Latest / Top Row Racing Media Monday Night Rewind / Monday Night Rewind | Episode 8 | Ron Verash - Stock Car Extreme

Transcript

Monday Night Rewind | Episode 8 | Ron Verash - Stock Car Extreme · Top Row Racing Media Monday Night Rewind

• 0:57
  All right, Buju, we are live once again on a Monday here in
• 1:01
  Southwest Michigan and Northwest Indiana.
• 1:03
  How are you doing today? Fantastic.
• 1:05
  Another a warmish day on race week though, so haven't race.
• 1:10
  At the end of it is the light at the end of the tunnel, and we're
• 1:12
  so close now, we're right here. Yeah, well, that's where I
• 1:16
  originally was going to be at the Indianapolis Speed Drum on
• 1:19
  Saturday. But with the rain chances, it's
• 1:21
  like, you know, which ended up racing.
• 1:22
  That's my luck. You know, if I had gone down,
• 1:26
  they would have canceled that. Like I went to Painesville last
• 1:29
  year, that happened. You know, literally I'm there
• 1:31
  and I tell the drivers, well, I have my cameras with me.
• 1:34
  Who wants to 'cause they're practicing.
• 1:36
  They can raise their figure eights and and and wet, you
• 1:40
  know, and rain and everything. So they, they were having the
• 1:43
  blast and I'm like, well, I, I drove all this way, you know,
• 1:46
  let's. Get.
• 1:47
  Something but it looks like they had an incredible show down
• 1:50
  there. I know I'll be getting there
• 1:52
  later this season. The general manager had invited
• 1:54
  me down there and so I'm like, I definitely need to make that
• 1:56
  happen. But I'm like, of course I didn't
• 1:59
  go so you know, but it's like after last year, I can't you
• 2:02
  know, I can't chance that anymore.
• 2:05
  You know, it's one of those things that as much as I want to
• 2:07
  cover racing, be at racetrack, it's like I got to be this time
• 2:10
  of the season. I got to be smarter.
• 2:11
  If it were new Paris or Kalamazoo, that's one thing
• 2:14
  that's close, right? But a three hour or would have
• 2:18
  been like a 3 1/2 hour drive with traffic and construction,
• 2:21
  all that, I'm like, no, not in the rain, not not in all the
• 2:24
  rain that we've had. But yeah, no, so I'm I'm very
• 2:28
  excited for tonight's show. We have Ron Brash, he'll be with
• 2:31
  us in just a little bit. So definitely I see numbers are
• 2:35
  starting to go up. So as always, you know, check
• 2:38
  in, let us know where you're watching from, you know, like
• 2:41
  the podcast, it gets it out there even more on Facebook
• 2:44
  land. We've been getting close to 2000
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  on average within week to week timing.
• 2:50
  So, so a lot of people are watching and tuning in, not
• 2:54
  always live right, but they come back and they watch it on
• 2:57
  Facebook. So I, I try to be very
• 2:59
  purposeful about not posting on top of it.
• 3:01
  And then we also have lots of questions that we'll be asking
• 3:05
  around. But if you have questions, drop
• 3:06
  them in the comments section and then definitely share this out
• 3:09
  too. So that way it's see, you know,
• 3:12
  people can see that we're live and ready to go.
• 3:14
  We do know that Michigan is playing tonight in the national
• 3:17
  championship game. So we do not plan to have a long
• 3:19
  show. We know people's attention or
• 3:22
  you know, will be spread elsewhere with the Michigan game
• 3:24
  tonight for Michigan fans. So certainly we are, we're
• 3:27
  planning to be off by about 8:15 tonight.
• 3:31
  So again, like comment, share, get it out there.
• 3:34
  One thing that I do want to cover Buju before we get too far
• 3:37
  into it is, is tonight's lineup. So again, that people can know
• 3:40
  what to expect. So we're going to have Ron on
• 3:42
  here at about seven O 5. If people don't know who Ron is,
• 3:46
  that would be very surprising. But he's like a walking
• 3:48
  encyclopedia of short track racing through general, through
• 3:52
  decades and decades of coverage. So we're excited for that.
• 3:55
  Then Buju and I will be talking about the Thursday Night
• 3:58
  Throttle. And we'll switch over to our
• 3:59
  graphics for the Thursday Night Throttle to give people an idea
• 4:02
  of what to expect when they join us this Thursday for our debut
• 4:05
  episode at 7:00 right here on Facebook and on YouTube, Top row
• 4:10
  racing media only. We will not be live on the
• 4:12
  national compact page for that show.
• 4:15
  And then we'll wrap up about 8:15 just to preview one more
• 4:20
  time. The Ohio Wheelman Series put out
• 4:23
  their entry list. So I'm excited about that.
• 4:26
  So we'll preview that. Just a little bit about what to
• 4:28
  expect next week. We already have our guests lined
• 4:32
  up and even into the following week, we have one guest lined
• 4:35
  up. So next week we'll have Evan
• 4:36
  Verdine for for shoot stock racing and, and his whole career
• 4:41
  showing from many wedges on up. So excited to talk with him
• 4:43
  about that and then their history in general, his family's
• 4:47
  history in general in the area. Then we'll have the Mexibili
• 4:50
  joining us. Frank Gasco from Classic Rock
• 4:53
  97.7 will be on, but he's also the announcer at Russell's M40
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  Speedway. And for people who may not know,
• 4:59
  he also has race and does Night of Destructions too.
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  So he has a lengthy career and that's we're excited to have him
• 5:06
  come on next week at about 7:30. And then of course, about eight
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  O 5, we'll recap the weekend. We have Kalamazoo Speedway
• 5:14
  practice going on and then we have the Russell's M40 Speedway
• 5:17
  kick off that Ron will also be helping to talk about here in
• 5:21
  just a little bit with Crown VIX.
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  So very packed show tonight, just even with one guest having
• 5:27
  Ron. But again, with the stories,
• 5:29
  Boujou and his history and knowledge, that's what I'm
• 5:32
  excited for. Absolutely, absolutely.
• 5:35
  As you mentioned, Ron, such a has such a deep knowledge and a
• 5:39
  treasure trove of stories that I we're only going to scrape the
• 5:42
  surface of tonight. Talk to him.
• 5:44
  Talk to him at the racetrack, and you're going to unlock a
• 5:46
  hundred more. So, yeah, I'm really excited for
• 5:49
  this one. Yeah, I'm.
• 5:50
  Yeah. The sooner the better we get Ron
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  on. I'm fired up.
• 5:53
  All right, well, without further ado, if you're ready and you're
• 5:56
  fired up and we have oh, we have someone who wants to join the
• 6:01
  podcast, Jeremy Johnson. So reach out for sure.
• 6:04
  Coming from Flint, MI So an E sider Michigander saying go
• 6:08
  blue. You know, I'm a Notre Dame fan.
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  So personally speaking, you know, I yeah, you know, right,
• 6:14
  like I think for the Big 10, right, it's probably a Big Ten
• 6:18
  thing, even though I know for like some Sparty fans, because
• 6:21
  obviously at my Facebook pages between Notre Dame, Michigan and
• 6:24
  Michigan State. And then we I have someone
• 6:27
  sometimes with you with like Purdue or Indiana Hoosiers
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  especially. But you know, it's kind of one
• 6:32
  of those like Big 10 things, right?
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  Like, you know, kind of, you know, Uconn's pretty good,
• 6:37
  right. So we'll see how the game goes.
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  I was really surprised actually by the women's basketball
• 6:42
  tournament. I really thought Carolina after
• 6:45
  getting UConn out. Then I when I saw the score, I
• 6:48
  don't watch it live, but when I saw the score and they were
• 6:49
  dominated, I went that doesn't happen to South Carolina too
• 6:53
  often. So I mean, I was, I didn't care
• 6:55
  who won that, but I was rooting, you know, after Gino did his
• 6:59
  little thing to to Don Staley, I thought, I'm OK, I'm, you know,
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  I'm not usually an SEC fan, but I'm in South Carolina after
• 7:08
  that. Because that's just you can't do
• 7:10
  that, right? And I get, but when there's
• 7:13
  video evidence that shows that they shook hands and all these
• 7:15
  other things, I'm like, dude, it might be time to retire.
• 7:18
  You've one of those. But anyways, without further
• 7:21
  ado, we can get it a whole basketball discussion at a later
• 7:24
  time, but let's bring on Ron Rash from Stock car extreme.
• 7:30
  So again, Ron, I'm you know, I'm just excited for tonight's
• 7:33
  episode and having you on. So welcome to the Monday Night
• 7:37
  Rewind. No, thank you so much for
• 7:39
  inviting me on here. And like say this last weekend
• 7:42
  was like the eye before the storm because like say next
• 7:45
  weekend on, it's going to be pretty much a race every weekend
• 7:48
  until probably the end of October unless we get a good
• 7:50
  rain out weekend. But you know, you always try to
• 7:53
  get a lot of household projects done and a lot of other catching
• 7:56
  up to do. And I see that green grass
• 7:58
  starting to grow a little bit and it's like we're going to be
• 8:01
  cutting grass here in another 3 or 4 days.
• 8:03
  But great to be here. And boy, lots of chat about here
• 8:07
  too. Oh yeah, that's where you know,
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  and Bougie and I were talking and I had reached out to you
• 8:12
  prior and I said I'm giving him the whole episode because again,
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  just your wealth of knowledge that you have in short track
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  racing, not only locally, but through mark times and your
• 8:24
  other connections nationally. You know, like listening to you
• 8:27
  talk to the to the Super modified guys from Ohio and how
• 8:31
  you can talk about modified racing and the northeast and the
• 8:36
  main area, Massachusetts, all that.
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  I'm just sitting there listening and I'm like, what doesn't he
• 8:42
  know? Right.
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  So, so with that, Ron, you know Buju and I know who you are and
• 8:47
  I bet a lot of people watching know who you are, but there
• 8:50
  might be people who are around the area or around Michigan,
• 8:54
  like we have someone watching from Flint already who may not
• 8:57
  know who you are. So my favorite question that I
• 9:00
  always kick off with is every guest is who is Ron Vash?
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  Well, actually I'm 63 years old here, so it retirements come in
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  from my workplace. So it's going to be a really
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  nice way to get away from that and get more time on my racing
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  and other things around the house.
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  But been around racing and my dad took me to the South Bend
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  like age 4 and I was kind of a mistake.
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  My brothers were like 1415 years older than me.
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  And like my mom's like to my, my dad, I got to do something with
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  him. So we went to the racetrack,
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  went to South Bend, 4 miles away from the house.
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  Then it became South Bend, New Paris and Plymouth.
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  And then when the tri-state issue happened in 73 stop in New
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  Paris, Plymouth all broke up with Joe Hampshire and Louis
• 9:45
  Freeburn. It was like well OK, now there's
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  some other tracks. As we went South Bend, you
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  couldn't race New Paris or Plymouth.
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  And so then the traveling started occurring, going to
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  Villa Hartford, Winchester and 74 and he just, and when you get
• 10:01
  to mark times, you read all that up.
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  And you know, I just kept all my old race papers and in the
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  summer months, I would just reread those articles.
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  And once you read history once you really don't need to read it
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  again. Or you just absorb it I guess.
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  And I start taking pictures in 74 going back to like when I was
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  7-8 years old. I get $2.00 a week allowance.
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  Dick Price had a photo stand $0.50 a 5 by 7 a dollar for an 8
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  by 10. But they also had cotton candy
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  snow cones and French fries for $0.50.
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  So it was either like two pitchers, a snow cone and fry or
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  a cotton candy, it's a snow cone and two pitchers.
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  Or if I would just go 4 pitchers or three pitchers, that meant no
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  snacks. So I started accumulating
• 10:43
  pitchers and more accumulating pitchers.
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  I kept them in track by day 2. So that was something I want to
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  do right from the get go and kind of like I just been going
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  to races forever. You know, we started traveling
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  around. I went to ITT in Fort Wayne and
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  81 start going to Barefield a little bit more Toledo,
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  everything EI start going a lot more E When I was working over
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  there at the restaurant, if I might work on a Sunday night, I
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  would go somewhere on Saturday further out down that way.
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  And then if I worked, had Sunday off, I go to Toledo for the
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  races for the weekly show just to get a show in and got back
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  home here, had kids, couldn't really do a whole lot of
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  traveling then as they were growing up, but still try to hit
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  the ISMA Shoals in Ohio and Michigan.
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  And you know, that's when we had the out of value sprints kick
• 11:30
  in, the Hoosier Outlaw sprints, just following racing.
• 11:35
  And then the Mark Times kind of came about in 2019, 99.
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  We had that reunion show. I just posted pictures of that
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  up at M40 and I took my photo books up there, all my old black
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  and whites. And Pat York was up there.
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  We got to talk and he's like, I got a vintage car club.
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  We're going to try to start a local club because a lot of the
• 11:53
  other clubs are more further away, Indianapolis, Michigan
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  way. And I said, yeah, you know what,
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  I can do that. I don't have a car, I said, but
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  I got a lot of books, a lot of it.
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  I got all my racing papers I kept just just sitting in the
• 12:06
  basement. I would look at them and that
• 12:08
  was about it. And following year we had the
• 12:11
  first meeting and, you know, we had a lot of loving of us.
• 12:14
  I think there's only three of us left out of that group, sadly.
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  But we started our first show with South Bend.
• 12:19
  We had started doing old timer nights and stuff and the people
• 12:22
  just like look at these photo books, like Oh my God, look at
• 12:24
  these things. And I had all my photos from 74
• 12:28
  in photo books. So at that time I had about 3030
• 12:32
  some photo books there as well. So I read about 40 books,
• 12:34
  counting those black and white and the memorabilia.
• 12:37
  I'd go to the Shoals and people would ask about something and
• 12:40
  I'm fishing because I'm like, I'd send this time frame, but I
• 12:43
  couldn't remember exactly when I'm trying to find something.
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  Now I can pretty much find it because I've been, I searched
• 12:48
  for the stuff. It seemed like 24/7 anymore you
• 12:51
  pull something on Facebook, someone wants something.
• 12:53
  I, I mean, I think I know where it's at now.
• 12:55
  And like, say, once you get enough repetition on doing
• 12:58
  things, you kind of remember where it's at just to save your
• 13:02
  sanity a little bit. And you know, so lots of
• 13:06
  traveling, say we do Mclawn Speedway.
• 13:08
  This will be year 6 going down there.
• 13:10
  Great, great, neat facility there.
• 13:13
  The longest ownership of family in racing because they started
• 13:16
  in 34 owning the property. It was a baseball diamond.
• 13:19
  They put a racetrack around it had a ballroom.
• 13:21
  It burned down a couple times and it's like a third mile.
• 13:26
  Greatest little secret in Indiana to me. 75 cars a week
• 13:29
  are there, 17 modifies a week and it's a 161 way.
• 13:34
  It's a lot of traveling. We got Winchester, you know, Dan
• 13:37
  Redmond's promoting it, doing a tremendous job down there.
• 13:40
  And you know, Charlie's in his 80s and he's looking to sell it.
• 13:43
  And like Dan said, we, we got to make this place viable for
• 13:47
  someone to want to buy it. And hopefully Orion Newman jumps
• 13:49
  on board or Tony Stewart, somebody jumps on board, wants
• 13:52
  to keep that place going because there's so much history up at
• 13:55
  Winchester, great people over there.
• 13:58
  And that's another 165 from South Bend.
• 14:02
  But sometimes, like, you know, Lewis, it's like it's then the
• 14:05
  miles might be a lot, but you know, the the people make it
• 14:08
  worth your while. And you know, it's just
• 14:11
  something to do. I saved that for sure.
• 14:13
  Oh yeah. Well, and to kind of back up
• 14:16
  just a little bit here when you're talk about like your
• 14:19
  photo books and, and that, you know, like where stuff is
• 14:21
  literally Tabitha De Witt, who we had on last week and I were
• 14:25
  talking at the South Bend Auto Show and we were talking about
• 14:28
  your photo books. Some people were looking and
• 14:30
  someone had come in and asked if if you had.
• 14:33
  And I said, well, these are Kalamazoo, there's Berlin,
• 14:35
  Hartford. The first photo was asphalt
• 14:38
  Hartford. They said, well, if Ron were
• 14:39
  here, he'd be able to tell you because I said it was two years
• 14:44
  ago. Someone came in, said a car.
• 14:46
  And I said, Ron, you what page it was on, knew the sponsors,
• 14:49
  knew the car, knew the thing. And I said, I'm just sitting
• 14:51
  there going, you know, like my jaw probably had to be repaired
• 14:56
  because I was just watching an amazement, right?
• 14:59
  Just like you knew what book, you knew the card, you knew the
• 15:03
  skiing, you knew the sponsors, you knew those.
• 15:05
  And I'm like, like, I have a pretty solid memory, but this is
• 15:08
  in my head. I'm like, how does he know that?
• 15:11
  Right. But it makes so, so much sense
• 15:12
  because you're the one who's putting it together.
• 15:14
  You're the one who's always having a look at photos, right.
• 15:17
  And and obviously I agree with the mileage.
• 15:19
  I mean, last year I think it was like third, I drove 15,000 miles
• 15:22
  in the total year and 13 something of that was to a
• 15:26
  racetrack, you know, so oh. That dogged me.
• 15:29
  Because I was thrilled. I was just over 7000 last year.
• 15:32
  So you I got nothing on you there.
• 15:36
  Up to 13,000 something, it might have even been 14,000, but it
• 15:41
  was one of those couple trips to Painesville, couple trips to
• 15:44
  Lorraine. That certainly adds up going to
• 15:46
  Corrigan oil because where I am in in Southwest Michigan, I'm
• 15:50
  I'm 30 minutes to South Bend. I'm 30 minutes ish to Hartford.
• 15:54
  But then, you know, then you start stretching out where it's
• 15:56
  an hour and 40 hour 20 to Kalamazoo, hour 40 ish to
• 16:02
  Springport, about two to Corrigan, right?
• 16:05
  You start stretching out and it starts getting fast and yeah,
• 16:10
  just a lot of miles. But I just wanted to tell that
• 16:12
  photo book story because watching you do that in person,
• 16:16
  I like that was one of the most incredible things that I that I
• 16:19
  know that I've seen. Just with the memory that you
• 16:22
  have and where the fact that you even knew exactly like that car
• 16:26
  sponsors and the and the color, because it's a black and white
• 16:29
  photo. Buju is this was when it was
• 16:31
  black and white and you knew everything about that car and
• 16:36
  even that family. They were just amazed.
• 16:38
  And I think you connect with them because they were buying
• 16:40
  the photo from you. But that was impressive.
• 16:43
  I mean, just again, I Can't Sing your praises enough for what
• 16:46
  you've done. But before we get too far in the
• 16:48
  rabbit hole, I do want to bring that because you've talked about
• 16:52
  Mount Lawn and I know just with your experience, even at
• 16:56
  Winchester 2, you're doing a big thing for the upcoming show here
• 17:00
  at Russell's M40 Speedway where I'm sponsoring, I added $1000 to
• 17:05
  this purse and so I produced it to, I'm Drew Jack and I said,
• 17:09
  what do you think? So all the number breakdowns I
• 17:12
  came up with from his original and I, so I'm sponsoring the
• 17:16
  whole series. It's a free race series that
• 17:18
  first starts at Russell's M40 Speedway, the Royal Pursuit.
