Latest / Top Row Racing Media Monday Night Rewind / Monday Night Rewind | Episode 14 | DJ McCotter & Keith Beringer Jr. | Weekend Shoutouts

Transcript

Monday Night Rewind | Episode 14 | DJ McCotter & Keith Beringer Jr. | Weekend Shoutouts · Top Row Racing Media Monday Night Rewind

• 0:58
  Good evening everyone. Welcome to the Monday Night
• 1:01
  Rewind. I'm Lewis, I'm the Co host.
• 1:03
  Buju's with me in the staging area ready to go.
• 1:06
  We already have Keith Junior and so a really exciting night just
• 1:09
  waiting for DJ to pop in. But otherwise we want to thank
• 1:12
  national compact touring series Federated Auto Parts and Elh
• 1:16
  Detailing for helping to present the Monday Night Rewind.
• 1:20
  So as we've been talking about the last couple weeks, tonight
• 1:23
  we have DJ Mccotter who'll be rejoining us because again, he
• 1:26
  has such an incredible story. We've just scratched the surface
• 1:29
  with him and we'll see if he comes to a suit or no suit
• 1:33
  tonight. And then joining him is Keith,
• 1:37
  manager Junior. We're all going to be on at the
• 1:39
  same time, so you'll see four in the box ready to go for a Monday
• 1:42
  night. Keith was just at South Bend
• 1:45
  over the weekend and I think DJ was too.
• 1:47
  So, you know, we'll get to talk with them about what they
• 1:50
  experienced over the weekend, and I know that's where Buju was
• 1:54
  as well. And then a reminder for next
• 1:57
  week. We are going to do our Monday
• 1:59
  show on Monday just to keep it routine and keep it predictable.
• 2:04
  So we're going to have Will Greenwell, one of the top voices
• 2:08
  in the nation, joining us to tell about his incredible story
• 2:11
  and his rise in the ranks. And even as he has risen to the
• 2:16
  top and been offered a lot of amazing opportunities, he
• 2:19
  absolutely loves the short track racing scene and has stayed
• 2:22
  dedicated to that even with all of his opportunities.
• 2:26
  As one more reminder this Thursday, the you can throttle
• 2:29
  up with us once again, the Thursday night throttle return
• 2:31
  for we'll preview the upcoming weekend.
• 2:34
  We do know some tracks are off because of the holidays with
• 2:36
  some tracks are running. Modifieds invade Kalamazoo for
• 2:40
  one of their first the first of their three shows this weekend.
• 2:43
  So we'll talk about Modifieds there and then I do want to do a
• 2:46
  reminder. We've been doing it later in the
• 2:47
  show, but I want to pull it up now and we'll do it again later
• 2:50
  because I know people are just starting to join us.
• 2:53
  But don't forget the Marketing Partners special right here in
• 2:57
  Bridgman, MI from ELH Detailing, who is one of our primary
• 3:02
  sponsors of Top Row Racing Media.
• 3:03
  When you buy one full detail package using the code Top Row
• 3:06
  between what was May 1st and all the way through September 30th,
• 3:10
  you'll receive 1 entry per detail for a chance to receive a
• 3:13
  full detail on the House from you HD tailing.
• 3:17
  Don't forget they're also a Matt Kemp partner as well, so they
• 3:20
  have invested in short track racing.
• 3:22
  So definitely we want to give back to them.
• 3:24
  The first package that we'll announce will be July 13th right
• 3:27
  here on the Monday Night Rewind. And then the second announcement
• 3:30
  will be on October 12th for as everyone gets ready for the
• 3:34
  falling into the winter. But anyways, it is Showtime.
• 3:38
  And like I said, I'm Lewis. And then joining me is the
• 3:42
  Bullring Chronicle owner Buju. And he also is the host for the
• 3:47
  Thursday night Throttle. And this is our first Monday
• 3:50
  Buju of no thunderstorms at the time of show.
• 3:55
  One swept through work earlier, but yeah, finally, for once we
• 3:58
  got good weather on a Monday so I can make it safely as to and
• 4:02
  from the garage to host the podcast.
• 4:05
  Oh, absolutely. And that's where I was wondering
• 4:08
  when the weather is going to come through and they weren't
• 4:10
  sure that when it came through early this afternoon, I'm like,
• 4:13
  OK, at least it's doing it this afternoon.
• 4:14
  So you know, we don't have to worry about it while at least
• 4:17
  we're live. So I know some people up in like
• 4:20
  the Battle Creek area and all that did lose power today.
• 4:23
  So I'm like nobody has time for that.
• 4:26
  So anyways, how was your weekend?
• 4:29
  It was I know it's a busy weekend for you.
• 4:31
  This is day 5 for me of some kind of racing content.
• 4:35
  So we we started our streak on Thursday.
• 4:38
  I know you had Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
• 4:40
  I don't know if you went anywhere yesterday, but is now
• 4:43
  my. I went to the I went to the race
• 4:46
  shot yesterday, so I guess that counts.
• 4:48
  But yeah, but my first double headed weekend of the season
• 4:50
  finally I've been waiting for one and it definitely wore me
• 4:53
  out. I've been tired since.
• 4:55
  I don't I don't think I've fully recovered, but yeah.
• 4:57
  And I a fun weekend where I didn't really have to stress at
• 5:01
  the racetrack, just hung out with my friends.
• 5:02
  And yeah, it was a very, very good time, especially being at
• 5:06
  home. Well.
• 5:07
  Yeah, and, and I know that I mean the South Bend is such a
• 5:09
  special place to you and all that and, and, and to a lot of
• 5:13
  people, right. And, and I know there are a lot
• 5:15
  of headlines coming out of that, especially in the street stock
• 5:17
  class. And so I think I, I saw that
• 5:21
  they had like 17 show up for the show and so, so, and it looked
• 5:27
  like a decent crowd. You know, I didn't see all the,
• 5:29
  I don't pay attention to all the pictures and everything like I
• 5:32
  used to in the past. I don't have a vested interest
• 5:35
  in it, but but it's one of those that I at least see what people
• 5:38
  are posting. So, you know, obviously seeing
• 5:40
  Rich winning and, and I know that meaning to a lot of him has
• 5:45
  a lot of meaning to him to win at South Bend again.
• 5:48
  So that's where I got to see some of what happened down
• 5:50
  there. But I was busy doing my own
• 5:53
  thing. I was at Galesburg that night of
• 5:54
  destruction. And I tell you what, New Paris,
• 5:58
  if they ever went and had like a battle of night of destructions,
• 6:02
  I think New Paris would be a little bit of run for their
• 6:04
  money. You know how much I love the
• 6:06
  destructions that they have. They're the first Michigan track
• 6:10
  to do bus racing and they do like Figure 8 and all that.
• 6:13
  And that I got, I had chills going up my as about round and
• 6:19
  you know, a couple weekly racers were in there like Jerry who had
• 6:22
  just won at Kalamazoo for his back-to-back.
• 6:24
  He's in the bus. They had a lot of people.
• 6:28
  Denton's were in the buses and so they just had a lot of
• 6:31
  different people in there. Jesse Hart, I want to say Jesse
• 6:34
  Hart was in the bus, the Louis bus.
• 6:36
  He's one of the famous Bergstock's up there at
• 6:39
  Galesburg. And so that that was pretty.
• 6:42
  I told Bob Garrett, because a lot of people came up and said,
• 6:45
  what do you think? What do you think?
• 6:46
  And I said, well, this is having your cake, eating it to baking
• 6:50
  another one and eating that one at the same time.
• 6:52
  So I was really impressed with their night of destruction up
• 6:56
  there and I'm even more excited to go back next time.
• 6:58
  So as I had posted even before they did all the crazy stunts, I
• 7:03
  said I have been sports entertained tonight.
• 7:05
  And then obviously Friday we had Kalamazoo yesterday, mini
• 7:08
  wedges. They had a good, you know, good
• 7:11
  crowd out there for mini wedges yesterday.
• 7:13
  So this is just been busy busy. But that's where I finally today
• 7:16
  I got to catch up a little bit on what happened elsewhere in
• 7:20
  the area, like a Corrigan. And I just, you know, like I, I
• 7:24
  we've talked about this before. I get on social media to do what
• 7:27
  I need to do and I'm off. Like I'm not paying attention.
• 7:31
  I know of messages I needed to respond to and I'll get there,
• 7:35
  you know, takes time. So I'm tired, you know, I've
• 7:39
  been editing. I'm almost done with the
• 7:42
  Kalamazoo program, but I'm like, man, that's this is a lot of
• 7:46
  content within like a lot of short time to do.
• 7:51
  But Speaking of, I know we have DJ who just joined us and it is
• 7:55
  seven O 6 so or seven O 7 now. So I do want to remind everyone
• 8:00
  last week we had our most watched episode of the Monday
• 8:02
  night rewind. So it certainly helps us when
• 8:04
  you like this on Facebook or even not over on YouTube,
• 8:08
  definitely share it outlet everyone know to come join us on
• 8:11
  a Monday night. And I know Kalamazoo Joel has
• 8:14
  been advertising as part of his recorded thing, you know, Monday
• 8:20
  night Rewind and Thursday Night Throttle.
• 8:21
  So, you know, hopefully that gets, you know, more and more
• 8:24
  fans coming and watching along because now we're getting the
• 8:27
  race season is going to be packed as we go forward.
• 8:30
  So Are you ready to bring everybody on?
• 8:34
  I guess. And just before we bring them
• 8:38
  on, this is the first episode where, you know, Drew, Jack's
• 8:42
  not with us tonight. He's just been busy coming off
• 8:45
  of his own weekend. This is the first episode that
• 8:48
  everybody on here was there before top row.
• 8:53
  Keith has been, you know, he's a pre top row guy.
• 8:55
  DJ is a pre top row guy. We've not had an episode where
• 8:58
  it's just been everybody who remembers the time before and
• 9:01
  then time since, you know, top row.
• 9:03
  So, so that I think about that today, I'm like, oh, that's
• 9:07
  actually the first time that we've had, I mean, we've had
• 9:09
  Evan Burdine on here. We've had others who would know
• 9:12
  before top row, but literally everybody on the screen at one
• 9:14
  time would remember the time before top row.
• 9:17
  So that's pretty cool. But anyways, again, DJ is going
• 9:22
  to come on, so I'm going to pop him on the screen.
• 9:24
  You'll hear him in a second and we're going to have key if we're
• 9:26
  going to pop him on the screen and I'm going to hit the right
• 9:28
  graphic this time and let's see what layout do I want to do?
• 9:32
  I guess it doesn't matter which layout, we're all looking the
• 9:34
  same. So.
• 9:36
  So how's everybody doing tonight?
• 9:38
  Hey, what's up guys? Doing good.
• 9:41
  DJ. Just just had a busy day of work
• 9:44
  and ready for some fun here tonight.
• 9:47
  I hope you're parked. Yeah, we don't need you getting
• 9:52
  a ticketer. Well, he's not moving, so he is
• 9:54
  parked. You can tell background.
• 9:56
  Well, well, I am right here in a parking lot here in Cedar Lake,
• 10:01
  so I think we're all right. All right, can't get pulled over
• 10:04
  in the parking lot, you know, even though.
• 10:07
  Well, I got stories I could tell you.
• 10:11
  I've seen DJ drive so I just wanted to make sure he wasn't
• 10:14
  trying to do 2 things at once here.
• 10:18
  Well, and and he would be on the podcast, which has been really
• 10:21
  super hard to like deny there's no deniability there.
• 10:24
  You know, when it's like we can watch you in moving.
• 10:29
  So you know, at least we're not doing that.
• 10:32
  But but again, everybody, you know, help share this out like
• 10:35
  it again, we had our most watched episode last week.
• 10:39
  We had Wichter on and he has like 800 billion followers, but
• 10:44
  but we had Wichter on and then we had Joel and then Brian
• 10:48
  Kusaba, who I know you guys are very familiar with from you know
• 10:52
  when he flagged that South Bend and everything.
• 10:53
  So that was pretty cool to see Our most watched 1.
• 10:58
  So Leah and Megan got dethroned. It took several weeks, but they
• 11:02
  got dethroned. They've been they've had some
• 11:04
  close competition. So again, that just helps us.
• 11:07
  The more you like sharing everything and comment it gets
• 11:09
  it out there. So I know a lot of people on
• 11:12
  here already have had DJ and her DJ.
• 11:15
  So Keith, this is your first time officially on the Monday
• 11:17
  night Rewind. So why don't you do a little bit
• 11:19
  of an introduction of yourself And then after you do that, I'll
• 11:22
  have DJ do a re introduction so that for those who may have
• 11:26
  forgotten who he is, can get a little bit caught up and then
• 11:29
  we'll just dive right into the conversation.
• 11:32
  Yeah, sure thing. I'm Keith Barringer Junior,
• 11:34
  owner of Barringer Racing with my dad, Keith Senior, and been
• 11:38
  racing since 2017 officially and in a sanctioned way, like short
• 11:43
  track racing. But obviously I've been doing a
• 11:46
  lot of a lot of high speed racing and stuff like that
• 11:49
  before that, but not in so much a sanctioned way.
• 11:52
  Lots and lots of stories I can go over for many years, but
• 11:55
  we'll skip that for now. But primarily I run the front
• 11:58
  wheel drive class and the street stock class.
• 12:03
  All right. Well, and I know that right
• 12:04
  behind you, you have, you know, one of the front wheel drives
• 12:08
  that you know you've raised in the past and then is your dad's
• 12:11
  in front wheel drive in there too in the shop or do you just
• 12:14
  have your cars with you? No, both of mine are in here
• 12:17
  right now. I'm actually the camera's
• 12:18
  actually set up on the street stock right now.
• 12:20
  And then I got the front wheel drive behind me.
• 12:23
  Dance cars are both in the trailers right now with the
• 12:25
  house. So we just, it's one of those
• 12:28
  things where we've got a bigger garage than we had before and
• 12:31
  before we moved the first thing in here we went, shit, we're out
• 12:35
  of room. So we bought a couple of
• 12:39
  trailers and that gave us a little bit more storage.
• 12:41
  We bought a box truck that gave us a little bit more storage and
• 12:45
  shit. We're still out of room.
• 12:46
  So yeah, you're always stuffing stuff around, trying to, trying
• 12:51
  to find a way to make things happen.
• 12:54
  Well, and that's where that, you know, that's the thing that I
• 12:56
  miss about, you know, coming down, you know, in that area is
• 13:00
  being able to watch you and your dad race.
• 13:02
  And that in itself is an incredible story of, you know,
• 13:05
  how you kind of fun, you know, falling apart, you know, there
• 13:08
  for a long time, but then racing brought you guys back together.
• 13:10
  And so, you know, we could. Definitely.
• 13:13
  You know, get into that too tonight, you know, so that
• 13:16
  that's I'm excited again to have you just because I know you did
• 13:20
  the checkers and records before and that was such a fun episode.
• 13:23
  So excited to have you joining us.
• 13:26
  DJ, do you want to reintroduce yourself for those who may not
• 13:30
  remember you or may not know who you are?
• 13:34
  We only have an hour DJ. Yeah, right.
