Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Rick Mast Talks Gateway, Kyle Larson & Tells Classic Darrell Waltrip Story!

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Rick Mast Talks Gateway, Kyle Larson & Tells Classic Darrell Waltrip Story! · Kenny Wallace Media

0:00
What's up everybody, Welcome back to the Rick Mast show.
0:03
I am Charlie Marlow. That is the great Rick Mast.
0:05
We're we're back now Rick gave his opinion last week on Stewart
0:09
Haas Racing. I was on vacation, but Rick, how
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are you? And we're back for our
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traditional show here this. Week, man, I'm great.
0:16
If I was any better, Charlie, I don't know what I would do.
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You know, it's kind of like, it's kind of like when I was
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racing and we had a good weekend and you, you live that weekend
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all week long, man, all week long.
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You just, you're just on a high, a natural high.
0:32
I love it because look, this, this last race in Saint Louis,
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which is kind of a of a fun debate around here because some
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people get mad when you call it Saint Louis because it's
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actually in Madison, IL. So there's some Illinois people
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that's oh, it's not Saint Louis, but it's, it's close to the big
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city of Saint Louis. It was a it was a a fun race.
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It was a nice efficient, about 3 hour race.
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The weather was really good, which was not the case the year
1:02
prior. So what do you think of Saint
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Louis or people still call it Gateway even though the name has
1:08
changed? You know, yeah, it's gate
1:10
gateway is what I think. Like what do we have some of the
1:13
racetrack? Harrisburg.
1:15
Ever heard of Harrisburg? That's Charlotte Motor Speedway.
1:18
It's actually in Harrisburg. People just get bad about that
1:21
and the let's see, Chicago that was Joliet or Juliet Joliet
1:25
right and people get upset about that, but I bet Kitty Wallace,
1:30
the only one gets upset. No, he doesn't get upset.
1:32
No, no, no, but anyhow, the no, the race, it was great, wasn't
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it? You know, it's like AI always
1:37
tell people gateway or Saint Louis or whatever you call it
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now it it it's a it's like A to me, it's a big Martinsville 2
1:44
long straightaways and two short turns right and it it made for
1:48
some. They had good racing, man.
1:49
It was good racing. I, I, you know, you look at that
1:52
deal. I mean, the, the big take away,
1:54
of course is, is Blaney run it out of fuel and we haven't heard
1:58
anything yet about why that happened.
2:00
I mean, obviously it was a it was a miscalculation on
2:04
somebody's part. You know, either they didn't get
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either the can wasn't full, they didn't get it full.
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They, they miscommunicated on the numbers.
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Whatever happened, I don't want the lot.
2:12
It cost that boy a race. But and then somebody said, and
2:15
I missed this, but somebody said that Mike Joy or or whoever made
2:20
the was it Mike Joy? Is he still doing it?
2:23
Yeah. Made the reference to the Rick
2:25
Mast, Harry Gantt helping Harry the last lap at Talladega
2:31
bumping out of gas story, right. And and they they said that he
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I, I missed it. They said he made reference to
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that deal, I guess when the last lap and they was trying to help
2:41
Blaney or whatever, but in it. But anyhow, man, that was so
2:44
discouraging for Blaney. Golly, it was discouraging.
2:48
I was happy for the Cindric guy, you know what I mean?
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I mean, his daddy, you know, Tim runs basically runs Pisky
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Racing, I guess you might say, in a, in a way.
2:56
And good, good, very good people.
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They're all very good people. And and Cindric's, his daddy's a
3:03
good dude and he's a good dude. And so, you know, it's, it's a
3:06
feel good thing for that bunch. For sure.
3:09
OK, so I got to the track super early because Kenny Wallace did
3:13
his live show at 9:30 in the morning.
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So I got there early, stayed about 3 hours, actually left,
3:20
came back, hung out with my family for a few hours and then
3:24
went back right after the start of the race.
3:27
And just just to be totally clear, I actually left about 30
3:32
with about 30 laps to go. So I listened to the final
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thirty laps on the radio, which was fun to listen to, but before
3:39
I get back to that, you got to tell me so I wasn't watching the
3:42
TV broadcast when Blaney ran out of gas.
3:45
So tell me about this Harry Gant story with you, because I have
3:48
not heard that one yet. Really.
3:50
Oh, man, Dude, this was Danny. Gosh, it's my, it's my first
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year of Skull, which would have been 91.
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Bob Johnson was my crew chief. We're running the car.
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We actually had a good car that day.
4:00
And we got we got mixed up. I think it was a race when Kyle
4:03
Petty broke his leg, I believe on the back stretch.
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I got mixed up in that wreck and it it screwed up the front of
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the nose of my car. So we'd come down pit Rd. and my
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crew was trying to fix the nose right and get it patched back
4:15
together. Well, we're on pit Rd. and they
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we didn't get back out in time to catch a pat.
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So when I go back out, I'm all by myself and we run all day.
4:27
Kind of it seems like like that. But anyhow, I come up Harry's
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lead race. He's leading the race.
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Towards the end of the race, I'm he, they're running me down
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like, and Harry comes up to me to lap me, OK.
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And we're running together and they come on the radio and tell
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me, Rick, Harry is leading and he hadn't pitted and it's going
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to be close on gas. Would you get behind him just in
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case, Right. So I get behind him, the race
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ends, Harry wins the race. We go, we pull in the garage
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area and I'm, I'm down here talking to all the reporters.
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I got as many reporters in my garage as Harry's got Victor
5:12
Lane, right. And I'm sitting here telling him
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that I did not help Harry. I, I may have bumped him a
5:17
couple times, but but I didn't, you know, I didn't actually help
5:21
him and all that, basically lying my ass off.
5:25
And then there's Harry up on Victor Lane on on CBSTV saying,
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I don't know if Rick hadn't have been there to help me, I don't I
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wouldn't have got this. Rick here hadn't been there to
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help me. Well, So what happens, Charlie?
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We get called to the red truck, right?
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Everybody knows. So anything what, what the red
5:44
truck means. So I go in the red truck there
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sets Darrell. OK, Darrell finishes second to
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Harry. Darrell Walker.
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Dick Beatty's in there. He he's, you know, he's like the
5:56
competition director at the time.
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I think Mr. French Junior was in there, three or four NASCAR
6:02
people and my team owner, Richard Jackson would go in
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there. What?
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Darrell's just, he's battered a wet head man, just raising holy
6:10
hell. You know, you can't do that.
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You can't push Rick. You pushed him on the last step
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and you can't do that. Darrell.
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Harry's got to be disqualified and on and on and on.
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And they're asking me and I all I'm doing is saying watch the TV
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cameras, guys. Just watch the TV cameras.
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That's all I can tell you watch the TV cameras because I kind of
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figured out at the time that I don't think that they really got
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good shots of what we were doing, even though the cameras
6:38
had to be honest. But anyhow, that's another whole
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long story about can replacement and drivers doing where the
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cameras are at all in those days, All right.
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But anyhow, so we're sitting there in here and there.
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I mean, again, but you know, Darrell's just trying to get it
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going, trying to get Harry disqualified.
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I'm not admitted to anything about that time.
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There's a knock on the door and the open.
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It's Jeff Hammond. All right.
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Jeff is Darrell's crew chief. All right, Darrell.
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Jeff says, Darrell, I need see you out here.
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Darrell says what? He says we got a problem.