• 17:21
  So the payout that you're going to see is my proposed payout
• 17:24
  where first place I first and 2nd place I bumped up by $150.00
• 17:29
  each and then everyone else through 9th place got $100
• 17:33
  extra. So Ron, I know you're doing a
• 17:35
  lap board, you're doing a couple things.
• 17:37
  So do you want to talk a little bit about what you're doing and
• 17:39
  what you're pumping in and maybe some of the drivers that we
• 17:42
  might be able to expect this weekend from that area of
• 17:46
  Southwest Indiana? Oh, sure thing.
• 17:49
  Like say that purse is amazing. It's it's a it's a very strong
• 17:53
  purse. It reminds me of the old South
• 17:55
  Bend Speedway purses back in the 80s when Louis would do 300 to
• 17:59
  win 275 for 2nd, 2:50 for 3rd, 2:25 for 4th and you know, 75 to
• 18:04
  start. But great to see the Crown Vics
• 18:06
  getting some exposure up here. I know it's an I-69 series
• 18:10
  pretty much from when you say Louisville really up to really
• 18:14
  Anderson. That's about where the, the
• 18:15
  Crown Victoria pockets at. And I think, I think maybe me
• 18:19
  pulsing pictures over the years and everybody says, hey, we can
• 18:22
  get Crown VIX to come up here and we get 20 or 30 a week.
• 18:25
  Well, you know, when we started the Crown VIX and Mclawn, a
• 18:29
  roller was probably $2500 or $3000.
• 18:32
  I'm seeing some Crown VIX for sale now, almost 5 digits.
• 18:35
  It's like, holy smokes. But they're almost like a street
• 18:37
  stock now. And I mean, the big thing with
• 18:40
  them Crown Vics, they got to keep enforcing rules.
• 18:42
  So you can't let 1 driver say, hey, we let this go on the car.
• 18:46
  I got three cars coming because he's just got his own car coming
• 18:49
  anyways. So, but any rate, you know this
• 18:53
  5:50 to win hundred to start. And I got $225 bonus, random
• 18:58
  bonus for any Mclawn Anderson car coming up.
• 19:01
  Now, Anderson's racing Saturday night.
• 19:03
  Mclawn isn't, but I got Alan Wagner so far and Chuck Cook's
• 19:07
  going to be coming up from down that way.
• 19:10
  And so there's two, we might have a couple more in the works.
• 19:13
  So we're going to try to keep working on those guys.
• 19:16
  But we also got a lap board and that's like a 20 lap feature
• 19:18
  race and it is going to be pretty sharp little deal there
• 19:24
  too. It's $10 a lap and the it's
• 19:29
  $20.00 for a lap 10. But if you're still 9 laps open,
• 19:33
  so people can still get on board and do that for the lap board.
• 19:36
  So that's going to be hopefully a pretty good deal there too.
• 19:39
  You know, so someone could come in there 5:50 to win, they lead
• 19:41
  10 or 12 laps and boy, they can come out.
• 19:45
  There was 600 some plus dollars made there.
• 19:48
  Yeah, and I do have Tim. He sponsors a lot of different
• 19:53
  things he's adding. And if I got?
• 19:54
  Lost to stream here. Oh, oh, oh, that's.
• 19:59
  No good. He'll be back.
• 20:01
  Well, I'll finish that thought and then he'll jump back in by
• 20:05
  then. But.
• 20:07
  I think, but we have someone who reached out to me who wants to
• 20:10
  add a hundred, a $100 to at first Tim had suggested the
• 20:15
  winner and I had suggested maybe we spread that, you know, and so
• 20:19
  that's if we can get 15 crown vics, that's something he's
• 20:22
  willing to do. So again, while we're waiting
• 20:23
  for Ron, just again to highlight this is this Saturday at
• 20:27
  Russell's M40 Speedway, Topper Racing Media is putting our
• 20:32
  money in the pots, right? So we we are adding $1000 to
• 20:38
  this race and this is the payout that can be expected with that
• 20:42
  this Saturday at Russell's and 40 Speedway for the Crown VIX
• 20:45
  and it's part of the Royal Pursuit Triple Crown.
• 20:48
  So the other two races will be at Hartford with the Midwest
• 20:54
  Compact touring series those events.
• 20:56
  So the the season ending crown race will be on September 19th.
• 21:00
  I want to say 19th or 20th that whatever that Saturday is third
• 21:04
  Saturday in September 19th, I think it's 19th we'll be there.
• 21:08
  And so again that that's the other two races are at Hartford,
• 21:12
  but the first one is at Russell's.
• 21:13
  And this is the payout that drivers can expect 100 to start
• 21:17
  and then 5:50 to win. So with Ron Brash, he was
• 21:20
  talking about having a lap board where it's $10 a lap.
• 21:24
  I know some people sometimes add more than $10 to that lap.
• 21:27
  And so there's still 9 laps that are open.
• 21:30
  So someone potentially the leader, you know, if they get
• 21:33
  out front and or the winner, if they get out front, they could
• 21:36
  potentially they leave enough laps, they can have almost $600
• 21:41
  in earnings from that day. And Ron brings the cash and an
• 21:44
  envelope to the driver. So that's something that Ron
• 21:48
  brings that because I've done that before.
• 21:50
  He's done that a couple of times where he'll say this person
• 21:52
  sponsored that. So certainly reach out to that
• 21:54
  person. I know Crashers Adventure, I
• 21:56
  don't know if if Donald's on tonight or right now, but I know
• 22:00
  Donald sponsored a couple laps with Crashers Adventure.
• 22:04
  He'll be there on Saturday recording, I'll be there on
• 22:07
  Saturday. I'll have onboard cameras
• 22:09
  available too. So if drivers want to reach out
• 22:11
  for onboards, they're free to use.
• 22:13
  You know, people are kind of I have to keep explaining that
• 22:16
  rental thing. So I guess while we're waiting
• 22:18
  for Ron to come back, the the rentals are optional.
• 22:21
  That's not required. It's one of those things I and
• 22:24
  talking with Charlie Han and a bunch of drivers, they're like,
• 22:26
  well, what if you did some kind of rental thing, not all your
• 22:29
  cameras, but some of your cameras where you know, if
• 22:31
  someone wanted to use it all season and I went I don't know,
• 22:35
  but I'm trying to if it works, it works.
• 22:37
  If it doesn't, you know I'm the cameras are still available one
• 22:40
  way or another. But the rental option is for
• 22:43
  someone who doesn't want to spend $450 to $550 on a brand
• 22:47
  new GoPro to do the exact setup that I have.
• 22:51
  I was looking if someone wanted to start today with the just on
• 22:54
  boards AI base it on 16 cameras. They think it was or maybe I did
• 22:59
  18. It was like $18,000 that someone
• 23:03
  would be pumping in to get everything that I have set up.
• 23:06
  So it was one of those like, wow, that's that's a big number
• 23:13
  because obviously prices have gone up.
• 23:14
  So so again, we don't we don't have Ron yet.
• 23:18
  I thought he might be back, but we'll give him time here.
• 23:21
  So again this Saturday, Russell's in 40 Speedway.
• 23:24
  That's for the crown VIX. I know Drew Jack was sharing
• 23:27
  earlier that they have about 20 to 25 compacts right now pre
• 23:31
  registered. Some of them are still they
• 23:34
  literally saw pictures of their car and they're not together
• 23:36
  yet. So that's going to be cutting it
• 23:38
  close, but but that will be there.
• 23:41
  And then I know that we'll put on 50.
• 23:45
  I'm going to say it's 15 Super Series stocks are coming.
• 23:48
  So from Ohio Wheelman, So lot of Ohio guys that if people are in
• 23:52
  Northwest Ohio, Northeast Ohio, they'll recognize a lot of those
• 23:55
  names. A lot of Michigan people may not
• 23:57
  recognize all those names, but definitely in a strong Ohio
• 24:00
  core. And then Cody Lawler I know will
• 24:02
  be there from this area, former champion in the area, Tyler
• 24:06
  Hufford, former champion in the area, will be racing there.
• 24:09
  And there was one more person from this area I can't remember
• 24:11
  right now. And also I saw the entry list.
• 24:16
  Myself and I can't recall either.
• 24:18
  Yeah. So I I.
• 24:19
  Know they posted that today so so again that's I'm looking
• 24:23
  forward to that. So I bet Ron's phone died.
• 24:27
  What do you want to yes, is that it died, but I see Sheldon
• 24:32
  Leleg. I got a 360 camera for my car.
• 24:34
  What Car do I need for? Oh, that's a good question.
• 24:36
  I it'll be AH, an SD card. I want to, I want to say 360 can
• 24:42
  go up to 128 GB, but don't quote me on that.
• 24:45
  I'll have to Google it because I don't do three 60s.
• 24:49
  I've asked a lot of people. A lot of people ask me how come
• 24:52
  you don't do 360 a sub just based on the feedback alone.
• 24:55
  I'd be waiting a whole nother week just to just to edit some
• 24:59
  of that footage, just to put it all together.
• 25:01
  So we're going to do it for this Kalamazoo safety team instead of
• 25:05
  the chesty. We were going to do that
• 25:08
  instead. And when I was looking at the
• 25:11
  conversion rates, I went, there's no way I I wouldn't be
• 25:15
  able to edit that footage by the time Friday rolls around.
• 25:17
  So I'm like, no, we're not doing that.
• 25:19
  And I'm going to save the money on it.
• 25:20
  So anyways, I'll have to look at the 361 more time but.
• 25:28
  While we're giving oh. Ron's coming back.
• 25:29
  So there we go. Let's see.
• 25:31
  Ron, we're going to pull you back in.
• 25:33
  Did your phone die? That's what we were taking bets.
• 25:35
  I think I'm back again. Here.
• 25:37
  Yep. Did it die?
• 25:39
  Yeah, you shut off and then it. Said to to sign up and
• 25:42
  everything else there. Oh wow.
• 25:44
  Well. Ron's back.
• 25:46
  It's always got to be something. I tell you.
• 25:49
  Better now than later, right? But it gave us a chance to talk
• 25:52
  about the payout for that. We talked about the Ohio women
• 25:57
  because we figured you'd be back shortly.
• 25:59
  So then once it's taken a little longer, I'm like, I wonder if it
• 26:02
  died. That was my bad.
• 26:03
  Is that the phone died? Because sometimes I don't pay
• 26:05
  attention to my phone and I'll look and all of a sudden it said
• 26:08
  6% and I went, I haven't used it.
• 26:11
  Oh yeah, I'm at. 98 but they just said to sign up it just
• 26:15
  went to a white screen and thank you and.
• 26:19
  Some. Harden jargon.
• 26:20
  It's about what it amounts to there.
• 26:23
  What websites are you going to? Wink wink.
• 26:24
  No kidding. But I figure you're usually the
• 26:27
  one throwing the little jabs like that.
• 26:29
  So I one this time. But anyways, Ron, we were
• 26:33
  talking about obviously the Crown VIX and you're talking
• 26:35
  about how some of them are St. stocks.
• 26:37
  I know I want to say James Binkley, he usually comes on
• 26:40
  here, the mayor of M40I haven't seen him pop in yet, but Leah
• 26:44
  did. And I, I talked with Leah and I
• 26:46
  got to give her another phone call.
• 26:48
  So Leah, I'll be calling you probably sometime tomorrow.
• 26:50
  But we got to get those super troopers out of Hartford.
• 26:52
  You're you're talking about how everyone jumped on Crown Vic
• 26:56
  bandwagon, so to speak. I'll call it a bandwagon.
• 27:00
  It's kind of not a bandwagon. Maybe it's a pursuit wagon.
• 27:03
  I don't know, but it seemed like everybody.
• 27:06
  Saw. The clips from Anderson, the
• 27:07
  clips from Winchester and right, they're they're fun, especially
• 27:12
  in the South too. Some of those clips would come
• 27:14
  up from Freedom Factory or you'd see the Super high bank with
• 27:17
  like 19 crumb vics going at it. And so obviously as classes
• 27:21
  change, right, that kind of came up this way, but it never really
• 27:24
  took off except for Hartford figured it out pretty early
• 27:28
  every place there. Well, the good pay off too.
• 27:30
  That helped out too. I mean, there's start pages.
• 27:32
  Alone, right? Like and that's where we try to
• 27:35
  mirror their purse that they have at Hartford.
• 27:37
  And so when I when I called. Drew, I said.
• 27:40
  Here's what I can do for you. I'm I'm going to give you $1000
• 27:43
  out of my own personal pocket. It's nobody else's money.
• 27:46
  It's my money. I'm going to give you $1000.
• 27:48
  Top Row is going to commit to this because I want this show to
• 27:51
  be successful too. But I also know the Crown Vics
• 27:55
  are all hiding in Hartford and, and some are down the road from
• 27:58
  me about four miles away. The Zelmers have like a bunch of
• 28:02
  them at Lakeshore Auto Body Shop, Stevensville, if you go to
• 28:05
  Lakeshore High School and go by Al Stockman Stadium and Betty
• 28:08
  Cone Field and all that, there's Crown Vics everywhere.
• 28:11
  And so like perfect advertising for them in Hartford because
• 28:14
  they're, they literally have Crown Vics right along Cleveland
• 28:16
  Road and there's like 11,000 people that go down the road
• 28:19
  that day. So, so I know that's where a lot
• 28:23
  of them are hiding and, and heart and Russell has kind of
• 28:26
  figured it out. But I know Kalamazoo, we
• 28:28
  struggled to recruit them a little bit.
• 28:30
  I know other tracks in the area, they've tried them and they just
• 28:33
  haven't really taken off like we see in the South.
• 28:35
  So what James Binkley was sharing before I hand it back to
• 28:38
  you is that they were looking some of the guys from up here
• 28:41
  looking to go down there and just the differences between the
• 28:45
  rules and the and what they can do down in Southern Indiana
• 28:48
  versus what they can do at Russell's.
• 28:50
  Like they would not they would not fit the the.
• 28:53
  They wouldn't fit the rules in a.
• 28:54
  Way that they would be in a whole different zip code.
• 28:58
  You know when they caught up. To the Crown Vics down.
• 29:00
  There that they would be it'd be like sitting in Chicago traffic
• 29:04
  and those crown Vics would be already down to Louisville and
• 29:07
  probably down to Bristol by the time they caught up so and
• 29:10
  that'd only be because those guys are passing them you know
• 29:13
  so you know what what do you notice about the crown Vic
• 29:15
  racing down that way since you cover it a lot versus what you
• 29:18
  see up here good good I'd say we started at.
• 29:23
  Mclawn And we had like, I think 10 cars opening night.
• 29:25
  John Lister, Shepherdsville, KY came up and ran and they had the
• 29:31
  sometimes you see like a deck of four aces on the the roof of the
• 29:34
  car. They're out of Louisville garage
• 29:36
  and he. Would just wax.
• 29:38
  Us every week and I got to talking to him because he was up
• 29:40
  the same distance I was traveling and I always go
• 29:43
  through the pits wherever I'm at talking about every driver you
• 29:46
  know I mean he came from a cocky.
• 29:48
  Thank you so much. Who are you?
• 29:50
  I'm just taking photos and stuff and that get talking on Facebook
• 29:53
  this and that and they had more guys coming up from Louisville
• 29:56
  and you know, mid season. He still he, I think he won't
• 30:00
  all but one race and he says, oh man.
• 30:04
  We're, you know, we've. Been doing this for years.
• 30:06
  We should be faster than these guys.
• 30:08
  By the end of the year, they're starting to reel.
• 30:11
  A man, Cook was reeling a man, Randy Hoppus was reeling a man a
• 30:13
  little bit. And they came back.
• 30:15
  John came back the following year and he got third in the
• 30:18
  first feature race. And he says they're catching us
• 30:21
  and. Him and.
• 30:22
  He came back later in May and he says they caught us and we
• 30:25
  really haven't had Louisville come up since then.
• 30:28
  So I mean it's he just takes a while to learn, going through
• 30:31
  the corners and learning the braking method of a Crown Vic.
• 30:35
  It's 3200, thirty, £500 car boat going around the track, you
• 30:39
  know, and you just can't OverDrive it and you really
• 30:41
  can't let one bad turn screw you up for the next couple laps
• 30:44
  either. It's it's a finesse car and you
• 30:47
  know, there's some tricks. You know, of course they always
• 30:49
  say the computer guys got computers and this and that kind
• 30:52
  of altering the the car a little bit.
• 30:55
  But I mean, our Crown VIX and Mclawn, you know, we get about
• 30:57
  20, six a week and the fast time might be .15 faster than the
• 31:03
  other guy. The top 10 they're like within
• 31:06
  .3 and we do the feature race, we're doing full inversion.
• 31:10
  So I mean it's it makes a great race when he got 24 crown VIX on
• 31:14
  the third mile, full inversion love it to see a race like that.
• 31:18
  The guy it's a fast guy still get to the front.
• 31:20
  You might have an upset here and there with a lot of green flag
• 31:23
  racing, but it's just getting used to the car and you saw the
• 31:27
  track and they say you do your homework during the week when he
• 31:30
  comes to the track, you're ready to go.
• 31:31
  And you know, they just got to watch tire wear this, you know,
• 31:34
  when they get on the outside, you know when not to get on the
• 31:36
  outside and you know when to make a move, not make a move.
• 31:39
  And you know, the guys that really know how to race, they
• 31:41
  really don't do a lot of complaining.
• 31:43
  They just they know what they got to do to make it work.
• 31:45
  And you wait, you won't win every race.
• 31:47
  And that's, you know, kind of like, you know, when you go to
• 31:49
  40 last year for that September race, that dirt car sat on the
• 31:53
  front row and, you know, did a pretty good job on those boys.
• 31:56
  So it's all about track position too.
• 31:59
  And 40, that's a highly competitive track, two side by
• 32:03
  side lanes. And you know, Chuck was there,
• 32:05
  Brandon Kindler was there as well.
• 32:07
  And they said, man, we just couldn't get on the outside and
• 32:09
  do anything because it was all bottled up, which is great
• 32:11
  racing. I'd rather see side by side
• 32:13
  racing than a single file freight train of everybody
• 32:16
  going, you know, half a second faster and no one passes anybody
• 32:19
  very reminisces a super late model.
• 32:21
  Sometimes you get sometimes you get a track.
• 32:22
  The cars are too quick for a track.
• 32:24
  It makes it for sad racing or a kind of boring race in there.
• 32:28
  Well, yeah, and that's. Where I get I get excited for
• 32:31
  the Super late models and this is obviously no dig at them, but
• 32:34
  sometimes it's like it's a it's one or the other with those
• 32:37
  features. It's always like an extreme.
• 32:39
  It's never like, I don't know, Boojie, do you feel like the
• 32:41
  same way sometimes watching and not just Wedge?
• 32:44
  I'm talking about just super late models in general.
• 32:46
  Yeah, we went to. We.
• 32:48
  We went to. Nashville for the All American
• 32:49
  400 this year and I'm. Don't get me wrong, I had a
• 32:52
  great time. I always loved race cars, but it
• 32:54
  wasn't a terribly exciting race over 300 laps with a full field
• 32:59
  of supers down at Nashville. Like Ron said, it's a little too
• 33:01
  quick. It's not great racing all the
• 33:03
  time so or they crash. You know it's that.
• 33:07
  Too, like it's always. I don't know how you would
• 33:11
  describe it, but it's like it's one or the other.