• 13:37
  So my name's DJ Mccotter. Been this is going to be a fun
• 13:41
  episode. And so I I drive the six car
• 13:46
  owner and operator of Linda Hughes racing that that got
• 13:50
  started in in 2021, first under the banner of Mccotter
• 13:54
  Motorsports, but then came up with a way to show support to my
• 14:00
  mom in her battle with cancer before she was before she passed
• 14:03
  and formed Linda Hughes racing right before I started Hornet
• 14:06
  racing in 2022 and been been racing kind of all over the
• 14:13
  Michigan area ever since. And and that's something that,
• 14:19
  you know, when we brought you up to Springport that I worked on
• 14:22
  that a little bit. What Keith?
• 14:25
  I was just pointing to DJ. It's just, you know, he's a horn
• 14:28
  and he knows what that means well.
• 14:30
  Yeah, yeah, means I broke out. Well, but you didn't hit the
• 14:36
  wall like someone else did, right?
• 14:37
  But you know. Hey, we've all hit the wall.
• 14:44
  But you know, bringing you up to Springport, that was really
• 14:46
  exciting. And I know, you know, you really
• 14:48
  enjoyed that track up there and Keith came up with you to that
• 14:50
  too. So And Keith, you had said that
• 14:52
  you'd been to Springport like a prior time to that, right, If I
• 14:55
  remember? I, I have, I've been up there
• 14:57
  helping a few guys. I haven't ever had a chance to
• 14:59
  take my cars up there. So I've not driven that track
• 15:01
  yet, although I would love to and it looks like a ton of fun
• 15:04
  to run. The cars I had previously didn't
• 15:07
  really have the gearing for that track.
• 15:08
  My front wheel drive doesn't really have gearing for that
• 15:10
  track, so the Street Stock, I'd probably have a better time on
• 15:13
  that track. As far as as Deering goes, it's
• 15:15
  a little bit easier to switch things around there.
• 15:17
  But yeah, I've been up there quite a few times helping some
• 15:20
  other guys get their cards ready for it, but I'm not driven it
• 15:24
  myself yet. Michigan Cup.
• 15:27
  Mark it in your calendars, Donnie Ritter and crew.
• 15:30
  They're yeah, they do a great job up there.
• 15:32
  That's going to be their first big return because I don't know,
• 15:35
  Keith, if you, if you saw all the news, but the ownership
• 15:38
  changed over at or thankfully. And so at least I think that and
• 15:43
  I think a majority of other people think that.
• 15:45
  So I, I'm just going to talk frankly, But you know, I'm
• 15:49
  excited for the Ridders to have it back because I know what they
• 15:51
  were building before and, and I know what.
• 15:54
  I said they had it before, didn't they?
• 15:56
  They did. And so he was the promoter at
• 15:59
  that time. And so that's.
• 16:00
  What I thought. Working his way to get in 5050
• 16:04
  into the deal, but now it's now it's now him and another partner
• 16:08
  have it And so they're having to redo a whole bunch of stuff.
• 16:12
  And so Michigan cop is probably going to be their first, first
• 16:15
  like really big event. They might have some things
• 16:17
  beforehand, but they're they've only announced Springport
• 16:20
  Michigan cup at this point. So and that's the first weekend
• 16:23
  of October. So if you have nothing to do in
• 16:25
  the first weekend of October, it's your class class.
• 16:28
  You know, if it's modifieds, it's modifieds.
• 16:30
  If it's late models, it's late models.
• 16:31
  It's none of the fancy stuff that some other tracks do for
• 16:36
  weekend end of year shows, which are fun, don't get me wrong, but
• 16:39
  you know, they kind of just run their program on steroids.
• 16:42
  It's like what they would do on any Saturday night.
• 16:44
  They just boost it up a lot. And, and for a couple years in
• 16:47
  the running, they they topped Owosso and everything.
• 16:50
  When Owosso went head to head with them, Springport outdrew
• 16:53
  them. One year's a scratch or six
• 16:56
  cars. The next year's a blowout.
• 16:57
  It wasn't even close. And I know some Owosso fans are
• 17:00
  like, well, that was front wheel drives.
• 17:02
  If it were in an election, you still lost.
• 17:03
  So more is more whether no matter how you paint it or draw
• 17:08
  it. But that's some of.
• 17:09
  The. Loyalists, they wanted to try to
• 17:11
  discredit what Springport did. And it's like if it were an
• 17:14
  election, you still lost and there's no recount because my
• 17:17
  race past is transparent. Numbers are numbers.
• 17:19
  But you know, that was like that time and I still think that same
• 17:23
  way. It's like that was really
• 17:24
  exciting, you know, especially when you're going against an
• 17:27
  event like that at a facility like that, you know, to do what
• 17:31
  we did at Springport. That was fun.
• 17:32
  So, but anyways, Mark, Michigan cut on your schedule if you
• 17:37
  don't, if you don't have any plans.
• 17:39
  So DJ, since you're back, I'm going to let you kind of dictate
• 17:43
  where we go. What do you want to talk about
• 17:45
  first? That's dangerous.
• 17:48
  I was thinking that. Well, you're the Cody Rhodes
• 17:50
  fan, So what do you want to talk about?
• 17:54
  Well, starting off, why don't we do a quick recap?
• 17:59
  I mean, that's what the Monday Night Rewind, isn't it?
• 18:01
  Yeah, so let's recap. So past couple weeks I've been,
• 18:07
  I've been running Russell's M40 Speedway over the offseason, got
• 18:12
  a new to me car, a Dodge Neon. And anything about new cars is a
• 18:19
  learning curve, right? Figuring out what it likes, what
• 18:22
  it doesn't like tire, tire pressures, gear ratios, things
• 18:28
  of that nature. And this car has really made me
• 18:32
  go back to the basics as far as setup is concerned because I've
• 18:36
  been AGM guy all this time running Chevy Cavaliers, Pontiac
• 18:40
  Sunfires, Grand Am's, Cobalt, things like that.
• 18:43
  So then this Neon came available because the Grand Am it was it
• 18:48
  was pretty rusty. So I, I, I cut the I cut the
• 18:55
  down bars at the at the top hoop of the roll cage.
• 18:58
  And as soon as I did that, the whole bar just said just drop
• 19:01
  down like 6 inches. So I grabbed and it just
• 19:03
  wiggled. Mind you, I had not cut it from
• 19:05
  the floorboard yet. So it did give you an idea of
• 19:09
  how rusted out it was. Some guys say, oh, you can tube
• 19:13
  that up and make it stronger. Whatever make it a true road
• 19:16
  warrior for M40, I'm good. So so I found this Neon, which
• 19:22
  was actually a former Ileana car, Ileana Speedway here in
• 19:27
  Schererville. And so the guy that I got it
• 19:31
  from, he'd been running it in Enduro's at Grundy County, which
• 19:35
  that's on my bucket list for this year's running Grundy at
• 19:37
  least once. But, but I found out the gearing
• 19:43
  in that car is not set up for big tracks yet.
• 19:48
  I've got some goodies coming for that this week.
• 19:50
  Actually, it's a good thing that M40 is off for this up week.
• 19:55
  That'll give me time to get, get everything set up for that.
• 19:58
  And so, but, but I'm, I'm really looking, I'm really liking the
• 20:05
  fact that there's a lot of neon guys that I've made contact
• 20:08
  with. One of them being Kaiser, he's
• 20:12
  been huge in helping me with set up this neon and and what I need
• 20:17
  for it. A couple guys that was out there
• 20:19
  at the track on Saturday they they say, hey, here's here's a
• 20:23
  good idea for you to try. Here's some parts to try.
• 20:26
  And so, so I'm, I'm willing to try anything at this point
• 20:31
  because right now, currently with the gearing that it's got,
• 20:34
  I'm a second and a half off the pace.
• 20:35
  I mean, we're slower than a one finger typist out there.
• 20:39
  So I got to do what I got to do to, to get, get up to speed,
• 20:43
  because the last thing I want is to have that thing to be
• 20:46
  basically a butter knife and a musket fight.
• 20:47
  You know what I'm saying? So so that's where I'm at, just
• 20:51
  wanting to find speed by the proper setup, what it likes,
• 20:55
  what it doesn't like and go from there.
• 20:59
  You're 1 liners if we had a drinking game, just all the one
• 21:06
  liners. But anyways, go ahead.
• 21:08
  Where's what's up next then DJ? I'm 40 again.
• 21:12
  What's that? What's up next for you?
• 21:14
  Then I'm 40 again. I'm debating on whether or not
• 21:18
  to go to New Paris this weekend for their night of destruction.
• 21:21
  Granted I don't have anything to run for it so and and people
• 21:27
  that know me know that I suck at watching, especially when I've
• 21:31
  been 1 to participate for so long.
• 21:34
  I resemble that. So I have a story since Keith is
• 21:39
  on here. One day I was at Plymouth.
• 21:42
  Yes I do. It was the, I think it was one
• 21:45
  of their first nights of destruction with right after
• 21:47
  they went to asphalt. And at the time I had an
• 21:51
  Oldsmobile that I had made a 311 car of my own, kind of showing
• 21:55
  Keith some appreciation for some things he did for me.
• 21:58
  And and so I had my kids up there and we was up in the
• 22:03
  stands waiting in between races or whatever we was watching.
• 22:06
  And Keith was sitting there next to me and he kept fidgeting.
• 22:10
  He kept kind of rocking back and forth, up and down, moving.
• 22:13
  And I said, Keith, what are you doing, man?
• 22:15
  Yeah, that that panel right there come off the my, my 311
• 22:18
  car. But he kept pitching.
• 22:22
  I said, man, what are you doing? He goes, man, I suck at
• 22:26
  watching. I says, well, don't you usually,
• 22:30
  aren't you usually running gate or security or something?
• 22:32
  He goes, nobody needs any help. So I'm sitting here watching
• 22:36
  like, OK then. Well, now that I've been running
• 22:41
  as long as I have, I know what that feeling is when you show up
• 22:44
  to a track when you've been running for as long as you have
• 22:47
  and you don't have anything to run that night.
• 22:50
  I, I, I totally understand where he, where he's coming from now
• 22:54
  sucking at watching. However, the, the night of
• 22:57
  destruction that M40 put on a week or so ago, that was worth
• 23:02
  watching, especially with, with wifter there and, and he he put
• 23:08
  on quite the show with the South Bend truck.
• 23:11
  How he got his mitts on it, I have no idea, but he and Frank
• 23:16
  Gasco worked wonders with it. They're actually talking.
• 23:19
  I I don't want to spoil too much with it what they want to do
• 23:22
  with it, but but that was well worth the watch.
• 23:26
  And if Steve O if you're watching, you did did quite the
• 23:30
  job putting on the show. They're loading that truck on
• 23:32
  that camper. So but but yeah, Wichter just as
• 23:37
  funny and obnoxious off camera as he is on camera.
• 23:41
  So if y'all haven't met him, you need to.
• 23:45
  Oh yeah. Well, and I've, I've seen both
• 23:48
  versions of him in and out of character.
• 23:50
  So he's he's an awesome guy. And that was, and I know they
• 23:53
  had big plans for that truck and, and, and I hope they get to
• 23:58
  see all that through because they they want to make that, you
• 24:02
  know, they want to keep that story going with it, you know,
• 24:05
  give, give credibility still to the origin.
• 24:08
  You know, they don't want to just make it a new thing.
• 24:09
  But between Jeremy Templeton and Wichter, I'm excited.
• 24:13
  And they got Frank with them too.
• 24:14
  I mean, you know, those are all three cool cats, what they're
• 24:17
  doing. So I know we've been very lucky
• 24:20
  to have them. And I don't know if you saw this
• 24:22
  on your screen or not, but Ralph with Pitbull Racing, he has the
• 24:25
  short bus over at New Paris. So he said, I'll throw you in
• 24:29
  the bus. So, so I mean, you drive a bus
• 24:33
  all the damn time, so you might as well get in the short bus
• 24:35
  while you're at it and. I am ACDL licensed driver and I
• 24:39
  work on buses for a living so so if if he wants to put me in a
• 24:44
  bus in New Paris sign me up. I have a that he calls the boss.
• 24:50
  I have a feeling that's not the first time someone's tried to
• 24:52
  put you in a short bust, DJ. I'm sorry.
• 24:56
  I'm gonna go there. And I didn't, so that's
• 25:00
  remembered. I had to do it.
• 25:01
  I had to. You put the ball on the tee,
• 25:04
  somebody's got to swing. Yeah, I was not gonna swing for
• 25:07
  it, but at least you did it and I can't.
• 25:09
  Then you can say that I didn't do it, but but you know, that's
• 25:13
  something if. There's anyone I can count on.
• 25:15
  It's Buju. But I well, you should, I know
• 25:19
  Galesburg would be such a far drive for you, but they had,
• 25:24
  they had Figure 8 bus racing and that was something I hadn't seen
• 25:28
  bus racing like that before. I mean, in Kalamazoo we have
• 25:31
  school bus racing for our night of destructions.
• 25:33
  But man, what, what Galesburg did.
• 25:38
  I like I said when Bob Garrett came and said what you think
• 25:41
  about that, a lot of staff did. I just kept saying not only was
• 25:44
  I sports entertained, but then when they did all the stunts and
• 25:47
  they put the motorhome in the camper and then they put the
• 25:49
  school bus in the motorhome that was already in the camper, I
• 25:52
  went cake eating it too, made another cake and ate that one.
• 25:56
  So, and I know Zach Denton's on here, Zach was the one who
• 26:00
  jumped the bus. His dad had won in the bus
• 26:03
  feature but then he jumped in and then rammed that thing right
• 26:07
  into the motorhome so. Sounds like a Thanksgiving for
• 26:11
  ducking. It was.
• 26:12
  I was mentally exhausted from the night afterwards, not tired,
• 26:19
  but just exhausted because my adrenaline was going through the
• 26:22
  roof. So DJ, you know, I know that
• 26:25
  you, I don't know what you could get at Galesburg, but at
• 26:27
  Galesburg they are very similar to to Kalamazoo, where Dale
• 26:30
  Mcgahn and Snails. And I know both of you probably
• 26:33
  know snails. They provide a lot of the
• 26:35
  vehicles and people can sign up for that.
• 26:37
  So you never know. I'm not saying it's a guarantee,
• 26:39
  but you don't have to bring your own.
• 26:41
  That's something that they connect and they work out a deal
• 26:44
  with the drivers. I don't know all the deals and I
• 26:46
  don't want to misquote anything, but something to possibly look
• 26:49
  into. If you bring yourself, you know,
• 26:50
  you might be able to and it well in advance, you might be able to
• 26:53
  make that connection and have a ride that you go put on a show
• 26:56
  and you get to leave for the night.
• 26:57
  I don't have to worry about it, but that.
• 26:59
  'D be a blast. So I know.
• 27:01
  That would be fun. But yeah, and that, but you
• 27:03
  know, new pairs, like I said, Pitbull, Ralph Reese, he
• 27:07
  commented. You know, you come on out, you
• 27:08
  might be able to jump into something or someone else might
• 27:10
  have a vehicle for you that you can jump into.
• 27:12
  So, so definitely you know, when you come on out and then so
• 27:18
  before we forget, Keith, I since we're talking about recapping,
• 27:21
  Keith, what are your plans for 2026?
• 27:25
  So I know we touched base at South Bend Auto Show, but we
• 27:28
  didn't really talk about your plans.
