes. So once you get down to getting
• 2:54
  enough wins, you got to run a second.
• 2:59
  If you run a second, you might not gain any points.
• 3:02
  You win, you throw out a second, you gain one point.
• 3:06
  So you go to a race that's got a lot of cars and you run second,
• 3:09
  you gain no points on your competitor.
• 3:13
  You can never do good enough. You need to win all the time.
• 3:15
  It it's a it's AI don't know Kyle Bush, but with second place
• 3:19
  is first. Loser. 2nd place is definitely
• 3:21
  first loser because you don't gain no points on that on on
• 3:24
  your competitor guys so. So that's the way it is for us
• 3:27
  and you and Pete. It's a tough battle to be able
• 3:30
  to get. You got to win, You got to win.
• 3:34
  How many do they take your 30 best?
• 3:37
  25 or 50 nights. OK, so here's your stats.
• 3:41
  Yes, 21 feature wins and 44 starts this year. 33 top threes,
• 3:48
  36 top fives here. Here's the big 140 top 10.
• 3:53
  So that means there was only four races.
• 3:56
  Yes Sir, that you were outside of top ten.
• 3:58
  I bet you remember those races. We had a couple little issues
• 4:02
  for sure. And you know, and, and what was
• 4:03
  fortunate for us in our chase was it was the O5 car.
• 4:09
  The guy that we were chasing, we could have run 50 nights.
• 4:14
  He kind of gave us a break. He runs second six times of his
• 4:17
  last seven or eight races. So if he would have won, that
• 4:21
  would have put a lot more pressure on us.
• 4:23
  But luckily for for our sake that he runs second and then he
• 4:27
  was couldn't throw out a second so he didn't gave me points on
• 4:30
  us. So we were kind of sitting there
• 4:32
  waiting if we needed to go race some more, but we had six nights
• 4:35
  left. We could have raced some more if
• 4:36
  we would have needed to, but we didn't need to.
• 4:38
  So it worked out for us. All right, so I admire you, but
• 4:42
  I'd like to talk racing with you.
• 4:43
  So this year I won a couple championships, nothing like you
• 4:48
  went through, but I had gangsters racing me.
• 4:52
  It's still difficult. I'm just track championship like
• 4:54
  you did. I mean, it's still.
• 4:56
  Here's what I'll talk to you about, the mindset of going
• 4:58
  after championship. I come down to the last night
• 5:01
  and I'm racing a guy named Rick Kanoyer, who I mean is hardcore,
• 5:06
  drives harder than me. The last night he's beating on
• 5:11
  my ass and I pull over to let him go.
• 5:14
  He's leading the race and I'm running third, but I got him on
• 5:17
  3rd. You know where you have to
• 5:18
  finish. I know where you have to finish
• 5:20
  the last lap that he he's going to win, I'm going to run third
• 5:24
  and I win it. The last lap he gets passed, he
• 5:27
  runs second, I run third. I laid my head in my headrest
• 5:31
  and I had to run a mean cushion. So my question to you is this,
• 5:35
  when you go after those championships and they get
• 5:37
  intense like what I just went through, don't, don't pop the
• 5:42
  nose and I won by 7 points, what is that like?
• 5:46
  Well, so normally that is definitely difficult, but in my
• 5:50
  case we had to go, we had to win.
• 5:52
  You had to win. We had to win because we had to.
• 5:56
  You're mental, you're mentally stronger than most people.
• 5:59
  Most people can't. Do this very stressful We we've
• 6:02
  won our last. I don't even know how many, like
• 6:03
  the last five, it was 6 and it was the most stressful time in
• 6:07
  racing I've ever had because we had to win Second place didn't
• 6:11
  do us no good. But normally on our, you know,
• 6:13
  some test stuff or like you said, you, you know where you
• 6:17
  need to finish, you need to finish third, the guy can win
• 6:21
  and you're good. In our case, we had to win and
• 6:23
  that's just very difficult. So just comparing when I would
• 6:28
  go home, that was my worst time for me.