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I need see you. He said I'm busy right now.
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He says, yeah, I know, Darrell, but we've got a problem.
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I need to talk to you out here. Talk to me in here if you want
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to talk to me. The car, our car is in
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inspection and our spoiler's too low.
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All right, So we have minimum degree on the rear spoilers.
7:29
That's a rule. And what would happen during the
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race, the guys that weren't cheating, that had little
7:35
hydraulic devices at all, that would lower the angle of the
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spoiler. If you lower the spoiler at
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Talladega or Daytona, you're going to go faster, dude.
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But I'd be it's like 100 horsepower.
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Lower that spoiler two or three degrees.
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So what would happen? The guys would come in to pit
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and they would you know, like the gas catch kin man or whoever
7:52
or either guy running around with the tire.
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You know, they would come around and just kind of whack at
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spoiler, right? Just whack it.
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And and you didn't have again, you didn't have 1000 cameras
8:03
zoomed in on every pit stop in those days and you only had so
8:06
many officials to watch this stuff.
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So during the race, at some point, one of one of the pit
8:11
crew Darrell's dudes, one of his guys hit the spoiler, knocked it
8:14
down right to make it faster. Not something that wasn't
8:20
unheard of. You know, people would do that.
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Just try to get get away with it.
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Well, anyhow, he said our our spoiler's too low and we be too
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well, it's, it's an inspection, Darrell.
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And they're they're the the spoilers low.
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And I will sit down here to talk to y'all in the rear truck.
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Darrell sits there for, I'm going to say a good seven or
8:41
eight seconds. Dead silence.
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Didn't say a word. Finally stands up.
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He looks at everybody and grins, says, you know, oh, Harry's a
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hell of a driver, Andy. I'll see y'all next week and
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walks out the door, right? Because what was going to happen
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if they disqualified Harry, they were going to have to disqualify
8:58
Darrell, right? And Darrell knew that.
9:01
And really Earnhardt, who should have won this for a good race,
9:04
he finished third, right? He's the one that should have
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won the race. But the, the, the, a funny part
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of that deal, it was so many funny parts of that.
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I mean, like the next week we go where we're at and Harry stops
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me, said, Rick, did you have to lie as much as I did all week
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about you pushing me? I said, no, I didn't lie
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anymore. I said when I was down there
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lying to these reporters, you were up there on national
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television saying I couldn't have made it with that old Rick
9:27
Bass had to help me. Yeah, but I didn't know it was
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illegal. I didn't know you couldn't do
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that. I'm like, well, whatever, you
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know, And I follow up to that story.
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Maybe two or three or four years ago, I did a clip on Twitter or
9:40
ex Down and it's from the movie Cars and Darrell's doing the
9:44
narration on cars, right? And and they're at a race
9:47
somewhere and somebody runs out of fuel.
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I forget the names of these car deals.
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You can look it up and find it. But you know, he's he's pushing
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the guy on last lap helping him. And Darrell's narrating.
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He says he's not really pushing and he's just bumping him and
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bumping's all right. There's nothing wrong with
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bumping the guy, right? So I put a thing out there.
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Well, see here, Darrell's been raising hell for 20 years about
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that or 30 years. And here he is now.
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He's now he's hypocritical because he said he said it's OK
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on the cars moving to do that. And Darrell had some kind of
10:16
smart aleck remark to it too, right?
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In fact, I, I tell you another part of that story, I relayed
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that story on the Dale Junior download two or three years ago,
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whatever is on it. And it was so funny.
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I called Darrell that night and I was telling him about that
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story. And here's the neat part, man,
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as we got to talking about it, Darrell went back to the moment,
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Charlie, he went back to that moment and I'm telling you, he
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got all pissed off again right there on the frigging telephone
10:46
with me talking about that. He was all it was.
10:49
It was weirdest statement. It was like he's back in the
10:52
moment. And I'm like, you know what race
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car drivers, they're just, they're just a different breed
10:58
because we didn't have a, as it turned out we did.
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We didn't have a logical conversation because he got back
11:05
in the moment and got all pissed off again because he thought he
11:07
had a victory robbed from him, right?
11:09
I thought to me, that whole story, that part right there was
11:13
the coolest part of that whole story.
11:14
And that was just like what, 2-3 years ago, right?
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So, you know, they talk about race car drivers have an
11:20
elephant memory. And that is true on stuff.
11:22
You know, we can't remember what we ate for breakfast, but we
11:25
could remember lap 178 at New Hampshire when that Freg and
11:27
Earnhardt hit me in Turn 3 and cost me a lap, right?
11:30
It's just the way it works with with drivers.
11:33
When did that rule change it? It seems like that.
11:36
I mean that it's not illegal now, right?
11:39
Because obviously Martin Turex junior was pushing Christopher
11:41
Bell at the end of the race just the other day.
11:43
I know that wasn't a gas issue. No, if if if the rule was
11:48
already in place, then if the rule hasn't changed.
11:51
It's just if you get caught doing it or not, OK, you, you
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cannot have, I forget how it's worded, but you, you got to, you
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got to, you got to come across start, finish line under your
12:00
own power. Got.
12:02
You, yeah, and and lead it up to it.
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So when, like when Harry, he come across finish line, hell,
12:07
he was getting Carlitz away from me, you know what I mean?
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OK, so did did Harry though? Did he actually run out of gas
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as he was? Oh yeah.
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Oh yeah, Oh yeah, Oh yeah. And it was, it was just funny
12:20
because you could see it, it happened two or three times when
12:23
I, I get against him and bump him and stuff.
12:25
And then the thing you could see, I can see black smoke
12:27
rolling out. It would grab a, a, a little bit
12:30
of gas and the thing would fire up and black smoke and it would,
12:33
it would fire up and take off, you know, but it was just, it
12:36
was, it wasn't, it wasn't. And though, like right now it
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seems like when these cars run out of fuel, now they're out the
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the way the pick ups are the picks the fuel up in the fuel
12:45
cell that it's like they got a fixed down engineer to where it
12:48
picks every oz up. You're picking, you're picking
12:50
up full fuel. And then when it gets empty,
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it's flat empty just like that. In those days, you would have
12:57
fuel in the thing and you might have, you know, a quarter of a
13:01
gallon or a pint or two pints or whatever, still the fuel cell.
13:04
But the thing wouldn't the pickup wouldn't pick it all up
13:06
at one time. And in the way it sloshes around
13:09
in the bacon and all that, you might the, the, the, the pickup
13:12
might get uncovered and have no fuel.
13:15
And if you wiggle the car a little bit, fuel would run over
13:17
in the fuel cell and the pickup would pick the fuel up in the,
13:20
in the motor would fire back up. OK.
13:23
So that that that's that's how it's a little bit different now
13:26
than it was in those days with these cars.
13:29
Yeah. How do you think it happens
13:31
nowadays though? And and did they not?
13:34
It seems like to me they didn't relay it to Blaney because
13:37
again, I'm so I'm, I'm listening to the end of the race on the
13:41
radio. But when it ends, they go to all
13:44
the, the guys, you know, the big storylines, the top five guys.
13:47
And it seemed like at the time, Blaney was very shocked that he
13:51
ran out of fuel, like he didn't even know it was coming.