• 33:13
  It's like it's never in the middle where at least you know a
• 33:16
  street Stock race. You can have St.
• 33:17
  Stock races that are I I don't want to say not competitive, but
• 33:21
  kind of but they're still exciting, right?
• 33:24
  You know, they they find a way to get in the middle front wheel
• 33:27
  drive racing gets to find a way in the middle Crown Vics.
• 33:29
  I've seen that at Hartford where you know this Elmer crew.
• 33:32
  They know what they're doing out there and they get out there and
• 33:34
  then you have, oh, Andy Barr, when he was doing a he'd hang
• 33:39
  with them and be able to do that.
• 33:40
  Ronnie, you know, Holloway, he did a really nice job up there
• 33:44
  and he usually he that's his first time on dirt, but you know
• 33:48
  then so they figured out too. But I know sometimes with those
• 33:52
  supers, you just never know what you're getting.
• 33:53
  But with the Crown Vics watching them and I'm 40I, I don't know
• 33:57
  what it is about M40, but I always tell people, I don't know
• 33:59
  how to describe it, but they just whether they have 10 cars
• 34:03
  on the track, 5 cars on the track or 40 cars on the track.
• 34:06
  Well it wouldn't be 40, it'd be like 20.
• 34:08
  They they just put on a show there, no matter what the size
• 34:11
  is. And so I know Chuck has done
• 34:14
  really well there. Didn't his daughter win a
• 34:16
  feature too at M40? Yeah, she.
• 34:19
  She got actually spun out by another driver and they gave her
• 34:23
  spot back, but the wheel was bent and she came into pits and
• 34:25
  the cruises. Now the guys like you're good to
• 34:27
  go, went out, won that feature race and that was her first ever
• 34:31
  win. She's been so close at Mclawn
• 34:34
  and it's either been over her time or a wreck at the end or a
• 34:37
  flat tire. And so then Truck had a trophy
• 34:40
  made for her and that's trophy made, I'm going to say 3 trips
• 34:44
  to two Mclawn and one of them 40.
• 34:46
  And we finally got her cornered up at 41 Sunday and we presented
• 34:50
  her with the trophy and she was like instantly a crowd crowd
• 34:53
  favorite and just great gal. She had an unfortunate accident
• 34:58
  in a passenger seat where a vehicle flipped on ice couple
• 35:02
  years ago, injured some vertebrae.
• 35:05
  Yeah. And she's been laid up since
• 35:06
  then. She's at the track every week
• 35:09
  and she's hoping to race again. And she's hoping to race a Crown
• 35:11
  Vic here in the in the future. So I'm not sure about this year
• 35:15
  or not what's going to go down, but just a great kid.
• 35:18
  And, you know, it's but her one in at 40, that was a cool deal.
• 35:22
  And even Chuck, I mean, he's a good guy.
• 35:25
  I mean, he's been racing for years, racing family there as
• 35:28
  well with his uncles and stuff and that.
• 35:30
  And like I say, just those people down there are just so
• 35:33
  friendly. And you know, no one's really
• 35:36
  arrogant. You know all, you know, some
• 35:38
  drivers, he talked to one guy and all he does is complain
• 35:41
  about everybody else in the pits.
• 35:42
  And I really, really don't have that down that way.
• 35:44
  It seems like everybody gets along real well and we're all
• 35:48
  there to have a good time. And you know, I always tell them
• 35:50
  guys, they thank me for a lot of stuff and I'm like, you guys are
• 35:53
  the show, we do the interview, you guys are the show.
• 35:55
  That's why the fans come out. You know, I mean, hey, I got the
• 35:58
  pictures. I get the ball rolling with
• 35:59
  interviews, we do that victory lap down there as well.
• 36:03
  Makes it kind of special for them guys.
• 36:04
  But the racers are the show and they just need to remember what
• 36:08
  they say on Facebook. He got friends, family,
• 36:11
  sponsors, girlfriends, wives, ex wives, watching, reading what
• 36:14
  they say and stuff and oh man, you say 1 bad thing and holy
• 36:18
  smokes it it it can parlay into a a hornet's nest the rest of
• 36:22
  the week. Well.
• 36:24
  So let's let's take a positive thing before we get into all
• 36:28
  about more stories. Just real quick since you're
• 36:30
  back on, we want to do one more just so people know what to
• 36:33
  expect for Saturday and the lap board.
• 36:34
  You were talking about that. That's when your phone decided
• 36:37
  to say night night for a little bit.
• 36:39
  But one more time. So Topper Racing Media added
• 36:42
  $1000 of our own personal money to this because we want to
• 36:46
  invest in the Crown Victoria race not only here but at
• 36:49
  Hartford for the rest of the season.
• 36:51
  So we've committed to to the purse here with $1000.
• 36:54
  So we upped it. This is our proposal to do Jack
• 36:58
  that he accepted. So first place would be 550 all
• 37:01
  the way down to 9th place is at least 205 to win.
• 37:03
  So where Ron comes in, Ron if you want to one more time
• 37:07
  explain the lap board. This is where your phone
• 37:09
  decided, like I said, to say see ya, that it's $10 a lap.
• 37:16
  And it's for 19 laps. We really don't do lap 20
• 37:19
  because that's going to be your 550 payoff right there.
• 37:22
  And it's 1 less left have to worry about basically too.
• 37:24
  So we have 19 laps down. We got 10 laps already taken.
• 37:28
  And I got it on my Facebook page.
• 37:29
  Actually, I did a repulse today on it's $10 a lap.
• 37:32
  So say if a Jerry Carr, he leads the 1st 4 laps and they're all
• 37:37
  $10 laps, he gets $30 in his pocket on top of the payoff.
• 37:41
  And that's strictly coming from different people that sponsored
• 37:45
  it. And you know, Mr. Binkley did
• 37:48
  some laps, Travis Binkley and I did a lap and Don Kreismer, he
• 37:53
  does the some videos at the 40 track, couple other tracks.
• 37:56
  He did some money too. Anybody else can jump on board.
• 38:00
  If someone says, say, I want to do a $50 lap, they can do that.
• 38:03
  Or they see a lap that someone else has already per SE taken,
• 38:06
  they can say, Hey, let's piggyback, let's make that a $25
• 38:09
  lap. Let's do 15 at $15 a lap three
• 38:11
  or something like that. And it's on top of the purse.
• 38:14
  It's something we, we, I'd like doing lap boards.
• 38:17
  I know we had some lap boards done in the past where people
• 38:20
  kept the money instead of paying the money out.
• 38:22
  And they became oh God. So I started doing it and
• 38:25
  they're like, Hey, I had this happen and before like, hey, I
• 38:28
  am transparent. I'm going to be right.
• 38:30
  We're you know, I'll be there every week.
• 38:32
  It's not like I'm going to pocket the money and see you
• 38:33
  later guys. So I would usually try to pay
• 38:36
  that money by the end of the night.
• 38:37
  And you know, it may not be a bunch of money, but hey, when
• 38:40
  you do 5 bucks a lap for a Hornet driver and he gets 6
• 38:43
  laps, he didn't expect that there's 30 bucks he gets.
• 38:46
  And we we've had drivers get as much as 400 some dollars in lap
• 38:50
  money. Jeff Lane got $700.00 lap money
• 38:52
  at Winchester for a mod race we did there, the first modified
• 38:56
  race we did with the Mclawn rules.
• 38:57
  So I mean it's it's a neat little deal with sponsorship.
• 39:01
  It goes on the Facebook page I shared on the Michigan Community
• 39:03
  News and wherever else anybody wants to share it at.
• 39:08
  You get your name out, you get it mentioned at the racetrack
• 39:10
  and drivers be surprised as you know someone does a lap board or
• 39:14
  does on board. I say go down and talk to these
• 39:16
  guys, tell them that you did some of the laps and people come
• 39:20
  back go wow, these guys are really nice to talk to you.
• 39:22
  I said, I know they look like you're 10 foot tall when you're
• 39:24
  young, but they're really 585951161.
• 39:28
  They're just like everybody else and they're human.
• 39:30
  And you know, it's, it's great to know these guys and it's kind
• 39:34
  of neat when you get to travel around and you get to know these
• 39:36
  guys over the years over the the fathers or something.
• 39:38
  And then their sons are racing or you just seen them race for
• 39:42
  years and get talking to them and it's like, wow, you know,
• 39:46
  there, there are stars back in the day.
• 39:47
  I remember at Winchester, I had my photo books out end of the
• 39:50
  night. And there's an old couple, older
• 39:52
  couple came up. Guy was in, it was in his 80s.
• 39:55
  They're both in their 80s. And guy says, yeah, I used to
• 39:58
  race years ago. It was and out of Wisconsin.
• 40:00
  And I said, what was your name, Al Shill?
• 40:03
  I said #14 right. So here's some my Wisconsin
• 40:06
  book, check you out. He gonna get my three photos and
• 40:09
  his wife's looking and going, Oh my God, we never would have
• 40:12
  thought we'd see that. I'm like, hey.
• 40:14
  This guy was a player back in the day when he raced, he said
• 40:16
  he came to Hartford a few times for graduation races.
• 40:18
  I mean, so I mean, these drivers, I mean, they're all
• 40:21
  human. A lot of times they.
• 40:23
  Didn't take. Pictures or really get they were
• 40:25
  so busy keeping up their car, they really didn't have time to
• 40:27
  do a lot of memorabilia or photo sakes and stuff.
• 40:31
  And it's good for them guys to be remembered because, and
• 40:35
  racing in the past was. He looked back at some of the
• 40:37
  memories like, oh man, racing was so fun back in the day, you
• 40:41
  know? Big fields.
• 40:42
  Of cars and big look at the grandstands back in the day and
• 40:46
  we need to get that back. And too many tracks were getting
• 40:49
  100 people a week, 150 people a week.
• 40:51
  And it's like, I don't know what you know, what's the easy way to
• 40:55
  do it? You know, it's like you get hot
• 40:57
  weather and there's not a lot of shade.
• 41:00
  It's, you know, get kids involved.
• 41:01
  They're they're thirsty. They, you know, people go go
• 41:03
  through $30 a night in concessions.
• 41:05
  What do you do? And it makes it a tough battle
• 41:08
  to to get people off to the track anymore, especially when
• 41:10
  you can watch them on Facebook or, you know, watch videos or
• 41:13
  just watch TV or go on floor racing and go everything out
• 41:16
  there. All the other series going on.
• 41:18
  I mean, I've been watching a lot of High limit and World of
• 41:20
  outlaw stuff since they've been on commentators are really good
• 41:23
  and they they know their stuff about poor guy.
• 41:25
  He's pretty good and you know, you got to make racing
• 41:28
  interesting for people. When we try that in Mclong with
• 41:31
  the victor lap, the victor lane interview, and we do that with
• 41:34
  their other interviews. Try to get more, you know, who's
• 41:36
  who and what they are and what they are more than just racing
• 41:39
  like we did. Jim Teske the other week there
• 41:41
  at Mayberry, Great racer in the 70s and he's coming to 40
• 41:46
  Saturday. I made a frame for him to get to
• 41:47
  his daughter and just a great guy back in the day.
• 41:51
  And I mean, I'm, I'm, you know, in Missouri, I've known him for
• 41:54
  almost 50 years, but more so since their old timers.
• 41:58
  I don't want now for really about 20, you know, more up
• 42:00
  close and everything talking on the phone and everything.
• 42:02
  And it's great to have these people be remembered because
• 42:06
  they put a lot of time, effort, probably maybe lost a marriage
• 42:09
  or two, probably had some family, you know, kind of say,
• 42:11
  hey, you know, this is not for me.
• 42:13
  And, you know, they get up in age a little bit and they're
• 42:16
  like, gosh, I did all this back in the day and no one remembers
• 42:18
  me. But you got this stuff to show
• 42:20
  what they did and makes them feel good.
• 42:23
  Well, that's why I love. Doing the videos and I try, you
• 42:27
  know, sometimes I have to follow the leader because that's where
• 42:30
  the battle is. You know, especially in a
• 42:32
  feature heat ray. Sometimes I'll pan away because
• 42:35
  I do try to get every car. But that's a mission, right?
• 42:37
  Because every car pays the same pit pass.
• 42:39
  It's just so nice. It's not easy because again, if
• 42:41
  one and two are battling that, you know, like if I leave that
• 42:45
  battle, then I'm going to get annihilated online, but
• 42:49
  sometimes I get annihilated online by leaving the leader
• 42:51
  anyway. So it's not it's not always a
• 42:53
  win win, but you know, it is documenting history and I know
• 42:56
  Buju has tons of questions. So Buju, this is the one
• 42:59
  question I want to ask. And then I'm because I know
• 43:03
  you're about to geek out, so I'm going to.
• 43:06
  He might take. His hat off, right?
• 43:09
  We're not going. To do that.
• 43:12
  But. You kind of talked about.
• 43:15
  The history you've talked. About getting people to track,
• 43:18
  one of the biggest things that you've done other than the
• 43:20
  Concorde Mall with the Raceramas and all that, and you can
• 43:24
  certainly talk about that. The one thing that a lot of
• 43:27
  people probably best know you for and a resume of everything
• 43:33
  the Save the South Bend races. Boozoo, is that one of your
• 43:37
  questions? No, you're good.
• 43:38
  Go ahead. OK, so I'm going to.
• 43:40
  Steal it. So Ron, do you want to go a
• 43:42
  little bit because you've talked about like bringing people to
• 43:44
  the track and doing these kind of things and saving history and
• 43:48
  and saving tracks and recognizing drivers.
• 43:50
  So within a very short ish window you were able to pull
• 43:53
  together something that saved, you know, at least at that time
• 43:58
  saved, you know, a racetrack in this area.
• 44:00
  So do you want to go a little bit into the Save the South Bend
• 44:03
  race and everything that went into that and how?
• 44:07
  Yeah, 2009 they were having short fields and Mike Byrd.
• 44:12
  Hell, is this one of those things with ah, here we go
• 44:14
  again. This darn thing.
• 44:19
  We can still see an area, right? Now, for what it's worth, he's
• 44:22
  about. To oh man, oh, Oh no, you're
• 44:27
  still this. You're.
• 44:28
  Here. There, he's going.
• 44:32
  I. Wonder when we did the interview
• 44:34
  at the South Bend auto show? It's like after about 8.
• 44:39
  Minutes or. So his phone just did a whole
• 44:42
  weird thing. I wonder if there's some kind of
• 44:44
  setting refreshing. Or something, maybe.
• 44:47
  Yeah, I don't know because. Rhonda would be like it cut you
• 44:50
  out again. And it's like, well, so when Ron
• 44:55
  comes back, because we'll know he'll come back, it's we're
• 44:58
  going to be what? It was about 3 minutes last
• 45:00
  time. Yeah, it's.
• 45:01
  About that, yeah. So.
• 45:04
  While Ron's gone, we are going to hit pause on on the South
• 45:09
  Bend question. So let's just give him time and
• 45:12
  let's talk about the Thursday night throttle while we have
• 45:14
  everybody. So Thursday night throttle
• 45:18
  coming up this Thursday is the first episode at 7:00 PM right
• 45:22
  here on Facebook. Oh, Ron's back.
• 45:24
  That was less than, well, Ron. Saved on my phone.
• 45:28
  This time, so I pay my bills. I'm not sure what's going on
• 45:32
  there, but any rate kind of go back to the 2009 and I'm at the
• 45:38
  M40 on a Friday night and Carl Smith comes up and he says South
• 45:42
  end close for the rest of the year.
• 45:44
  He says man, he says and he would follow me.
• 45:47
  He had that stock cart stream site.
• 45:49
  I'll send him my articles. We try to emulate the Mark Times
• 45:51
  a little bit because Mark Times is closed.
• 45:54
  Oh, goodness. Back in 2003.
• 45:56
  And he loved my articles. And, you know, we got to talking
• 45:58
  on the phone a lot. And he went to his tracks
• 46:01
  locally. I went to mine traveling around
• 46:04
  and he came to 40 that night and you know, he says I'm going to
• 46:07
  follow you. And I said, OK, we got new pairs
• 46:08
  tomorrow night. And that kind of started a thing
• 46:10
  with Carl and myself until he sadly passed away from lung
• 46:13
  cancer. But we did Kankakee, we did
• 46:16
  Kalamazoo, wherever I went, he went.
• 46:18
  And sometimes he's like, Oh my God, how where are we going
• 46:21
  tonight? You know, And he'd always give
• 46:23
  me the, the, you know, the, the lips about some different
• 46:26
  things. But he would go anyways.
• 46:28
  And but he thought it was cool talking to drivers, talking to
• 46:30
  fans. So any rate going back to
• 46:33
  September of that O 9 and Sandy Westfall was out there, Mike
• 46:38
  Powers and how much tracks closed?
• 46:42
  Well, to do an ordinance thing, you got to have a show a year.
• 46:46
  And actually, you know, going back with 2008 when that whole
• 46:49
  thing went down and Mike Powers got hold of me and he says what
• 46:53
  do you got to do? And I said, well, you know, we
• 46:55
  got to do one race a year. I know for the ordinance issues,
• 46:58
  and I said when Plymouth Speedway, we had to do a show a
• 47:01
  year before to keep that track open and a lot of people didn't
• 47:04
  remember that way. I only had one show that year
• 47:06
  that was like a Labor Day Sunday deal there and they had about 60
• 47:09
  cars on hand and I said, OK. So I said OK, we got to do that.
• 47:14
  Now with me doing the car shows, it's like there's different
• 47:16
  things that pop in your head. I said OK, we're going to get
• 47:18
  insurance, we're going to have one event that's gonna have me
• 47:21
  let's have vintage cars and a picnic.
• 47:23
  I can get some. So I get 5 vintage cars out here
• 47:25
  for A5 lap, 6 lap race and have a picnic.
• 47:28
  OK. Then other people are like
• 47:30
  what's going on to say we're gonna do a save race, keep
• 47:32
  track. I can bring my mini stock out, I
• 47:34
  can bring my street stock out. And I told Carl, I said holy
• 47:38
  smokes. I said we're gonna have to do a
• 47:39
  clean up day here too, you know. So we set up a clean up day like
• 47:43
  the following Thursday. I think this was like September.
• 47:45
  I think September 11th was the first day we did the clean up
• 47:48
  day because it was just before Labor Day.
• 47:49
  When we talked about it, we had like 80 people on hand and I
• 47:54
  came out and I told Carl, I said, we're going to thank every
• 47:56
  single person that did this. I'm going to have them sign a
• 47:59
  pit release, have them go around and sign a pit release for
• 48:01
  insurance purposes. He goes what?
• 48:03
  And I said just have everybody sign it.
• 48:05
  I'm going to put every name on that Facebook page thanking him
• 48:07
  for coming out. And we had 74 people and Carl's
• 48:10
  like, you know what kind of work that is?
• 48:11
  I said, you want to pull weeds with Ron or pull the rocks or do
• 48:14
  this, all right, pull shrubbery. All right, So he did that and I
• 48:20
  thank everybody. Well, then this, this thing just
• 48:21
  took off like crazy. Next thing you know where it's,
• 48:24
  you know, 5 St. stocks. We had 6 mini stocks, you know,
• 48:27
  we had a couple guys that had the Thunder cars back in the
• 48:30
  day, the Alec, you know, the, the old full body stock cars
• 48:34
  sign up and you know, then this thing just took off like crazy.