• 6:30
  I'd sleep, I'd think about it. Being in the shower, I'd think
• 6:33
  about it. I'd go to eat.
• 6:34
  I think about it. To me, the comfort zone was when
• 6:37
  I pulled on the racetrack. Most definitely, and you know,
• 6:40
  racing our stock car before was just go have fun and then we
• 6:43
  won. Well, then all of a sudden this
• 6:44
  championship picture come into play and now now we I didn't
• 6:48
  have fun racing for. So I'm I'm going to get back to
• 6:52
  have a fun race. OK.
• 6:54
  That's I, I love this Kelly, because this year I won about
• 6:59
  75% through the year and I'm comparing with you right now.
• 7:03
  This is about you, but I like to compare.
• 7:07
  So it became so miserable at the end of the year because I felt
• 7:11
  like if I didn't do it, I didn't accomplish what I wanted so bad.
• 7:15
  So I got it and I said OK, that's it next year.
• 7:19
  Missed the first two nights, then you don't have to worry
• 7:21
  about. It on purpose.
• 7:22
  On purpose, Yes, I am. Like I'm going to go on the Kyle
• 7:26
  Petty charity ride, run the whole deal, take weeks off on
• 7:30
  purpose, so you're going to take yourself out.
• 7:32
  I, I really, it's just too stressful to do.
• 7:36
  We don't I, I again, my dad said have fun.
• 7:39
  I I didn't have fun racing for this because it would have been
• 7:43
  such a disappointment if we didn't.
• 7:44
  Like you said, if we didn't get it, it would have been a
• 7:47
  disappointment. I love other things in life.
• 7:49
  I love racing the most, but I read a baseball book.
• 7:53
  I love the Cardinals and our best manager, Tony Larussa, he
• 7:57
  said. I go to the stadium to get my
• 8:00
  gut tore out and I'm like, I can relate to that.
• 8:04
  Is there something about us doing what's so difficult?
• 8:08
  Well, I think part of it is, is not to say my, my, my sister
• 8:11
  hates me talking about our age, but our age is a factor here and
• 8:14
  we're racing against these young guys that are up on the wheel.
• 8:17
  Not to say we can't be up on the wheel for our full race, but I
• 8:22
  still tend to take a little breather once in a while knowing
• 8:25
  that we got to get to the end of this thing and still have all
• 8:28
  the wheels on. My race car, Yeah.
• 8:30
  Well, I admire you. I think you're the best and I
• 8:33
  got so much to talk to you about.
• 8:35
  Congratulations on that hard earned championship that.
• 8:37
  Was that's. That was pretty cool.
• 8:38
  That's a big deal. Let's go to the beginning.
• 8:43
  I first learned of you from Clint Boyer.
• 8:46
  Kind of like Schrader and myself, we brag on you because
• 8:50
  you're the realist. You're so hardcore, it's even, I
• 8:54
  mean you. It's hard to get your hands
• 8:56
  clean. You can't.
• 8:57
  Show the people your hands go like this.
• 8:59
  Those are working man. Take the red tin.
• 9:02
  Sniff. Cut some O60 tubing.
• 9:04
  Broken. Just got this.
• 9:06
  This one's just healing on my thumb.
• 9:09
  Took the grinder across. The water and went to the.
• 9:11
  To the skin, but you just put a Band-Aid put, grab some black
• 9:15
  tape and wrap around it and. Keep digging.
• 9:17
  Keep digging. Yeah, so.
• 9:18
  So Clint Boyer was in a Body Shop and he was running mods and
• 9:21
  he was winning at Lakeside in Kansas.
• 9:24
  And I first heard about you from Clint Boyer.
• 9:26
  So he was. He was so previous of my own
• 9:29
  business. I worked for Bob Harris and
• 9:31
  Harris Auto Racing. Oh my God.
• 9:33
  I. Haven't built cars for 20 years.
• 9:34
  Just shy of 20 years with Harris.
• 9:36
  Yes, Sir. So that's how Clint knew of you
• 9:38
  So. Clint had Harris cars when he
• 9:41
  was racing the dirt tracks around the lakeside and success
• 9:46
  is. Clint a natural talent?