13:53
Yeah, well, that's what I mean, they, you know, they weren't in
13:57
a fuel saving mode. I mean, they, it didn't seem
13:59
like from watching the race. I mean, you don't know
14:01
internally on another radio channel what they're doing or
14:03
talking about. But there was never any
14:05
indication from him as a driver that he's tried to save fuel,
14:08
and we never heard any relays to him about that.
14:11
So that told me they weren't concerned about fuel.
14:15
OK, So then that in turn tells me there was a bad
14:18
miscalculation. Some were right either, again,
14:22
either somebody put a number down wrong or the fuel can, the
14:26
fuel cell, the fuel didn't. All the fuel in the can didn't
14:30
get put in or whatever. Whatever the deal was, it wasn't
14:34
as much fuel in that fuel cell as the team thought was in,
14:39
right? That's it's as simple as that.
14:41
Or the other thing could be something malfunctioned inside
14:45
of the fuel cell to pick up. But that's that's very rare,
14:48
Charlie. It's very rare that that could
14:50
happen. But it could happen.
14:51
That could have happened It it could have been a failure inside
14:54
of the fuel cell. I don't know that.
14:56
I'm sure they knew by 8:00 Monday morning that Coochie
14:59
could do what he did. Hell, he probably knew before he
15:01
left the racetrack what happened, right?
15:03
But whether they let us know or not, who knows?
15:06
Yeah, What do you think of the contact between the Kyles, Kyle
15:09
Larson and Kyle Busch and and whose fault was it?
15:14
Who wrecked who? Or is it just rubbing his
15:16
racing? You know, I, I put a couple, I
15:18
put a couple clips out because because I was there.
15:21
I was there for when Kyle Busch did his, did his quick media
15:24
interview and he was obviously mad about it.
15:27
And then I I put I put on one of the headlines, you know, Kyle
15:31
Larson wrecks Kyle Busch. Now, clearly Kyle Larson could
15:34
still race. Kyle Bush was wrecked out of the
15:37
race. But then everybody was giving me
15:39
crap about who actually wrecked who.
15:41
So give me your opinion. Yeah, man, it's it's social
15:44
media fun. It is.
15:45
It is. It really is, dude.
15:48
I look at some of the pushback on some of our conversations and
15:50
people comments we get. I kind of get, I kind of get
15:53
humored. But you know, honestly, you want
15:57
to know the honest deal that were two that was two guys that
16:00
got a little irritated with one another in a matter of two
16:04
seconds, right. And when you do that on the
16:08
racetrack, you get irritated with the guy you racing against
16:11
for two or three seconds. Most of the time, 90% of the
16:14
time you'll get, you know, you'll get away from each other
16:18
and seven to 10 seconds later, that's not even that what just
16:22
happens not even in your mind anymore.
16:25
And that's the that's the perfect criteria.
16:28
This is the perfect situation for what I'm telling you about
16:31
this two second pissed off at each other.
16:33
It just it happens, and I mean it.
16:36
If you do a race, man, it'll happen to you a dozen times in a
16:39
race. It happens to everybody.
16:41
But when it happened to those guys, that two second have
16:44
pissed off at each other resulted in both of them record,
16:48
right. So what happens?
16:50
Kyle is trying to get back Kyle. OK, you figure out which one
16:53
Kyle's trying to get back Kyle. All right, so Lars is on the
16:56
inside and he's been trying for a while.
16:58
They come down to straight away and Bush kind of comes down the
17:03
racetrack a little bit. You know, he's trying to hold
17:05
him back. Well, they got two laps to go or
17:07
whatever it is before the interval or whatever it is to
17:09
the IT. Was stage 2 right?
17:11
Stage two yes yes, to get those all important points Well, so
17:15
when he does that, then Kyle moves just a little bit up well,
17:18
they kind of touch right so now you're starting that two second
17:22
pissed off area, right One guy's shoved down the other guy's
17:26
shoved up a little bit just on the straight away trying to show
17:31
their dominance and you know Bush is like you ain't going to
17:33
get by me Lars was like, I'm going to get by you right and
17:36
they kind of touch and they hit well, they get away and then
17:40
just they just barely do that well then they get away from one
17:43
another a second later, they hit each other pretty good and now
17:48
we're getting it right at the end of the straightaway we're
17:50
getting ready to set our arc up into the turn right.
17:53
So when they hit each other pretty good, then they separate
17:56
by 5 or 6 inches and they go into turn one with Bush really
18:03
at this point holding Larson down.
18:05
I mean, he holds him to the bottom right.
18:07
And Larson's like, I'm going in this turn the same rate of speed
18:12
I always go. But the problem is with Bush
18:15
ready to kiss him like that, there is no side force on that
18:18
car whatsoever. So Larson's going to get loose.
18:21
So when he gets loose, they touch.
18:23
And of course, Bush, they're both spin, but Bush gets taken
18:26
out of the race. And that's really the whole
18:30
thing in a nutshell, right? If if, if they could have got
18:33
apart from one another by two feet, just if, if one of them
18:38
are going to move two feet out or in at that, at that one and a
18:43
half second mark of the pissed off this right that wreck
18:46
wouldn't have happened in the next lap, the next lap.
18:50
Neither one of those guys would have been thinking about what
18:53
just transpired before. But it's it's a classic,
18:56
classic, classic two second pissed off deal that happens in
19:00
racing every week, every race with everybody.
19:03
You know, It's just you know it it.
19:06
I don't know how to explain. That's the best way to know how
19:08
to explain it, because that's all it was to it.
19:10
Plain and simple. Plain and simple.
19:12
All right, Speaking of one of those Kyles, Kyle Larson with
19:15
the, I think the worst kept secret in NASCAR was that Kyle
19:19
Larson was going to get this waiver.
19:22
And look, I, I watched the Elton Sawyer press conference on Zoom
19:26
the other day and, and I thought he explained it very well.
19:29
And it made a lot of sense of look, it's, it's at the end of
19:32
the day about the fans. I mean, and the fans for the
19:34
last 10 races of the season, they want to see Kyle Larson get
19:38
a shot for the championship. I do though think because NASCAR
19:42
to me is more savvy about this nowadays with promotion you can
19:46
go back to the fight between Stenhouse and Kyle Busch.
19:49
I think NASCAR milked this for a nice ten day of publicity.
19:55
What do you think? Charlie, I don't know.
20:00
You know, honestly, I'll be completely honest with you.
20:02
I've had the same thoughts. I've read it and I'm like, no,
20:06
they certainly didn't do this, did they?
20:08
Right What what, what it goes back to is to start with, we all
20:13
knew what was going to happen. Right.
20:16
He's going to run both races while the rain came.
20:18
And of course, that screwed everything up.
20:21
They, in my mind, knowing all the parties involved, I'm like,
20:27
you know, they have to have insurances.
20:29
Henrik Motorsports is bound to have assurances that you know,
20:32
this is going to work, this is going to be OK, right?
20:35
That was always about mine. And then when we get what it's
20:38
all over with and NASCAR puts out the deal last week after the
20:42
race and, and, and, and Larson doesn't have any playoff points,
20:46
I'm like, now what's going on here, right?
20:50
Is this for media hype or And then we read and hear that we've
20:54
got 2 fact 2 factions in NASCAR that are fighting with one
20:58
another about whether to wave the wave the, you know, the deal
21:04
or not for Larson. And I'm like, well, I don't know
21:08
what's true, all right? Is it did, did they have the
21:12
questions are did they have the assurances?