• 27:30
  So what are your plans? Well, right now I've got a lot
• 27:34
  of work to need done on the cars and the money's not right to get
• 27:36
  everything done the way it needs to be done.
• 27:38
  So I'm, I'm helping out more on the track side of it, working
• 27:41
  the track kind of like I did last year.
• 27:44
  Last two years I've really been more part time racing where I
• 27:47
  get opportunities, but I'm not out there on Facebook or
• 27:50
  anything just begging for opportunities.
• 27:51
  I mean, there's somebody coming around and says, Hey, I need
• 27:54
  some help with my car or hey, can you run it in some hot labs?
• 27:56
  You can kind of feel it out or if you want to run a night or
• 27:58
  something like that, I'm I'm all in.
• 28:00
  But so I guess I'm putting it out there now, but right now my
• 28:04
  cars are down. So I'm not actually full time,
• 28:08
  but I'm helping out with the working.
• 28:11
  This year I'm working the pick gate.
• 28:13
  Last year I did track safety truck, but we brought on a few
• 28:16
  more actual certified firemen on the SAT track safety truck this
• 28:19
  year. So I'm helping out wherever's
• 28:21
  need to be and right now that's at the gate.
• 28:23
  So Friday night I was at Plymouth working the gate and
• 28:26
  then Saturday I was at South Bend working the gate.
• 28:28
  So working the pick gate, getting other guys on and off
• 28:31
  the track. Well, Nets so when you started
• 28:35
  in DJ and Buju, I mean, this is you know, I'm the video guy,
• 28:38
  right, So fan turn video guy. So I don't have I spend my money
• 28:43
  in a different way. But if you want to talk about,
• 28:46
  you know, 2 of you, 3 of you, whatever.
• 28:48
  And obviously we have a lot of racers and fans for watching
• 28:51
  too, you know. So for like Keith, what what is
• 28:54
  the biggest difference from when you first started as a Hornet
• 28:57
  driver before you timed out and you had to move up to the Outlaw
• 29:01
  front wheel drive and then you moved up to St.
• 29:03
  Stock? Like what's the biggest cost
• 29:05
  that has been the biggest difference for you and your team
• 29:09
  and your dad that you guys have noticed just from front wheel
• 29:12
  drive out Hornets or front wheel drives than the street stocks?
• 29:15
  Yeah, it's, it's a really good question and it's kind of one of
• 29:18
  those answers that I really don't have a a real direct
• 29:21
  answer on only because each and every year it's been so
• 29:24
  drastically different. I mean, as a Hornet, it was, you
• 29:27
  know, I got with Derrick Davis and talked to him.
• 29:29
  I'm like, hey, if I'm going to get into this, but what do I get
• 29:31
  into? He goes, you definitely want a
• 29:33
  Saturn. All right, he goes, I got one,
• 29:35
  I'll find one for you. And he did.
• 29:37
  And it was somebody was building a Saturn as a it's actually this
• 29:40
  car here. He was building a Saturn as a
• 29:43
  dirt car. Never got a chance to race it in
• 29:45
  dirt. So I got it, put it on the
• 29:48
  asphalt one that first night out with it broke out a couple weeks
• 29:52
  later and I had to move it up to A to a front wheel drive.
• 29:55
  Now, at that time, that transition wasn't so bad because
• 30:00
  at that time the breakout was 15 seconds.
• 30:03
  The top two or three of us in the Hornets could at any point
• 30:07
  run in the top 10 as a as a front wheel drive just based on
• 30:10
  times of the cars were running. And then as time went on, as we
• 30:14
  put Hoosiers on them, as we put more work in the motors as as a
• 30:18
  class kind of builds and and gets itself to another point.
• 30:24
  You know, the the the the top end of the Hornets was running
• 30:28
  as as fast as 14-8 because they removed the breakout time.
• 30:31
  But the the front wheel drive class at that time was now low,
• 30:36
  low to mid thirteens. So to jump into a front wheel
• 30:39
  drive from a Hornet, it was 1015 hundred dollar expense just to
• 30:46
  put Hoosiers and racing tires all the way around it, because
• 30:49
  you're talking 5 or $600.00 for racing tires, another 75 to 100
• 30:52
  bucks per tire per wheel. So I mean, just to move the same
• 30:55
  car up without putting any performance, without any extra
• 30:57
  cage to work, without anything else, it was 1012 hundred
• 31:01
  dollars or so just to move the car up to the front wheel
• 31:02
  drives. And they still weren't as fast
• 31:05
  as even the top ten in the front wheel drives to the front wheel
• 31:08
  drives. I mean, especially with the,
• 31:10
  with the Davises and I and, and you know, there was 6 or 7
• 31:13
  Saturns right there alone just in those two teams and we were
• 31:16
  all running in the thirteen 23134 range.
• 31:19
  I mean, it was, you know, you had to be within a tenth or two
• 31:23
  just to make the top, top 8. And a lot of times, a lot of
• 31:26
  nights it was 3 or 4/10 just to make the a feature at all.
• 31:30
  So every year's kind of been different.
• 31:32
  Obviously, when you buy a whole new car like a street stock,
• 31:35
  you're talking a whole different level of, of performance and
• 31:38
  upgrades and parts and money and, you know, bigger shops and
• 31:41
  things like that that you just have to have because the shop
• 31:43
  that we had before this one, it was A2 car garage.
• 31:46
  It was a 20 by 24 garage. It was big enough for dad and I
• 31:50
  to work our front wheel drives out of, but barely.
• 31:52
  I mean, we barely had enough room to actually work on them in
• 31:54
  there to try to put two St. socks in there, let alone 2 St.
• 31:58
  socks and two front wheel drives and anything else and parse cars
• 32:00
  and, and, and there were just no way we were going to be able to
• 32:03
  do it. So, you know, we've got this,
• 32:05
  this pole barn shop now that we have, but even this is, is not
• 32:08
  enough to get all that work done.
• 32:10
  So you're always, you're always looking for more.
• 32:11
  So every year the expenses just keep going up.
• 32:14
  Every year the performance keeps getting better.
• 32:16
  You know, as every one of these teams keeps running the same
• 32:19
  tracks, whether it be Plymouth or South End or like what you're
• 32:22
  seeing with New Parish, Kalamazoo or a lot of the other
• 32:24
  tracks that you cover. The guys that are regulars at
• 32:27
  those tracks, they keep figuring things out.
• 32:29
  They keep finding new things. I'm sure a lot of them are like
• 32:32
  me where they sit in their shop and there'll be times I'm just
• 32:35
  sitting here looking down the side of my car.
• 32:37
  I'll be sitting here in silence, not talking, not thinking, not
• 32:40
  listening to the radio, just kind of staring at the car with
• 32:42
  no real intent in mind. And then all sudden you have an
• 32:46
  idea. You go, damn, I wonder if, and
• 32:48
  then you start tweaking on it and finding things or a man when
• 32:52
  I was on turn 2 and it did this or you start thinking of things
• 32:56
  and you just keep tweaking and you keep finding more.
• 32:59
  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
• 33:01
  But even those times where it doesn't work, you learn
• 33:04
  something. So you learn what it didn't like
• 33:05
  and you go a different direction.
• 33:07
  And I mean, that's how all these guys keep getting faster.
• 33:09
  That's how I even well, Friday night Andrew, not Andrew during
• 33:14
  the D7 new track record down there at Plymouth, you know,
• 33:16
  first night we were open and he said a new track record.
• 33:19
  You know, guys are always just tweaking and thinking and
• 33:21
  finding. And sometimes you hit that right
• 33:24
  weather condition and and the track is right and the tires are
• 33:27
  right and everything hooks up and all of a sudden another
• 33:30
  track record falls. And every year we all see track
• 33:33
  record falls. So every classes keeps getting
• 33:35
  faster and faster. Every single year all the
• 33:37
  drivers keep getting better and better.
• 33:38
  So it's just an ever, ever evolving sport, every evolving
• 33:42
  situation. Well, at New Paris on trifecta
• 33:45
  night, every record went down and Bug broke his own record
• 33:50
  twice in the same quality, you know, back-to-back laps.
• 33:53
  And so that was something that, you know, you keep hearing some
• 33:56
  of these times and I know at one time, you know, you guys have in
• 34:00
  the Outlaw front wheel drive, especially at South Bend, the
• 34:03
  top core was getting to be as fast as a street stock and
• 34:06
  sometimes fast like when Andrew Coates was the top dog at South
• 34:11
  Bend and you know, and championship detention and then
• 34:13
  winning championships that, you know, there are nights that some
• 34:17
  of those Outlaw front wheel drivers are faster than what he
• 34:19
  was. And so it was.
• 34:21
  Yeah, it does. It does work that way at
• 34:22
  Plymouth as well. I mean, the street stocks are
• 34:24
  definitely faster at Plymouth and South Bend, but at South
• 34:26
  Bend there was many nights where, you know, I was qualified
• 34:29
  top two or three in the front wheel drives and I would have
• 34:31
  been top three or four in the front in the street stocks just
• 34:34
  based on time. Now, obviously the classes are
• 34:36
  totally different and you know, it's way different driving both
• 34:39
  cars. I mean, I, I know because I have
• 34:40
  both cars and I, I, I still don't feel like I've got to as
• 34:44
  well a grip on the street side classes.
• 34:46
  I did the front wheel drives, but that's just a field thing
• 34:49
  for me. I mean, I always felt like I was
• 34:51
  more on the track than in the track.
• 34:53
  So it's just a matter of, you know, continuing to learn that
• 34:55
  class and once I get back out, that's that's definitely going
• 34:58
  to be a high priority. But yeah, based on times that we
• 35:01
  would have been top five for sure in in street socks.
• 35:03
  But like I said, South Bend's a bit different animal in that
• 35:06
  regard because it's less of a motor track than what Plymouth
• 35:09
  is. You know, some of the bigger
• 35:11
  tracks of motor really helps a little bit more.
• 35:12
  You got the more of the momentum and everything you can carry on
• 35:14
  with. And you know, we get more corner
• 35:18
  speed, I think, than they do, but they've definitely got
• 35:21
  straightaway power on us. So then DJ for you, you know,
• 35:26
  thinking of what you know, Keith just mentioned the different
• 35:28
  things. You know, you started as a night
• 35:30
  of destruction guy, converted over to the weekly racing.
• 35:34
  So you went from purposely crashing cars or like your ex
• 35:39
  wife's truck or things like that to you know, getting into the
• 35:43
  weekly, doing the weekly, jumping the Hornets and that
• 35:45
  kind of deal. So like for you not considering
• 35:49
  your travel, because you do have to travel quite a bit to most
• 35:53
  tracks, what are some things like you have noticed?
• 35:56
  Because a lot of people, it's a big conversation on many, you
• 36:01
  know, pages where they're constantly talking about costs.
• 36:04
  And I think obviously with the economy and, you know, they're
• 36:06
  predicting gas is going to go up towards, you know, $5 plus.
• 36:11
  I know you probably closer to Illinois might even be paying
• 36:14
  some of that already. And So what are some things that
• 36:16
  you have noticed in your short time of racing that has been
• 36:20
  like a big difference for you? Well, as you said, I got started
• 36:25
  in the nights of destruction and, and and I'll, I'll tell a
• 36:31
  quick story to kind of answer your question as I get up, get
• 36:34
  along into it. So I started off the first car I
• 36:38
  ever had was a was a Pontiac Sunfire and it was relatively
• 36:42
  clean. And before I ever put it on the
• 36:44
  track as a night of destruction car, me not knowing anything
• 36:47
  about any weekly racing or what's competitive, what isn't
• 36:52
  set up power, whatever. I had no idea.
• 36:54
  I just found a $200 car and decided to go run it.
• 36:57
  And so guys were offering to buy it off of me before I ever
• 37:01
  turned laps in it. And then before shortly
• 37:05
  thereafter, people like Tyler Casper, among others, like,
• 37:08
  dude, you need to turn this thing to a Hornet and I'm over
• 37:10
  like, what's a Hornet? And then as I learned more about
• 37:15
  it, looked it up on YouTube and the time of the only real
• 37:18
  available videos for South Bend was through Damn it, Dimmitt
• 37:22
  race videos, James Dimmitt. And I think that's kind of about
• 37:25
  the time you were starting to get get started there.
• 37:29
  And it was actually the the first video of yours that I saw
• 37:34
  was when I rolled the ex wife's truck there before I officially
• 37:38
  converted over to full time Hornet racing.
• 37:40
  More on that later, but when I got into Hornet racing and and
• 37:47
  with the weekly racing program in general, one thing I I did
• 37:51
  notice is that there's a lot more level of a competition in
• 37:57
  in the weekly racing versus just going out there smashing things
• 38:00
  up, having a good time. Now, granted, in the weekly
• 38:01
  program, I'm out there having a good time anyway, whether I'm
• 38:05
  running out front or whether I'm a second a half off the pace it
• 38:08
  in a in a new car that I'm trying to figure out.
• 38:11
  But I, I have noticed where my weekly racing instincts, if I'm
• 38:17
  running a night of destruction, sometimes will overlap.
• 38:21
  Because there was one time I was, I was running a Grand Prix
• 38:25
  at South Bend, in, in, I think it was their October race back
• 38:30
  in 232223 somewhere there. And Dustin Smith had his car out
• 38:35
  there. We're down going down the
• 38:36
  backstretch. And we actually locked horns a
• 38:38
  little bit going down the backstretch.
• 38:40
  Well, when we, we broke free of each other, he got out front,
• 38:43
  got loose and spun in front of me and I smacked him in the
• 38:48
  right rear corner and spun him around.
• 38:50
  Instinctively I lifted thinking the yellow was going to come
• 38:53
  out. And then I looked down.
• 38:55
  I'm like stupid. You're in a nod.
• 38:56
  We're still green and I wound up winning the round.
• 39:00
  Winning the round. So so I'm having to retrain
• 39:05
  myself whenever I purposefully get into a nod vehicle.
• 39:09
  We are staying green until they throw checkers or red.
• 39:12
  We're going out there to see checkers or see Elvis and
• 39:16
  there's no in between. DJ just stand on it.
• 39:19
  So, so, but it but what even when I'm out there night of
• 39:24
  destruction racing, I'm still racing, you know, because I have
• 39:29
  that mentality of saving the car because like you say, expenses,
• 39:34
  it gets expensive building yet another car.
• 39:37
  I mean, yeah, there have been times I've gone out there I've
• 39:38
  spent quite a bit of money on a night of destruction car ready
• 39:42
  to ready to roll, hoping I'll make it last a little bit. 2
• 39:46
  laps in, it gets wadded up like an accordion.
• 39:48
  So I'm like, well, there goes that money, but but.
• 39:52
  See, I do the same thing when I go out there for the nods.
• 39:55
  When I got through the nods, I'm thinking racing.
• 39:57
  I'm not thinking wrecking. I'm thinking racing all the way.
• 40:00
  I'll let you tell your construction race story here in
• 40:03
  a second, but. All right.
• 40:06
  Yeah. So, but, but it, it, it does get
• 40:10
  expensive to, to build the cars and, and, and so because you got
• 40:17
  to find a car that nobody wants anymore or is just too far gone
• 40:22
  to be a streetcar, you got to gut it.