• 9:47
  Or did he have to become good? Did did he make himself good?
• 9:50
  What's your opinion on Clint Boyer, the Dirt Racer?
• 9:53
  He was a good racer, but I beat him every time we raced him.
• 9:57
  That's that's Clint. That that, that's why say that,
• 9:59
  but that's why Clint was. A good racer.
• 10:02
  And Clint. Clint was had to do the right
• 10:04
  people to get hooked up to the direction he was heading and it
• 10:08
  was pretty cool have him in the car in the Harris days.
• 10:12
  In fact, I think the car he shows at his shop is the Harris
• 10:16
  car that I built that we've built back in the day.
• 10:19
  So I think that one car he has is an old, his original Hairs
• 10:23
  car. Then we went on our own and
• 10:25
  started to skyrocket business and then Clint got a car and
• 10:30
  Schrader got a car and that was pretty cool to have them guys in
• 10:33
  our cars for sure. You see right here, my dad,
• 10:35
  Illinois Soccer Hall of Fame dad Russ Wallace won over 400
• 10:39
  features. You know, he was the guy around
• 10:41
  here. We, we grew up with people
• 10:43
  hating us and, and it was just part of it.
• 10:48
  My mom and myself, we would fight because they hated my dad.
• 10:52
  He'd win 11 features in a row over at Granted.
• 10:56
  Did did you ever have to go through people hating you?
• 10:59
  Or did did everybody always love you?
• 11:01
  Well, it started out with again a little with my dad's story.
• 11:06
  My dad won a lot. My dad was a natural race car
• 11:08
  driver. Similar to your status as a
• 11:12
  little kid watching and hearing people Boo your dad.
• 11:15
  It's very difficult. Hated it.
• 11:16
  It was bad they. Wished my dad to burn to death.
• 11:19
  That's terrible. Here I am 62 years old and I
• 11:21
  remember somebody going, I wish that Wallace would burn to
• 11:24
  death. And I'm like, right?
• 11:26
  So my dad would get booed, and as a young kid I just couldn't
• 11:30
  understand that. And so my dad was a new Doug
• 11:34
  Wolfgang. Oh woofie.
• 11:36
  Wolfie back in the day was winning every race he was in and
• 11:38
  people were just doing him like crazy.
• 11:40
  So my dad talked to him and Wolf can give him some information.
• 11:47
  Take the energy, turn it around. And.
• 11:50
  And run with it. And so he, my dad, and my mom
• 11:53
  was able to translate that to us as kids.
• 11:56
  And I kid you not, when my dad started doing that racing become
• 12:00
  a lot funner again when the people were booing because then
• 12:03
  he would literally get he when he would get out of the car and
• 12:06
  he just raised his hands. Taun him.
• 12:08
  You would swear God just quote and then he had a lot of fun
• 12:11
  with that. So when I first started racing,
• 12:14
  my success was not very good, to the point where, bless my mom's
• 12:20
  heart, she literally asked me, Are you sure you want to be a
• 12:23
  race car driver? Because your dad was so.
• 12:26
  Good. My dad was so good.
• 12:27
  And my mom, I was thinking, yeah, yeah.
• 12:29
  Yeah, I want. To be a race car driver, but she
• 12:32
  was trying to slightly tell me that.
• 12:34
  Quit. Quit.
• 12:35
  I'm terrible. Your dad's whore.
• 12:37
  Your dad's the greatest. Yeah.
• 12:39
  And then unfortunately we won our first race.
• 12:42
  Yeah, he had just got a ride with the Late Model team and won
• 12:50
  like 5 out of seven races. So I won my first race.
• 12:53
  So now it's finally time for my for me to.
• 12:55
  All right. Oh man, it's time for you to
• 12:57
  step aside. He's going to teach you a lesson
• 13:00
  now. He went on a Saturday and then
• 13:02
  he got killed on a Monday. I'm sorry.