21:15
Did Henrik have the assurances beforehand that he would have
21:18
get the waiver? All right, if he did or he
21:20
didn't, well, then if he didn't, you know, then NASCAR's like we
21:26
haven't officially done that. And there's like two or three
21:30
people in charge that say we ain't going to give him one
21:32
because he chose Indy 500 over the World 600.
21:35
Then you got two or three other people in NASCAR saying, yeah,
21:38
but but it's great for our sport.
21:41
It's great for racing overall. Is that really what went on?
21:45
OK. Or is it, you know, we're going
21:48
to give them the waiver all along, but let's get some hype
21:51
over it for a couple weeks. Well, Charlie, the problem is
21:54
with that angle, the problem is we had so much negative hype,
21:59
right? It was negative hype over that
22:01
deal. You know, I mean, may, but but
22:03
then you got a thing to always keep in mind with NASCAR, dude,
22:07
you always keep this in mind. I don't care what's going on and
22:10
who's running it. You always go back to Bill
22:14
France senior, right? And his, his Bantra.
22:17
I mean, his Bantra was publicity.
22:20
I don't care if it's good publicity or bad publicity, as
22:23
long as we get publicity right now again, granted, different
22:27
era, you know, it's back and forth cell phones and computers
22:30
and all that stuff. But that was his take and more,
22:33
more publicity we get. And I, I, I don't know if maybe
22:36
some of that is still, you know, it's hard to say.
22:40
I'm going to tell you something. NASCAR is a very, very, very
22:42
sophisticated organization, Charlie.
22:45
They're a lot more sophisticated, I think than they
22:47
get credit for, right. So if you look at it and that
22:49
and that, if you look at it in that standpoint, maybe they were
22:52
just milking it for a couple weeks.
22:54
They knew what they were going to do.
22:55
Maybe that is the case, I don't know.
22:57
But you know, with the, with the TV deal, I mean, you don't sell
23:01
what, eight, $8 billion package to TV networks and not have some
23:06
level of high level sophistication in your
23:09
organization. You know, you know that it just
23:11
doesn't happen, right? So you know, I'm, I'm like, I'm
23:16
like you Charlie and everybody else.
23:18
I'm, I'm left with man, there's like 3 scenarios could have
23:21
happened here and I honestly don't know.
23:24
And I, I, that makes me mad because I normally have enough
23:28
inside information or not inside information.
23:30
I have enough people, like talk to you and all and just kind of
23:33
read between the lines and figure this stuff out.
23:35
Can't figure this one. I cannot figure this one out.
23:37
Just I just don't know at this point.
23:39
I will figure it out for before this Rick Mash show ends in the
23:43
next decade or two. I'll have it figured out, and
23:45
when I do, I'll let you know. Yeah, it did seem like some,
23:49
some people, I I think everybody thought Kyle Larson would get
23:53
the waiver. But for example, at that Kenny
23:56
Wallace live show, Bubba Wallace was there and Kenny asked him
24:01
and Bubba Wallace basically said he made a choice.
24:05
He said that Kyle Larson made a choice once, once he knew the
24:08
weather was bad and that look, you basically have to leave
24:12
once. There's going to be a long
24:13
delay. You you'd have to leave at that
24:15
point to make the Coke 600 on time.
24:18
That Kyle Larson made a choice and he for that day chose the
24:23
Indy 500 over the Coke 600. Now I would do the same
24:27
personally, but that's that's not an unfair argument, right?
24:30
You know what I'm saying? It's not, it's not.
24:33
I mean, I, I had those thoughts that I had those thoughts that
24:37
suddenly watching all these races, right?
24:38
And I'm like when he when he elected to stay up there, I'm
24:41
like, well, man, you know, you kind of putting the Indy 500
24:46
over this NASCAR race, right? I mean, this, this is your bread
24:50
and butter. I mean, you were down and out
24:52
three or four years ago whenever all you had your trouble and Mr.
24:55
Henrik give you the shot and NASCAR is giving you what you've
24:58
got now, you know, and I'm like, Nah, no, this is bigger than
25:03
that. This, this has this is bigger.
25:06
You know, the fact, the fact, like I remember when, when Tony,
25:10
the first year of oil, when Tony Stewart did the deal and Tony
25:13
flew in on the helicopter at Charlotte, right?
25:16
And we were all there this right before the race started.
25:18
Here comes of course, it's Humpy Wheeler and the big show and all
25:20
that. But here comes here comes Tony
25:23
helicopter did right, right there on the front stretch,
25:25
right or in the, the, the grassy area.
25:28
And I'm telling you, Charlie, the the grandstands.
25:30
It was like Earnhardt winning wherever Earnhardt won.
25:33
If Earnhardt win at Charlotte, that's the way it was.
25:35
But you could, you'd be able to Richter scale.
25:37
You could, you could, you could pick it up on the Richter scale
25:39
of an earthquake from the fans winning or from Earnhardt
25:42
winning. That's the way.
25:44
And that's the way it was when Tony helicopter did with a
25:47
helicopter come hovering and started coming down and hit the
25:50
ground and he got out of that, out of that helicopter 100.
25:53
And however, in those days, 150,000 people or 30 or whatever
25:56
it was, I'm telling you right now, everybody was up whooping
26:00
and hollering, right? And, and, and watching this
26:02
happen. So it's a it's a real big, it's
26:06
a big ass deal. It was a big deal.
26:08
And that's when I realized what, what this double thing was.
26:13
I'm like, this is a cool deal, man.
26:14
This is good. This is good for a sport.
26:17
All right. So I always, always have that in
26:20
my mind when these guys do pull these double S and the deal with
26:23
Kyle was, you know, they wanted that helicopter baby to come in
26:27
and land with Kyle Larson and they wanted our NASCAR fans to
26:31
see that and experience it, you know, enjoy it.
26:34
Well, the rain kept that from happening.
26:36
All right, so now you got to rethink about everything.
26:40
But but you know, and he if if Kyle had to spend, if he had to
26:45
spend on pit Rd. at Indy, who knows what would have happened.
26:49
I mean, this dude had a shot. He had a legitimate shot to win
26:52
that freaking race. Man Kyle Larson, a rookie at
26:55
Indy 500 winning. My Lord have mercy if they
26:58
already had plans in place if he won the race, no rain.
27:02
They still had plans in place like the all the ceremonies and
27:06
stuff. And I don't know what those
27:07
plans are. Maybe delayed starting A600 a
27:11
little bit, maybe him delaying getting there a little bit.
27:14
I don't know what those plans are that probably figures into
27:17
this overall decision. But in my mind, you know, yeah,
27:22
he he that that was choosing. And I keep saying, Kyle, I
27:26
shouldn't say that. I don't know that he had much
27:28
choice or say in this matter. I got an idea.
27:30
He was doing what he was told. And you know, if you're a driver
27:34
doing what you told, then, you know, chips fall where they
27:36
fall. But he but the, the, the good
27:39
that it brought to Motorsports in general, I I think outweighed
27:44
all the negative stuff that happened.
27:46
That's just my point. And the deal with Bubba, poor
27:48
old Bubba, he's always on the friggin defense, right?
27:51
You know, and he finally had something he could get on the
27:52
offense about. So he put it out there.
27:55
It kind of, I kind of chuckled when he when he said that
27:58
because he, you know, he had a valid point.
27:59
That's a very valid point, you know, very valid.