• 40:24
  You got to find the steel to reinforce the door area.
• 40:27
  And if there's any mechanical issues like that 311 car, I
• 40:30
  pointed out that that I had, it had been sitting at that points
• 40:35
  for seven years and I had to do a lot of work just to get it
• 40:38
  running. And thankfully I had it rolling
• 40:40
  for about a year before it finally bit the dust.
• 40:43
  But, but for the weekly racing, yeah, As far as traveling is
• 40:48
  concerned, I live in Griffith IN so South Bend, that's an hour.
• 40:52
  Plymouth, hour and 15. New Paris is an hour and 40 M 40
• 40:57
  is almost two hours. Galesburg and Springport,
• 41:00
  they're between 2 and 2 1/2 hours for me.
• 41:04
  But I'm willing to do it because here's the one thing, despite
• 41:08
  all expenses, despite how far of a travel it is, I do because I
• 41:12
  love the sport and I love doing what I do.
• 41:15
  And every time I'm on track, I'm learning something like he was
• 41:18
  saying, it's there's a learning curve and the day you quit
• 41:21
  learning is the day you need to get out of the car.
• 41:24
  But but it's, it's, it's the love for the sport.
• 41:28
  It's something that I feel like I've been able to.
• 41:32
  It's it's it's allowed me to kind of find myself following
• 41:35
  some tragedy in 2021. And, and yeah, there are going
• 41:41
  to be times where I run part time.
• 41:42
  There are going to be times where I'll need to take a whole
• 41:44
  season off. But I'm going to keep doing
• 41:46
  whenever I can because I love the sport.
• 41:48
  I think we all can agree on that.
• 41:50
  Oh yeah. So and not to mention the the
• 41:54
  friendships that have been forged along the way, it's I'd
• 41:58
  be stupid to hang it up this early.
• 42:02
  I think that's the thing that a lot of people don't always think
• 42:05
  about is right there, you know, the the passion.
• 42:09
  And I think sometimes there are racers who forget the passion
• 42:14
  side of things that it's become so business like mentality that
• 42:21
  the passion doesn't feel as strong and and right, wrong and
• 42:25
  different that, you know, everyone operates differently,
• 42:27
  right. But sometimes I think that's
• 42:30
  something I've noticed has been a big change and it's a cost.
• 42:34
  It's not a financial cost, but it's a cost to short track
• 42:36
  racing. Is that sometimes?
• 42:39
  Because you know, look at, I mean, just look at high school
• 42:42
  sports. They're now doing what college
• 42:43
  sports are doing. College sports are doing what
• 42:45
  professional, right? You just always see these
• 42:47
  trickle downs where now little leagues are doing what high
• 42:51
  school sports were doing and middle school sports are doing
• 42:53
  what high schools were doing. Like that.
• 42:55
  Sometimes in racing we've gotten so buttoned up that we forget
• 43:02
  that passion behind it. And that's not everybody.
• 43:04
  But sometimes that's some of the things that I, I feel like I
• 43:07
  have noticed is man, someone needs to go back to Disney, find
• 43:11
  the smile on their face and come back, you know, like wherever
• 43:14
  that is for them. It's like Happy Gilmore, happy
• 43:17
  place, find your happy place, you know?
• 43:20
  So that's where I know your passion shines all the way
• 43:23
  through, DJ. That might be a a 60 seconds
• 43:27
  with six topic coming up, finding your happy place.
• 43:29
  We'll we'll stay tuned with that.
• 43:31
  Yep. Well, and that's something that
• 43:33
  even with Keith, you know, you and and your dad, right, have an
• 43:37
  incredible story where racing brought you back together after
• 43:40
  years being away, right? But then, you know, you're
• 43:43
  someone who, yeah, you're not in a car as much as you were before
• 43:46
  and do it. But you still found a way to be
• 43:48
  a part of it. And you still find a way to
• 43:50
  advocate for the sport. You still find a way to be a
• 43:53
  part of it. And I think sometimes, again,
• 43:55
  that's like you're you both are models for like, hey, you know
• 44:00
  what? This is supposed to be fun for
• 44:02
  some people. And you know, DJ, this is true
• 44:05
  of you and and Keith, it's been true of you.
• 44:07
  Like this is also an escape from like everyday kind of things
• 44:10
  every, you know, and, and I think some sometimes drivers
• 44:15
  need to be reminded that like this is fun.
• 44:19
  And if it's just business for you and it's not fun, it's not
• 44:21
  all these things, then it might be time to step away for a
• 44:24
  little bit, find yourself in the stands and see if you can
• 44:27
  rekindle that. See if you can find that passion
• 44:30
  again, like when you were little and exposed to it for the first
• 44:32
  time or whatever. Right.
• 44:33
  Like, I know things are expensive, but as Buju has said
• 44:37
  before, sometimes drivers are their own worst enemy.
• 44:39
  It's expensive because the drivers want to go faster.
• 44:41
  It's expensive because drivers want to do more.
• 44:44
  They want, you know, all these things.
• 44:45
  And obviously I know it's not, it's not.
• 44:49
  Derek. Oh my gosh, why am I drawing
• 44:52
  blank? What's the card number?
• 44:59
  Drew Davis, there you go. I have to think I have to go for
• 45:01
  my DS. You know, Drew's on here and
• 45:04
  he's kind of talked about where he said he got to a point where
• 45:07
  I'm not going to say anything more, right?
• 45:08
  But it's those costs and right. So I think that's the thing,
• 45:11
  that passion is a cost. It's not a financial cost, but
• 45:14
  it can cost trucks, right? So and and drivers like so I
• 45:19
  think that's again, just don't ever lose that the passion that
• 45:22
  you guys have for it, because that's what it's supposed to be
• 45:24
  about. And it's nice to win, don't get
• 45:26
  me wrong, but you got to have the pass.
• 45:28
  It is. You know what are we doing
• 45:32
  right? Like let NASCAR beat NASCAR and
• 45:35
  NASCAR has its audience, let short track racing, you know, be
• 45:39
  its short track racing self. It's grassroots.
• 45:42
  It's, you know, your mom and pop who work, you know, 60 hours a
• 45:46
  week just so they can go put some tires on and turn left and
• 45:50
  go fast, right? And have their kind of dream of
• 45:53
  just racing. And and yeah, they're not going
• 45:55
  to make it to NASCAR, but they're out there having the
• 45:57
  time of their life. You know, like that's what I
• 45:59
  sometimes think we need to remember.
• 46:03
  And along those lines, while while we're thinking about it,
• 46:05
  NASCAR versus short track racing, I must say something
• 46:10
  that probably a lot of people are probably going to bristle up
• 46:13
  at me for. We're not out here to be the
• 46:16
  next day of Earnhardt. We're out here to be DJ
• 46:21
  Mccotter, Keith Barringer, Buju and run our own courses, run our
• 46:26
  own races and write our own stories.
• 46:32
  Well, those stories are what's important, right, And that's
• 46:35
  what I what I like about the Monday night rewind.
• 46:37
  You know, we get to learn stories, tell stories.
• 46:40
  You know, there's no like true format to this.
• 46:42
  Like we have an idea of what it looks like, but it, you know,
• 46:45
  it's a shoot first aim second, you know, like there's no script
• 46:49
  here there. You know, it's just where does
• 46:50
  the conversation go? Because it should be natural,
• 46:53
  right? You know, D JS DJDJ doesn't need
• 46:56
  to be. And I think sometimes when you
• 46:58
  get like third generation, 4th generation racers, right,
• 47:02
  sometimes that pressure gets there, purposeful or not
• 47:05
  purposeful. Like I, I promise you, their
• 47:08
  parents are like, I don't want them to be like me.
• 47:10
  I wish they would stop trying to be like me or try, you know,
• 47:13
  like I want them to do their own thing or I'm not coaching them
• 47:16
  because I want them to learn it themselves, right?
• 47:18
  Like, you know, I, I, I made mistakes and I want them to, I
• 47:22
  want them to figure it out. And but I sometimes think
• 47:24
  there's that pressure, you know, natural or unnatural, that comes
• 47:28
  with even being that deep into it, that it's like, hey, just
• 47:32
  remember, just go race. Well, to your to your point,
• 47:35
  even D JS asked me a few times over the years, she's like, why
• 47:38
  are people remembering who I am? Why are people, you know, asking
• 47:41
  me to do this? Or you know why?
• 47:44
  You know, how is it they even know who I am?
• 47:45
  And I, I have to remind him, you know it.
• 47:48
  It's all about personality. He's DJ, you know, singing,
• 47:51
  singing his praise while he's sitting here.
• 47:52
  But you know, he's got a big personality more than he
• 47:55
  realizes. He's got, you know, a multi
• 47:57
  multitude of talents with singing the national anthem and
• 48:01
  being willing to wear a fire suit 90% of the time.
• 48:05
  And no, you still ain't got your uniform on, you know, and you
• 48:13
  know, and a lot of us in the pitch pick on him, but he begs
• 48:16
  for it a lot of times. He asked for it a lot of times.
• 48:18
  Now, some of the guys take it too far.
• 48:19
  Sometimes they cross a line and, you know, DJ Grill is up a
• 48:22
  little bit and it's time to remind a few guys that all
• 48:24
  right, enough's enough. But you know, he's got a huge
• 48:27
  personality, great personality, you know, a great sense of humor
• 48:31
  soaks it all up most of the time.
• 48:32
  And you know, there's a reason why, you know, he's doing the 60
• 48:37
  on 6. And, you know, I've talked to DJ
• 48:39
  a bunch over the years that, you know, we should start a do a
• 48:42
  podcast or find something we can do to to contribute to the
• 48:45
  sport. You know, whether it's, you
• 48:47
  know, getting back in the announcers bootha together
• 48:49
  again, like we've been able to do a time or two and you know,
• 48:52
  that's that's always a good time.
• 48:53
  And and Speaking of that, Buju, I you, you sound like you did an
• 48:58
  amazing job. I wasn't able to get over there
• 48:59
  but heard a lot of drivers talk about how good you did over
• 49:02
  there and how a lot of fans talk about your your time over there
• 49:04
  and on the mic and new, new, new Paris.
• 49:07
  And how'd that go? That too, Because it sounded
• 49:10
  like you did fantastic. It sounded natural, actually.
• 49:14
  I appreciate it. Thank you boys.
• 49:15
  It was fun. It was a good time.
• 49:17
  I think he was shitty but anyways.
• 49:20
  He knows what I think. Well, none of us have a problem
• 49:22
  talking, so that's that's never an issue.
• 49:25
  You know, and I recruited him, right?
• 49:27
  I'm the one who reached out because I knew he'd be able to
• 49:29
  do it. So, you know, when I, when Chris
• 49:31
  was looking for someone, I said, I know who I can ask, you know,
• 49:34
  what do you think about this? And Chris Mandel said, go for
• 49:37
  it. So, you know, I, I reached out
• 49:40
  to Bhuja and said, what are you doing on Saturday?
• 49:42
  I don't know yet. Might be going to M40.
• 49:43
  Well, what about an opportunity that you could also get paid to
• 49:46
  be at the racetrack. So, you know, and, and he did
• 49:50
  just fine, even though he was nervous as hell and all that
• 49:52
  kind of deal, you know, once the mic got going, he knew what to
• 49:55
  do so. Well, with him being nervous,
• 49:58
  that just shows how much it cared.
• 49:59
  That just shows how much it meant to him.
• 50:02
  That well, that street stock race, you know, I told Tracy
• 50:05
  because Tracy, she climbs up to the roof at least one at some
• 50:08
  point in the night to check on me, make sure I'm OK and all
• 50:11
  that. And you know, they know at New
• 50:13
  Paris, they'll say, well, do you need any food?
• 50:14
  We know you won't eat it, but do you want any food you want?
• 50:18
  Do you need? And no, I'm good.
• 50:20
  You know, I just show up and I don't ask for anything or demand
• 50:23
  anything other than the ladder to get up to the roof.
• 50:25
  But that's something that she came up and said, I heard it was
• 50:28
  good. And I said, wait until you hear
• 50:31
  Buju. I mean, you could just turn off
• 50:33
  the the feed of the video. I mean, watch the video, but you
• 50:36
  know, you can turn off the video and listen and that's all you
• 50:40
  have to do is listen. And and he's in my left ear,
• 50:43
  right? So I'm hearing him the whole
• 50:45
  time and I'm like, he's making this more exciting on top of the
• 50:50
  excitement. It already is like with that,
• 50:53
  the way that he did it, the way his tone, the way his cadence
• 50:57
  with his words and his excitement.
• 51:00
  And he said he was pacing during that.
• 51:01
  I, I imagine so because I couldn't hear his steps, but you
• 51:05
  could just hear him be a fan. And I think, you know, that's
• 51:09
  what made that so incredible for his debut.
• 51:12
  And, and I bet if you asked a lot of people if he didn't even
• 51:15
  announce it, he did tell him it was his debut.
• 51:18
  I bet if you went to people and said, how often have you done
• 51:20
  this, they would think all the time, right?
• 51:23
  So again, that's a singer, your praise, Buju.
• 51:26
  But I mean, you did an incredible job with that.
• 51:28
  So just remember when you're famous, who recruited you to do
• 51:32
  that? Remember the little guy?
• 51:36
  I appreciate. It and Louis, you mentioned
• 51:38
  Louis, you mentioned how it sounded like Buju was just being
• 51:41
  a fan. Isn't that how the Buju boring
• 51:43
  got started? Absolutely, yeah.
• 51:47
  Yeah. Well, and when I saw that
• 51:49
  Montville video, that's when I reached out to him and saying,
• 51:52
  hey, you know, is there a way that I can help get this out
• 51:55
  more, right? Because I, I have a, I've built
• 51:58
  a, a decent platform, right. And so it's like, you know, how
• 52:01
  can we bring more exposure to that?
• 52:03
  And, and, and all of his episodes have done, you know,
• 52:06
  really well. And it's gotten out there where
• 52:08
  and then he obviously does the Twitter side.
• 52:09
  I don't do the Twitter side, but you know, then on Twitter,
• 52:12
  right, he's doing this and getting what Dale Earnhardt and
• 52:14
  Mark and all these other, you know, big time people to see
• 52:18
  that. And so that's cool to see that
• 52:20
  too, because it's like, again, it's being recognized and and
• 52:24
  that kind of content is what's missing.
• 52:26
  You know. So Buju, instead of copying and
• 52:28
  pasting somebody else and trying to be just like that person and
• 52:31
  doing the exactly what they do, he went and found his own Ave.
• 52:35
  And I think that's what stands out is that he made his own
• 52:37
  creativity and his own lane to drive in.
• 52:41
  And I asked Buju one day because at at that point, I think he had
• 52:45
  done episode 3 or 4 or something like that.
• 52:48
  And and I would ask him, when's the next one coming out?
• 52:51
  Well, then one day I said, So what are you going to do South
• 52:53
  Bend? This was just before they had
• 52:54
  announced that they were going to bring it back for their
• 52:57
  October show or whatever. And mind you, each episode is
• 53:02
  anywhere between 5:00 and 8:00 minutes long.
• 53:06
  And I'll never forget this. He I says, when are you going to
• 53:09
  do South Bend? He says, And I don't know if I'm
• 53:12
  going to have a way to squeeze all my knowledge and love of
• 53:15
  South Bend into a 17 hour episode.