• 13:04
  I really am. So I went and raced and raced
• 13:06
  and raced the next couple years, didn't win a race.
• 13:09
  And then finally determination and hard work.
• 13:12
  And then we started winning some races and then we kept moving on
• 13:17
  and moving on. And eventually, eventually young
• 13:22
  people started booing me because.
• 13:24
  Yeah, because we were. So now you knew how to deal with
• 13:26
  it. Now I know how to deal with it
• 13:27
  and have fun with it so. OK, I know this sounds crazy,
• 13:32
  but sometimes I say to myself after listening to you talk
• 13:35
  about your dad, sometimes I say to myself, what is it about
• 13:40
  Shyrock that I like so much? And you just reminded me it was
• 13:43
  two things with me and you. Not to you because you're busy
• 13:47
  racing, but you see what the one is right here.
• 13:51
  I was 3 BS. Yes, Yeah.
• 13:54
  Tell everybody what you taught me about the three BS.
• 13:56
  So. Like if you're struggling with
• 13:58
  your race card you just check the three BS you find the sub
• 14:01
  that's bent, broke and bound up and at that point you you can
• 14:06
  fix your race card most of the time if it's not handling like
• 14:09
  you. We were, we were signing in for
• 14:12
  a USMTS race at Marshalltown and I didn't.
• 14:15
  I had two race cars at that time and my Donnie Jumper, impressive
• 14:21
  race cars. He goes, Herman, why don't you
• 14:22
  like that car? It was just another car.
• 14:24
  It was a new car. I said it just don't have no
• 14:26
  side body, don't grill. So they did something stupid
• 14:31
  like cut the clip off and put it back on and I liked it.
• 14:36
  But because of you, I work on my car too hard.
• 14:40
  I'm constantly checking my droop, checking my hind joints,
• 14:43
  making sure everything's free. And Dick Trickle taught me that
• 14:46
  years ago too. A car.
• 14:50
  I mean to you, what is the most important thing of your race car
• 14:53
  besides everything? Everything, every aspect of
• 14:57
  everything you do to know everything is within less than a
• 15:00
  16th of an inch or within 5 lbs of the load stick and trying to
• 15:05
  make sure it's as best as you can because you're racing guys
• 15:08
  that have it the best that they can be.
• 15:09
  And then if you think you're going to beat them guys, you got
• 15:12
  to you got to have your stuff correct.
• 15:14
  Sometimes you end up with a give you another scientifical swag,
• 15:19
  the swag, you know, which is scientifical wild ass guess.
• 15:24
  And we knew that, you know, our all of our adjustments are a
• 15:27
  swag, Yeah, to try to figure out what's wrong with our race cars,
• 15:31
  to make them go faster. So sometimes you miss, sometimes
• 15:35
  you get it. But, you know, constantly you
• 15:38
  can win the race. And as a racer, you know, as
• 15:41
  well as I do, we're still going to make an adjustment because it
• 15:44
  wasn't quite right. Right.
• 15:46
  Because we're trying to make our car perfect.
• 15:48
  Perfect. Brother Rusty once said to me
• 15:51
  goes Herman, when I was in NASCAR, he'd say if you try 5
• 15:55
  things when you got people around you, 2 of them better be
• 15:59
  right. But for the most part, if you
• 16:03
  try 5 things, you're really happy if one works.
• 16:06
  Well, and, and people that maybe doesn't understand racing, we're
• 16:10
  looking for 1/2, a 10th or a tenth to make our race car
• 16:14
  better. And it's real easy to lose 2/10
• 16:16
  then find that half a 10th a lot.
• 16:19
  I remember Marshalltown, it was kind of, I don't know, the
• 16:22
  weather wasn't right, but you were underneath your car and
• 16:25
  that's when your your mod, the right front lower crossman was
• 16:30
  bottoming out real hard. But you told me it's it's to
• 16:34
  make that car handle at that time, while back 5-6 years ago
• 16:38
  you had to have that car just touching a little.
• 16:41
  Bit got it. You want to touch him to make
• 16:43
  side bite, make steer but if it touches too hard then you show.