28:02
And I thought, damn, Bubba, you're always on the defensive
28:05
on everything all the time. You finally got you finally get
28:08
to go on the offense about something.
28:09
So good for you dude, good for you.
28:12
Love it. All right, so you put out a
28:13
video last week about the Stewart Haas racing situation.
28:19
And I think I think maybe you and I can have a nice little
28:22
debate about this because I agree with most of what you
28:25
said, which is, look, this doesn't mean that NASCAR's in
28:29
this terrible spot. And I think personally, I think
28:32
I think the on track, what's going on the racing right now is
28:36
amazing. And everything we've talked
28:38
about, all of the off track go from the fight to the Stewart
28:43
Haas discussion, that was a big storyline.
28:45
Carl Edwards did his press conference, that was a big
28:48
storyline. Then the Kyle Larson waiver,
28:50
There's a lot of interesting things happening with NASCAR.
28:53
So from that standpoint, I think it's great.
28:55
However, I do think from a team standpoint, what's happening,
29:00
what happened with Stewart Haas Racing is showing you, look, I
29:03
think everybody agrees there's a lot of money in NASCAR, but what
29:07
the teams are complaining about, Jeff Gordon, Michael Jordan,
29:11
Denny Hamlin, you've heard a lot about, it's hard for these teams
29:15
to make money year to year. Now, the price of the charter is
29:18
a different story. But here's where I'm just as a
29:21
sports guy who I've worked in sports for 20 years, all of
29:25
these, these teams, when you buy them, they just go up and up and
29:30
up. It's arguably the best
29:31
investment you could ever make is buying a sports franchise.
29:34
It does seem like in NASCAR that it's, it's really hard to turn a
29:38
profit. And so somebody like Tony
29:41
Stewart and Gene Haas, are they saying, you know, I can put my
29:43
money elsewhere? I'm I'm kind of not at the track
29:46
every week anyway. It does seem like to me that
29:49
NASCAR needs to make it healthier for the teens.
29:53
That does seem like it's not just noise because everybody's
29:56
talking about this. You know, C1 of my dear friends
29:59
in life is a guy named Mark Sauer.
30:01
SAUER Mark Sauer. They were the, his family owned
30:07
Duke's mayonnaise. Duke's mayonnaise was the last
30:09
sponsor I had in, in cup races, right?
30:12
And I did my career with those guys.
30:15
And he's probably one of the smartest dudes intellectually.
30:21
He's in the top five intellectual guys that I've
30:24
known in my life. And he always, he, he, he became
30:29
a fan of the sport in the late 90s and that's kind of how they
30:32
got into the, in the sponsorship role.
30:35
In fact, Dukes Kitty drove for them just a little bit, you
30:38
know, he'll remember that. But he always, always, always
30:43
harped on me about how our, our model was wrong.
30:47
He always fussed about our business model, NASCAR business
30:50
model. And he always harped on the,
30:53
the, the, the big elephant or gorilla in the room, which is
30:56
the NFL, you know, admitted the, the NFL has got everybody
30:59
covered. You know, they got the, the
31:01
biggest deal, the best model, the whole deal.
31:04
And, and, and, and Mark always, always was on that kick about
31:09
it. And I hadn't really ever give it
31:11
a lot of consideration because basically we're all private
31:15
contractors. NASCAR's an organization, We're
31:17
all private contractors. Like as a driver and you know,
31:20
you're, you're, you're contractor with the team where
31:22
you, you're still responsible to get there and get back to your
31:25
lodging, you know, your own insurance and all that stuff.
31:28
It's not like and, and when it's all said and done, you get no
31:33
retirement, you know, no, there's no, there's no revenue
31:36
sharing. There's nothing for a driver
31:38
when he retires, right? Like all the other sports get,
31:42
of course, you're an independent contractor, same way with the
31:45
teams. You're, you're independent,
31:47
right. So if we let's follow the
31:49
history, let's take a moment and follow the history in this In
31:53
the 90s when this thing was exploding so much, all of a
31:57
sudden we went from maybe 15 good sponsors in our sport till
32:03
the whole field just about had Fortune 500 companies sponsoring
32:06
these cars. So you start it, you have a
32:08
field that starts 43 cars, right?
32:10
And you'd probably have 40 at that time, you had 40 pretty
32:14
well funded teams, right? It's, it's for a period of time.
32:18
Well, what happened? You had 40.
32:20
So you start 43 cars then. Now you've got 48 cars at the
32:23
racetrack trying to qualify, right?
32:26
And I don't care who you are, what you do, somebody's going to
32:28
falter on a on a qualified lap. Sometimes somebody's going to
32:31
hit something. I don't care who you are, that
32:33
gives you a good qualifying lap, right?
32:36
The King got ousted at Richmond and it was this is earlier than
32:39
that, but the King got ousted one time at Richmond.
32:43
Darrell Waltrip got ousted at Charlotte Motor Speedway, right?
32:47
And that was kind of like the, the straw that broke the
32:51
candle's back on, you know, we got to do something about this
32:54
because you've got a Fortune 500 company signed up for, for 36
33:00
races or whatever, however many races, you got to sign up for 36
33:03
races and you get millions of dollars from them.
33:05
You go, you, you have everything planned.
33:07
You've got your corporate, your CEO, you've got everybody in the
33:11
company going to Charlotte Motor Speedway to set in a suite that
33:15
you just spent $100,000 on. And everybody gets in there.
33:18
You got customers in there. You've got, you know, everything
33:21
revolves around the sponsorship. You start the race and your car
33:25
is not in the show, It's not even in the race.
33:28
You're like, what the hell am I doing this for?
33:30
Why? Where's my money being spent?
33:33
That was a big, big, big, big, big, big deal back then,
33:36
Charlie. And so that's how the
33:38
provisional deal was born, right?
33:40
We give provisionals, we think I don't, I don't know the numbers.
33:43
So you would qualify 38 cars and then that would give you 5 cars
33:49
to, to get in on provisional points and one champion.
33:52
I always had the one nice. If you're a champion, you had a
33:54
provisional, right. So that was really the prelude
33:57
to this thought process of, of changing the model a little bit
34:01
that led to today's charter system, right?
34:06
Two things about the charter system.
34:07
You're, you're, you're an owner when you, when you get out of
34:10
the sport. And you've heard this many
34:11
times, the value you have is whatever the building you've got
34:14
and hire many welders and sheet metal brakes is in there, right?
34:17
And it's option sale stuff you you don't have no value.
34:21
So the charter system was set in place to help or fix that and
34:26
also guarantee that that team, it's got that sponsor is going
34:30
to be in the race. If you sponsor this team because
34:33
they've got a charter, you don't have to worry about not about
34:36
missing races. Your, your, your, your, your
34:38
name is going to be out there at every race, right?
34:41
So that's the two things that, that, that the charter thing
34:45
did. Now, what I pointed out last
34:48
week was this is the first time we heard stuff about BJ McLeod
34:53
and how much that charter so far, we don't really know.
34:55
But this is really the 1st, the 1st bona fide.
34:58
I'm going to call it bona fide example of what the charter
35:03
really means for an owner, what he wants to get out.
35:07
Do I have value? Right.
35:09
And until we know the numbers, you know, we won't be able to
35:12
say that. I mean, we're hearing about the
35:13
one charter has already gone to. What's your name?
35:15
But until we hear the numbers, yeah.