• 48:37
  Next thing you know, we got super late models and you know,
• 48:41
  then we started having people donate money and we're paying
• 48:44
  different things. So I started putting everything
• 48:46
  together. I mean, it's all about, oh Lord,
• 48:48
  this was this one from September 13th.
• 48:50
  I think the show was going to be the first week in October.
• 48:53
  Carl says like 3 weeks before, 2 weeks before he says, hey, we're
• 48:56
  going to have to move it back a week.
• 48:57
  David Sturm, he's going to come to town.
• 48:58
  He's going to drop off a bunch of memorabilia.
• 49:00
  I said, Carl, you know what October is?
• 49:02
  It could be 45, it could be 50. Every time we wait a week, it
• 49:05
  could be even colder. Well, I know, but David's
• 49:08
  coming. I'm like, oh brother.
• 49:10
  So we moved it back a week, September 10th, October 10th and
• 49:13
  11th. We had to have a show by the
• 49:16
  13th because of the last show with that ordinance that had to
• 49:19
  happen. So I told, I said we get rained
• 49:21
  out Saturday, we're going to run Sunday, we get rained out
• 49:25
  Sunday, We got to have something Monday night, whether it could
• 49:28
  just be one single race, otherwise the track would been
• 49:30
  closed for good. Well, Bird had to get up, come
• 49:32
  up and get money for taxes because he was behind on taxes.
• 49:35
  That was a whole thing. And that clown in the penny
• 49:37
  saver got on there, mate. Race ain't going to happen
• 49:40
  because of the the property taxes aren't sold in birds like
• 49:43
  I'm getting the property taxes. We had the ambulance.
• 49:45
  Ed McFadden was great. He's a with the hospital, he
• 49:48
  says I got an ambulance that would just put out a service,
• 49:50
  but it's still good. I got some people signing up to
• 49:53
  come out. Oliver's were coming out doing
• 49:55
  we're cleaning up every night out there at the track.
• 49:56
  Mike Powers was, he worked at the auction and he was in tears.
• 50:00
  That track was going to close. He was there for what a great
• 50:02
  guy and he was. I just you know, literally gave
• 50:06
  him the keys and said OK, if you're doing this in the
• 50:08
  morning, I can't get there till 5:00.
• 50:10
  I work, I was working 9 hour shift and I feed the kids
• 50:13
  supper. I'd come out to the track till
• 50:14
  910 o'clock and we would do different pick up.
• 50:17
  Now Howard Fezzett and his family came out, did a lot of
• 50:19
  painting out there. I rewired the flag stand.
• 50:24
  Oh, we had other guys just come out with with paint.
• 50:28
  I was kidding him. That was expired paint, but it
• 50:30
  was still paint that would work for the racetrack.
• 50:32
  And entry list was my God, it was 100 and you know, 30 some
• 50:36
  cars. So on qualifying night we had
• 50:39
  we're going to do qualifying Friday night and we had like 91
• 50:43
  cars on hand. We had another, you know, 60
• 50:45
  cars coming for Saturday. So we cleared the grand stand
• 50:49
  out now where they come into the pit gate.
• 50:50
  We cleared all that area Outback there for more haulers.
• 50:53
  And then we set an area up behind the fence for more
• 50:56
  haulers to go outside the track and come race day in on think
• 51:00
  what are we going to do? Let's have vintage cars.
• 51:02
  I got some hot Sprint guys that were coming.
• 51:04
  We had basically a stock AV8 class.
• 51:07
  We had 108 V eights. We had 43, six mini stocks.
• 51:12
  We had 23 front wheel drives. Most of our Ileana guys because
• 51:15
  really didn't do front wheel drives up this way yet and 171
• 51:20
  cars on the property. And then plus the six house
• 51:23
  sprints, we had eight vintage cars.
• 51:25
  We had the Rochester modified group that had about 7 or 8
• 51:27
  cars. And I say we're to make this a
• 51:29
  day to remember. Let's have a car show and I do,
• 51:31
  I was doing a lot of car shows back in the day.
• 51:33
  So I had cars, we had classic cars lined up all the way around
• 51:37
  the back fence, all along the fence, all way around.
• 51:39
  Some Buju might remember this as a kid.
• 51:41
  We had about 90 show cars on hand.
• 51:43
  Well, buddy of mine was working the the parking at my workplace.
• 51:47
  He says, I said, what are you doing?
• 51:48
  Are we off duty or what? He goes man, every, every lots
• 51:51
  full back here. He says we can't bring any more
• 51:52
  cars. And so we had classic cars
• 51:54
  parking on the out in the grandstand area just because it
• 51:57
  couldn't fit in there. And we started this thing.
• 52:00
  We were hot lapping them by we had them by class.
• 52:02
  So the Super lates with hot lap with the Super lates, the street
• 52:05
  socks, the sportsmen, the tweener cars and the Thunder
• 52:08
  cars were by themselves. And we had like say 171 cars.
• 52:11
  We had dash. We had the dash events like the
• 52:15
  old days, actually. I was help lining up the cars in
• 52:19
  the in the pit area and we had a bunch of people volunteer to
• 52:23
  come on out there. We had the oh, the Housers from
• 52:26
  Angola came with wheel to work the infield.
• 52:30
  We had Steve Brown brought the transponders down.
• 52:32
  He couldn't believe how many transponders.
• 52:34
  I said we're going to need over 150 transponders.
• 52:36
  And he's like, Oh my God, you got to be kidding me.
• 52:37
  So he brought transponders and we started that at 3:30, had the
• 52:43
  dash events, we had I think 18 heat races.
• 52:46
  We got done at 9:05 with a 75 lap late model race.
• 52:49
  Bobby Blunt, one we had, I think that purse was like 11,850.
• 52:54
  The most anybody made that day was Bobby Blunt with $305.00 for
• 52:58
  winning the Super Late Model race.
• 52:59
  He had a, he had some market. Tires.
• 53:01
  On that were awfully soft, but awfully darn quick and everybody
• 53:05
  got. And.
• 53:09
  Everybody got 40. 5 bucks for showing up at the Journal
• 53:13
  mission was 3 bucks to get in if he had a ticket from another
• 53:16
  racetrack. Pits were $10.
• 53:19
  We sold 900. We sold 910 pit passes that day
• 53:23
  and we had about 5000 people on hand.
• 53:25
  I mean, that place was packed. And just to see pictures, I
• 53:28
  didn't. We had a video crew coming in
• 53:30
  there. Lewis, where were you back in
• 53:32
  the day? And this guy's like, I'm going
• 53:33
  to tape the races. I mean, I'll be so busy I'm not
• 53:35
  going to see one. And he left after two races.
• 53:38
  Something happened with a family called him and he had to leave.
• 53:41
  So we had nobody videotaping it. And I got, you know, I watched
• 53:44
  the last late model races. That was it because we were so
• 53:47
  busy to pit slating up. And Buju might remember this
• 53:49
  too. We had the following race in the
• 53:51
  infield lined up on that little circle part where they go out,
• 53:54
  go out to qualify just so that next race was ready because we
• 53:57
  had so many cars in the pit and Mike and I were really busy
• 54:01
  keeping track of that stuff. Fast forward to May the
• 54:05
  following year, 2010, the track went from 700,000 on sale to
• 54:09
  1,000,000 two and Mike first said Bird said there's a lot of
• 54:13
  takers, or really wasn't. We had to do another show.
• 54:16
  Carl was having surgery that year on a knee so he couldn't
• 54:19
  help. So it was Mike Powers myself for
• 54:22
  the most part, and we had 9094 cars show up.
• 54:26
  It was a memorial weekend Sunday of 2010 and we did another show
• 54:31
  to keep it open. So now you had another year to
• 54:33
  keep this thing. We had to do it early because
• 54:35
  the weeds were growing, the grass was growing.
• 54:37
  And you know, that was like that first one was like, wow, that's
• 54:40
  a lot of stuff going on in 30 days for a life of person.
• 54:43
  Then you know, they will age in a hurry.
• 54:45
  So we did that show and then it looked like, you know what's
• 54:49
  going to happen, We got to do another.
• 54:51
  Something's not to happen. So they had that auction over
• 54:53
  there at Warren Township Fire Department.
• 54:54
  A lot of people were there and Mike Powers was in tears.
• 54:58
  He goes, oh, we're going to close forever.
• 55:00
  Steve Brown was in talks with Carl saying, hey, I'm going to
• 55:02
  put a bid on it. I'm going to put a bid on it at
• 55:04
  the end of the night. And I think about 11:50, Mike or
• 55:09
  Steve Brown put a bid on it and Mike Byrd took the bid.
• 55:12
  It was going to be either that or Reuben's junkyard.
• 55:14
  It's only going to be a junkyard out there because of all the the
• 55:17
  pollution in the ground because Bird went down 9 feet pollution.
• 55:20
  We went down 18 feet was pollution because he was saying
• 55:23
  it was going to be apartments and all this and that and wasn't
• 55:25
  going to happen. And then Steve Brown got it and
• 55:29
  then it took off after that. So I was glad to see that track
• 55:32
  with so much history still be kept today because we didn't do
• 55:36
  that show and we didn't do it by October, I think 13th that year,
• 55:40
  it would have been gone forever. It just couldn't have done
• 55:42
  nothing with it. So a lot of work.
• 55:45
  You'll never see a show like that again.
• 55:47
  And I don't mind who it is, how young they are.
• 55:50
  You'll never see another safe show.
• 55:52
  It's just a lot of work. And I'm glad we did it and you
• 55:56
  know it, it was, I need to write a book about that at some point
• 55:59
  because that was that. I know I was on, I was on fumes
• 56:02
  that whole I was rewriting purse money.
• 56:04
  Every time we someone would donate hundred a $100 here, $50
• 56:08
  there. I'd even add more purse money in
• 56:10
  different classes and stuff just so everybody got some money out
• 56:13
  of it. And but it stayed alive.
• 56:16
  So that was the main thing there.
• 56:19
  Yeah, you talk about a hectic. Day at the racetrack.
• 56:21
  I don't ever remember one more chaotic than that one.
• 56:23
  I you had people lined everywhere, you guys, as you
• 56:26
  said, cars in the parking lot. My brother Kevin won an
• 56:28
  Australian pursuit at the at that first thing Speedway.
• 56:32
  Yeah, with all the races. As I say, I'm going to have to
• 56:35
  call on these things. You know, I would have had to
• 56:36
  crack the whip too if everybody would understood it better how
• 56:39
  that was. But I enjoyed I mean you.
• 56:41
  Had a good time with there was people going through the.
• 56:44
  Grandstands, I'm making a run to McDonald's.
• 56:47
  Give me, you know, and he would just buy 20 or 30 hamburgers or
• 56:49
  cheeseburgers and, you know, throw them in the stands.
• 56:53
  And then they had the food boosts there.
• 56:55
  They were going back to Martins and Krogers, buying everything
• 56:58
  they possibly had just to keep serving stuff.
• 57:01
  And boy, that, well, that was a that was a cool deal.
• 57:04
  I remember I had my workplace, they had we had a company on the
• 57:07
  deck party there and Jim Hammer in imagineering.
• 57:11
  I'm still 23 years there. And he he pulled me and he says,
• 57:13
  what do we got to do to have a family picnic out there?
• 57:15
  And I said, you know what, if we could feed all the employees sub
• 57:19
  sandwiches, that would be great. He says we'll find out how much
• 57:22
  it's going to cost and just, you know, it's like 300 and some
• 57:25
  dollars to do the foot longs. Well, actually the three foot
• 57:28
  and stuff. And stuff for the employees.
• 57:31
  And they were on the party deck doing that.
• 57:33
  And so that worked out pretty good there.
• 57:36
  But I was what a time. And I mean this, I mean, I
• 57:40
  remember Ralph Yarbrough come out and he had that throat, you
• 57:42
  know, issue and stuff. He could barely talk.
• 57:44
  He says, thank you so much for doing this show, man.
• 57:47
  I love what you're doing, you know, and I'm like.
• 57:48
  You're going to fly, he goes. Oh no, no, I'm too old for that,
• 57:51
  I said. Hey, we got 20 some events going
• 57:54
  on. You might want to go up there.
• 57:56
  And I remember I was in the pits and Doug Fox got on the radar
• 57:58
  and he says, Ron, I got a visitor in a pit stand for you.
• 58:01
  I looked, I said, holy smokes, it's Ralph.
• 58:03
  So I ran around the around the trap with my camera, took a
• 58:06
  picture of Ralph in the flagstand.
• 58:08
  You know, he passed away a couple years after that, but he
• 58:11
  was in the flagstand. And I remember I saw him later
• 58:14
  on and I call him, he says, Oh my God, I had the time of my
• 58:17
  life. He says I was thank you so much
• 58:19
  for saving that track. He had tears in his eyes when he
• 58:21
  was flagging. He said it was such a cool deal
• 58:24
  and but yeah, it was somehow we had people in the infield
• 58:28
  working spotters to someone wrecked and I'd be on the radio
• 58:31
  and they said, hey, 50 spun out, 22, OK, 50 doesn't tap out in
• 58:35
  one lap, 22, give them the spot back 50 to the tail or, you
• 58:39
  know, this and that. So I mean, we're having races
• 58:41
  going Bing, Bing, Bing. And to do 33 races, I think it
• 58:45
  was in, you know, 5 1/2 hours. Even Bill Brown says we could
• 58:48
  have never done that at 40. We'd be hell, we'd be there for
• 58:51
  two days literally trying to do a race.
• 58:52
  But you got to be organized when you do that kind of stuff.
• 58:55
  And it's one of those when you get done.
• 58:57
  All said and done, we did clean up the next day.
• 58:59
  I had a little entry list made-up, and we were giving away
• 59:02
  all kinds of prizes from different places, food, dinners
• 59:07
  and stuff. And then Sparky, I gave him a
• 59:08
  bunch of stuff. Even a buddy of mine that was a
• 59:10
  manager at Taco Bell gave me like 500 free Taco coupons.
• 59:14
  And when Carl and I went out there and cleaned up that
• 59:16
  Sunday, we didn't find one entry sheet, that one free food coupon
• 59:20
  or any kind of coupon anywhere. Oh, there's a lot of bottles and
• 59:24
  cans of clean up and found a couple of die cast cars out
• 59:27
  there. You know, Ron's always looking
• 59:29
  for stuff like that anyways, But that was that was that was quite
• 59:33
  a memorable day. And I told Carl, I said, you
• 59:35
  know, this is history right here.
• 59:37
  This will never be done again. I'm guaranteeing you that pretty
• 59:40
  much anywhere in the country. And I don't think it's been done
• 59:42
  anywhere in the country. It's too much politics going on
• 59:45
  to, you know, something comes out of that, you know, for
• 59:48
  another place or something to that regard there.
• 59:51
  You mentioned a. Lot, I mean, talking about the
• 59:54
  show just coming up, a lot of names from my child and you
• 59:56
  mentioned Mike Powers and Karl Smith, who are always super nice
• 59:59
  to a kid that loved racing, So I always appreciated that from
• 1:00:02
  them. But I want to know the people
• 1:00:04
  from your childhood that made you fall in love with the sport.
• 1:00:08
  Who are the kids that are young? Who are the guys that are young
• 1:00:10
  Ron Rash looked up to when you first started going to the
• 1:00:14
  racetrack? Well, I'd say you know you're
• 1:00:15
  going. Back to 67 and there was a guy
• 1:00:17
  that drove #11 out of Bremen. He had a purple car and I had
• 1:00:21
  purple color, purple color, pretty cool jigs, Myers and.
• 1:00:25
  Always. Smiling Bru, a nice guy into pit
• 1:00:27
  area, you know, and say hi to him and that I always say hi
• 1:00:29
  jigs. You know, I was like, oh God, I
• 1:00:30
  don't want to say anything else, you know, and another car was
• 1:00:33
  cool. Is dude Weaver with he had that
• 1:00:35
  lightning bolt on his car and just a blue car with a lightning
• 1:00:39
  bolt. And it's funny talking to him
• 1:00:42
  because he used to bring a monkey to the racetrack.
• 1:00:44
  He had a pet monkey and you always say to everybody, the
• 1:00:47
  thing was friendly, but boy, if anybody got near it, that damn
• 1:00:50
  monkey would take a swipe at him or try to bite him or, you know,
• 1:00:52
  slap him or something. And so he had a story when him
• 1:00:58
  and Willie Stutzman were racing. Willie was new to racing.
• 1:01:00
  And dude was on the one of the named drivers.
• 1:01:03
  He was in Ohio. He's a War 2 veteran.
• 1:01:05
  And Woody, who had the Woody cars with Dave Warrig and Frank
• 1:01:09
  Demsky. Tom Jewel says, hey, come on up
• 1:01:12
  to Indiana, make more money racing.
• 1:01:14
  So dude comes up northern Indiana, lives in Goshen and he
• 1:01:17
  gets married and he's racing. And there's a guy named Willie
• 1:01:22
  Stutzman, his car owner. And you know, dudes like young,
• 1:01:24
  good looking guy. He had another guy racing
• 1:01:27
  formal. A guy didn't show up.
• 1:01:28
  So Willie started racing. So now he's in super mods and
• 1:01:31
  Willie went on the outside to do it in a heat race.
• 1:01:33
  And dudes like, you know, you don't go around dude Weaver.
• 1:01:37
  You know, a young kid like that goes around Dude Weaver on the
• 1:01:39
  outside without paying the price.
• 1:01:41
  And he told Willie that Willie's like, I'm just racing.
• 1:01:44
  Well, Willie did it again a couple weeks later and dude put
• 1:01:46
  him in the wall and Willie's up there and dude went by and
• 1:01:51
  dude's like, I don't know if he's going to kick my E double S
• 1:01:53
  or, you know, or if it's going to let it go.
• 1:01:55
  And so in the pits, you know, dudes like, hey, things happen.
• 1:02:01
  Willie's like, yeah, I'll get it fixed.
• 1:02:02
  I'll be back out. Championship night, 667 weeks
• 1:02:05
  later, dude second points trying to chase Demsky blows the motor
• 1:02:10
  and dude's got the car on the trail and Willy's walking by
• 1:02:13
  again. Hey, what's wrong with the
• 1:02:14
  what's wrong? He goes blew the motor.
• 1:02:16
  I'm out of the championship. Willy's like, Nope, you're
• 1:02:18
  getting in that 88 car tonight. You're going to win the
• 1:02:20
  championship. And dude's like, but I put you
• 1:02:22
  in a wall like a month ago and he goes so he says, but you
• 1:02:26
  know, you're in the second points.
• 1:02:27
  He's I'm not getting that car and run it.
• 1:02:30
  And dude was like, I would never would have thought that
• 1:02:32
  happened. He's like, after that, I admired
• 1:02:33
  that guy for till he died, you know, and just a neat little
• 1:02:37
  story would dude. It was just it was so much
• 1:02:39
  camaraderie back in the day. If you race New Paris, they're
• 1:02:42
  South Bend, New Paris. Philanthi did it.
• 1:02:44
  And like Jim Teske goes over the wall and he says, we worked on
• 1:02:48
  that car till 6:00 in the morning on Saturday to get that
• 1:02:50
  car ready for New Paris. And we ran New Paris.
• 1:02:51
  Hannah flips a car into grandstands and 71 it's.