• 16:46
  So I mean, you're, you're a gangster.
• 16:48
  You're all over that. Oh yes, for sure.
• 16:50
  Like, yeah, I mean, you were doing things to make it get down
• 16:53
  there or stay down there. But anyway, getting back to our
• 16:58
  dads. So I really liked broke, bent
• 17:01
  and bound. Did did you ever find yourself
• 17:04
  wanting to load up but you had to do something that was a lot?
• 17:09
  Never load up, never give up, never quit, ever.
• 17:11
  Ever. For sure.
• 17:12
  So we've been horns down, got them back up and won graces for
• 17:18
  the evening with horns that should have been clipped off.
• 17:21
  And that's part of my problem. I don't know when to just call
• 17:25
  it quits, and there's sometimes when I should have just pulled
• 17:28
  off. But I'm not a quitter, so we
• 17:30
  don't. See, I can't, I can't.
• 17:32
  I can't give up either. Almost too adept, Like I drive
• 17:35
  like my car, my shop, everything.
• 17:39
  I can't load up unless I make sure everything on that car is
• 17:43
  right. And you're the same way.
• 17:45
  And it's got a life over limb. You want to make sure the inside
• 17:47
  is right versus the body might not be perfect.
• 17:50
  Yeah, what? Like Larry Phillips?
• 17:52
  He would He was a he lit erased for a living.
• 17:54
  Larry had his gauges taped on with black tape.
• 17:59
  And Dick Trickles the same way, but the stuff that matter.
• 18:03
  Life over limb. Just make sure the suspension is
• 18:06
  right. Life over.
• 18:07
  Limb, we don't worry about the dented Fender versus making sure
• 18:11
  the bird cages aren't bound and the full bar spring is correct.
• 18:15
  3DS swag life over limb. We can lose a Fender, but we
• 18:23
  don't want to lose the four link rod.
• 18:25
  Do you have friends that make you aware that you have great
• 18:28
  comments? Are you?
• 18:30
  I have. I'm associated with some of the
• 18:32
  best people in the world. They support me.
• 18:33
  Unbelievable. Just like you.
• 18:35
  Three BS swag life over limb. It means the body that is not
• 18:39
  that big a deal but not be quite right but but that but that hind
• 18:42
  joint bound up we can't deal with.
• 18:43
  That that hind joint better not be bound.
• 18:46
  Up correct yeah 'cause it's kind of that's going to kill us I'm.
• 18:48
  Going to keep this out of victory.
• 18:49
  Lane and then getting in the car was the second thing that drew
• 18:53
  me to you because when my dad died October 30th, 2011.
• 18:59
  Sure you know your dad's date and then you get in that race
• 19:02
  car and we got those that decal right there.
• 19:04
  Do you still have your dad's? Decal I don't, but I I I still
• 19:08
  rub the panel. It makes you feel better.
• 19:10
  I'm going to cry, but. Yeah, I rub that.
• 19:12
  Yeah, that's OK. Yeah, I get it.
• 19:14
  I understand. But we all come from somewhere,
• 19:18
  OK? At the end of this year, I want
• 19:21
  to go back to your championship this year.
• 19:23
  This hot streak you went on, you won seven of eight with your
• 19:26
  car. Is that right?
• 19:28
  I'm not sure the stats on that. We, we won at the end.
• 19:31
  We we we clicked off some wins that we needed to get the job
• 19:34
  done. And you.
• 19:36
  Know. Yeah, I think it was some worse
• 19:38
  than there. We end up with 21 wins and like
• 19:43
  I said, we didn't race them at the end because they got our
• 19:47
  competitor. He he, he, he run a bunch of
• 19:51
  seconds and I'm sure. He won by.
• 19:53
  He won by two points. Two points.
• 19:56
  It comes down to bonus points. With IMC, it's got a lot of
• 19:59
  factors and it just comes down to your bonus points at the end
• 20:03
  and it comes down and one of the championships was a tiebreaker,
• 20:06
  One of the championships was one from a disqualification.