35:18
Yeah, front row. And until we know the numbers
35:20
that we won't know, you know what that is.
35:22
I think Kenny even picked up on that.
35:24
You know, it's an interesting point to bring up.
35:26
So, but back to your, to your deal, Charlie, the our model,
35:31
man, our our model. And until we start getting well,
35:36
I don't know, dude. I mean 8 billions, a big bumper
35:39
for TV package and these guys and I, I fully believe them, but
35:44
I fully believe Jeff Gordon and and those guys when they say we
35:48
didn't make money, we're not making money.
35:50
I fully believe that all the other sports owners everywhere,
35:53
like you just said, man, that you buy a team for a billion in
35:57
three years, it's worth 4 billion and all you've done is
35:59
sit there and, and, and watch the game and sold hot dogs each
36:03
week. Our sport is not like that.
36:05
It's a, it's a different model and you're trying to take the
36:09
dollars that you have available and make the thing successful.
36:13
And that's the, that's this deal right now that that NASCAR, the
36:17
odors are in the middle of over the charter deal.
36:19
How much, how I mean over the TV deal, how much of that cut do we
36:22
get? You know, the, I forget the
36:24
numbers off top of my head, but you know, the owners want a
36:27
bigger chunk, chunk of that. Well, DASCAR I think was the
36:30
lowest one. They get like 10% of it.
36:32
The rest goes to the owners and the, and the, and the tracks.
36:36
So where that money has to come away from to me is the tracks.
36:39
You know what I mean? If DASCAR's only get 10% of the
36:42
deal, then then it would have to come from the tracks.
36:44
And I mean, I don't know, I'm not in the negotiations.
36:47
I know a little bit about it, but I, I know enough to know
36:51
that I should keep my mouth shut because I don't know enough
36:54
about it. OK.
36:55
Because they are deliberating and and again, unless we could
36:59
come up with a different model, Charlie to your point, that's
37:01
that's just kind of the way it is.
37:04
Yeah. And what you said about the
37:06
sponsors, I think it's really interesting.
37:09
But I thought about it also from a fan standpoint, which kind of
37:12
gets back to the Kyle Larson waiver situation.
37:15
But you probably heard this in the NBA the last couple years,
37:18
this whole load management deal in the NBA became a huge problem
37:24
because you had nationally televised games.
37:27
And back in the day, the San Antonio Spurs would sit like Tim
37:31
Duncan and Kawhi Leonard, same game, national TV game.
37:35
It might be a Lakers game. Or back in the day, wherever
37:37
LeBron was playing and he was, he was sitting the game out.
37:41
And so that was bad for television, which is bad for
37:44
revenue, but also, you know, your fans or your customers.
37:47
And so I think about this in the same lens, you know, if, if my
37:51
kids favorite drivers, Chase Elliott and we buy a ticket and
37:54
hundreds of dollars, maybe thousands after travel and
37:57
hotels and he's not racing like the stories you brought up.
38:00
I, I can't imagine if my favorite driver back in the day
38:03
was Richard Petty or whoever. And I, I have that whole weekend
38:08
blocked out RV going and Richard Petty is not in the freaking
38:12
race. I'm pissed if I'm a fan.
38:15
Yeah. And that, that's what it goes
38:16
back to, even back in the early days, dude, they called it deal
38:20
money. The tracks that I mean, we're
38:22
talking about sixties, 70s, these, these cut tracks would
38:26
pay deal money to make sure that driver showed up, right.
38:32
But whether it be a Bobby Allison or Richard Petty, those
38:35
guys would get what they call deal money to show up.
38:38
Yeah. And then that and we would even
38:41
get it like ball sportsman back in the late 70s, early 80s,
38:44
before the Bush series was started, I'd go to South Side
38:47
Speedway or South Boston Speedway when the race is over,
38:50
you know, the promoter, come give me 200 or $250 in cash.
38:53
And it's called deal money. Thank you for showing up over
38:56
and above the purse money. Because he wanted to think those
38:59
guys, those, those promoters wanted you there.
39:02
And that's what we always called it.
39:04
When the Bush series started, he took all these late model guys
39:07
and put them together, started the Bush Grand National Series.
39:09
They started a program called the Winner's Circle, right?
39:11
And it's basically if you, if you want to race, then you
39:14
signed a contract that you would, you would show up at
39:17
every race next year, right? But it was good money.
39:20
It was like in those days, I forget the number, maybe $2500,
39:24
which is a big number in those days that you were guaranteed to
39:28
show up, right? So that that still all that goes
39:31
to your, your what you're talking about, you know, these
39:34
promoters and the fans. You know, we want Rick Master at
39:38
Hickory at South Boston Speedway on March 14th, right.
39:41
And we're going to go watch Rick Mass and promoters like, OK, I
39:45
got to make sure Rick Mass is here, right?
39:47
So we pay him deal money or if DASCAR did the winner's circle
39:50
and that that goes right back, right back to what you're
39:53
talking about. I mean it.
39:54
Yeah, I mean, you're exactly right.
39:56
It's for the fans. And and and I don't know, it's
40:00
it's it's it's funny how this stuff evolves over the years,
40:03
but you're still the same crap. You know, it's all still the
40:07
same thing. You're trying to do the same
40:08
thing, man. All right, how about our weekly
40:12
installment, our weekly segment of what is pissing off Rick Mast
40:18
this week? Well, I don't know if it's this
40:20
week, but this morning I read an article Charlie 1977.
40:25
I was in my second year of college.
40:27
I did a two year college deal, right, business administration
40:31
deal, and I wrote a turn paper on turn paper on electric cars.
40:36
All right, now then also in, in those two years we had a
40:41
computer class. I took a computer class and you
40:44
know what the computer class was?
40:46
I remember it's how many bits does it take to make a, how
40:49
many, how many bits does it take to make a bite?
40:52
That's what the computer class was.
40:53
There were no windows, there were no cell phones.
40:57
There were no, it was nothing, right?
40:59
It's just how many bits it took. Take a make a bite and that's
41:02
what your, your computer system, the memories built off on.
41:05
And I don't remember anything else about the class other than
41:08
I did pass it right, but very, very, very, very way back in
41:15
historic learning of any technology, dude.
41:18
So here we come. What, 50 years later, almost 50
41:22
years later, in my term paper, the end of my term paper, The,
41:26
the, the, the main theme was the batteries aren't worth a day,
41:31
right? Electric vehicles is a great in
41:34
theory, but the batteries don't work.
41:36
That that was the that was the theme of my term paper 50 years
41:40
later, all right, somebody decides in the government,
41:44
whoever they're going to push electric vehicles on America
41:46
will America revolted right the last what, 6 months?
41:50
And that things kind of put off to the side now but what's the
41:54
problem with electric cars today, 50 years later, the damn
41:57
battery still ain't no good Charlie.
41:59
Now, how can we as a society go through the developments of all
42:06
the, you think about the 70s, the technology that we've
42:09
developed since 1970, right, on everything, everything, man.
42:15
And, and, and, and younger folks don't even know what I'm talking
42:17
about. You talk about a cell phone or
42:19
computer, right? Or just anything.
42:22
The, the, the advances we've made.