• 1:02:56
  That car he's back in. New Paris the following night
• 1:02:58
  with a new body on the car. It's like you, just like Jim
• 1:03:01
  said, you, when you commit to that, you just do it.
• 1:03:03
  Now guys, they spin out and they get a flat tire, they're out for
• 1:03:05
  the rest of the night and they can't race for two weeks because
• 1:03:08
  it's this and that and else wise.
• 1:03:10
  And but there's a lot of camaraderie back in the day and
• 1:03:13
  some really good racers. And you know, they said a lot of
• 1:03:16
  guys didn't come race to tri-state.
• 1:03:17
  They didn't knew what they were running into.
• 1:03:19
  When he had Warrigs and Demsky, he had Skiles and Jigs and
• 1:03:22
  Ronnie Drake and and the Late Models and talking to Jack
• 1:03:26
  Swaggart down at Mclawn, Rick Swaggart.
• 1:03:29
  And he says, yeah, stop in one of the opening nights.
• 1:03:32
  I was down there and I go, yeah. He says, man, that's like 100
• 1:03:34
  and some miles away. Yeah, 160.
• 1:03:36
  He goes, that was a couple guys that came down at race, Mclawn
• 1:03:39
  Nairi and a zero and a double 00.
• 1:03:44
  They come down, man. They clean our clocks.
• 1:03:46
  They says this one guy had a tube chassis.
• 1:03:48
  Talk about Denny. I said Denny Nairi, Larry Scouts
• 1:03:51
  and Ronnie Drake. He goes, yeah, yeah, you know
• 1:03:53
  them guys. That's why I know them all.
• 1:03:54
  I said I got pictures of them. He says that tuba would come
• 1:03:57
  down to cleaner clocks and I said what it was is it was jigs.
• 1:04:01
  Denny, Leroy and Ronnie were a racing team that went back then
• 1:04:04
  and two would race up in New Pers Plymouth.
• 1:04:06
  Two would race Mclawn and Anderson.
• 1:04:09
  Well, Jim Blunt had a super modified that was a six
• 1:04:11
  cylinder. They let run a wing at Anderson.
• 1:04:14
  the V eights had to go wingless and Jim's like I'm going to
• 1:04:16
  clean your clocks with a with A6 cylinder with the horsepower
• 1:04:20
  they would have and with the wing on it.
• 1:04:22
  So then Jim Blunt would come down and Anderson and Mclawn and
• 1:04:25
  run and then Denny because Danny just was good on flat tracks.
• 1:04:28
  And then Drake and Skiles would they would stay up north or
• 1:04:31
  sometimes they buy they did vice versa and stuff.
• 1:04:33
  But you know, this is the way those guys race.
• 1:04:36
  They knew they, you know, Denny so much ahead of his time.
• 1:04:39
  He was a classic to watch too, because he traveled a lot.
• 1:04:41
  Then he start coming back to North Indiana, race a little bit
• 1:04:44
  more around here now, you know, but he'd race all over anytime,
• 1:04:47
  anywhere. And you know some good guys
• 1:04:50
  there. But dude and jigs were my first
• 1:04:51
  two and then the mini stocks in the 70s and they let those
• 1:04:54
  Carmen Guias and from Toledo and Joliet come run and the
• 1:04:58
  Volkswagens and a low slug slicks and man, those boys got
• 1:05:02
  around 13613 seven around the track.
• 1:05:05
  And man, I love those mini stocks back then they then they
• 1:05:08
  ran them at Winchester and they had open body and full body cars
• 1:05:11
  and guys would come from Massachusetts for surveys and
• 1:05:13
  that. And man, that was those are some
• 1:05:18
  cool mini socks back in the day too.
• 1:05:20
  That takes me to my next. Question, what was, what's your
• 1:05:22
  favorite class and your favorite era?
• 1:05:24
  If you could bring something back and watch that and one type
• 1:05:27
  of racing again, what would it be?
• 1:05:29
  I would have to say I. Love the Super modifieds and we
• 1:05:33
  had what going on in the early 90s with Isma and you know, we,
• 1:05:38
  we'd, they had California guys. They're kind of like the Hyder
• 1:05:41
  Hawks now. The Hyder guy was the one that
• 1:05:43
  built built the Derrons and dragsters with the roll cage.
• 1:05:46
  But the way the cage is, he came up with a super modified design
• 1:05:49
  that looks like a ruins and dragster, but they're a lower
• 1:05:51
  slug stationary wing. And we're at they had a setup
• 1:05:56
  where Jeff Hilton, Scotty Backman and DV Hamilton came to
• 1:06:00
  Jennerstown to race in Sandusky back in the night was 91.
• 1:06:03
  They're going to race Volusia in 92.
• 1:06:05
  Well, I already was going to go to Volusia anyways.
• 1:06:07
  Well, now those three guys came and raced at Jennerstown and
• 1:06:12
  Irish and I were talking to Hamilton and he goes, man,
• 1:06:14
  there's like 10 cars at our track in Wisconsin, California.
• 1:06:18
  There's 34 cars here tonight. And I said, you know, and we
• 1:06:21
  talked about the evolution of supers up here and I said, I got
• 1:06:23
  got a book that you're going to love and I'll bring it to
• 1:06:26
  Sandusky next week. My old tri-state book from the
• 1:06:29
  60s and 70s. And so I'm.
• 1:06:32
  At so we bring that. Book that was kind of to
• 1:06:34
  Sandusky for the cavalcade and Trujuro was the car chief for
• 1:06:39
  Hamilton. I mean all there's probably 10
• 1:06:42
  guys in his pit crew and I brought that book I said DV I
• 1:06:44
  got that book for you. He goes, you got it.
• 1:06:46
  And I'm like, yeah, I'll put that book down and Oh my God,
• 1:06:49
  those guys are like looking at that thing.
• 1:06:51
  I mean, all the guys are looking at it at by the end of the night
• 1:06:53
  throughout the that area. But that was a friendship with
• 1:06:56
  Davy Hamilton that started back in the day.
• 1:06:58
  And then when he had his accident at Texas, Oh my God,
• 1:07:01
  you know, his foot was all but, you know, amputated off of there
• 1:07:04
  and stuff with all the broken bones in that.
• 1:07:06
  And he was in the hospital forever and he came back to race
• 1:07:08
  again. That was Suns racing, you know,
• 1:07:10
  Davy Junior. But I remember at Plymouth they
• 1:07:13
  had a USAC Sprint race and Davy Junior was like 9 years old, ten
• 1:07:16
  years old. He's racing one of those Midget
• 1:07:18
  classes and Davy was there and I said, he says, I said, how you
• 1:07:22
  doing Dave? And he goes, he got those books.
• 1:07:23
  I said, Yep, got the books on top of the hill tonight.
• 1:07:26
  And after the races got done, he's over there looking to books
• 1:07:29
  and he's telling Davey junior this and that.
• 1:07:31
  And I told Irish, I said check that out.
• 1:07:34
  It was like 1215 years ago. He was like with Sandusky went
• 1:07:37
  those darn books. I said, Luke is looking at him
• 1:07:39
  again. He goes, Oh my God.
• 1:07:40
  So what a cool deal with Davey Hamilton back in the day there
• 1:07:43
  and stuff and. Some of those you.
• 1:07:45
  Just and then you do, you know, like say friend, say Facebook,
• 1:07:48
  you can put stuff on different sites and I got Howard page, you
• 1:07:51
  know, a lot of different super mod drivers, Jamie Moore that
• 1:07:54
  race it and you know, in the out of New York in the 80s and zeros
• 1:07:59
  do a friend request and I'm posting those old pictures that
• 1:08:01
  I got out of the books and that and they're like, man, that was
• 1:08:04
  so cool back in the day, you know, and all that.
• 1:08:06
  But I would say that early 90s super mods, when he had 30 some
• 1:08:10
  mod supermods. They had Bentley, Warren Racing
• 1:08:12
  back in the day. What a driver.
• 1:08:13
  Joe Golstick was another one there had abled.
• 1:08:17
  But you know, South Bend in the 70s with the supers.
• 1:08:19
  That was a great time too. With the early 70s with Warren
• 1:08:21
  Demsk, with the Woody cars. Every car had a wood wing,
• 1:08:24
  something looking different. The stock car class was, you
• 1:08:27
  know, jigs, you know, had Skiles in there, Ronnie Drake,
• 1:08:30
  Crandenberg, you know, Susky, I mean those some great racers
• 1:08:34
  back in the day too. I remember it was super late in
• 1:08:36
  the 80s at New Paris when they would open competition and was
• 1:08:39
  not a resent was the the rivalry going on?
• 1:08:42
  It was Mike Bontreger was going to get third.
• 1:08:44
  OK, who's going to get 4th? But that was a great rivalry.
• 1:08:47
  That was when new Paris was getting, you know, probably
• 1:08:49
  about 4000 a week and 30 some late models and you know, either
• 1:08:52
  you're you know, Denny was a fan favorite.
• 1:08:55
  No matter what Zent was either love him or hate him, but great
• 1:08:59
  time for racing back. And the time was as 80s when
• 1:09:01
  they let the big spoilers take off.
• 1:09:03
  But you know, the dirt guys did that before and they were
• 1:09:05
  letting you know, taking the windshields out.
• 1:09:07
  They long getting in know it's kind of like what Russells got
• 1:09:09
  with that limited, you know, class right now, the limited
• 1:09:12
  outlaw class. And I love them body styles.
• 1:09:14
  It's just some ingenuity, something different because, you
• 1:09:17
  know, St. Stocks, the same regal body
• 1:09:19
  style now going on what, 50 years now?
• 1:09:21
  I think it is the way it is. Heck, we could be racing in 20
• 1:09:24
  more years and it'll still be the 85 Grand Prix and Monte
• 1:09:26
  Carlo St. Stock body, you know, You know,
• 1:09:29
  the mods are mostly Cavaliers, you know, at least the front
• 1:09:32
  wheel drives and the Hornets are bars of soap just different
• 1:09:36
  ways. You know, all those foreign cars
• 1:09:37
  are bars of soap just according to how you wash your hands is
• 1:09:40
  the form on them and that but you know, that's a lot of
• 1:09:44
  different forms of racing. I mean, I love Mclawn.
• 1:09:46
  You know, three years ago we averaged 28 miles a week.
• 1:09:49
  What a class of cars down there. You know, you start with 10 cars
• 1:09:53
  and you guys like Harold Scott, Don Skaggs still racing Joel
• 1:09:56
  Beaver, these guys, Don Skaggs 86 years young, interviewed him
• 1:10:01
  a night at the for the autograph night.
• 1:10:03
  Then he won the feature later that night.
• 1:10:04
  Well, what a thrill that seen these guys like that.
• 1:10:07
  Just a cool little deal there and stuff.
• 1:10:10
  You talk a lot about. Tri-state.
• 1:10:12
  Sorry, Buju, I cut in. No, you're good.
• 1:10:13
  You're good now you're good. I was thinking like you've
• 1:10:15
  talked. A lot about Tri-state, but I bet
• 1:10:17
  a lot of fans and maybe some who are watching this are like what
• 1:10:20
  it, you know, we have Tri-state sprints now with John Boy
• 1:10:23
  Hotchkiss and doing all that, but.
• 1:10:25
  There are a lot of. People nowadays who are probably
• 1:10:28
  disconnected from a lot of this history.
• 1:10:31
  So when you take like I know tri-state because I've talked
• 1:10:33
  with you so many times, but that's before my time, before
• 1:10:36
  Boujou's time. So do you want to let people
• 1:10:39
  know who are watching what you mean when you say tri-state
• 1:10:41
  racing? Yep, it was.
• 1:10:44
  Joel Hampshire, he owned I think 7 different race tracks at one
• 1:10:47
  time. New Paris, He had some ties in
• 1:10:49
  with Plymouth. He owned Mountville, he had
• 1:10:51
  Elkhart Fairgrounds, Elkhart Speedway, Goshen Fairgrounds,
• 1:10:53
  they're called Speedway, Oceola Speedway.
• 1:10:56
  And he had New Paris and Plymouth pretty much as his main
• 1:11:01
  tracks there. And South Bend was either owned
• 1:11:03
  by Kovach for years and then Louis Freeburn took over.
• 1:11:07
  Louis Freeburn took over. I think it was 737172.
• 1:11:12
  Now you're not making me think you're 72.
• 1:11:15
  And it was tri-state, South Bend, New Paris and Plymouth.
• 1:11:18
  Montville was kind. Of like the.
• 1:11:19
  Stepchild Plymouth would run Sundays, Montville would run
• 1:11:21
  Sundays and get their own group of cars though Hampshire owned
• 1:11:24
  it and so then Louis Freeburn, it was July 2nd.
• 1:11:29
  They had a disk. They agreed to disagree.
• 1:11:31
  So if you're so South Bend went open competition, which was cool
• 1:11:35
  at the time because then he brought the Michigan cars that
• 1:11:37
  had fuel injection for the supers.
• 1:11:39
  Then you would have. Plymouth, the new Paris.
• 1:11:43
  You if you ran South Bend, you couldn't run New Paris in
• 1:11:45
  Plymouth. But if he went if he skipped
• 1:11:47
  South Bend, then you could go he could rendo that new Paris and
• 1:11:51
  Plymouth deal. Sometimes Warrig would race
• 1:11:53
  South Bend one week then he would do a Tri sack race
• 1:11:57
  somewhere else because he couldn't race Plymouth or new
• 1:11:59
  pairs. Sometimes dem ski they would
• 1:12:01
  flip flop but. They had a guy sitting.
• 1:12:03
  In the out, in the parking lot, right down.
• 1:12:04
  Whoever showed up at South Bend, he couldn't race there.
• 1:12:07
  It's created a lot of bad blood. I mean, even fans would get
• 1:12:10
  about it and I think drivers, it took a long time for some new
• 1:12:13
  pairs guys to ever come back to South Bend because of that
• 1:12:16
  relationship. It just became two different
• 1:12:18
  islands of tracks because Bird kind of created his own stock
• 1:12:21
  car class, a sportsman class. He had that been American class
• 1:12:24
  for a while and if he had a South Bend car, you could not
• 1:12:27
  take that thing to Plymouth or South Bend or new Paris or
• 1:12:31
  Plymouth because it would just it'd be this would be either a
• 1:12:34
  kind of outdated or just it'd make you add weight.
• 1:12:36
  Check your car over. Tom Ish took over a villa and
• 1:12:40
  then he would run Plymouth and that's when all the South Bend
• 1:12:42
  cars basically could go back race and coming over to race
• 1:12:45
  Capital Speedway at Plymouth then too in the villa.
• 1:12:49
  But that broke that happened in 73.
• 1:12:51
  So it you know, new pairs start running super mods.
• 1:12:56
  They only get 6-7 cars and then they let them take the wings off
• 1:13:00
  6-7 cars. Year later they were done.
• 1:13:02
  So it was basically late models and hobby stocks and roadrunners
• 1:13:05
  or coyotes. South Bend had the supers when
• 1:13:10
  Fort Wayne reopened again in 74. They took the Tri SAC banner
• 1:13:15
  with the Super mods to run there on Friday.
• 1:13:17
  So we lost all the Michigan supers.
• 1:13:19
  We were down to like 9 or 10 supers.
• 1:13:21
  The supers were basically done after 74 at South Bend, which is
• 1:13:25
  a shame. Then it came back in 1980 when
• 1:13:27
  Ozzy started that class with Mike Byrd, the limited Supermod,
• 1:13:30
  which was then it became like a Michiana series and stuff.
• 1:13:33
  That was kind of a neat deal back in the day there, but it
• 1:13:37
  was a basically the rules are very similar to Villa Angola.
• 1:13:42
  You know Kalamazoo. For stock cars, but they just
• 1:13:44
  called it Tri-state because of South Bend, New Paris and
• 1:13:46
  Plymouth and people ran that whole circuit.
• 1:13:49
  Now, Dick Price was a photographer of them for the
• 1:13:51
  most part. I don't know how he did it.
• 1:13:53
  I mean, me just doing photos in the Claw one, one night, keeping
• 1:13:57
  up with all that jargon and then, you know, doing your local
• 1:13:59
  tracks on the off weekends. How did he do this thing?
• 1:14:02
  Friday, Saturday, Sunday and just amazing what he is like.
• 1:14:05
  Wow, that guy had to be on some. And you didn't have energy
• 1:14:08
  drinks back then. You might have had real
• 1:14:10
  Coca-Cola or real Pepsi, but man, how did he do something
• 1:14:13
  like that? But that was kind of like
• 1:14:16
  tri-state basically was like for a couple more years and then it
• 1:14:19
  kind of just like, no, we just won't call it tri-state anymore.
• 1:14:22
  But that was kind of the history of it.
• 1:14:24
  It ran for like 4 years. And the four years it ran, it
• 1:14:27
  was a highly successful because it, you race up in like Jim
• 1:14:30
  Teske says you're, you're at New Paris the following night and
• 1:14:33
  you're at Plymouth Sunday night. So I mean, you'd each get each
• 1:14:37
  track, we get 18 supers, maybe new pairs, grab a few more from
• 1:14:40
  a little bit further South. And then the Late Models is
• 1:14:43
  always about 20 at South End, 20 at Plymouth and then about 30 at
• 1:14:47
  New Paris. And then they had the hobby
• 1:14:48
  stock class, which was like Gary Wiles with a 56 Chevy, Butch
• 1:14:52
  Ryman guy, Ron Rosen, Trader Bill Wingate.
• 1:14:55
  Some people remember Wingate and cars like that and what you
• 1:14:58
  know, it was three classes which I liked.
• 1:15:00
  You had 60 cars on hand, dash heats, features.
• 1:15:04
  That was a lot of cars. Now you got 60 cars at tracks,
• 1:15:07
  but you got 6-7 divisions. And it's so watered down that
• 1:15:11
  now one class has got 51's, got 7, one's got 11.
• 1:15:15
  And it's like, I mean, loose Strummy had a great scenario
• 1:15:18
  back on an interview show we did.
• 1:15:20
  Yet all these marbles in a bowl, they're all race cars.
• 1:15:23
  And you start taking these marbles out for late models and
• 1:15:26
  a stock car class. And then he got an open wheel
• 1:15:29
  class or A4 cylinder class. He says at some point you run
• 1:15:31
  out of marbles and that thinks that's what's happened now with
• 1:15:34
  a lot of tracks. They're running out of marbles
• 1:15:36
  because you're running out of glasses.
• 1:15:37
  And now you got the MCR dwarfs that have taken off, the Legend
• 1:15:40
  series has taken off. They got a lot of different
• 1:15:43
  outside divisions that weren't around back in the day.
• 1:15:45
  And you know, it's just to see, you know, you're so used to 16
• 1:15:50
  cars in a feature and then boom, when that economy kind of hit
• 1:15:54
  years ago and you're down to 11 late models, it's like where's
• 1:15:57
  the another five at? You know, and then you might
• 1:16:00
  have guys racing every other week or kind of spotting around.
• 1:16:03
  I like about Mclawn we do every other week.
• 1:16:05
  So if the guy doesn't have a car ready, he has another week to
• 1:16:08
  get this thing ready. So it kind of works in a favor
• 1:16:12
  that way, cuz then you get a little bit of a higher no cat.
• 1:16:14
  Not right now, not right now. And he wants to sit on my lap
• 1:16:18
  and that won't work too hot right now.