• 20:09
  Moving the car. Oh my God, the classes so and
• 20:12
  IMC, it's a tight, tight battle when it gets down because they
• 20:15
  take your best, finish it. So that cuts that off.
• 20:18
  And then the bonus points is what makes the difference of
• 20:21
  your champion. Do do you have people that start
• 20:23
  auditing all this at the end of the year?
• 20:25
  No, we did throughout the year, but we had the two or three
• 20:28
  people, my sister Brian Saragi. I mean, we had a, we had a a
• 20:32
  sheet. I would lay in bed and grab my
• 20:35
  phone and start doing my calculation.
• 20:36
  Spreadsheet and you know we were off one on race pass.
• 20:42
  It comes down to Carr County to get your bonus.
• 20:45
  Points. Yes, for us it's over 25.
• 20:47
  And it come down to one guy got disqualified one night.
• 20:52
  And you didn't know it. I didn't.
• 20:53
  Know it. So that dropped our car count
• 20:56
  like a couple points and then that was going to make a
• 20:59
  difference or a couple tenths. So if we could get to a certain
• 21:03
  point, it would gain us that extra point in our bonus points
• 21:08
  that we needed. So, my Lord, yeah.
• 21:10
  It comes down. It actually not only comes down
• 21:11
  to points, it comes down to cancel the points.
• 21:14
  Jesus. OK, so when I think of you, I
• 21:17
  think of We were somewhere and you about knocked a clip off
• 21:22
  your car. It was a USMTS race.
• 21:25
  It was a strange place front straight away heat race and I'm
• 21:28
  like he's done and you and you fix it yourself.
• 21:32
  So when when I think of you, I have these snapshots and then I
• 21:35
  read up that who, who is this guy Mike?
• 21:39
  Mike how in Lake Mills Morse works.
• 21:41
  He's been associated with this for many, many years.
• 21:45
  You start out owning your stuff and now you have help.
• 21:47
  He he owns a stock car and he owns some of my modified.
• 21:50
  I'll be damned. Yes.
• 21:51
  So I was pretty fortunate with my stock car.
• 21:53
  Mike pretty much takes care of it.
• 21:56
  Ryan takes care of my modified. So he, it's, it's frustrating
• 21:59
  for him a lot of times because I'm in the stock car when I
• 22:02
  should be trying to figure out my modified.
• 22:04
  So you know, so we jumped it back and forth.
• 22:06
  We run 2 cars a night I think feature events 100 and 120 so
• 22:11
  115 or 20 nights. OK, so as a racer, I was talking
• 22:15
  to Zach Anderby. I'm like Zach, my God, the
• 22:18
  Emmanuel labor on these stock cars.
• 22:21
  It just looks like you're just welding and cutting and torching
• 22:25
  for me when I look at it and growing up being a fabricator.
• 22:28
  Not as hardcore as you, but I'm definitely a fabricator.
• 22:31
  It looks to me like there's more man hours in a stock car than
• 22:34
  there is a mod. It is.
• 22:35
  OK. It is now though Speedway has
• 22:40
  the aftermarket frames and that's probably the only reason
• 22:42
  why I'm using. I'm building stock cars because.
• 22:45
  The whole frame. The whole thing.
• 22:47
  Yep, the. Clip, clip.
• 22:50
  Yeah, well, the metric. Frame so as a dealing with
• 22:55
  junkyard stuff for as many years as we did working for Harris and
• 22:58
  our own stuff, you know, Rusty bent up that sand glass bad
• 23:03
  Rusty moving these big full frames around just out of my
• 23:08
  comfort zone. So Speedway with their
• 23:11
  aftermarket frame, a lot of people struggling with that and
• 23:14
  we've got a few struggles with that frame, but we're we're
• 23:17
  getting a handle on. It makes.
• 23:20
  It much easier to build. Why I see Ricky Thornton, who
• 23:25
  is, you know, I watched him come along as a kid and I was doing
• 23:29
  some speed TV stuff and I had a, a girl named Heather debut and
• 23:34
  Heather's from out in Arizona. She goes, there's this kid I
• 23:36
  didn't name Ricky Thornton, Little Little Ricky.