42:24
We can't make a damn battery that would have run more than
42:27
200 miles down the road without stopping for an hour and
42:30
charging it. It's just, it's just, you know,
42:33
I'm like, I'm not an engineer and I'm not a scientist and I'm
42:38
not smart enough to be one. But if I was, I'd have taken on
42:41
batteries as as a kid out of engineering school or science
42:45
school and figured out how to make a zillion dollars making a
42:48
battery that worked. If they just don't, you know,
42:51
it's not there. It's just not there.
42:53
So the electric vehicle is never, ever going to be
42:58
prominent until we have a battery that won't let us down
43:03
in the middle of the damn Rd. It's 250 miles because I got the
43:06
wipers running and the air conditioner.
43:08
I supposed to go 300 miles, right?
43:10
That's what they sold me. This car grew 300 miles.
43:13
Well, they forgot to tell you you can't run the wipers and the
43:16
air conditioner. But you only go 250 if you do
43:18
that. So now you broke down waiting on
43:20
a tow truck. I don't know that that you know,
43:22
and so many people buy into it and you got the people spouting
43:25
that stuff up there and it won't just be truthful with you, you
43:28
know, just be truthful with us. Golly bun.
43:31
It's it's crazy too, just talking about technology and
43:34
computers. We had this conversation kind of
43:36
the other day on the radio. I'm I'm 42, just turned.
43:39
We have a guy on our show who's like 24 and we were talking
43:42
about the evolution of cell phones, how I didn't grow up
43:45
with a cell phone didn't get one until college.
43:49
We were talking about number 1800 collect remember phone
43:53
cards. I mean, this guy who's. 24.
43:56
Had no idea what that was. I forgot.
43:59
The battle. Right.
44:01
And then you talk about, you know, you're a generation ahead
44:04
of me and you're talking about computers.
44:06
And I remember. So let's say we got a computer
44:09
35 years ago at our house. We had an Apple 2C computer with
44:13
the floppy disks. We would play Mario Brothers and
44:16
whatnot, print shop. We'd print out greeting cards
44:19
and banners and whatnot. And I just remember, I remember
44:23
how long everything took and, and the printer would work and
44:26
you'd hear the noise as it's printing, you know, the, the
44:29
terrible pixelated. And now, now everything looks
44:32
just Immaculate and perfect. But it's just crazy because now
44:37
I'm on this laptop that I'm doing this show on all the time.
44:40
I do all my work from this laptop.
44:42
If I press a button and that browser doesn't come up in one
44:45
second. Like if it Rick, if it takes me
44:50
3 seconds I'm like what the hell is going on if it doesn't happen
44:54
instantaneously. Back in the day, we used to wait
44:57
for multiple minutes for anything to happen.
45:00
Remember the the dial up deal, didn't you had to wait on that
45:05
thing? Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, the dial
45:09
up thing. Dude, last night I saw a thing
45:11
last night on TV and they're talking about this tribe and and
45:16
I shouldn't say which country. I don't know if you saw this or
45:18
not. The Elon Musk.
45:19
Starlink, Elon Musk. Yeah, the Starlink deal where he
45:21
gave this tribe and what's happened to him since then?
45:25
Oh, man, I'm like, you know, they've become poor, poor
45:28
addicts. I mean, this is like National
45:31
Geographic. People used to watch it, you
45:34
know, they, they don't know a light bulb from the from the
45:36
moon, right? And he comes in there with this
45:39
technology and shows him this thing and they all just.
45:41
And it, it shows how down this group of people went and like
45:49
goodness gracious of life and microcosm.
45:52
I mean, it's good stuff and it's bad stuff with all this crap.
45:54
And if it wasn't for this Charlie, I wouldn't know
45:57
Charlie, right? And people watching this
46:00
wouldn't even be listened to Rick's mast, Rick mast old bull
46:02
crap with Harry gap pushing and Darrell being mad and all that.
46:06
We wouldn't have all this. So that's a, it's a good thing.
46:08
I've said a million times, dude. I've said it 100,000 times.
46:11
If this stuff would have been available in the 90s when I was
46:13
racing, half of us will be fired.
46:16
Like I told you before it started this deal, you have you
46:18
be fired. It'd be fights every week.
46:20
It'd be a it's just I just look back, I'm looking back at our
46:25
era and if this stuff would have been there, I'm like, I don't
46:30
know. I don't I can't even imagine
46:31
what would have come out of it. I just don't know because I know
46:34
the personalities involved in our sport.
46:35
A lot of would a lot of the guys wouldn't even mess with it,
46:38
right? That's just your personality.
46:39
Like, you know, like like Rusty, he still won't mess with it
46:41
much, right? I mean, you got two brothers so
46:44
far on on opposite spectrums with Kitty and and Rusty
46:47
Wallace, right? Kenny's out there 100%.
46:50
And everybody knows how many hairs he's got on his eyebrows
46:52
today, you know? And with Rusty, you don't really
46:54
know if Rusty's still alive or she did.
46:57
What's he doing, you know? So a lot of some of the guys
47:00
have been like that. But man, it would, it would have
47:02
been wild. It would have been absolutely
47:03
wild. All right, we got story time.
47:06
You've already told some great ones.
47:08
The the Harry Gantt, Darryl Waltrip, you, you pushing Harry
47:11
Gantt back in the day. We got Sonoma coming up.
47:13
So anything come to mind for for story time?
47:16
Oh gosh, Sonoma. Or anything.
47:19
It can be anything. Yeah, you know, let's see the,
47:23
the, the Wine Valley, my guys. Are you a wine guy?
47:29
No, I'm not. No, I'm not your guy.
47:32
All but yeah, yeah, all my family, all my family is.
47:35
I just can't get into the wine, dude.
47:37
Skinner's tried to get me into the wine.
47:39
Mike and Anzac and I and, and my brother-in-law and sister-in-law
47:42
and my wife and I just, you know, I just can't do it.
47:45
I don't know why. We went to a serious point once
47:47
I went to Alcatraz and it was some deal.
47:50
The year I drove for Remiton, we actually floated the Remiton
47:53
race car show car across the Bay to Alcatraz and took pictures.
47:59
Dale Jarrett was there with us and they they were giving us a
48:01
tour. And anyhow, they put me and Dale
48:03
on some one of those little sales and they locked the door
48:08
and all of a sudden the door gets locked and I'm going to
48:11
tell you Darrell, Dale got mad. He said unlock this door right
48:15
now. I don't know what the deal was
48:17
he wanted out of there, but in that was a neat deal.
48:19
We did one time, Charlie, we did a deal and this again was the
48:25
Remington show car. We started on the northern end
48:28
of the Golden Gate Bridge. All right, I'm driving my show
48:31
car S towards San Francisco. There were probably 25 other or
48:38
maybe even 30 show cars, each representing their sponsor,
48:42
their team. We had CHP, which California
48:45
Highway Patrol. They were leading us on the
48:47
motorcycles. They were behind us.
48:49
We let we started on north of that bridge.
48:51
We drove all way across that bridge right down in the San
48:54
Francisco right. And I remember and each one of
48:58
us had a reporter riding with us.
48:59
So I had a reporter sitting in the floorboard of the show car,
49:04
right? And he's riding along.
49:06
I don't know that all the all the guys did.
49:08
I know I had a reporter with me. I do know that.
49:11
And so we go down downtown San Francisco, dude, and I'm looking
49:17
up and all these suit and ties are are they're lined on the
49:22
street. This, this is not your typical
49:25
fan with the race attire and stuff.