• 53:20
  Yeah, because South Bend is home for us, right?
• 53:23
  You know, And South Bend holds a special place for us all.
• 53:28
  Yeah, I mean, that's that's probably the most common
• 53:30
  question I've got. And I mean, just, I guess being
• 53:33
  a South Bend kid is one of the when is the South End episode
• 53:36
  coming? And I mean, the track story
• 53:38
  isn't done yet. So that's part of it.
• 53:40
  We did. We thought it was a few times,
• 53:41
  but so far we're still kicking. So I, I want to wait until the
• 53:45
  story is over and it's not over. So that's part of it.
• 53:49
  But also it's just, it's such a big story that I don't even, I,
• 53:53
  I know I'm, it's like there's nobody else that's going to tell
• 53:55
  it, but I don't even feel that I'm the guy to tell it because
• 53:58
  I'm so close to it, if that makes any sense.
• 54:00
  I don't know, it's tough. I love.
• 54:01
  If that's your criteria, if that's your criteria on when
• 54:05
  that episode comes out, let's hope it never has to come out.
• 54:07
  Yeah. Amen.
• 54:10
  Well, and just kind of think, I mean, even right here in this
• 54:13
  group, like we talked at the beginning of the episode that,
• 54:16
  you know, every for the first time in this Monday night thing,
• 54:19
  which I know is only 14 episodes in, but 14 episodes in, that
• 54:23
  everybody on the screen right now was there before, like top
• 54:27
  row, right? Like we all knew each other
• 54:29
  before top row even became a thing.
• 54:31
  You know, Buju got his start at South Bend.
• 54:34
  BJ, you got your start at South Bend.
• 54:35
  You found yourself at South Bend.
• 54:37
  Keith, you're at South Bend, right?
• 54:38
  Like so then even everybody in this common box here, their
• 54:43
  roots are at South Bend. You know, that track has such a
• 54:47
  important piece, you know, for all of us.
• 54:49
  And while my first racing days are at Santa Fe Speedway, you
• 54:52
  know, my top row was established right at the top row, you know,
• 54:57
  coming out of Turn 4. That's what sometimes sucks
• 55:00
  about the current state of affairs between everybody,
• 55:04
  right? Not on the screen, but other
• 55:05
  people who won't be named. But you know, is that it's like,
• 55:09
  you know, just how incredibly frustrating and stupid, by the
• 55:12
  way, you know, that has become. So you know someone's screen
• 55:17
  record that, by the way, and share that out.
• 55:20
  But you know, it's one of those because that's what will happen.
• 55:23
  They all have spies. But, you know, but that's what's
• 55:26
  so, you know, unfortunate, right, is that, you know, you
• 55:29
  have that history, you know, at a very special place to a lot of
• 55:33
  people. Yeah.
• 55:37
  Well, Lewis, let me let me sing your praises here for a moment
• 55:39
  because you're mentioning back to the beginning and before top
• 55:42
  row began. I mean, one of the first times I
• 55:45
  remember talking to you, you came back in the pits, you were
• 55:47
  talking to me and my dad and you know, my dad and I talked all
• 55:50
  the time when my dad got into racing the year after I did.
• 55:53
  Well, this style of racing, he's been doing demos and everything
• 55:56
  way back in the 70s. That's how we grew up in the
• 55:58
  track. But I told them all the time, I
• 56:00
  said we might not always see it, we might not ever hear it, We
• 56:04
  might not. We definitely don't always know
• 56:06
  who's watching. But they are definitely
• 56:09
  watching. And you were a prime example of
• 56:12
  that. Because when you came back to
• 56:13
  the pitch and you were chatting with us, hell, you were
• 56:15
  spatting, spouting off stats of mine and my dad's that I didn't
• 56:20
  even know, that I hadn't even remembered, that I didn't even
• 56:22
  take the time to write down or bother remembering.
• 56:24
  And you know, you are talking about somebody that's very
• 56:27
  passionate about the sport. Put yourself right in there with
• 56:29
  that conversation because very few people take that passion and
• 56:33
  put the investment and full time effort into what they're doing
• 56:37
  for the sport and with the sport much like you are.
• 56:40
  So definitely, I know you. I know you're thinking small
• 56:42
  time. Yeah, I know you're thinking
• 56:45
  you're small time, but you are. You're bigger than 90% of the
• 56:47
  people out there even thinking about it.
• 56:49
  And you know, when you were like Steve just said, when you were
• 56:52
  in the classroom, you know, I know myself, I know Charlie,
• 56:55
  Hannah, I know a lot of other people came up.
• 56:56
  She asking, all right, well, when you going to do this full
• 56:59
  time because it's definitely coming.
• 57:01
  And you finally made that. You finally made that decision
• 57:04
  when it was right for you. But we all saw it come.
• 57:06
  We all knew that that's where you were headed.
• 57:08
  So bigger and better things are out there for you yet to come
• 57:11
  to. You're not anywhere near where
• 57:13
  you're going to be. Well, and you're one of those
• 57:15
  first to really bring it up, not the only you know, but you are
• 57:18
  one of those first ones early to ask, right, is so Lewis, when is
• 57:25
  this all going to come together where you realize right.
• 57:28
  And so, and I and I hold those words right.
• 57:31
  You know, all three of you on here I have a high respect for
• 57:34
  and you know, a huge fan of. I mean, I wouldn't be giving
• 57:37
  Buju the platform to be a Co host on this and to have his,
• 57:41
  you know, bowl rings and recruit him to be the, you know, a voice
• 57:45
  at New Paris. Like if I didn't have that
• 57:47
  respect for him, he wouldn't be on here right now.
• 57:49
  And you know, and, and DJ write your story and just your passion
• 57:53
  for that. And then Keith, seeing how you
• 57:56
  just did so well, were you connected with fans you made
• 58:00
  purposeful and come through. And that's why it was so easy.
• 58:04
  You know, when I was coming up with like the driver spotlights,
• 58:07
  which are just on pause because it's the beginning of the
• 58:09
  season. They did not go away.
• 58:10
  They're just it's let's get some races in.
• 58:13
  So that way I get new stats to highlight everyone that's
• 58:16
  racing, right. And so that usually in June is
• 58:20
  when they bring him back. So we're a couple weeks away
• 58:21
  from him coming back. But, you know, it made it really
• 58:24
  easy then for me, you know, to write those driver spotlights
• 58:28
  because I would think of people like DJI would think of people
• 58:31
  like you, Keith, that, you know, let's put the spotlight, you
• 58:35
  know, and I think you're what, my third official spotlight, you
• 58:38
  know that I did. Yeah, very first say.
• 58:40
  Yeah, You know, so that was and, and it was unannounced and you
• 58:44
  were the first ones to come up and say, hey, you got, it was
• 58:47
  like later on in the season, we got people in the pits on
• 58:49
  Wednesdays looking at their phone to see if they're next,
• 58:52
  right? Like that, everyone got excited
• 58:54
  for that. And are they coming up and to be
• 58:56
  a part of that? And that just kind of grew
• 58:58
  naturally, right. But that's where, again, like
• 59:00
  you've gotten to see the progression, DJs gotten to see
• 59:03
  that progression. I mean, Buju and his Davis
• 59:05
  family were the first ones I sponsored, right?
• 59:07
  So it's one of those. Things.
• 59:10
  Yep. So yeah.
• 59:11
  All 40 of. Them, the Stevensville Meyer,
• 59:15
  you know, sold a lot of purple Gatorade at that time, so they
• 59:19
  knew when I was coming, so they knew what day.
• 59:23
  I was pretty routine about it. And then sometimes I walk in and
• 59:26
  I'd say we're getting the Gatorade now.
• 59:27
  You know, like I'm like, we didn't have any because LYEBSA
• 59:33
  would clean it out. And I'm like, well, shoot, I got
• 59:35
  to beat the baseball teams now. But but that's something that
• 59:39
  again, you know, that's why you guys stand out, right, Because
• 59:43
  you've made those connections. I mean, as you said, DJs in fire
• 59:46
  suit like 24/7. Not now, of course, but.
• 59:51
  Now there is a reason that I do that OK, and and starting off,
• 59:57
  it was all right. Well, this is just that you know
• 1:00:01
  that the mindset was well, I put this on.
• 1:00:03
  This is what I'm supposed to wear from from the time I get in
• 1:00:06
  the car to the time I'm done right.
• 1:00:08
  But then I started noticing at South Bend especially is that
• 1:00:13
  people started affiliating me with the fire suit as being a
• 1:00:18
  driver and it started sparking conversation I started.
• 1:00:22
  Of meeting people that way. I started making friendships
• 1:00:25
  along the way. And so it from that point
• 1:00:28
  forward, it just started becoming a thing.
• 1:00:30
  People give me a hard time about it.
• 1:00:31
  It's like, all right, whatever. Like, oh, you got to be, you got
• 1:00:34
  to have some sort of heat resistance to be wearing that in
• 1:00:37
  the dog days of summer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.
• 1:00:39
  Shut up. And then and then a little
• 1:00:43
  secret got out that when whenever tax time came around, I
• 1:00:46
  would get a new one, you know, every year or so.
• 1:00:50
  I didn't get a new one this year.
• 1:00:51
  I had other financial obligations with said taxes.
• 1:00:54
  But anyway, but then I would, I would, you know, start at and
• 1:00:59
  making it my own personal, you know, with the LHR badge, with
• 1:01:03
  now it's got Behringer creations on the FedEx suit or whatever,
• 1:01:06
  an American nightmare badge on the back of it, you know, So,
• 1:01:09
  and, and people notice that and, and I get compliments all the
• 1:01:12
  time. Dude, I love your suit.
• 1:01:14
  And then I start to walk away and they see the American
• 1:01:16
  nightmare of Cody Rosen. Man, that's awesome.
• 1:01:18
  That's on a fire. So, you know, and, and again,
• 1:01:21
  it, it, it, it allows me to, to, to have a conversation piece and
• 1:01:25
  meet people and add people on Facebook and, and get connected
• 1:01:28
  with the sport and things like that.
• 1:01:30
  So, but then there are times where I'm just absolutely wore
• 1:01:34
  out. I'm tired, get the car loaded,
• 1:01:37
  and I don't even bother taking the suit off.
• 1:01:39
  I just jump in the truck and head to the house.
• 1:01:42
  And there have been a couple people that see me at the gas
• 1:01:44
  station shortly thereafter. See.
• 1:01:46
  You must sleep in that thing. Yeah, whatever, Derek.
• 1:01:49
  I know you're watching. So.
• 1:01:52
  Brandon, I'm still disappointed. I'm disappointed you you're I'm
• 1:01:56
  still disappointed you retire that Eva won suit.
• 1:02:00
  Hey, it got officially retired on September 5th.
• 1:02:02
  All right, 2024 it was officially retired and when I
• 1:02:06
  found it, there was actually 3/4 of the suit still left.
• 1:02:09
  I'm like, man, this thing must really it must still actually
• 1:02:13
  have some resistance to fireman. So but and then I'm like, well,
• 1:02:18
  it's already destroyed. Let's see what this thing will
• 1:02:19
  really do. So I took a Zippo lighter and
• 1:02:21
  and seen just how long it took for it actually to start burning
• 1:02:25
  and and putting a hole in it took a it took a couple minutes
• 1:02:29
  actually. I was quite impressed so.
• 1:02:32
  Why we wear them but. What's that?
• 1:02:35
  So that's why we wear them. Yeah, but, but, but getting back
• 1:02:40
  on to singing your praises a little bit, Lewis.
• 1:02:42
  The first time I actually heard your name, I'm like, who's that?
• 1:02:46
  They they point up to the top row South Bend.
• 1:02:48
  So you see that guy with the iPad so and then the, and then I
• 1:02:54
  saw bits and pieces of your, of your work before you released.
• 1:02:58
  At the time it was Top Row Racing videos.
• 1:03:01
  And then it was like 3 days, if that, after the night of
• 1:03:04
  destruction where I had purposed in my heart to destroy that
• 1:03:10
  Blazer that I saw the truck Enduro presented by Top Row
• 1:03:14
  Racing Videos. And it saw, I saw the whole
• 1:03:16
  thing unfold in real time through your lens and how you
• 1:03:21
  zoomed in on the truck, flipping over and zoomed in on me,
• 1:03:25
  throwing my hands out of the window And, and then the guys
• 1:03:29
  rolling it over. And I've seen you kind of peer
• 1:03:31
  over to where I was talking to guys like, can I get back in?
• 1:03:35
  And, and I thought that was so cool watching and seeing how
• 1:03:39
  it's progressed over the years with the, with the banners that
• 1:03:42
  you got on each with showing what, what it is, where you're
• 1:03:45
  at, what feature. And, and you know, of course now
• 1:03:48
  you then you made that jump from videos to media because you're
• 1:03:52
  not just doing videos. Of course, you know, this
• 1:03:54
  podcast is, is proof of that. But you know, you're, you're
• 1:04:00
  doing amazing work, man. And I, and I think I can speak
• 1:04:02
  for us all and those of us watching, you know, we're very
• 1:04:05
  much appreciative of what you do and the fact that you could be
• 1:04:08
  making a ton of money on it. But for people like us, you
• 1:04:12
  don't charge a dime and we're very appreciative of that.
• 1:04:17
  Well, well, this isn't about me, by the way, just so you know,
• 1:04:20
  this is about you guys, but but I do appreciate that.
• 1:04:24
  Well, and that's, you know, even in the chat we have Ronnie hit.
• 1:04:28
  So his daughter last year at Galesburg, he is a firefighter.
• 1:04:33
  He raced the school bus that got hit the the red in the
• 1:04:37
  firefighter looking school bus that got like hit.
• 1:04:40
  I mean, he took a good, good head in the in the axe.
• 1:04:44
  But anyways, he's also a front wheel drive racer at Galesburg,
• 1:04:48
  primarily a Galesburg area, but his daughter came up last year.
• 1:04:51
  I was talking with Liz Edwards, who at Springport, I don't think
• 1:04:55
  you guys got to meet, but otherwise I would have purposely
• 1:04:57
  introduced you to Liz Edwards because she's just, she is a top
• 1:05:00
  notch person. And so anyways, I was talking
• 1:05:05
  with Liz afterwards because she works at Galesburg and I was
• 1:05:08
  getting her stickers because they want some stickers.
• 1:05:11
  So Ronnie's daughter comes up and is just waiting there so
• 1:05:15
  quietly and so patiently and, and says, I, I watch your videos
• 1:05:20
  all the time. Can I have a sticker?
• 1:05:22
  And, and I in my first head, I thought of my principal being
• 1:05:26
  right there, you know, because my principal, I always tell
• 1:05:28
  people I didn't leave the classroom because of my
• 1:05:30
  principal. And even in my resignation
• 1:05:32
  letter, I made sure that the district knew I'm not leaving
• 1:05:35
  because of my principal. I am a big fan of my principal
• 1:05:38
  and and she's one of those who's never forgotten what it was like
• 1:05:42
  to be in the classroom. So I wanted the district to know
• 1:05:44
  I'm not leaving because of her because a lot of times that's
• 1:05:47
  why people leave the classroom is because of like admin.