• 23:38
  They all call him Little Ricky, but he end up being one of the
• 23:41
  greats. No question.
• 23:43
  He likes these stock cars. What?
• 23:45
  So the bottom line is, if a great driver like Ricky
• 23:48
  Thornton, what is the deal with Stockwatch?
• 23:50
  They're just fun to drive. So for myself and people that
• 23:55
  you're laying on the couch and you're watching, you've got to
• 23:57
  do Daytona and Talladega, 3IN car, 33 rows, the three wide
• 24:05
  drafting and you think, God darn, that looks like fun.
• 24:08
  Yeah. That's the closest I'm going to
• 24:11
  get. I can't imagine I would just
• 24:12
  give anything to do that because that has that.
• 24:15
  I'm sure it was tense, but it had to be a blast in them drafts
• 24:18
  like that. And that's and that's the stock
• 24:20
  cars. You hear the guys talk about
• 24:21
  stock cars. They're just fun.
• 24:23
  They're two and three wide racing.
• 24:25
  You stuff it in wherever. There's you.
• 24:28
  You can never get away from anybody.
• 24:29
  You can. I ran that race at Yuma in a
• 24:31
  stock car. Me and Bobby, the body and we at
• 24:34
  the time of our life, it, it felt like we had just enough
• 24:37
  horsepower to be in control. But I feel like I'm in control.
• 24:41
  But I could never get away from anybody.
• 24:43
  They're so competitive and you know, that's what makes them
• 24:46
  fun, just having to try to figure out how to pass that guy
• 24:50
  not in a preferred line and and he only got 1520 laps to do it.
• 24:55
  They're they're just. Fun to drive.
• 24:57
  All right, so I I'm going to let you know how much I appreciate
• 24:59
  you coming today. I admire you immensely.
• 25:03
  Let's hand like this, we do talk to each other every once in a
• 25:08
  while. And you said, OK, I'm coming to
• 25:11
  the Dome, Herman, I'm bringing this kid down that is a total
• 25:15
  gangster. He's a gangster.
• 25:16
  Tell me about this, What's his name?
• 25:18
  Goosebumps. He's that good.
• 25:20
  He's he's up and coming. Tell me about it.
• 25:22
  We call him Smoke. I love this.
• 25:26
  The Joe Chisholm, the the Jim Chisholm, he he's kind of made
• 25:29
  his name USMTS Good guy, good kid, good family.
• 25:34
  And I told Joe if he got invited, I'd haul him to the
• 25:37
  Dome. I I've never taken off in
• 25:40
  December in 35 years. This is our busy season.
• 25:44
  Well, December's my wife's month when we when we became
• 25:48
  boyfriend, girlfriend and then I started racing for a living.
• 25:50
  She says, honey, I give you the whole damn year.
• 25:54
  Can you give me December and I OK so.
• 25:58
  So I told him if he gets invited, I'll haul him down and
• 26:03
  Pete, Alexander and and Ryan like your guy, like we're
• 26:08
  sitting watching the last. She was like, we're only 7 hours
• 26:10
  from there. We need to go so.
• 26:12
  Only 7. Smoke Smoke got invited and so
• 26:14
  here we are. He come in to shop the other day
• 26:18
  and he had a question on scoring this kids all in.
• 26:24
  If you're running 2nd and you slip over the top of the lever
• 26:32
  and the back of the car. Goes first first.
• 26:35
  But your transponder's on the. Front.
• 26:37
  Will they give me that spot? I got the right.
• 26:41
  Driver so so this is funny. The transponders I hear on Axel
• 26:45
  tube so we're in good shape. Every year I come up with a word
• 26:48
  and somebody gave me a T-shirt. They call him call him Kenny
• 26:50
  Isms. And this year I've been using
• 26:52
  the word gangster. Gangster means you're a bad ass.
• 26:56
  Like you're really good at what you do, you know?