• 1:16:21
  You. Know it's like.
• 1:16:22
  You do this every other week and get a few more cars, but
• 1:16:24
  sometimes that weekly crying and guys just they want to take time
• 1:16:27
  off. They just can't afford.
• 1:16:29
  If there's a fix and, you know, everything, so many few things
• 1:16:32
  are now are out of a junkyard. Everything's laying out a motive
• 1:16:35
  and performance technology. And once you get all these other
• 1:16:37
  places involved, that stock word isn't stock anymore, you know?
• 1:16:43
  Yeah. Yeah, you talk about, I remember
• 1:16:45
  being a kid, even late 90s, early 2000s New Paris running
• 1:16:49
  D&E features at 3-4 in the morning, well after South End
• 1:16:52
  finished up, you know what I mean?
• 1:16:54
  So it's amazing we do a villa. For the Sprint show, for the
• 1:16:58
  house sprints or the the Pennzoil sprints, and we just go
• 1:17:02
  straight from the villa straight to New Paris.
• 1:17:03
  And it would be intermission. So I get to see like races then.
• 1:17:07
  But it made for a long day. But yeah, that was a high time
• 1:17:12
  for New Paris. And they reopened.
• 1:17:13
  And, you know, there's a bit of uncertainty.
• 1:17:15
  And Larry Zent and Tony Dagger took it over there in 85.
• 1:17:18
  And you know, there's even one night kind of a really good
• 1:17:20
  story, Larry will soak in tires in to be quicker than Denny.
• 1:17:24
  And Joe Hampshire was like the track steward at New Paris and
• 1:17:28
  Plymouth. And Denny come up and he says no
• 1:17:31
  soaking, right? And Joe says no soaking.
• 1:17:34
  He says there's a car that's soaking tires.
• 1:17:36
  Who is it that white #5? You're loaded up for the.
• 1:17:42
  Night, you're out of here. And Larry's like, I own the
• 1:17:44
  track and Hampshire says I run the track loaded up.
• 1:17:47
  You're out of here. More spoken.
• 1:17:48
  And Larry had to load up. And he was done for the night.
• 1:17:51
  Then he's like, I didn't know if I was going to be welcome back
• 1:17:53
  the following week, but you know that.
• 1:17:55
  Rules. Were rules, So what a.
• 1:17:58
  Story. There, you know, for telling
• 1:17:59
  your own track owner you got to load up that.
• 1:18:02
  I'm not sure that would happen nowadays you mentioned.
• 1:18:07
  Another another great name there.
• 1:18:09
  Denny Nayari. Larry's that one name, one
• 1:18:12
  specific name I wanted to ask about.
• 1:18:14
  I always hear stories. He's one of my mom's favorites.
• 1:18:16
  When she first started going to the races.
• 1:18:17
  And you mentioned him earlier, Wild Bill Wingate always seemed
• 1:18:21
  like a very interesting one to watch.
• 1:18:22
  So if you could make a story from the archives out for Wild
• 1:18:24
  Bill Wingate, I'd really appreciate that.
• 1:18:27
  Yeah, he had. An old 6 cylinder modified body
• 1:18:29
  that would kind of run with the late models because they didn't
• 1:18:32
  really know what to do with it because the the all the older
• 1:18:34
  modified bodies, they became super mods.
• 1:18:36
  One Cedars, but 1960 and they had cars were coups, you know,
• 1:18:41
  full Fender cars and he had your Fender cars.
• 1:18:44
  Then the supers, which basically were, you know, they took the
• 1:18:47
  fenders off, say it's an open wheel, but they're big body.
• 1:18:50
  Well, more money being paid, more technology taking place,
• 1:18:53
  more thinking going on. They start chopping the car up
• 1:18:56
  and they became a super modified, kind of like a Sprint
• 1:18:59
  car, single seat motor in the front tail, you know, gas tank
• 1:19:02
  in the rear. And then they called a Sprint
• 1:19:04
  car because of the speed, because it sprinted, it was
• 1:19:06
  fast. That's the name of the Sprint,
• 1:19:08
  the Super mod because it was so modified, you know, super
• 1:19:11
  modified. And that was that.
• 1:19:13
  That was up at Birch Run, MI and I think 1958 was the first time
• 1:19:17
  that word was used and that became synonymous with a super
• 1:19:20
  modified wooden gate was out of LaPorte and 328 was his number.
• 1:19:26
  And so then he was never watch a late model like that.
• 1:19:28
  He's always like a hobby stock or a street stock.
• 1:19:31
  And you know, he raced something till like 84 years old and he
• 1:19:35
  would have his ways about doing things, but he won features.
• 1:19:40
  You know, drivers would get mad and they were like, you know,
• 1:19:43
  the guy's an old man, though. I can't really go up and whip
• 1:19:45
  his butt or anything like that. Actually, Luke Stremi, the first
• 1:19:49
  car Lou bought was Bill Wingate's 328.
• 1:19:53
  The the Camaro that he had 'cause I was hoping Fred Malucky
• 1:19:56
  like an 80 and there's a cat here now he wants to be on TV.
• 1:20:00
  Another guy. How you?
• 1:20:02
  Doing buddy and. But at any rate, so Lou's going
• 1:20:06
  through the pits with Cindy holding Bobby and David and
• 1:20:08
  Fred's like, who's this guy? So this guy's Lou Strim.
• 1:20:10
  He's asking a lot of questions and stuff, but racing and
• 1:20:14
  Wingate was getting out of racing.
• 1:20:16
  So Lou bought Wingate's last one of his last cars there and one
• 1:20:22
  now something about what happened with Lou's uncle Henry
• 1:20:26
  Stremi, he was a racer. And now I got the cat really on
• 1:20:29
  my lap. All right now wash your claws.
• 1:20:31
  I only got 1 shirt on. You gotta wash your claws.
• 1:20:34
  But at any rate, so at the Jackson, MI, let's see, it was
• 1:20:39
  Oscar Fay couldn't make the race and he says, well, extremities,
• 1:20:42
  he's a good racer. So they had him drive the car.
• 1:20:45
  Unfortunately, the car crashed at Jackson and it took his life
• 1:20:50
  and he flipped it going off the track and Oscar fate to that
• 1:20:53
  guys I was with seeing him race and then with the old timers.
• 1:20:56
  I keep in touch with him all the time.
• 1:20:58
  He says, you know, that day, Ron, he says, I wish I would
• 1:21:00
  have made that race because, you know, Lou's uncle passed away
• 1:21:04
  that day from a race that I couldn't make.
• 1:21:06
  And it was in the car that I was supposed to be in.
• 1:21:08
  And those, you know, we had a lot of drivers pass away back in
• 1:21:11
  the, you know, back in those days with no row cages, no fire
• 1:21:14
  suits. And you think they're running
• 1:21:15
  100 and some hours an hour at tracks like Winchester and going
• 1:21:19
  through the fence in them, the trees and, you know, just a
• 1:21:22
  simple seat belt and a leather cap.
• 1:21:24
  How'd them guys? Do that back.
• 1:21:25
  In the day, this major bravery going on there, but it they got
• 1:21:30
  for technology with fuel cells, you know, full cages, you know,
• 1:21:35
  even like that Ryan Newman wreck at Daytona.
• 1:21:37
  He had that little Halo thing coming to he he just instructed
• 1:21:40
  that basically saved his life because then when that thing
• 1:21:43
  happened, it was like, Oh my God.
• 1:21:44
  Then they covered the car up and he got real mum about what's
• 1:21:48
  going on. It's like, oh, this isn't good,
• 1:21:50
  you know, stuff there so but you know.
• 1:21:54
  I've got you want to. Add.
• 1:21:57
  Yeah, OK. Go ahead, I've kept you past the
• 1:21:59
  time. So I don't know if Lewis wants
• 1:22:01
  to jump in here and move us on or not.
• 1:22:02
  Oh no. I mean, we've lost around a
• 1:22:05
  couple times, right, And these stories are incredible and
• 1:22:08
  people are really enjoying them. I mean, we have I wanted to give
• 1:22:10
  a shout out to Brian Kuseba who jumped in.
• 1:22:13
  You know, I first met Brian when he was the flagman at South Bend
• 1:22:16
  and I know he's been he raced at Ileana and he's been been doing
• 1:22:19
  a marvelous job over at Granny Brown guy his.
• 1:22:22
  Name's Brown Guy. But but yeah.
• 1:22:26
  You know, I just I want to acknowledge with him being in
• 1:22:29
  here, you know, with Grundy County getting ready to load up
• 1:22:32
  their season coming up. So I want to give a shout out to
• 1:22:34
  him because again, you know, Donald was in here with Crashers
• 1:22:38
  Adventure saying that these, you know, a lot of these names are
• 1:22:40
  bringing up memories. So it's like, you know, when you
• 1:22:43
  have such a good conversation, it's one of those things that I
• 1:22:46
  know Michigan's going to be on in about 45 minutes, but at the
• 1:22:49
  same time, and we haven't even covered like.
• 1:22:55
  Like. I don't know.
• 1:22:56
  We're not even. Like, I know stuff, Ron.
• 1:22:59
  And and again, just the stories you tell are so incredible.
• 1:23:02
  I did notice that my light burned out.
• 1:23:04
  So I'm like, well, I can't, I can't get up.
• 1:23:06
  And I like you're working with makeup.
• 1:23:08
  Maybe that was makeup once you're working on this.
• 1:23:11
  My my question that I did have because you.
• 1:23:13
  Talk about tri-state, talk about state of the South Bend
• 1:23:16
  Speedway. One thing that you've also done
• 1:23:18
  that people may or may not remember you from is doing the
• 1:23:22
  mark times right. So you have all these names and
• 1:23:24
  just. I'm listening because I, I grew
• 1:23:27
  up at, you know, Santa Fe Speedway, which is now
• 1:23:30
  $1,000,000 homes. And then we went down to Grundy.
• 1:23:33
  County. When I was a kid in LaSalle,
• 1:23:35
  that's when Izzos had it. And Izzos had a auto shop in
• 1:23:39
  Chicago at the time. That's how we came across the
• 1:23:41
  Izzo family. But I always loved those that 66
• 1:23:44
  going around. So, you know, I grew up in that
• 1:23:47
  area and I, I didn't really get to experience South Bend racing
• 1:23:51
  where my mom and my, my real dad, you know, got to do that.
• 1:23:54
  And even my stepdad Bob, his dad raced at South Bend at one time
• 1:23:59
  too. And so, you know, so some of
• 1:24:02
  these names I know just from history, but there's a lot of
• 1:24:04
  names that I'm like, I, I just don't know this, that, that far
• 1:24:07
  back, right. So I'm enjoying all of this.
• 1:24:09
  And then it seems like people are really enjoying it and
• 1:24:11
  enjoying the, the recollection. So with Mark Times, if you want
• 1:24:15
  to cover a little bit about what you did with Mark Times and,
• 1:24:18
  and, and how you got to connect with drivers even more on that
• 1:24:21
  side, especially with the newspaper that I think all of us
• 1:24:25
  at some point, you know, I'm, I'm sure people a little bit.
• 1:24:29
  Past my. Generation who are younger
• 1:24:31
  probably don't know the mark times, right?
• 1:24:33
  But I remember the mark times. I remember being able to pick
• 1:24:36
  that up at the racetrack all the time.
• 1:24:37
  And I know at least to my brother, who's three years
• 1:24:39
  behind me, would remember that. But there's probably not too
• 1:24:42
  many people past his age who would even know mark times.
• 1:24:45
  So if you want to cover a little bit about that, yeah, Dick
• 1:24:48
  Beebe. And he was a, he was, his dad
• 1:24:51
  built Galesburg Speedway, in fact, and he started a racing
• 1:24:55
  publication. It was like 19, I think 66 mark
• 1:24:58
  Times Racing News, Michigan Auto Racing Club.
• 1:25:01
  And it was covering northern Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, pretty
• 1:25:05
  much Illinois, some Wisconsin. And then it did some national
• 1:25:07
  stuff. And he had a group of writers,
• 1:25:10
  lot of great writers. Rodger Farrell is a great writer
• 1:25:13
  out of Huntington. He would talk about car counts
• 1:25:16
  and who'd expect to be there and he, you know, he sit with him.
• 1:25:21
  Just information great. Alan Brown did the National
• 1:25:24
  Speedway directory named a great friend with him and he would
• 1:25:27
  come down and sell those racing all the racing tracks.
• 1:25:30
  Any rate, Dick wanted to do a racing publication paper come
• 1:25:35
  out Tuesday morning like people get a Thursday.
• 1:25:37
  That was always a day that you would run back to the get in the
• 1:25:40
  mail and read the read the racing results and that was your
• 1:25:43
  racing Bible for the weekend. And I we started the Michiana
• 1:25:47
  vintage car club and I got with Dick Beebe and I say we're
• 1:25:50
  starting a vintage car group, but I go to a lot of other races
• 1:25:53
  over the years because he says I've seen you before, you know,
• 1:25:57
  I need to talk this. And then I said I could write a
• 1:25:59
  column about the Michiana vintage racing scene.
• 1:26:01
  He goes, you go ahead write one up and he says, I tell you what
• 1:26:04
  he says. If you speak the truth, you do
• 1:26:07
  your follow-ups. I I'll back every single time.
• 1:26:09
  I'm sorry, I'll write a wrote a column.
• 1:26:11
  He says don't worry about words. It's longer, it's longer.
• 1:26:14
  If it's shorter, it's shorter. I don't care.
• 1:26:15
  Just write good stuff. So I wrote one and he says
• 1:26:17
  you're on. And so I start writing that
• 1:26:20
  column. Michiana Vintage Racing Report
• 1:26:22
  is covering Michiana vintage cars pretty much because we were
• 1:26:24
  doing 8 shows a year. But when you do 34 other shows a
• 1:26:28
  year, I'd right where we're going to other tracks.
• 1:26:30
  So I was covering Hartford with the sprints, the the sod
• 1:26:33
  sprints, Avila Sandusky. I would add that stuff to the
• 1:26:38
  column and kind of got a lot. Of pretty good.
• 1:26:40
  Rapport out of it and you know, I was writing down like local
• 1:26:44
  results if we go up to Berlin for a race, Northern Indiana
• 1:26:47
  guys, if there's anybody up there how they did or how the
• 1:26:49
  invaders did or something like that or ISMA super mods when I
• 1:26:53
  were even to Jennerstown and stuff like that.
• 1:26:55
  Winchester and it got to be where he was getting up in age a
• 1:27:00
  little bit and they he was that kind of going backwards a little
• 1:27:05
  bit. It's when it closed.
• 1:27:06
  I was still writing a column. I didn't see a paper for a
• 1:27:08
  couple weeks and I called Carmen up and I said what's going on
• 1:27:12
  with the racing paper? She says Dick wants to talk to
• 1:27:14
  you. And I got with him on the phone
• 1:27:16
  and he called me a blank head. He says, you know, you don't
• 1:27:18
  throw nothing away cuz we would do shows together.
• 1:27:20
  He would read my column and he'd be at Plymouth that night with
• 1:27:24
  his T-shirts and I had my books there.
• 1:27:26
  We'd be at New Paris, be at Fort Wayne or Engle.
• 1:27:28
  He'd be there and I said, how do you, are you following me or
• 1:27:30
  what? And he goes, no, you, you're
• 1:27:31
  just going to a good show. And he was getting up in age.
• 1:27:34
  He had his wife, the second wife of the time, doing the T-shirts
• 1:27:38
  and then he would be on the four scooter pushing vehicles a lot
• 1:27:40
  of times for open wheel. And he says you keep everything.
• 1:27:44
  I seen the stuff that you do with these books.
• 1:27:46
  He says, I got all these racing papers, come get them.
• 1:27:48
  And he says, I know you're not going to throw these photos away
• 1:27:50
  or anything. I go up there with Ozzy.
• 1:27:52
  They got used to race back in the day and we're going through
• 1:27:54
  photos for about a day and I'm like, man, I don't know where
• 1:27:58
  all some of these are AT. And he says, I thought you knew
• 1:27:59
  everything. I said, man, Dick, these are out
• 1:28:01
  of my time frame, out of my area.
• 1:28:03
  I'm not sure. He says this this, take the
• 1:28:04
  stuff and store them out when you go home.
• 1:28:06
  Took six boxes home. It's like Christmas morning.
• 1:28:08
  Open these things up going holy smokes, look at all this stuff,
• 1:28:11
  trying to sort them by year and everything.
• 1:28:13
  That's what prompted me to have a lot more books.
• 1:28:16
  And but then sadly, he, you know, something, he his, he was
• 1:28:20
  going to go to Florida and I was up there at Michigan.
• 1:28:22
  I spent a couple of days at his place up north of Grand Rapids.
• 1:28:25
  And you want me to go to Florida with, with him.
• 1:28:27
  And he says my wife's not doing well health wise and she was
• 1:28:31
  having some, some personal battles.
• 1:28:34
  He'll just keep it at that. And he's like, I don't know if I
• 1:28:36
  can do the drive by myself. And I said, man, I just, I'm
• 1:28:38
  going to be able to help you here.
• 1:28:40
  And he came back from that trip. He did the trip, kind of made it
• 1:28:44
  like only four days instead of like the normal 8.
• 1:28:47
  And he was in a shower. A couple months later, he
• 1:28:49
  slipped and fell and passed away.
• 1:28:52
  But I had a lot of racing papers.
• 1:28:54
  I kept all my racing papers over the years.
• 1:28:56
  So that's where I got all my article.
• 1:28:58
  I still got my God boxes. People have given me the heads
• 1:29:01
  and tail down the road and a lot of photos to put in the right
• 1:29:05
  range and stuff like that. But like I said, there's only a
• 1:29:08
  couple of people still alive that did that.
• 1:29:10
  Now. Sandy Westfall wrote a column
• 1:29:12
  and that was in there. And then Matt, Matt Pryor, who
• 1:29:14
  does the Hammer series, he was doing the Top Speed modified
• 1:29:18
  series, Midwest modified series and some of the only survivors
• 1:29:22
  from that era back in the day. And but great recent paper.
• 1:29:26
  And I mean, I would read my column, Farrell's column and
• 1:29:29
  Dick's column. He would use different words and
• 1:29:31
  I try to throw them in my stuff every once while.
• 1:29:33
  The Crash House and he would sometimes he wouldn't have a
• 1:29:36
  period, he would just have like about 3 dots and then you would
• 1:29:38
  just go to the next subject matter and the next subject
• 1:29:41
  matter in the next subject manner.
• 1:29:43
  And but he he forgot more than I would ever know about racing.
• 1:29:47
  He was just, he told them, guys, if you don't have a fire suit
• 1:29:50
  on, you're not going to get your picture in the racing paper if
• 1:29:53
  you want to race. Simple as that.
• 1:29:55
  And he'd started the the, the American Racing Congress, which
• 1:29:59
  was a safety measure. You had to have fire
• 1:30:02
  extinguishers at the racetrack. You really should have trained
• 1:30:05
  personnel for the ambulance. And then different things that
• 1:30:10
  made organization better about guaranteed purses for the
• 1:30:14
  drivers and tracks signed on to that.
• 1:30:16
  And I actually got the original column from 1969.