• 1:05:49
  And it's like, it's not her that I'm leaving for.
• 1:05:52
  But anyways, I thought my principal, you know, doing this
• 1:05:55
  and like her heart melting, like that was the first thought that
• 1:05:57
  came to my head. And Liz did, you know, did that.
• 1:06:00
  And that was so cool that moment, right?
• 1:06:02
  Because it's like, that's always remembering, you don't know,
• 1:06:05
  like when I'm in the stands, I don't know who watches and who
• 1:06:08
  doesn't watch and you know, and all these kind of things.
• 1:06:10
  But then they have like Ronnie's daughter, you know, come up and
• 1:06:13
  say that I had a couple kids on Saturday who came up to me and
• 1:06:16
  they said, we love your videos. We love your videos.
• 1:06:19
  And it's like, so it's always a reminder, right?
• 1:06:20
  Like when you guys say they're always watching or someone's
• 1:06:23
  always watching. There's even a, you know, a kid
• 1:06:26
  will come around and say I wanna be just like you, you know, and
• 1:06:30
  they'll stand next to me recording with their phone or
• 1:06:33
  they'll take pictures with their phone like a Kalamazoo.
• 1:06:35
  They'll stand by me and and it's that's cool, right, Because it's
• 1:06:40
  like, you know, I just kind of think there's a photographer in
• 1:06:43
  Ohio who was a little smug. I'm not obviously going to say
• 1:06:47
  the outlet, but you know, they were judging phonographers.
• 1:06:50
  And so I just, I knew how their following was and everything.
• 1:06:53
  I think Buju, I told you the story, I think where I just
• 1:06:56
  turned to the photographer who is being really like mean to
• 1:07:00
  this kid without the kid knowing that they were being mean.
• 1:07:02
  And I went, how how long have you been doing this?
• 1:07:06
  And they said, of course, the answer, which I mostly knew.
• 1:07:08
  And I said, and how many followers do you have?
• 1:07:10
  Because I benchmark everybody. How many followers do you have?
• 1:07:13
  And I said, so if this were the Yankee Stadium, I would be
• 1:07:15
  sitting behind home plate eating a hot dog on TV while the Fox
• 1:07:19
  Sports talk about it and you'd be way up in the nosebleeds and
• 1:07:22
  you and I've been doing a lot less.
• 1:07:24
  And I built at that time it's 25,000 followers on an iPhone
• 1:07:28
  and an iPad. I said you that the kid take
• 1:07:29
  pictures, they're documenting something that is important to
• 1:07:32
  them. So it's like we got to remember
• 1:07:35
  that too, right? Like if fancier equipment
• 1:07:37
  doesn't make you any better. So, you know, just like I would
• 1:07:40
  tell people my master degree doesn't didn't make me a better
• 1:07:43
  teacher. It just gave me more knowledge
• 1:07:45
  and more tools, but it doesn't make me better, right?
• 1:07:48
  This is I'm more in debt. Like that's all.
• 1:07:52
  And Louis, you say it's not about you, but I'll tell you
• 1:07:55
  what. When you talk about passion for
• 1:07:56
  the sport, when you talk about being part of the racing family,
• 1:08:00
  I guarantee you every one of us on the screen right now and most
• 1:08:02
  of us watching right now, we all include you as just as much
• 1:08:06
  important part of that racing family and for what everybody's
• 1:08:09
  doing. You may not be in the car as
• 1:08:11
  often as we are, but what you're putting out there is giving the
• 1:08:15
  reach for, like you said, those fans that that don't get a
• 1:08:19
  chance to get to the track or that aren't local to our area
• 1:08:22
  and other states to be able to watch what we're doing here.
• 1:08:24
  So, you know, we all thank you for that.
• 1:08:26
  I know you say it's not about you, but you know you're just as
• 1:08:29
  much a part of what we're doing to put on this show for the fans
• 1:08:31
  as as we are. With that in mind, how many
• 1:08:35
  states has top row racing media actually reached?
• 1:08:39
  Well, I haven't got to tell, you know I haven't.
• 1:08:41
  So for. Let's put a race on.
• 1:08:45
  Well so Buju would know this with his SO and Meta for
• 1:08:48
  example. Meta gives reports on like video
• 1:08:51
  clips, not on pictures yet. I wish they would on pictures
• 1:08:54
  because pictures sometimes go further than video clips
• 1:08:57
  surprisingly. But that's where on average,
• 1:09:03
  most race weekends I reach at least 26% to 27% of the US
• 1:09:09
  states on average. And.
• 1:09:10
  That's awesome. And that's top ten at least once
• 1:09:14
  within the video. So if there's a night that I
• 1:09:15
  don't post as much, which this year I've been purposeful about
• 1:09:18
  of not posting as much, I've actually cut back on what I post
• 1:09:22
  and it's irritating some people. And like, I just want to make
• 1:09:25
  sure I'm never put in a position where racetrack comes to me and
• 1:09:29
  says, I think people are watching your videos and they're
• 1:09:32
  not coming to the track because they know you're here.
• 1:09:35
  And so I've even cut back on that where I'm being mindful of
• 1:09:39
  not putting as much out there, not posting as much because I
• 1:09:43
  don't want to put myself in that spot, you know, And so I take a
• 1:09:47
  percentage of the night. I do the math at home before I
• 1:09:49
  go to the track. OK, about how many laps could I
• 1:09:52
  post tonight? That's a very small percentage.
• 1:09:54
  And I try to stay to that as much as possible, but that's
• 1:09:58
  something that meta then, you know, gives a report of top 10.
• 1:10:02
  So I know usually in Canada I get like Quebec and all that.
• 1:10:06
  That's pretty routine. And because of a racer you guys
• 1:10:10
  didn't meet, but you both have watched Todd Metz junior, right?
• 1:10:15
  They're all Todd Metz junior. Window Todd.
• 1:10:18
  Yep, so there. You remember that racer from
• 1:10:20
  Australia who came here to America a couple times.
• 1:10:24
  So Australia actually, especially night of
• 1:10:26
  destructions. Galesburg had a huge hit in in
• 1:10:28
  Australia and and England because they love the night of
• 1:10:32
  destruction kind of stuff and the bang banger stuff.
• 1:10:34
  So like I know at New Paris last year, in fact at New Paris, the
• 1:10:38
  fire truck, the New Paris fire truck, the number one and one of
• 1:10:42
  the clips, the number one territory, England.
• 1:10:48
  Nice. Don't know why.
• 1:10:50
  And we've also had that. It's super sure bowling ball.
• 1:10:52
  Literally Dylan Stovall throwing a bowling ball. 5 million views.
• 1:10:56
  The number one England, number 2 was Texas.
• 1:10:59
  That was the one. That was the only time Michigan,
• 1:11:01
  Indiana, Ohio didn't make the top 10.
• 1:11:05
  I don't know if you've ever, I don't know if you've ever seen
• 1:11:07
  the racing that they do in England, but it's like like I've
• 1:11:09
  seen, it's like the old super modified style cars.
• 1:11:12
  There'll be something parked against the wall.
• 1:11:14
  They'll barrel into them on purpose.
• 1:11:15
  Yes. That's what they're into.
• 1:11:17
  Apparently, Oh yeah, I know night of destructions there.
• 1:11:21
  So yeah. So on average, my average, and
• 1:11:23
  it's a pattern, go from Quebec, Canada down to Florida and any
• 1:11:27
  state and everything between. I don't get a lot of where the
• 1:11:29
  cows are. So like New Mexico has or not
• 1:11:33
  New Mexico, it's Wyoming. Like Wyoming for every one human
• 1:11:36
  is 4 cows, 4 to 5 cows. And so the cows aren't watching
• 1:11:40
  me apparently because I don't get a hit.
• 1:11:42
  And like Wyoming, I think Wyoming's the only or I think
• 1:11:45
  Wyoming I've gotten once Idaho is a big one.
• 1:11:49
  There's a group out in Ohio, Idaho that's been following and
• 1:11:51
  it's I'm getting a big Idaho following.
• 1:11:55
  And I'm like, I've never even been on Idaho, but but they and
• 1:11:58
  I don't know how they found me, but you know, so I know it's a
• 1:12:01
  long way to answer, but it's like I take all those metrics
• 1:12:03
  and I'm just going to say what's on average.
• 1:12:06
  But I think the only state I've not ever gotten was Alaska and
• 1:12:10
  Hawaii are the only two that I can't prove that I've that I've
• 1:12:15
  hit. So every other state at least
• 1:12:17
  once has made the top ten at that point.
• 1:12:21
  So in Louisiana that no Michigan Cup.
• 1:12:28
  I got Louisiana once, but otherwise that one is like every
• 1:12:31
  state around it I can get. But Louisiana and like, come on,
• 1:12:33
  my name is in Louisiana. Can I get a damp one Damn person
• 1:12:36
  in the and I did, but I can't prove it, right.
• 1:12:40
  If they did a top 25, I'd have a lot more, right?
• 1:12:43
  They do, yeah. And so I always tell people I
• 1:12:45
  don't pluck my metrics. I don't pay for my metrics.
• 1:12:48
  They're all it's all natural. I don't boost anything.
• 1:12:50
  I have not spent any money boosting, you know, because I
• 1:12:54
  mean, all the research has to not do that.
• 1:12:56
  So, so, yeah, so it it does get out far and wide.
• 1:13:00
  But like Galesburg, if they saw some of the numbers for
• 1:13:02
  Australia and England, snails might pop over and say I need to
• 1:13:06
  go over across the pond and down under.
• 1:13:07
  So, you know, and do his, his motorcycle.
• 1:13:10
  But yeah, that that was, I just know like this Saturday at New
• 1:13:13
  Paris, one of those countries is going to pop in that top ten at
• 1:13:17
  some point because it's banging, not circle racing about
• 1:13:23
  crashing. So it's crazy to think, I mean,
• 1:13:27
  who would have thought a few years ago, right?
• 1:13:29
  I do sometimes think about this when we all knew each other.
• 1:13:32
  I mean, Buju would know. I was at the fence one time
• 1:13:34
  talking with them after passing over the Gatorade going man, I
• 1:13:38
  just I only have like 110 followers right now.
• 1:13:40
  And that was May 2022. I remember because they had some
• 1:13:45
  yellow Gatorade too that day. Meyer did not have enough purple
• 1:13:48
  for them. But you know, so I remember that
• 1:13:50
  and and remember talking and Derrick Davis is like, oh,
• 1:13:53
  you'll get there, you'll get there.
• 1:13:55
  Never thought if you told me I would have even had 10,000.
• 1:13:59
  I would have said there's no way that's not a. 4042 thousand
• 1:14:04
  later. Yeah, I mean, it's still, but
• 1:14:07
  that's where I try to remain grounded, right?
• 1:14:09
  You know, you're not going to find me in too many photos.
• 1:14:11
  In fact, I tell the photographer it's not about me.
• 1:14:14
  I said I actually even with this podcast, when I reach out to
• 1:14:16
  Drew, I had no interest in in being on a podcast and hosting
• 1:14:20
  it or anything. Like it was not up my
• 1:14:21
  wheelhouse. I enjoy it though.
• 1:14:23
  So I get to talk with, you know, drivers and help tell their
• 1:14:26
  story. But that's something that, you
• 1:14:28
  know, when podcast, it's like, I like it that there's people who
• 1:14:31
  think there's 10 of me running around.
• 1:14:34
  Well, you say there's not very many videos, but I'm thinking
• 1:14:37
  I'm looking at this banner that's over here on my wall and
• 1:14:39
  I think you're in that photo up there on the wall.
• 1:14:41
  Oh, that's cool. Yeah.
• 1:14:43
  I try not to be in photos, though, but I know Jay Freak got
• 1:14:45
  a photo of me the one time and he called me from the bird's eye
• 1:14:48
  view and and then fast Lane images and Cody Geyer and I'm
• 1:14:53
  like, I'm not supposed to be in that.
• 1:14:54
  Oh, yeah, you. Yeah, in the corner over there.
• 1:14:58
  Yeah, you're up. You're up there.
• 1:14:59
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, right there. So that's where again, it's like
• 1:15:04
  it, it's just cool when I think about this saying like, man,
• 1:15:08
  everyone on here is pretty top row.
• 1:15:10
  You know, we knew each other before then.
• 1:15:12
  So you know, and see everyone's growth.
• 1:15:14
  I mean, again, Keith, if you want to talk a little bit,
• 1:15:16
  because this is enough shit about me and you know what, I'm
• 1:15:19
  too often so, but I do appreciate it because again,
• 1:15:23
  there are times that what was the other day, someone at
• 1:15:26
  Galesburg was talking with me about stuff and I said, you
• 1:15:28
  know, I just it's times are tough for everybody, right?
• 1:15:33
  But it's like, you know, if people knew how much money I've
• 1:15:36
  lost doing this, I don't I I could afford to go to the track
• 1:15:39
  for many years as a fan if I spent the money I lost just
• 1:15:43
  being a fan, you know, but I'm like, but I enjoy it.
• 1:15:47
  It's my I enjoy being at the track.
• 1:15:49
  I enjoy helping the, you know, show those moments.
• 1:15:53
  I mean, think of that camper and the bus like Zach will have
• 1:15:56
  that, you know, crashing that bus into a motorhome that
• 1:15:59
  crashed into a camper as long as internet's existent, right?
• 1:16:03
  So so it's one of those moments that you can relive that anytime
• 1:16:07
  first wins. You know, those are important.
• 1:16:09
  But like I said, enough about me, Keith.
• 1:16:12
  We've talked about how DJ made the connection and talking about
• 1:16:15
  like him being in the fire suit and even going to the gas
• 1:16:17
  station and fire suit, which also doesn't surprise me.
• 1:16:20
  But Ethan and why you and even my stepdad would say this too.
• 1:16:25
  Who went, you know, always went to South Bend with me and
• 1:16:28
  Gregory Kirk, you know, set up there.
• 1:16:29
  I made friends with him, you and your dad.
• 1:16:33
  And even before your dad raced, you walked the pit or not the
• 1:16:36
  pit. You walked the grandstands.
• 1:16:37
  You'd have T-shirts, you'd have hats, like, and not super fancy
• 1:16:42
  hats. So what's something that what
• 1:16:46
  made you do that? What made you say I'm going to
• 1:16:50
  go sit with the fans? I'm going to go hand out hats or
• 1:16:55
  T-shirts or stickers or candy or whatever?
• 1:16:58
  Cuz you don't see that. Like when I grew up going to
• 1:17:01
  even Ileana and Grundy, I connected a lot with like, Oh my
• 1:17:08
  gosh, I just drew their name. We talked about them literally
• 1:17:12
  the other day for Schulers. You know, we connected with
• 1:17:14
  Schulers and others because they would go out in the stands and
• 1:17:17
  they'd give tire turds to kids from the from the tires and
• 1:17:20
  that's it. That's like the coolest thing
• 1:17:22
  ever, right? So you just don't see that a lot
• 1:17:25
  too often right now unless it's like autographed night.
• 1:17:28
  You don't see a lot of drivers going into the stands and just
• 1:17:32
  hanging out or sitting there with the fans, like picking a
• 1:17:34
  fan and say, hey, can I watch races with you or whatever?
• 1:17:37
  And you, that's something that you did.
