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NASCAR Doesn't Have Mechanics Anymore | Coffee With Kenny · Kenny Wallace Media

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  Happy Tuesday morning, everybody.
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  You know what that means, don't you?
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  It's Tuesday, my favorite day of the week.
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  Yeah. Hey, Yeah.
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  You guys want to go up to The Dells this weekend?
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  Yeah. Want to go to Clear Lake?
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  Yeah. And.
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  But we'll stop over it whole chunk, don't you know?
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  Yeah, stop it. Stop it.
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  Those are my people. Kim's family all lives in
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  Milwaukee, and they do not talk like that.
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  No. Yes, they do.
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  Tuesday. Can't help it.
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  All right, It is Tuesday. And Kim and myself are getting
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  ready to head up to the Arrow Puerto here in St.
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  Louis, MO, home of the big one. Speaking of St.
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  Louis, MO, our Cardinals, our baseball Cardinals, they are
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  winning a lot down at spring training.
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  I don't know how that's going to transfer into the real season.
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  Respond right here. Auggie Nash.
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  Hi, Auggie. I don't know if he watches or
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  not, but Auggie is on a social media lot and talks about our
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  Cardinals every day. I love watching baseball.
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  Always ready for baseball season, they say.
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  How do you think the Cardinals are going to do this year,
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  Herman? I say listen, enjoy the game and
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  look up at the standings in August.
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  OK everybody, we're going to go to the Arrow Puerto and I am
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  headed to Bike Week down in Daytona Beach.
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  Brother Rusty, nephew Steven. They have their motorcycle
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  company, Southern Country Customs.
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  They have it set up in Ormond Beach at the Broken Spoke right
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  there on Hwy. 1. Come see us.
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  Steven's been down there for a solid 5 days or more.
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  I think they have 1 motorcycle left to sell, but you can order
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  them. So pay attention to all social
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  media sites. That is Southern country
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  customs. They they have the best
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  motorcycles. I, I always say that Rusty and
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  Stevens motorcycles, they are the Ferrari, they are the
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  Lamborghinis. People marvel at them.
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  They look at them there and then they buy them and they only have
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  one bike left. They went down with 9 and they
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  have one left and I don't it could be sold.
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  I know they sold one again last night.
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  So I think that was their show bike.
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  That was the copper king that was the bike had all the
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  speakers on it. So check them out.
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  Southern country customs. I'll be down there around 3:00
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  today. All right, subject matter.
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  Today when I went to the NASCAR race in Austin, TX, one of our
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  great leaders in NASCAR said something to me and I will never
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  forget it. He said Herman, we don't have
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  mechanics anymore, we have engineers.
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  And I looked at him with my eyes as big as silver dollars.
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  I said, oh that is really good. I said let me put that in my
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  phone. So that's the subject matter of
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  the day. Times have changed, everybody.
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  We don't have mechanics anymore, We have engineers.
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  Well, as soon as I wanted to complain about that, I realize
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  it's the same way for our passenger cars.
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  The car that you're driving, you cannot work on it anymore.
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  You know, I guess you could say long ago was the car that you
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  could park in your driveway and somehow finagle your way
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  underneath. Drain the oil, pull the oil
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  filter out, put one in, put in 5-6 quarts of oil or oil.
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  That was a mouthful. You know, change spark plugs,
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  Put a rotor cap on air filter, check the air in your tires.
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  That was the service that you could do right there.
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  And boy, you felt good about it. You'd get your buddies gathered
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  up back in the good old days and you'd you'd get a six pack of
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  beer and you'd say, come on over, I'm going to change the
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  oil and filters, spark plugs, rotor button, check there in my
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  tires. And buddy, you did that and you
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  was just about set for the year depending how much you drove
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  your car. So as I get ready to complain
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  that NASCAR doesn't have mechanics anymore, they have
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  engineers. I realize it's that way right
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  here at home. I want to tell you some things
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  that I saw that blew my mind. You know, I go to the NASCAR
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  races, I go to about 11 a year and you know, I have the ability
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  to do whatever I want to do. They're very nice to me.
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  Walk down through the garage area.
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  But this time I went out on Pit Rd. and you know, you go through
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  the garage area and you, you marvel at the cars and you're
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  like, my God, these things have changed so much.
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  One thing I noticed is that they don't Weld on them anymore.
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  If you Weld on a NASCAR race car, you're illegal because you
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  buy these cars. They're kit cars and you bolt
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  them together. That's why they see, you know,
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  the mechanics. I guess you know, it's one way
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  of explaining that you know what?
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  We don't have mechanics, we have engineers.
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  But it really is that way because you're not allowed to do
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  any body work. You're not allowed to spread any
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  bundle on the car. You can't do anything to change
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  the nature and the way you bought the car.
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  Every piece has got a parts number on it.
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  NASCAR inspects it. If they see just a little rough
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  up of the body, they're like, well, this is illegal.
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  Now, I'm not saying anything's bad.
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  I'm just bringing the point up that we are in a new world,
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  everybody. So I go out on pit Rd. and the
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  first thing I noticed is that every every single pit area has
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  a large generator. We're talking 7000, you know,
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  whatever you want to call that a lot.
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  And then the next pits might have a diesel generator.
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  We're not talking like we're not talking little old generator.
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  We're talking 700 or bigger. And I'm like, why?
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  Why do they all have these generators?
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  Well, then right there, right there on a stand, on this big,
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  beautiful stand is Starlink. Each pit box has their own
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  computer system. And then besides, you know, the
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  sponsors sitting right there, you know, the pit wagons are
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  like a sponsor's dream. You all get to sit on them.
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  You get to see what's happening. That's one way to entertain your
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  sponsors. But they're talking back to the
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  war room. Oh, yeah, big digital hook up
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  right there at the racetrack and they'll and they'll be carrying
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  on a conversation. You'll have 10 people back at at
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  the race shops, most likely in North Carolina.
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  You'll have 10 people in a war room.
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  It looks like Star Wars. All these screens set up and
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  you'll go, hey, you know Kyle Larson, he says his car is
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  loose. It's wanting to spin out.
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  What should we do? Well, the war room has massive
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  amounts of information and they'll talk back and forth.
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  Yes, now that's called telemetry.
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  That's real time. I guess you could say telemetry.
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  Now respond right here to me, Telemetry is devices on the car
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  that are real time. You know, data is when you got
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  to download what you're looking at, but you you can look at it
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  in real time. That's happened in real time.
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  Yeah. So anyway, just thought I'd
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  bring that up. And boy, they dressed up.
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  Every team now ropes off their car.
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  So, like, when the cars are on the grid, I'm thinking, Oh my
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  God, NASCAR's roped off these cars so the fans don't get in
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  them. No, it's a monkey see, monkey do
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  business. Every car I went passes like
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  roped off and you could tell each team has done it
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  themselves. All right, everybody, that's my
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  headlines. And by the way, I hear you all.
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  You're like, we need to go back to 5 lug nuts.
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  That's white noise that is never happening.
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  If you see what I saw, they'd have to build a new race car.
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  All right, everybody have a great Tuesday.