• 1:30:18
  A lot of tracks signed up to do that just as a, you know, hi the
• 1:30:23
  fans, if they didn't agree to it, why aren't you signing on to
• 1:30:26
  this thing? So he was really big for safety
• 1:30:29
  for fans. He says, I'm tired of doing
• 1:30:30
  shows every weekend and proceeds from the mark times is going to
• 1:30:34
  a burn unit to save this guy's life for for his family and
• 1:30:37
  stuff like that. And I remember we had an
• 1:30:40
  incident at 40 Speedway with Scotty Seaton back.
• 1:30:43
  Great guy, talked to him a lot got he knew my daughters and
• 1:30:46
  everything. He had a new Sprint car and he
• 1:30:48
  went the auto city the week before and he passed away.
• 1:30:51
  The throttle stuck and it just And I was at 40 that following
• 1:30:55
  weekend and I told Bill Brown, I said, you know what, I'm gonna
• 1:30:57
  do some stuff. I'm gonna let's do an auction
• 1:31:00
  for a frame for Scotty Seaton. And then I'll give one to the.
• 1:31:03
  Family and then I'll have an Earnhardt frame we're going to
• 1:31:06
  auction off and we'll do some other things to auction off.
• 1:31:09
  And people were jumping on board and we had one guy off for 500
• 1:31:11
  bucks for an Earnhardt frame. I got a $20 frame for 500.
• 1:31:14
  We end up raising like 2200 bucks at night for the actually
• 1:31:18
  it was for a Benevolent Fund for, for the sprints back in the
• 1:31:21
  day. And Tommy Hartzell was like,
• 1:31:23
  this really got us going on that.
• 1:31:25
  He says we need it, something like that to happen good after
• 1:31:29
  what's happened to Scotty with him passing away.
• 1:31:31
  But you know, it, racing's dangerous and you know, it's
• 1:31:34
  like people have got to take the right precautions to.
• 1:31:37
  You don't want to see somebody race and then something happened
• 1:31:40
  and now they're, you know, either something about part of
• 1:31:43
  their body's gone or they're just unable to function anymore.
• 1:31:46
  And it's just that's one of the sad things with racing too, and
• 1:31:50
  seen a lot of stuff with tragedies and wrecks and stuff
• 1:31:54
  like that when I see. Gracie Maynard popped in here
• 1:31:58
  and and saying, you know, huge appreciation.
• 1:32:00
  So as you're covering, you know, Mark times and everything that
• 1:32:03
  you guys did there, you know, again, just everything that you
• 1:32:06
  have done from the history to the car shows, which we haven't
• 1:32:09
  even covered car shows. You know, we need to do another
• 1:32:12
  show down the. Road here for sure.
• 1:32:14
  You know I. Know you have work too coming
• 1:32:17
  up. So I don't want to keep you too
• 1:32:18
  long because that countdown is going on.
• 1:32:20
  But I just I know I wanted to cover the mark times, but oh, I
• 1:32:26
  just lost my train of thought. But you know, if you want to
• 1:32:28
  touch a little bit on the car shows because again, I know with
• 1:32:31
  your time, you have to go to work.
• 1:32:32
  So you work that third shift. So for a lot of people who don't
• 1:32:36
  know that, right, like your time.
• 1:32:38
  To shine is. Almost coming up with that.
• 1:32:40
  I'm a full full time worker. A lot of people think I just sit
• 1:32:42
  around the house and play on my computer and, you know, feed
• 1:32:45
  animals. But, you know, actually I work
• 1:32:48
  full time. But at any rate, we used to do
• 1:32:50
  the car shows. We started at Concord Mall.
• 1:32:52
  We used to do Cavalcade, but you walk 2 miles with a creative
• 1:32:56
  books, have a hell of a time getting signed in because I
• 1:32:58
  couldn't remember your name the day before.
• 1:33:00
  Then I walk out of there and you got the same people walking
• 1:33:02
  around in a circle. Sometimes if it was a good
• 1:33:04
  looking chick, it wasn't a bad idea, but it was sometimes the
• 1:33:06
  same people. It's like, Oh my God, you know,
• 1:33:08
  you just can't get out of there. So I said let's go to Concord
• 1:33:10
  Mall. That's a nice spacious place.
• 1:33:12
  So I hit Concord Mall up and they said yeah, we'll do 1.
• 1:33:14
  We had 11 cars the first time and the thought they thought it
• 1:33:17
  was great. Lot of lot of rules.
• 1:33:19
  You got to watch still between gas out of the gas tanks,
• 1:33:22
  batteries disconnected where you can park where you couldn't
• 1:33:25
  park. But that started there.
• 1:33:27
  And then I started doing one at Michigan City over at Marquette
• 1:33:29
  Mall. I can get show cars.
• 1:33:32
  I could get Draxers, but boy, to me to get a race car too, I was
• 1:33:35
  like pulling teeth. We did like 7 or 8 of them shows
• 1:33:39
  and I just like man, this is just tough to pull this thing
• 1:33:41
  off. Then that the mall started
• 1:33:42
  closing stores and I thought the night I came in there one year,
• 1:33:46
  one of the last years, I thought I could get robbed in here.
• 1:33:48
  No one would even see me getting robbed because there's like no
• 1:33:50
  one in the mall. Well, back to Concorde, start
• 1:33:53
  with 11. Then I added those guys like
• 1:33:55
  man, if he had a stock car show, I'd bring my stock car out.
• 1:33:57
  I said, you know what, I had 30 guys say they're going to bring
• 1:34:00
  open wheel. I had 13 show up stock cars.
• 1:34:03
  It is. And the last six years we did
• 1:34:05
  that show of Concorde, we had 70 plus cars on hand.
• 1:34:08
  The last show we did, I think we had 86.
• 1:34:10
  I mean, that place was juked. We only had 11 stores open.
• 1:34:14
  That last show we did at Concord the year before COVID.
• 1:34:17
  And man, that was happening. It was busy.
• 1:34:21
  It was like people like, how many people are running this
• 1:34:23
  thing? Me who sets the insurance up, Me
• 1:34:26
  who does the paperwork, me, you know?
• 1:34:28
  And it was like, that was just, you know, Carl was helping to a
• 1:34:30
  point, but he's more on the phone telling guys you got to
• 1:34:33
  bring your car. You got to bring your car, you
• 1:34:34
  know, and stuff. And Buju remembers the, you
• 1:34:36
  know, the Davis outfit would bring cars and stuff.
• 1:34:38
  Sometimes they were going to bring four or five, sometimes
• 1:34:40
  they'd be lucky to bring 2. But anyway, they still brought
• 1:34:42
  cars, but we're at a great time. I mean, it was like you had and
• 1:34:46
  not too many people can get along with people from South
• 1:34:48
  Bend, New Paris, Plymouth at the time and other tracks.
• 1:34:51
  It was either like your pro one track or the other.
• 1:34:53
  Then you're an outsider concerted to the others.
• 1:34:55
  But I don't mean I'm the way I monster around.
• 1:34:57
  It was like I was kind of like that middle in law that got
• 1:35:00
  along with everybody or something.
• 1:35:02
  And but we had United destruction.
• 1:35:05
  I'd have show cars there. You know, we guys car doesn't
• 1:35:08
  look nice. I don't care, just bring it out.
• 1:35:10
  People are going to want to see it, you know, you're bringing a
• 1:35:12
  car out. Hey, you're doing it, you know,
• 1:35:14
  and but then we had COVID the following year and mall
• 1:35:18
  ownership, my God, we changed owners I think 4 different times
• 1:35:21
  in three or four years, still had to show because they always
• 1:35:23
  saw the paperwork and the amount of people that would show up.
• 1:35:25
  And the guy contacted me and he says, hey, contact, your show's
• 1:35:29
  going to be canceled. He says starting Monday, we're
• 1:35:31
  going to cancel everything at every mall and every gymnasium
• 1:35:33
  for the next three months. Two months.
• 1:35:36
  Oh, man. So we had to cancel it that
• 1:35:37
  year, understandably. So some people still complained
• 1:35:40
  about it that I should do something outside in April.
• 1:35:43
  You don't do an outside show first weekend in April,
• 1:35:46
  especially like when you look at the weather like today and well,
• 1:35:48
  may not be a bad idea, but I wouldn't stand in 10 hours out
• 1:35:50
  in 45° weather. So the following year, we tried
• 1:35:53
  to set something up earlier that winter.
• 1:35:56
  They had the power shut off unexpectedly.
• 1:35:59
  And then I contact, what's going on there?
• 1:36:01
  Oh, we had a slight malfunction and this and that.
• 1:36:04
  I said, OK, I said, man, if I do the car show, we can't have the
• 1:36:06
  lights go out. And we got, you know, a couple
• 1:36:08
  thousand people in the mall and 50 cars.
• 1:36:10
  And they gave me the ham in the hall and this and that.
• 1:36:13
  And then they couldn't get the paperwork in time.
• 1:36:15
  And instead of like, man, I'm going to call it.
• 1:36:17
  Never done a car show again. And that was a great time, Carl.
• 1:36:21
  He was just, you know, Mike Powers, you know, he, I always
• 1:36:24
  kid him about. There was a female security
• 1:36:26
  guard working Concord. He knew her name within the 1st
• 1:36:28
  5 minutes. And you know, it's like this
• 1:36:31
  fun. I remember one year Fred
• 1:36:33
  Sibley's got the jet car. He would always tell me, Ronnie
• 1:36:35
  didn't tell me about the show, but somehow he knew about the
• 1:36:37
  show. But he would start coming out,
• 1:36:39
  he'd bring his jet car and I was in the inside getting cars lined
• 1:36:42
  up and he fires that darn jet car he had out in the parking
• 1:36:45
  lot. He could hear this thing
• 1:36:46
  rumbling in the mall. Mike Powers, like he's got this
• 1:36:48
  thing fired up out in the parking lot.
• 1:36:51
  I'm thinking, Oh my God. So he brings it in, we're
• 1:36:53
  pushing it by 15 of us were pushing it in and I'm returning
• 1:36:56
  the wheel and that and I said, OK, right here.
• 1:36:58
  And he says, he says, Ron, you dumb, eh?
• 1:37:01
  He says, I got an electric motor.
• 1:37:02
  We could have brought this thing in under power.
• 1:37:04
  I said we didn't tell me that. Well, we just had it on the end.
• 1:37:06
  Well, anyway, he ran that damn thing out the parking lot with
• 1:37:10
  the kerosene. Now we shut the doors because
• 1:37:12
  that's 40 some degrees outside and at midnight I'm still in the
• 1:37:16
  mall and I'm smelling kerosene. I'm like, Oh my God, is this not
• 1:37:19
  going to go over good? And I'm smelling it and I'm
• 1:37:21
  smelling it and made the ventilation on.
• 1:37:23
  And one security guy says this boy, Kim's going to have a fit
• 1:37:27
  in the morning. I said, oh, Christ, I'm having a
• 1:37:29
  fit right now. I come back in that morning.
• 1:37:31
  I couldn't smell a thing but that.
• 1:37:34
  But Fred was a good guy. But yeah, we had a variety of
• 1:37:37
  stuff. And I like like I could, you
• 1:37:38
  know, when you do ACC or the Concorde or a Concorde Century
• 1:37:43
  center, a lot of cars are straight.
• 1:37:45
  I had everything at angles. So you can get the full car and
• 1:37:48
  a picture with the family. Every car had a different angle.
• 1:37:50
  You weren't really kind of like sardined in there and stuff.
• 1:37:53
  And I, I like that aspect of it. You could walk in and out.
• 1:37:56
  We get a volcano pizza. Oh boy, I'm getting one Saturday
• 1:37:59
  on the way to 40. And so that's going to be a fun
• 1:38:02
  deal there in Elkhart. But we, you know, bring stuff in
• 1:38:05
  and, you know, we have tables set up with the books.
• 1:38:07
  We'd have videos going and it was like a family reunion and
• 1:38:11
  you know, it was just a a great time.
• 1:38:13
  And we always would have about 60 cars on hand, 70 cars and
• 1:38:17
  there'd be like 8 or 9 that never raced the whole year.
• 1:38:19
  And I was like, where do these guys at?
• 1:38:21
  I never saw this whole, where'd that car go?
• 1:38:23
  Carl? Where'd that car go?
• 1:38:24
  I don't know. Does he even have it?
• 1:38:25
  You know, it'd be and then John Dixon, JD, great guy.
• 1:38:29
  He would have nothing ready about a week before the show.
• 1:38:31
  He'd thrash and get some damn thing ready and bring it into
• 1:38:33
  the show and sometimes. He'd have the thing all decaled.
• 1:38:35
  Up and everything looking really good so and then some guys would
• 1:38:38
  bring decals and do the decals at the show or the, you know,
• 1:38:41
  the night of the show or stuff like that so but great time and
• 1:38:48
  yeah but. But he was like I.
• 1:38:50
  Don't have nothing ready, but I'm going to have something
• 1:38:51
  ready and I'm like, well, how much more time do you need here?
• 1:38:54
  You know it's going to be bringing in Coors there or
• 1:38:56
  something. But fun, fun times though.
• 1:38:59
  Great, great times with people there.
• 1:39:03
  Yeah, we were just talking about the.
• 1:39:03
  Car show this weekend when we're out in Elkhart.
• 1:39:05
  How much we miss it and how it is such a great pre season
• 1:39:08
  gathering. It's something to get everybody
• 1:39:10
  ready for the season. I miss it a lot.
• 1:39:13
  We we appreciated the show. Over the years for sure.
• 1:39:16
  I know you had a good time. I'm I'm sure it wasn't always a
• 1:39:19
  good time, but I know you had a good time.
• 1:39:21
  You know I would have an entry. List I keep that probably like
• 1:39:24
  January 20th, I'd have 25 guys sign up opening day or the 1st 2
• 1:39:28
  days and I would tell Carl, I said, I guarantee out of that
• 1:39:31
  2518 won't show up for some reason or no that they want the
• 1:39:35
  spot here or there and outs wise, and I think Carl's like we
• 1:39:38
  got to keep. I said, well, still keep track
• 1:39:39
  of watch these a lot of this first group.
• 1:39:41
  This never well, I never got my car ready or I don't have a
• 1:39:44
  ready or some other story, you know, and I'm like, well, you
• 1:39:46
  got to if you got it, you got to let me know, you know, so that
• 1:39:49
  was always somebody parked these cars and you bring them in.
• 1:39:52
  You got to have some sort of organization going on here and
• 1:39:55
  can't look like a, you know, a bunch of the clowns, you know,
• 1:39:58
  putting the show together and stuff.
• 1:40:01
  Well, Ron, like I said. I know you we got to bring you
• 1:40:04
  back on 'cause there's still so much more to cover.
• 1:40:06
  We had didn't even get to modified racing in the Northeast
• 1:40:09
  and, and, and your coverage with that.
• 1:40:11
  But like I said, I know you have to go to to work here and Boo, I
• 1:40:15
  know. Tears in the pipes.
• 1:40:20
  I'll be retire soon, but that's where.
• 1:40:22
  You know, I just, I don't want you late, although I think it'd
• 1:40:25
  be a really great reason, But at the same time, your yours may
• 1:40:28
  not think that, but we're definitely going to have to
• 1:40:30
  bring you back on, even if it's in a couple weeks from now, you
• 1:40:33
  know, and towards the end of April or something, just to even
• 1:40:37
  get like Part 2, because there's just so much.
• 1:40:40
  And I mean, just the story you, you've told has taken, you know,
• 1:40:45
  that hour 40 and and, and you've covered a lot of ground from,
• 1:40:49
  you know, save the South Bend Motor Speedway when you did
• 1:40:51
  that. And then you're marked times and
• 1:40:55
  your drivers who influenced you, the errors that you appreciate.
• 1:40:59
  I mean, you've covered so much for us in this little bit of
• 1:41:02
  time. And like I said, I have a light
• 1:41:04
  that's burned out. So I got to.
• 1:41:05
  I'm sitting. Here or something up in here
• 1:41:08
  but. I promise you I have lights
• 1:41:11
  behind me, but I don't want to leave the podcast at because I
• 1:41:13
  feel like nobody, you know, maybe like where'd the host go?
• 1:41:16
  But I don't want to. Move the point any might.
• 1:41:19
  Shut off again here, you know. But but we're definitely.
• 1:41:23
  Going to have to bring you back on because I mean we just
• 1:41:26
  haven't even touched any surface.
• 1:41:29
  We didn't get into the photo books yet and how you organize
• 1:41:32
  all those. We haven't talked about your
• 1:41:33
  time as a videographer. We haven't talked about, I mean,
• 1:41:36
  there's just so much more to go with you.
• 1:41:38
  And again, I just think, you know, I'm watching people in the
• 1:41:41
  comments the, the, the influence that you've had on so many
• 1:41:45
  people that you may not even know, right?
• 1:41:47
  You may know a lot of the influence you've had.
• 1:41:49
  And maybe you don't know all the influence you've had, but I know
• 1:41:52
  you, you know, you have people like me who look up to what you
• 1:41:54
  do. I certainly know Buju, you know,
• 1:41:55
  looks up to what you do, and he's still got a lot of.
• 1:41:58
  Questions too, I know. We might have to do part 2-3.
• 1:42:02
  4-5 you know. It's just from the.
• 1:42:04
  Historian side of things. I mean, you know James.
• 1:42:10
  Binkley's in. Here, Donald's in here we had
• 1:42:12
  Leah, we had JD, you know who jumped in and congratulations to
• 1:42:16
  him coming up this season, what he gets to do, even though I
• 1:42:19
  know he's stepping back from racing, but he still gets to be
• 1:42:22
  part of racing. So you know a guy who deserves a
• 1:42:24
  lot of opportunities. You know, like I said, Brian, he
• 1:42:27
  he works. On his hair though, he always
• 1:42:29
  has that fancy little hairdo going on.
• 1:42:31
  The little. Curl thing going.
• 1:42:32
  On on that oil or something and. He also I I don't know.
• 1:42:37
  Where it comes from, but he he's.
• 1:42:39
  Ready to go, but. But that's something that,
• 1:42:43
  again, I mean, you know, you've the Hall of Famers that you've
• 1:42:48
  met. I mean, there's just so much to
• 1:42:49
  do. So he runs the Hall of Fame.
• 1:42:52
  We. Didn't talk about that either.
• 1:42:53
  Yeah, there's. Another right?
• 1:42:55
  Michigan and. Vintage racers, we didn't even
• 1:42:57
  get to that right. So if you feel like if we open
• 1:42:59
  one of these cans here that it's going to be 9:00.
• 1:43:03
  And you're going to be. Oh crap, I got to go to work so.
• 1:43:07
  So that. Before we open the can because
• 1:43:09
  it's so tempting to again, Ron, you know, I just appreciate you
• 1:43:13
  being on here with us. I know you're all over.
• 1:43:16
  People look forward to your photo books.
• 1:43:18
  People look forward to what you do with the kiddos and having
• 1:43:21
  things for them to do the games that you have for them to do the
• 1:43:24
  amount of inventory that you fit in vehicles.
• 1:43:27
  I don't even know how you do that right.
• 1:43:29
  I've watched you it too. You know that's.
• 1:43:32
  You do that, but. You know when you do that?
• 1:43:35
  It's like no flat tires. No flat tires tonight, I'll say
• 1:43:38
  that, but. But you know, that's just yeah,
• 1:43:42
  we're definitely going to have to be scheduling a Part 2.