• 1:17:38
  That's why you stood out to me and I became a fan of you
• 1:17:41
  because of that. I never got a hat or anything of
• 1:17:44
  those times. You, I got it later, but at that
• 1:17:47
  time, right, it was just so cool seeing you guys.
• 1:17:50
  So what made you do that? Well, I, I think you've
• 1:17:54
  mentioned it before and at the end of the day, we're all just
• 1:17:58
  fans ourselves. And then we get into this sport
• 1:18:00
  because we love this sport. We get into the sport because we
• 1:18:03
  grew up being fans of the sport. You know, whether we were at the
• 1:18:07
  track every week or whether it was just a once a summer thing
• 1:18:09
  that we got a chance to do on a special occasion, we got a
• 1:18:12
  chance to meet a driver or, you know, my dad, my dad on the
• 1:18:15
  occasion would would find some random body part and have the,
• 1:18:19
  have the driver to sign it, autograph it for it for me and
• 1:18:23
  bring it home. I wasn't even at the track, but
• 1:18:25
  he would bring it home and we would cherish stuff like that,
• 1:18:29
  you know? So I mean, at the end of the
• 1:18:30
  day, we're all just fans anyway. So to be able to go out into the
• 1:18:33
  crowd, and especially with the younger generation, especially
• 1:18:36
  with the kids, because to those kids in that grandstand at South
• 1:18:40
  Bend OR Plymouth or Galesburg or Kalamazoo or anywhere else,
• 1:18:44
  those kids don't know that we're not NASCAR.
• 1:18:46
  To those kids, we are NASCAR drivers.
• 1:18:48
  So those kids, we are that hero, that driver, hero that that
• 1:18:53
  they're growing up watching and loving and, and paying attention
• 1:18:56
  to where that accessible hero that they can talk to, where
• 1:19:00
  that accessible driver that we can, that they can talk to you
• 1:19:02
  that they can have access to. So it gives them more of a, more
• 1:19:08
  of a bridge to their level of reality as to what's possible
• 1:19:12
  for themselves, whether it be getting into racing or anything
• 1:19:14
  else. They want to dream and inspire
• 1:19:16
  to be on their own level. You know, the more that we do
• 1:19:20
  stuff like that, especially with that younger generation, even
• 1:19:23
  Saturday, I mean, I was working the track and there was fans of
• 1:19:26
  mine and friends of mine that had their kids and their their
• 1:19:30
  newborn baby. They've now got four and you
• 1:19:33
  know, I'm randomly picking up some pebbles or something off
• 1:19:35
  the race tracks. So I passed a couple through to
• 1:19:37
  the through to home. And I mean, those kids love
• 1:19:40
  that. They cherish stuff like that.
• 1:19:41
  They've got an entire bedroom full of stuff parts, body parts
• 1:19:45
  of mine hanging from their ceilings in their bedrooms or
• 1:19:47
  their walls in their ceiling in their bedrooms.
• 1:19:51
  You know, I've got other, other drivers of their kids had found
• 1:19:54
  me as their favorite driver and they've got spare tires and
• 1:19:58
  they've got spare parts and the spare of this.
• 1:19:59
  And I mean, every week at the track, they come over and go,
• 1:20:02
  can I have a part? Can I have a piece?
• 1:20:03
  Can I have anything that they could do to, you know, be a part
• 1:20:07
  of what we're doing. But that builds their passion
• 1:20:10
  just like we have. And, and that's how our passion
• 1:20:12
  got built when we were kids. And it's just, it's just feels
• 1:20:16
  like a natural thing to do. And echoing off of that a little
• 1:20:20
  bit. That's one one thing that I've
• 1:20:23
  been able to do with like with my kids, Jody being 8 years old,
• 1:20:28
  he's getting more curious and more interested.
• 1:20:32
  Just yesterday I had the car on the trailer out front of the
• 1:20:35
  house and I was under the hood doing something that I knew I
• 1:20:38
  needed to get inside the car and and fix a couple things.
• 1:20:41
  My son wanders out there and says, Daddy, what you doing?
• 1:20:44
  And I told him he's can I help? And that gave me an opportunity
• 1:20:49
  to say, well, I'm going to need this tool or that tool or Hey,
• 1:20:51
  can you I climb in the car? Hey, let me show you what I'm
• 1:20:54
  doing. And, you know, getting back to
• 1:20:56
  the fire suit thing. And that's that's something that
• 1:21:00
  that I think Keith can agree to is there is as that those kids,
• 1:21:05
  superstars, if you will, want to present it to where we're
• 1:21:09
  approachable, to where we're not so arrogant and pompous as a
• 1:21:12
  driver's old. He's big shot.
• 1:21:14
  No, no, no, no. Come talk to us.
• 1:21:16
  Be be. I want to be available to the
• 1:21:21
  fans if they want to talk to me. And much of my picker has been
• 1:21:25
  that way. People are like, man, I'd like
• 1:21:26
  to get around. I'd love to be involved, but I
• 1:21:28
  don't know the first thing I'm like, come on out, come in the
• 1:21:31
  pitch. We will find something that you
• 1:21:32
  can help us do. Because every bit of help in the
• 1:21:35
  pitch helps, whether it be checking the air pressure,
• 1:21:37
  whether it be handing us a tool, whether it be, you know, even
• 1:21:40
  the simplest little thing like writing notes.
• 1:21:41
  And when we're, when we're checking our stagger or anything
• 1:21:43
  else on the car, when we come off the track.
• 1:21:46
  Next thing you know, 3 weeks later, 4 weeks later, four years
• 1:21:49
  later. I mean, they're helping us build
• 1:21:51
  motors and swap tires and change, change gears or whatever
• 1:21:54
  else they can do to help us out. So, you know, they learned right
• 1:21:57
  along the way. But they start off with not
• 1:21:59
  having much knowledge. They just have a passion and an
• 1:22:01
  interest. And, you know, we certainly have
• 1:22:04
  no no qualms about having to help people get started.
• 1:22:08
  When I think that's the thing too is right, getting you never
• 1:22:12
  know what moment is going to get someone hooked or what memory or
• 1:22:16
  what interaction. And so as you guys were talking,
• 1:22:19
  there's two things that came to my head as you talk about like
• 1:22:23
  being heroes. So Buju, I might have told you
• 1:22:26
  this story, but maybe not. But I know you guys are at the
• 1:22:29
  auto show, right? And this year we had Tabitha
• 1:22:31
  DeWitt from New Paris. She got in there with her
• 1:22:35
  Unicorn car. There are these $50,000 cars,
• 1:22:39
  $20,000 cars, all these cars right there and then you have
• 1:22:42
  this beat up Unicorn sitting in the middle of all of that,
• 1:22:45
  right? There's a kid who walked in and
• 1:22:48
  and Tabitha and I were talking. There's a kid who walked in.
• 1:22:51
  He said, mommy, that's a real race car.
• 1:22:53
  Do you know what do you want to know What Car?
• 1:22:55
  He pointed to the Unicorn. He didn't point to the late
• 1:23:00
  model that's sitting across the way with championship trophies.
• 1:23:03
  He didn't point to all the other race cars that were there.
• 1:23:07
  Like, and that's why I like with Night of destruction, you know,
• 1:23:11
  and you guys know this cuz you've done the nods.
• 1:23:13
  You know, they get the same graphics package, They get the
• 1:23:15
  same production minus a few cameras and all that.
• 1:23:18
  They get the same production. And what I like about was it M40
• 1:23:22
  or was it Hartford that they put their night of destruction
• 1:23:25
  competitors into my race pass? So then I can also add that
• 1:23:28
  graphic at the same time, which I'm like, man, that's so bad ass
• 1:23:31
  because drivers want to see their names too.
• 1:23:34
  And that's so cool when I get to do that extra for like a night
• 1:23:37
  of destruction where I can pull from my race pass and someone
• 1:23:40
  can say, hey, there's my name or like there's someone tagged me
• 1:23:42
  in something that their son or something like that got in one
• 1:23:48
  of my clips that there was along the fence and they were the the
• 1:23:51
  kid was pointing to the TV, just so excited that they got to see
• 1:23:54
  themselves on TV, right? But it's one of those that even
• 1:23:57
  with those night instructions, I don't say they're less than
• 1:24:00
  right? We know how important
• 1:24:01
  financially, we know how important they are to a race
• 1:24:03
  track, you know, But beyond that, it's like, you remember
• 1:24:07
  though, like these are community people.
• 1:24:09
  These are people who are coming to this track, investing time,
• 1:24:13
  money, energy to put on a show for fans and expose the race
• 1:24:17
  tracks and maybe fans who don't come all the time, but you never
• 1:24:20
  know. Can you get a couple to come
• 1:24:22
  next time? So I did like, obviously South
• 1:24:24
  Bend did this and this year they're doing it where they have
• 1:24:27
  one class featured with another direction, which I think is
• 1:24:30
  smart. Hartford did that last year.
• 1:24:33
  See Buju. I gave credit where credit is
• 1:24:34
  due, even if I think other things right.
• 1:24:36
  But but it's smart because you're exposing your classes to
• 1:24:41
  a fan base. And so Galesburg did this the
• 1:24:44
  other day where they had Dylan and Jesse, They had the Bluey
• 1:24:48
  car out there and then Dylan Rose's car out there to help
• 1:24:51
  with the national anthem. Obviously they weren't
• 1:24:53
  destroying them or anything, but they got to do the national
• 1:24:56
  anthem and showcase a class. Hartford did it with Super
• 1:24:59
  Troopers last year and then with Nightmare on Bowie St. just
• 1:25:02
  being a combined thing they had than the front wheel drives and
• 1:25:05
  all that. But it's like, you know, there's
• 1:25:07
  a way to you just never know, right?
• 1:25:09
  But again, you never know what, who or what is going to see that
• 1:25:12
  or be hooked on that. One thing I like about New
• 1:25:15
  Paris, this was the second one and then I'll turn it back over.
• 1:25:18
  One thing I noticed about New Paris that I don't always see
• 1:25:20
  other places is they hand their trophies to the kids.
• 1:25:24
  They go and find the kid in the in the stands.
• 1:25:26
  And I know drivers have done them and it's not saying anybody
• 1:25:29
  doesn't, but every night of destruction, there's kids
• 1:25:32
  walking away with some kind of trophy.
• 1:25:34
  And they're, I forget who the driver was, but they said a kid
• 1:25:37
  came up to them that they gave a trophy to like five years later
• 1:25:41
  and said they're getting ready to raise a mini wedge.
• 1:25:44
  And it was because of that trophy that they got.
• 1:25:46
  Yep, that's awesome. And it's like that, right?
• 1:25:51
  You just again, you never know. And so I just that's one thing
• 1:25:55
  of that we've talked about on this show before and I you can't
• 1:25:58
  force anyone. It's a lot easier for me to say
• 1:26:01
  than do you know, once. I mean, you guys haven't seen
• 1:26:04
  how busy I am at Kalamazoo, but I barely have time to like have
• 1:26:07
  too long a conversations because it's such a such a tight, fast
• 1:26:10
  night. But it's like, can we find can
• 1:26:12
  drivers who aren't recording video and doing these things?
• 1:26:15
  Can drivers find the time between races?
• 1:26:19
  Go sit in the stands in your fire suit with a random fan of
• 1:26:23
  night and say, hey, can I sit by you guys?
• 1:26:26
  Here's an autograph card or whatever, right?
• 1:26:29
  Strike up a conversation and say, what's your favorite class
• 1:26:32
  out here? What?
• 1:26:33
  Who's your favorite car, right? Even if it's not them, at least
• 1:26:37
  you're you're making that connection and you never know
• 1:26:40
  what that will do. And I know Joel, we had on last
• 1:26:44
  week. He does.
• 1:26:44
  He does that allows the driver. Now as an announcer, he doesn't
• 1:26:47
  have that ability to navigate too far away.
• 1:26:51
  But you know, Jeremy Werdinger as an announcer at New Paris, he
• 1:26:54
  takes that mic and half the damn time you can't even find where
• 1:26:57
  he is because he's everywhere. You know, he'll announce over in
• 1:27:00
  turn 4 and booze you. That doesn't mean you have to do
• 1:27:03
  that, right? But you know, can't stop moving
• 1:27:06
  where it's like, OK, I hear him, he's in my left ear, but I don't
• 1:27:09
  even know where he is, you know, and but it's those connections,
• 1:27:13
  right? And so again, that's where I
• 1:27:15
  just, I give you all credit because you have made those
• 1:27:18
  connections with fans. Yeah, we appreciate that.
• 1:27:23
  I mean, like you're talking about with that kid at the auto
• 1:27:25
  show, you just never know what's going to resonate with any
• 1:27:27
  individual kid or with any, with any individual fan.
• 1:27:32
  You know, different things resonate with different people.
• 1:27:34
  And, and all the more power to it because it's just, it's just
• 1:27:36
  going to continue to help grow the sport in every way we can.
• 1:27:40
  So let's turn on you guys then. Oh, go ahead, DJ.
• 1:27:43
  And going off of that, while I'm thinking about it and the people
• 1:27:47
  are always watching, that's, that's a, a true statement.
• 1:27:50
  I'm going to call a name here who's not present tonight.
• 1:27:52
  He might be watching, but the Gear man #151 Chris Wilhelm,
• 1:27:57
  this past weekend, he got his very first ever career win out
• 1:28:00
  at Russell's M40 Speedway. And he said after that, he had a
• 1:28:05
  couple of kids wander up to him, giving him fist bumps, asking
• 1:28:08
  for his autographs and stuff. And he was expressing to me he's
• 1:28:13
  like, man, that's so cool. I didn't even realize they were
• 1:28:15
  watching. I'm like, dude, you got eyes on
• 1:28:17
  you whether you realize it or not.
• 1:28:20
  And, and people are paying attention.
• 1:28:22
  They, they saw that orange and black 151 car in Victory Lane
• 1:28:26
  and they see the driver walking through and you know, people are
• 1:28:29
  making connections of, of the cars with their drivers and are
• 1:28:33
  paying attention. So that's where a challenge of
• 1:28:37
  mine is, is to try to always be on topside, even if you're
• 1:28:40
  having a, a foul day at the track.
• 1:28:43
  You know, our presentation, our, our attitude, the way we carry
• 1:28:46
  ourselves as drivers and even as fans, if you think about it.
• 1:28:50
  So but but Chris just thought it was so cool that he had people
• 1:28:54
  coming and fist bumping him and and wanting want his autograph
• 1:29:00
  because he won a race. Oh yeah, again, it's those
• 1:29:07
  moments you just never know, right?
• 1:29:09
  And I think that's the thing that again, that comes back to
• 1:29:12
  like that passion, you know, and it's not saying that someone who
• 1:29:15
  doesn't do that doesn't have passion because let's face it,
• 1:29:17
  you guys are working on cars too.
• 1:29:19
  So it's very easy for for ideas to be like, oh, well, you know,
• 1:29:23
  they're nights that you might be like, man, I haven't ate, you
• 1:29:25
  know, I didn't get anything to drink and I'm dehydrated.
• 1:29:27
  And it's not, you know, it's 110° outside.
• 1:29:30
  Probably not a good mix. And so I know those happened.