49:28
These are businessmen and, and people lying on the streets of
49:32
San Francisco. And we're going through and
49:34
these people are waving and cheering at us, right?
49:36
And this dude, this dude, this reporter dude.
49:40
Finally we come around where I, I forget we end up.
49:44
We end up somewhere downtown out of where the hell we're at.
49:46
But anyhow, we end up, I cut the engine off and this guy is
49:49
looking at me says Rick. I said, yeah, do you know where
49:52
you're at? I said, well, yeah, San
49:53
Francisco. He said, no, do you not realize
49:56
where you're at? And I said, and I don't know
49:58
what the hell he's talking about.
49:59
I said, man, I'm in San Francisco is all I know.
50:02
He says, Rick, you're in downtown San Francisco in the
50:06
business district. I'm like, OK, that's where I'm
50:09
at. He says, you don't get it, do
50:12
you? I said, dude, what are you
50:14
talking about? Did you see all these three suit
50:16
piece, three piece suit businessmen out here lying these
50:20
streets cheering you guys? I said yes.
50:22
All that he said does not not strike you as he said, does not
50:26
not strike you as strange. I said no, it's not strange.
50:31
I said it's like this everywhere we go.
50:33
He said. And he's from there, right?
50:35
He says I've never seen anything like this.
50:38
He said I had no idea this Fort reached or had the finger.
50:42
He said, I had no idea this Fort has the finger, has the fingers
50:46
that it has reaching downtown San Francisco business district
50:51
with businessmen and women. I'm sorry.
50:52
And women also out there cheering for you guys, the fans.
50:55
I'm like, well, dude, I don't want to tell you.
50:57
Everywhere we go, it's like this right now.
50:59
You know, it's just it's ridiculous, right?
51:01
It's just it's that popular. But this, this reporter that
51:04
lived there, evidently he didn't know much about our sport
51:07
either, right? He was totally, totally, totally
51:10
blown away that all these people that he wouldn't think would be
51:14
fat are frigging NASCAR fans. And that was part of that goes
51:18
back to, you know, the explosion of our sport and how it got so
51:21
popular by the end of year 2000, right?
51:23
That was all part of it. It was just, it was weird, dude.
51:26
It was weird. Very weird.
51:28
But it was funny. Yeah.
51:30
As you're telling them, I'm just thinking you're in San
51:33
Francisco. You're in a neighborhood.
51:34
You didn't think. I I thought the ending of that
51:36
story was going to be you're in some gay district.
51:39
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, there was the that's a,
51:43
that's A, and I will say this. I, I, I, I don't when I tell
51:46
that story, I never tell it publicly.
51:48
But the thing that got me, I saw three, three piece seat or three
51:53
seat three piece seat guys, they just been walking down the
51:56
street holding hands and hugging and stuff.
51:58
And I remember seeing that. I've never, you know, saw that
52:01
openly before, I guess. And I saw that I'm like, oh, OK,
52:05
this is what this is the deal out here.
52:07
You know, you read about to hear about it like, well, that's
52:09
cool. These guys living their life the
52:11
way they want to live it, you know, and I'm always for that.
52:14
I'm not gay, but I'm just saying I I love people who live their
52:17
own life the way they want to live it.
52:19
Dude, long as you're long as you don't hurt me, yeah, I don't
52:22
give a damn what you do. Agreed.
52:24
All right. Let's let's end on this because
52:27
I just had a a great a great vacation.
52:31
The sea Island, Georgia had never been there.
52:34
Went with my whole wife's side of the family.
52:36
It was fantastic. So, so, Rick Mass, what's the
52:39
best vacation you've ever taken in your life?
52:43
You know what? We've taken a bunch.
52:45
I've taken them all over the country and all over the world,
52:48
right? But we went by kids, my
52:50
daughters drugged me and my wife to CMA Fest in Nashville four
52:56
years ago for a week of music, drinking, debauchery, right?
53:01
And it was absolutely, that was how'd I tell people I had more
53:05
fun that week, I think, than anything I ever did on a
53:08
vacation type deal, right? It was just, I don't know, you
53:12
got to like country music or you got to like music.
53:14
You only laugh about country music, just got to like music.
53:16
But here's what you got to like to enjoy that you've got to like
53:19
and love happy people, because that was the happiest bunch of
53:24
frigging people. And you couldn't walk, you
53:26
couldn't move downtown Nashville right during CMA Fest.
53:30
If you haven't been, you need to do it because everybody's happy.
53:35
It's, it, it, it, you walk from bar to bar to bar.
53:38
There's some artists in there singing and playing, right?
53:40
You go in there and you, you buy beer or not, you sit there and
53:43
listen to the up and coming artist play or you, you, you'll
53:46
run across famous artists to be in there playing right?
53:49
And, and, and it was, I don't know, it was just happy, happy,
53:53
happy people. Funnest time I believe I've ever
53:56
had. We got to talk about SJ McDonald
53:58
sometime. Little girl grew up well, one
54:01
mile for me, the way the crow flies.
54:03
She's been in Nashville for a number of years, just decided to
54:05
her contract a month ago. We'll talk about her on an
54:08
upcoming episode sometime. We're all pulling for hope she
54:11
makes it big. Very cool.
54:13
You know, on that note, this past week at Saint Louis, you
54:18
know, they have this Confluence music festival.
54:21
So around the the track, I mean, they had, well, they have Dierks
54:25
Bentley, Riley Green. I'm not a huge country fan, but
54:28
obviously I've heard of Dierks Bentley.
54:29
They had Ludacris and then Adam Wainwright, who's from Georgia.
54:35
And the Cardinals pitcher is now trying to be a country music
54:38
star. So he, he, he.
54:40
Played as well and I I, I stayed for the first song of him and I
54:44
mean he has a seven piece band. It sounded good.
54:47
Yeah, yeah, it's funny, man. I'm going to tell you something
54:49
if if you go to, I guess it all started with Woodstock.
54:53
You ever heard of Woodstock, Charlie?
54:54
Oh yeah. Well, and, and how about this?
54:57
So I remember Woodstock 2, which was, now I didn't go to it, but
55:01
1994, that was a big deal. It was what, the 25th
55:05
anniversary and they had that double CD that I had back in the
55:08
day and all the mud from Woodstock 2.
55:11
Oh, man. And then the big one in heaven,
55:13
Tennessee or wherever it is now, Bonnaroo every year, you know,
55:16
and it doesn't, it doesn't have to be 1 John or what I've
55:19
noticed on these big vents, it doesn't have to be 1 John Ray.
55:22
You know, you could mix in Blues, you mix in country rock,
55:25
you know, even rap. I've seen now a lot of lot of
55:28
these venues are starting mix rapping with this stuff, with
55:30
country stuff and all that. And it, it's just people going
55:33
and having a good time, man, just being happy to having a
55:36
good time and just you know, with other, other people of like
55:39
mind and just love music and love having the happy people
55:42
around them. That's what I love do happy
55:44
people. Yes, Sir.
55:46
And I like to think that we're both 2 happy people here on the
55:49
Rick MASH show. And I also want to throw it out
55:51
to the listeners and viewers. If you have any questions for
55:54
Rick, put them in the comments and we'll try to get a couple
55:57
questions each week if we have some good ones for next week's
56:00
episodes. So Rick, this was fun man.
56:02
We'll get back to our our every week schedule next week and have
56:06
a good one, man. Tootaloo guys, peace out.