• 1:43:44
  So look for looking your messages either sometime tonight
• 1:43:48
  or probably tomorrow. I'll let you get through tonight
• 1:43:50
  at work, but I think towards the end of April we're going to have
• 1:43:54
  to bring you back on just so it's still fresh in people's
• 1:43:56
  mind and we can pick up right where we're leaving off, but
• 1:43:59
  plus we can plug that Winchester.
• 1:44:00
  Schedule a little bit too and Macwan schedule because we we've
• 1:44:03
  got a few more weeks off down there yet, thank God because and
• 1:44:06
  I'm going. To give you the whole episode
• 1:44:09
  again, because there's just, there's, there's no 25 minutes,
• 1:44:12
  there's just. Possible you get all Hungary and
• 1:44:15
  hibbily. Talking.
• 1:44:16
  That's that's all good, you know, just keep on.
• 1:44:19
  Rolling, you know. Yeah, it's just.
• 1:44:22
  Yeah, I already. Know I, I cannot limit you to 25
• 1:44:24
  minutes because just that that's just that would be a dishonor to
• 1:44:28
  what you've done for the racing industry.
• 1:44:30
  So I, if you didn't have work, I'd let you keep going, but that
• 1:44:34
  I don't want you late. So it's 844.
• 1:44:38
  So you're cutting it close. But anyways, again, Ron, I'm
• 1:44:41
  going to let you get going. And what I want to do is I want
• 1:44:44
  to encourage people who are still in here and people maybe
• 1:44:47
  who've jumped in and out send, you know, comment on this video
• 1:44:51
  because this video will be on Facebook for at least 30 days
• 1:44:54
  before they, they got questions, right?
• 1:44:56
  Now throw them at us, you know, because I can answer them later
• 1:44:59
  on and I save them. If we have time at M40 on
• 1:45:03
  Saturday, which I don't know what that'll look like, but you
• 1:45:06
  know, we might do it like a little quick run by on something
• 1:45:09
  like a quick question or something.
• 1:45:10
  But definitely, you know, add your questions here.
• 1:45:14
  I know Boozer, you probably have like 12 more to go and and I of
• 1:45:17
  course have a couple more to with all the content you that
• 1:45:20
  you've created over the time. So again, Ron, I know you got
• 1:45:24
  work. So thank you for everything just
• 1:45:27
  true. Thank you guys for.
• 1:45:28
  Having the show too, something I got to get into down the road
• 1:45:31
  and then have some kind of a actual setup so I don't have a
• 1:45:34
  whole, you know, hold the phone and then have it go out three
• 1:45:37
  times, you know, so well. I mean you Buju.
• 1:45:40
  Should show you that the setup he has he all together and.
• 1:45:44
  Made it work. You know, I'm just in my room,
• 1:45:46
  but then I have my light that doesn't want to work.
• 1:45:48
  And so now I'm sitting in the dark, which is fine.
• 1:45:50
  I usually sit in the dark anyways.
• 1:45:51
  But you know, when you're doing the podcast, people want to at
• 1:45:54
  least make it look like you know what you're doing.
• 1:45:55
  And right now I have no light, so I don't.
• 1:45:59
  Look, your face looks better that way.
• 1:46:00
  Though you can't see the the Gray so much that way, the dark
• 1:46:04
  will kind of blends in. That's why they put.
• 1:46:07
  Me on the roof, you know, because then I'm.
• 1:46:09
  I'm so. White like a ghost right now the
• 1:46:12
  my Hungarian blood is not letting me show a tan anymore
• 1:46:14
  here so but. But again, Ron.
• 1:46:17
  We're, I, I will be messaging either tonight or tomorrow and
• 1:46:20
  I, we're, we'll get you back on the schedule before the end of
• 1:46:22
  April so that you can push all those, you know, all those
• 1:46:26
  things with Mount, with Mount Lawn and then obviously with
• 1:46:29
  Winchester, because I know that's coming up.
• 1:46:31
  I think April 25th is when those checks down there start opening
• 1:46:34
  up in early May. So I know Dan Redmond and then
• 1:46:37
  they have a demolition that's coming up at Winchester on the
• 1:46:42
  19th, yeah. We might sneak down there for
• 1:46:45
  that one. We'll see how that goes.
• 1:46:46
  That'd be pretty interesting. That'd be historical down there
• 1:46:49
  for that deal too. Yeah.
• 1:46:50
  So I know they've been. Advertising that because I know
• 1:46:52
  new pairs has their night of destruction on 18th and the
• 1:46:54
  Kalamazoo has intimidated on the 17th.
• 1:46:56
  That's how I remember that I'm like, oh, it's Sunday the 19th.
• 1:46:58
  So I know they have a they have three classes I think of demo
• 1:47:01
  Derby that they're doing down there that day.
• 1:47:03
  So so again, yeah, I will be reaching out.
• 1:47:06
  We'll definitely be doing a Part 2 pretty quickly here with Ron
• 1:47:09
  Brash. So so Ron, I'm going to kick you
• 1:47:11
  out of the room here just for that way you can get going and
• 1:47:14
  tear to my. Eyes again mentioned work again.
• 1:47:19
  Yeah. If you didn't have work, I just
• 1:47:21
  let you keep going because I have stories all the time and I
• 1:47:24
  think a lot of people agree with that.
• 1:47:25
  So but that gives Buju and IA little bit of time before
• 1:47:28
  Michigan kick tips off here to talk a little bit about the
• 1:47:31
  Thursday night throttle. But we're going to be having you
• 1:47:34
  back before the end of the month, so and we'll be at 40.
• 1:47:36
  Saturday for sure and lap money, they're still laps open.
• 1:47:40
  So that's we're good there on that.
• 1:47:41
  So let me just show. That graphic one more time.
• 1:47:44
  So not only does Ron have the lap money, which is $10 a lap,
• 1:47:48
  lap one through 19 you can add more.
• 1:47:51
  I know Donald's with crashers added another 5 laps I think it
• 1:47:56
  was tonight to make it 100 total for him.
• 1:47:58
  I don't quote. Me on the math there.
• 1:48:00
  But OK, that's great. But you know he.
• 1:48:03
  Added that and then again this is Topper Racing Media has added
• 1:48:07
  $1000 to this purse and so this is the payout that you're going
• 1:48:12
  to be seeing for this Saturday. So again, that's it's one of
• 1:48:17
  those that I want to support Drew and his show and make sure
• 1:48:19
  that it's as successful as it can be.
• 1:48:21
  So sometimes you got to put your money where your mouth is.
• 1:48:24
  And so I'm definitely doing that for this show.
• 1:48:28
  That means my sponsorships are tacked out for pretty much the
• 1:48:30
  rest of the year. But at least for the Crown Vics,
• 1:48:33
  it'll be an awesome thing. So so again, Ron, I'm going to
• 1:48:36
  kick you off that way you can get ready and get going.
• 1:48:38
  But again, I just appreciate you.
• 1:48:40
  I know Buju appreciates you. So and it looks like just from
• 1:48:44
  the the comments here, a lot of people appreciate you.
• 1:48:46
  So again, just keep doing what you're doing.
• 1:48:48
  I know sometimes it's not easy, you know, being on the media
• 1:48:51
  side of things and you hear it all, but just keep pushing
• 1:48:54
  through because you have such an influence on so many people.
• 1:48:58
  All right. Thank.
• 1:48:58
  You guys so much and yeah I got to get ready for work here so
• 1:49:01
  change it not wearing this short to work this doesn't work on a
• 1:49:05
  nitric acid tank too hot so I don't want to have holes in this
• 1:49:08
  one like this has got to last another 20 years so.
• 1:49:12
  Again, thank you, Ron, and we'll talk soon.
• 1:49:15
  All right. Thank you.
• 1:49:15
  Much, guys. Yep.
• 1:49:16
  Thank you all. Right.
• 1:49:19
  So we'll remove him and we'll we're going to do this really
• 1:49:21
  quick Buju, just to get people previewed.
• 1:49:25
  So again, this Thursday at 7:00, the Thursday night throttle, not
• 1:49:30
  Thunder we. Made it's.
• 1:49:33
  Been so easy to call it Thunder, but this Thursday we're going
• 1:49:36
  live at 7:00 PM for a very short show.
• 1:49:38
  It's not going to be long whatsoever.
• 1:49:41
  We're thinking 3045 minutes Max. But what we really want to do is
• 1:49:45
  we want to talk about the upcoming weekend and what people
• 1:49:48
  can expect for tracks around the area.
• 1:49:51
  So these are the graphics that you will see that I've created
• 1:49:55
  for the Thursday Night throttle. And then ELH detailing, just in
• 1:50:00
  case people missed it, are a primary sponsor of Topper Racing
• 1:50:03
  Media now. So I definitely appreciate their
• 1:50:05
  partnership. It helps with the deficit that I
• 1:50:08
  spent. It doesn't obviously recover the
• 1:50:10
  deficit that I spent, but it does help a little bit here.
• 1:50:13
  It still has me in the hole for the year, by the way.
• 1:50:15
  So even with their sponsorship, I'm like, man, how am I going to
• 1:50:17
  climb out of this with the shovel?
• 1:50:19
  But but anyway, so ELH detailing will be branded.
• 1:50:23
  They'll be on my on the official pace vehicle once Matt gets it
• 1:50:26
  in the second week of May, he's going to be adding the detail or
• 1:50:30
  their cameras. 5 cameras are sponsored by them.
• 1:50:33
  So you'll see eh all around. But otherwise, Thursday night
• 1:50:36
  throttle. One thing that we definitely
• 1:50:38
  want to cover boujou is we have what 5 tracks Corgan oil,
• 1:50:43
  Galesburg, Hartford, Kalamazoo, new Paris and 40 and shady bowl.
• 1:50:49
  No, not Shady Bowl, Shady Hill. So if if you're a promoter of a
• 1:50:55
  series or a track owner or whatever and you want your
• 1:50:58
  events to be included, just to give a quick little preview,
• 1:51:01
  this is what one of the graphics will look like.
• 1:51:03
  Since we're talking about M40 and Buju, have you kind of take
• 1:51:06
  over from here when I go to this one?
• 1:51:09
  Yeah, so. It's going to be a weekly show
• 1:51:13
  where the focus is going to be on the upcoming events for the
• 1:51:17
  weekend. And I you'll see a a graphic in
• 1:51:19
  front of you like this where you have this weekend show at M40
• 1:51:23
  and then there's season Oprah on the 25th race in the second race
• 1:51:26
  in the ninth. Obviously it'll be a little more
• 1:51:27
  detailed on Thursday. It won't the entire show isn't
• 1:51:30
  going to be just us giving you information on events.
• 1:51:33
  Obviously if you wanted to, you could find that yourself.
• 1:51:35
  It's going to be a true preview. We're going to talk about the
• 1:51:37
  races. We're going to talk about maybe
• 1:51:39
  what happened the last week at that track, whatever is
• 1:51:42
  interesting and whatever we're fans of at the moment.
• 1:51:44
  Like I said in the preview video that we posted, just another
• 1:51:48
  outlet for us to be fans of the sport while previewing the
• 1:51:51
  weekend that's coming up. Yeah, and that's where.
• 1:51:54
  We'll even cover some of the storylines heading into that
• 1:51:57
  weekend right there. You know, obviously with the
• 1:52:00
  Intimidator 100 coming up, there's some storylines there
• 1:52:02
  with, you know, Tyler Rourke will be a part of that event.
• 1:52:05
  And then obviously we have Matt Frazier, you know, who's coming
• 1:52:08
  off of a victory over at Super Shoe and has one at Kalamazoo.
• 1:52:12
  Then you have the night of instruction and the storylines
• 1:52:14
  there at New Paris. And as you said, just what's
• 1:52:17
  going on, right? What's happening?
• 1:52:19
  And so again, if a track owner or series promoter or a track
• 1:52:24
  promoter, if you want to contact us, again, this is
• 1:52:29
  scheduling@toprowracingmedia.com to, to get the information out
• 1:52:33
  there, if you can include pricing.
• 1:52:36
  This is just, you know, basic stuff.
• 1:52:38
  We'll obviously be talking about, you know, this is at
• 1:52:41
  Hartford. Their, their monster truck
• 1:52:43
  throwdown is not on my race pass.
• 1:52:45
  So if people go to my race pass, they might not see, you know,
• 1:52:48
  the monster truck throwdown. So again, these are the kind of
• 1:52:51
  graphics you're going to see. We're not giving it all away
• 1:52:53
  tonight because then you won't watch on Thursday.
• 1:52:54
  You won't have a reason to, but but these are this is again a
• 1:52:58
  show to preview what's coming up and what's happening in the
• 1:53:01
  weekend. It's really bothering me that my
• 1:53:03
  lights out. By the way, just so you know,
• 1:53:05
  'cause that sounds bad. I don't think it's.
• 1:53:06
  As bad as you think it is. Like the Undertaker?
• 1:53:09
  Or something come out from you. Know tombstone me but.
• 1:53:13
  Or Dan Hausen, you know, he might put the curse on me or
• 1:53:16
  something. But anyways, so again, it's
• 1:53:19
  going to be a fun show, but a quick show where Monday night
• 1:53:22
  Rewind will still be as is, it's still going to be guest heavy.
• 1:53:25
  Well, obviously in the post interview process, we'll talk
• 1:53:29
  about, you know, the past weekend events and all that.
• 1:53:31
  But as we saw with Ron Rash, right, like he could have kept
• 1:53:34
  going if you didn't have work tonight.
• 1:53:37
  And so that's where, you know, next week we have just to remind
• 1:53:41
  people, we have Evan Verdine who'll be here and then we'll
• 1:53:46
  have no Mexibility. So between those two, you know,
• 1:53:50
  people we're talking right now about, oh, we didn't get to Ohio
• 1:53:55
  women tonight, but we did a little bit, I guess.
• 1:53:57
  But we have that coming up next week.
• 1:53:59
  So if any of those guests are going right, I'm not going to
• 1:54:01
  stop them because that's what this is about.
• 1:54:03
  That's what this shows about where Thursday night Throttle
• 1:54:06
  will be more focused on what's coming up, what's happening,
• 1:54:09
  some of the storylines, Buju's kind of taking the lead on this
• 1:54:13
  run. You know, I'm doing the graphics
• 1:54:14
  and and pulling some of the information.
• 1:54:16
  He's pulling information, but you know, I'm giving him the the
• 1:54:19
  cup of tea to work with here. So you know, that's going to be
• 1:54:22
  a a huge help, you know, to me, especially once I start editing
• 1:54:26
  right Thursdays, I'm usually trying to get everything
• 1:54:28
  finished by so, so I certainly appreciate you coming on and
• 1:54:32
  doing that. But again, these are the
• 1:54:34
  graphics you'll see again, it looks that way.
• 1:54:36
  It doesn't look cookie cutter from Mondays, so trying to
• 1:54:40
  differentiate the two brands. And so for anyone, if you want
• 1:54:44
  to help sponsor some of this right, like it's not cheap to
• 1:54:47
  have the the streaming and everything that we're doing, but
• 1:54:51
  especially the per month fee. You know, if anyone wants to
• 1:54:54
  help out like, you know, you see EH at the top here, their
• 1:54:57
  primary sponsor top row still taken.
• 1:55:00
  We sell plenty of cameras to sponsor out, so I could do it.
• 1:55:04
  I. Could do a hell of an add read.
• 1:55:05
  Let me tell you folks. Oh yeah, if the.
• 1:55:07
  Time comes I. Could give you a hell of an.
• 1:55:09
  Average. Oh yeah.
• 1:55:11
  So well, and and. You did an incredible job, you
• 1:55:14
  know, with the preview for this one.
• 1:55:15
  I know the funny joke was that you said Thunder, but but it
• 1:55:19
  that rolls off the tongue so easily though.
• 1:55:21
  Thursday, you're just right. It's just you go back to the WCW
• 1:55:26
  days of, you know, Thursday Thunder, right?
• 1:55:28
  It's just Thunder rolled off and there's a thunderstorm going on
• 1:55:32
  at the same time. Yeah, it was.
• 1:55:33
  Actively thunderstorming while I was making the video yeah.
• 1:55:36
  But yeah, like I said, this has got a fun hangout show pretty
• 1:55:40
  good on what's coming up for the weekend, what's happening in the
• 1:55:42
  area right now. I the, the chat was really
• 1:55:45
  active tonight. That was fun.
• 1:55:46
  I'd love to hang out with the chat more.
• 1:55:48
  Some questions, some back and forth with them.
• 1:55:50
  That'd be really fun on Thursdays.
• 1:55:51
  So yeah, just a fun hangout, talking about what's racing,
• 1:55:54
  what's coming up, what's happening, Yeah.
• 1:55:56
  So again, I know it's getting close.
• 1:55:58
  I see numbers or you know, people Michigan is about to
• 1:56:01
  play. So I and I saw numbers go.
• 1:56:03
  It's almost like it's, you know, the, the, the speed limits state
• 1:56:08
  trooper sitting at the median. So, so anyways, we won't keep
• 1:56:12
  people longer. But again, Thursday night,
• 1:56:13
  Throttle Buju and I, it will all be live on top of racing media
• 1:56:18
  Facebook page and on the YouTube page.
• 1:56:20
  It will not be on national compacts.
• 1:56:22
  That way Drew can do his stuff when he needs it.
• 1:56:25
  So that'll be a little different.
• 1:56:26
  It'll be only on those two channels.
• 1:56:28
  And then obviously afterwards I'll download it and I'll upload
• 1:56:31
  it to Spotify and then it'll produce from there.
• 1:56:36
  And then I also put an application for
• 1:56:38
  getinthestands.com they have. Oh cool.
• 1:56:42
  They have podcast. Content there so it will also
• 1:56:45
  once Scott is able to approve the application is go through to
• 1:56:48
  prove the application then it'll be get in thestand.com will also
• 1:56:52
  be another place where people will be able to come on out and
• 1:56:55
  I reach out to him and pull him on the show too.
• 1:56:57
  Not not for Thursday, but for a Monday just so he could talk
• 1:57:00
  about get in the stand, especially preseason starting.
• 1:57:03
  So again anyways, guys incredible show again.
• 1:57:08
  I mean, like I said, Ron took up a lot of that time and and we
• 1:57:11
  still had so much more to scratch.
• 1:57:13
  So he'll be back. I'm going to try to get back
• 1:57:15
  before the end of the month. But other than that, as you see,
• 1:57:18
  Episode 1, April 9th, 2026 for the Thursday night throttle.
• 1:57:22
  Until then, you've been on the Monday night Rewind.
• 1:57:26
  Oh, we're not Ron Rash though. Monday night Rewind and again
• 1:57:31
  comment like share this out, get it out there, let people know
• 1:57:36
  that's what's helping us grow. Like I said, we have about 2000
• 1:57:39
  people who are seeing it from Monday to Monday, So that's
• 1:57:42
  pretty incredible for being a, you know, brand new show and
• 1:57:45
  everything. So and that's just on top row.
• 1:57:47
  That doesn't include the national compact page, which
• 1:57:49
  gets about, you know, 300 some odd people, give or take.
• 1:57:53
  It just depends on the week. So so again, this will be on
• 1:57:56
  Spotify, but other than that, it's almost time to turn left
• 1:57:59
  and go fast. We got cars hitting the track
• 1:58:01
  this weekend. So your favorite line at the end
• 1:58:04
  of the night is at the races? We'll see you all at the.
• 1:58:08
  Races. Thank you guys.