• 26:59
  I get is the man. He's going to, yeah.
• 27:01
  It'll be exciting. Do you like the Dome from a
• 27:05
  standpoint of a racer? Personally for myself, no
• 27:09
  interest at all, just watching it.
• 27:13
  No question it needs character to have a good race track to
• 27:16
  watch it be exciting to watch. I never liked rough race tracks
• 27:21
  and I'd like big half miles where you can be calculated, so
• 27:25
  I wouldn't be very good. So Kenny Schrader and myself, we
• 27:30
  do a show called Herman Schrader for Dale Earnhardt Junior and
• 27:34
  Schrader said to me because I knew this but I didn't know if
• 27:37
  Schrader was ever going to admit it.
• 27:39
  Kenny Schrader says that Dome is going to be the largest crowd in
• 27:44
  dirt race in history, 35 to 38,000 people.
• 27:49
  With that being said, is the Dome a celebration of dirt
• 27:53
  racing? I think it's just, you know,
• 27:56
  racers are, we're all family and it's our last chance to get
• 27:59
  together with our racing family before the holidays and.
• 28:02
  The dates right, PR is next. Week.
• 28:04
  It's all just lines up. Whoever come up with this was a
• 28:07
  genius. Chad, Weir said.
• 28:09
  I'm going from Chad, you know, it makes a lot of great parts
• 28:13
  and he goes, I'm going to be gone 14 days.
• 28:15
  He goes I'm I'm leaving the Dome and I'm going straight to PRI.
• 28:18
  It is it is great time. Just getting in there last night
• 28:22
  and looking at it, I've been to a lot of events.
• 28:25
  This is an event. This is I'm, I'm excited.
• 28:29
  So yeah, pretty excited. All right, everybody.
• 28:32
  All right. Listen up, everybody.
• 28:34
  I want to let you all know that how much we appreciate you.
• 28:37
  And this is the end of our Kenny conversation with my friend
• 28:40
  Kelly Shyrock. Give him a round of applause.
• 28:44
  Yes, I admire you. And, and I want to say this, I I
• 28:49
  recognize that we're opposites. He's hardcore.
• 28:53
  When I grew up, I didn't have any money.
• 28:56
  Broke ass right down the road here, still broke.
• 28:58
  And I would take soda bottles and tape them on my bicycle and
• 29:01
  I'd go up to the 711. And I learned when I started
• 29:05
  racing that somehow I had to find money to do what I love to
• 29:09
  do because I don't have a lot of talent.
• 29:11
  I had to make myself a race car driver.
• 29:14
  Most definitely. So that's the reason, the way I
• 29:17
  am, I got to talk, I got to run my mouth, I got to have
• 29:20
  sponsorship. So they'll give me money.
• 29:23
  And this is me and opposites attract.
• 29:26
  I love you. You're a complete badass.
• 29:29
  And I believe it when I see it. If you really just have fun next
• 29:33
  year. I'm going to have fun.
• 29:35
  I'm going to have fun. Are you going to have fun too,
• 29:39
  buddy? Yeah.
• 29:40
  All right. So I'm going to have fun next
• 29:42
  year. You're going to have fun next
• 29:44
  year. And kool-aid Kelly, everybody,
• 29:50
  kool-aid with Kelly. Hey, listen, thank you so much.
• 29:54
  Kelly, we got to go and. Load, go and load.
• 29:56
  What time is it, everybody? What time is it?
• 29:58
  10, 1710 O'clock in the mornings.
• 30:03
  All it is. Oh, man, I'm gonna sleep good
• 30:05
  tonight. I told.
• 30:07
  I told Ken. I said, Kelly, can you be here
• 30:09
  from 9:30 to 10:30? Yeah, but that's racers.
• 30:12
  We're already nervous. I don't think the see the Dome
• 30:14
  don't open till noon. But, you know, by the time you
• 30:17
  stop, you know, you should probably leave.
• 30:22
  All right, everybody, until the next Kenny conversation.
• 30:25
  We'll see you next time. Say goodbye everybody.