• 1:29:33
  But again, you know, being that presentation, being presentable,
• 1:29:37
  remembering and and this came up with the M40 deal and we're not
• 1:29:40
  going to rehash that we're I'm not going down that rabbit hole.
• 1:29:42
  Others decided to keep the conversation going way more than
• 1:29:45
  it should have. And that's OK.
• 1:29:46
  That was their choice. But something that, you know,
• 1:29:53
  those connections like what Bill does, you know, walking through
• 1:29:56
  something that you know, they want to build a family
• 1:29:59
  environment, you know, going up their fist bumping, hanging out,
• 1:30:03
  doing all these things, being topside, right.
• 1:30:05
  That's something that with M40, they've done such a nice job
• 1:30:08
  connecting. And you just never know that
• 1:30:11
  person who you fist bump that night that might have made their
• 1:30:14
  night, even if you're in a foul mood, that that one act might
• 1:30:20
  have just changed their whole day.
• 1:30:21
  Because again, we all have something that we're going
• 1:30:23
  through in our daily lives too, you know, like nobody is not
• 1:30:27
  sitting on something that, you know, we life's not perfect.
• 1:30:32
  Finances aren't perfect for a lot of people, right?
• 1:30:35
  So that fist bump, though, would be could be worth more than any
• 1:30:38
  $100 bill you might give somebody.
• 1:30:42
  An old preacher one time said be kind to everybody because
• 1:30:45
  everyone's going through a hard time.
• 1:30:48
  Oh, absolutely. And and again, you know, when
• 1:30:52
  people lose their cool, which happens right at the
• 1:30:55
  competition, we all get it. We, we, we boosie.
• 1:30:58
  And I were talking the other day where, you know, when my brother
• 1:31:01
  and I would play NCA football or Madden, you know, I'd, I'd be
• 1:31:04
  the one throwing the controller or whatever.
• 1:31:06
  So like, I get it right. Like, and if you give me a
• 1:31:08
  fidget to try to put back together like a Rubik's Cube or
• 1:31:11
  whatever, just know that it's not staying in my hands for very
• 1:31:15
  long. It will be flying because I get
• 1:31:17
  super like, I have a patience. Like I've been stabbed in my
• 1:31:20
  classroom. I've had all these other things
• 1:31:22
  happen in my classroom, but you give me a Rubik's Cube and
• 1:31:24
  that'll set me off, you know, like not the other thing.
• 1:31:26
  You give me a Rubik's Cube or some kind of puzzle.
• 1:31:29
  That's my trigger, right? So, you know, so it's one of
• 1:31:33
  those things that, again, I, it's just that kindness, you
• 1:31:36
  know, matters. There we go.
• 1:31:42
  All three of us did this. On you guys is what has
• 1:31:47
  resonated with you and I do and I the comments are going crazy.
• 1:31:51
  I haven't had a chance to read them all, but I know I do want
• 1:31:53
  to touch base really quick. I did see someone the next time
• 1:31:56
  I'm at Galesburg is the Rodney Russell memorial.
• 1:31:58
  That could be one that if you guys have a chance to come up to
• 1:32:01
  for Rodney Russell. That's it is a new Paris regular
• 1:32:04
  night. But Kristen Tracy, I talked with
• 1:32:06
  him. I said that's a very important
• 1:32:08
  night. I've been asked for years to
• 1:32:09
  come up to the Rodney Russell. I don't did you guys get to race
• 1:32:12
  against Rodney at all? He was really like Galesburg and
• 1:32:15
  Montville and that kind of deal. Only if he only if he'd come
• 1:32:20
  down to South Bend during the 2020 situation, because a lot of
• 1:32:23
  the Galesburg guys came down there full time to run with us.
• 1:32:25
  We had A140150 cars a night but. Yeah, I.
• 1:32:30
  Don't remember by for sure. Yeah, I know I saw that car
• 1:32:33
  quite a bit, but I feel like it was at like like even Mottville
• 1:32:36
  and I remember that Freedom factory at that time, so, yeah.
• 1:32:40
  Yeah, I saw the car from a distance, but I don't think I
• 1:32:44
  ever met Rodney himself. He had a big heart for everyone,
• 1:32:48
  right? And that was something that I
• 1:32:50
  remember. He came up to me because Brock
• 1:32:51
  Sweeter got a camera at Montville and it was at that
• 1:32:54
  time I only had one. And so Brock got to me just
• 1:32:57
  before Rodney and Rodney came up after Brock was in Victory Lane,
• 1:33:03
  he came to congratulate Brock and Ronnie came up.
• 1:33:07
  He said, I want a camera next time.
• 1:33:09
  And so when I invested in all those cameras, I he was one of
• 1:33:13
  the first ones to get him at Kalamazoo and he had it almost
• 1:33:16
  all the time that he was there. And that just that whole family
• 1:33:19
  is just really special. And so this year, you know, I
• 1:33:22
  made it purposeful where I said this is a non negotiable.
• 1:33:25
  I am going to be at the Rodney Russell just because when he
• 1:33:29
  passed away, we were in the Kalamazoo Tower when we found
• 1:33:31
  out that he'd passed away. I'm like, I just talked to him
• 1:33:33
  last week, like how that like you.
• 1:33:37
  I didn't even want to walk by that corner where they always
• 1:33:40
  parked. I didn't even want to go there.
• 1:33:42
  I didn't want to go by it. I wanted nothing to do with that
• 1:33:44
  corner because it's like he's not there, you know, and he's
• 1:33:46
  not going to be there. And that that was hard to hear
• 1:33:49
  when he passed away because again, he just man, when he's on
• 1:33:52
  track, he is fierce and he is a competitor.
• 1:33:55
  And if you were going to beat him, you were going to earn it
• 1:33:57
  right? And so, so that's something
• 1:34:00
  though, but you know, he'd congratulate somebody when they
• 1:34:03
  won. He'd tell it how it is if he
• 1:34:05
  didn't like how something happened.
• 1:34:06
  But that's where I said I need to be there.
• 1:34:08
  So I'm going to be there for the Rodney Russell just to answer
• 1:34:11
  because I I've seen that question and oh, from Zach and
• 1:34:14
  so, but I know a couple of people have been talking about
• 1:34:16
  Galesburg. Ronnie's been in there.
• 1:34:17
  So I'll catch up on the comments later.
• 1:34:18
  I just, we're not ignoring you. We're just for me, sometimes
• 1:34:22
  it's hard to watch all the screens as the producer behind
• 1:34:25
  everything where I'm like, I'm I got all these buttons I need to
• 1:34:28
  press. But but anyway, So what I wanted
• 1:34:31
  to turn on you guys with that right is so like, I know what
• 1:34:34
  Rodney meant to me and how he made me feel like important to
• 1:34:39
  his day, even though that was the time we interacted was at a
• 1:34:42
  racetrack for you guys. You know, you talk about how
• 1:34:45
  you're heroes and all that kind of deal.
• 1:34:47
  It's like kids and everything. What are moments that stand out
• 1:34:50
  to you? And Buju, I want you to answer
• 1:34:51
  this too. You know, what are moments that
• 1:34:53
  have stood out to you guys that makes you like almost hard days?
• 1:34:58
  Remember why you do this. So let's start with Keith.
• 1:35:03
  And someone has a fire truck behind them.
• 1:35:05
  It's not on anyone in Michigan. So I know he's not going out and
• 1:35:08
  chasing the fire right now. So, Keith, let's start with you.
• 1:35:12
  I mean, you mentioned you mentioned like with Ronnie
• 1:35:15
  situation, you were just talking to him a couple days before
• 1:35:17
  Ronnie McLean here for us was the same way.
• 1:35:19
  My dad and I were at his shop. Couple days later we heard he
• 1:35:22
  passed away and you know, we were literally just at the shop
• 1:35:25
  and what was Ronnie doing? He was helping his neighbor had
• 1:35:27
  had his his daily driver pickup truck in the shop and they were
• 1:35:30
  working on that for free and just helping helping one of his
• 1:35:33
  neighborhood friends out. And you know, there's, there's
• 1:35:37
  all kinds of situations like that.
• 1:35:38
  But go back to your original question.
• 1:35:42
  What was it? Oh, like a moment that stood out
• 1:35:44
  to you. Like you talk about how you've
• 1:35:47
  made moments where like kids remember things you've done or
• 1:35:50
  people remember things you've done or how you can be
• 1:35:52
  representative and a role model and that kind of deal.
• 1:35:54
  So what is like stood out to you?
• 1:35:57
  So you've been on those hard days.
• 1:35:59
  You remember why you do this. For me, it's remembering the
• 1:36:04
  kids up there, remembering that to those guys, they don't know
• 1:36:07
  whether I'm a NASCAR driver or not.
• 1:36:09
  They don't know that I'm not the guy on TV, you know, And to
• 1:36:11
  remember that, you know, I've got kids, my own, they're grown
• 1:36:14
  now, but my kids were young once and I spent a lot of time with
• 1:36:18
  different coaching roles and travel, travel this and sports
• 1:36:21
  this and, you know, all kinds of plays and stuff with my daughter
• 1:36:25
  and my son. And so I've been around a lot of
• 1:36:28
  the kids at that age and, and those younger ages and coaching
• 1:36:31
  them and training them and, and being a mentor to them at that
• 1:36:34
  age on that level. So I bring a lot of that over a
• 1:36:38
  lot of that coaching mindset, a lot of that parenting and
• 1:36:40
  grandparenting type mindset over to what we do here.
• 1:36:43
  And you have to remember that whether you see them or not,
• 1:36:47
  whether you hear them or not, whether you know where they're
• 1:36:48
  there or not, there are people watching at all times.
• 1:36:51
  And, and they do make judgments based on what they're saying,
• 1:36:56
  whether it's one of your better moments or not.
• 1:36:59
  They are watching how you're handling it and they are
• 1:37:02
  learning and they're modeling themselves after a lot of times
• 1:37:05
  after how you're handling it. So let's go to Buju cause Buju's
• 1:37:11
  also came in quiet in that box up there.
• 1:37:12
  So I don't know what he's plotting something.
• 1:37:14
  But for Buju then you know, what's something like obviously
• 1:37:20
  you have such passion for this too, right?
• 1:37:22
  And you got to call a race for Rich Bowl and that was a big
• 1:37:26
  moment for you. So what are things that that
• 1:37:28
  even on those tough days or whatever, what do you go like
• 1:37:33
  your happy place like DJ mentioned earlier, like what do
• 1:37:36
  you do to remember why you do this?
• 1:37:39
  I like, I mean kind of just picking, backing off with Keith
• 1:37:42
  said I'm in. I remember being a 7 year old in
• 1:37:44
  the stands and I what the drivers that were out there
• 1:37:47
  meant to me at that time. And you just mentioned Rick
• 1:37:49
  Dolan being able to announce his race and then him winning a what
• 1:37:53
  will more than likely be his final win at South End on
• 1:37:56
  Saturday. Like thinking about what being a
• 1:38:00
  kid in the stands and what the drivers meant to me and maybe
• 1:38:04
  even beyond the drivers like I've mentioned on this show
• 1:38:06
  before, Carl Smith who worked with Ron Barash and would sit
• 1:38:09
  with the picture books on the front stretch and Mighty Mike
• 1:38:12
  Powers who was a flag man and a gay guy and a pit steward and a
• 1:38:15
  tech man and whoever else he needed to be.
• 1:38:17
  Those guys being super nice to a little kid in the grandstands
• 1:38:21
  that love racing. I mean, I think maybe it's a
• 1:38:24
  selfish thought, but I think about 7 year old me being being
• 1:38:27
  around the track and if I were to interact with that kid, who
• 1:38:30
  would I want that kid interact with?
• 1:38:32
  You know what I mean? So that's kind of what I keep in
• 1:38:34
  mind, I guess. DJ.
• 1:38:38
  And kind of right, right along with that, the one thing that
• 1:38:42
  sticks out personally, Buju, you made reference to this last time
• 1:38:49
  I was on the show. The the ever, ever so famous
• 1:38:53
  incident with the Andy wrecked my car.
• 1:38:56
  Dude. I had such a blow up in the fan
• 1:39:00
  hood come my direction as a result of that.
• 1:39:04
  And, and yeah, after the camera quit rolling, of course I was, I
• 1:39:09
  was hotter than a $2.00 pistol, but I had to remember that there
• 1:39:12
  was eyes on me. And so I take that instance.
• 1:39:17
  And even though it's become infamous amongst DFR and a few
• 1:39:21
  others, I, I still try to take that instance that, that
• 1:39:26
  incident and remember, you know, there's, there's going to be
• 1:39:30
  other times where it's going to be a bad day at the track.
• 1:39:33
  It's going to be a rough one at the office.
• 1:39:35
  And so it's a challenge really to kind of let things that are
• 1:39:43
  out of my control be and, you know, keep focus of what I do
• 1:39:47
  have control over and remember that, whether I realize it or
• 1:39:52
  not, I'm somebody's role model, that I'm some, that I'm, I'm
• 1:39:55
  being looked up to by somebody. And, and that's, that, that is
• 1:40:01
  being reminded to me quite often whenever I'm walking through the
• 1:40:05
  stands of M40 or Plymouth or or new Paris, and I'll hear hear
• 1:40:10
  some little kids voice go, that's number six, I'm like.
• 1:40:14
  And, and so it's, it's something that that I think all of us can
• 1:40:19
  agree that that it's, it's a challenge to ourselves to.
• 1:40:24
  Not let the heat of the moment get to us because we don't want
• 1:40:28
  to discourage that fan who's been watching us and disappoint
• 1:40:30
  them. Yeah.
• 1:40:32
  And and that's not to say any of us are perfect.
• 1:40:34
  I mean, my God, Keith knows me and my me and my family
• 1:40:36
  certainly are perfect in that aspect.
• 1:40:39
  But we we've. Yeah.
• 1:40:40
  We've helped each other have a few moments at different times.
• 1:40:43
  Yeah, most. We've also put on a great show
• 1:40:47
  for the fans because we were always super tight, super tight
• 1:40:51
  on the track. That's the, that's part of it
• 1:40:53
  too, is the passion. And I think that the, the
• 1:40:56
  passion and the trying to, what am I trying to say here?
• 1:41:00
  The, the authenticity that comes out when an incident does
• 1:41:03
  happen. I I think that is part of what
• 1:41:06
  makes somebody a fan too. And that's how you, how you
• 1:41:08
  handle that. And like I said, don't always
• 1:41:10
  handle it the best. But that's how, that's how,
• 1:41:13
  that's how heroes are made sometimes too, is, you know,
• 1:41:17
  Yeah. Well, and that's something that
• 1:41:18
  last year at Kalamazoo, August 30th, ravers rumble, the biggest
• 1:41:23
  night, at least one of the biggest nights for us at
• 1:41:25
  Kalamazoo, other than the clashes Ravers rumble.
• 1:41:28
  But we also had CRA that night. Racing America was supposed to
• 1:41:32
  be there. Racing America was not there,
• 1:41:35
  but Lewis was there. And so I became their broadcast
• 1:41:38
  and and you know, that meant we needed audio because we needed
• 1:41:42
  to hook in their people and all these things.
• 1:41:44
  And Buju knows because last last Thursday, Noah joined on.
• 1:41:48
  Noah works for a Great Lakes super strength.
• 1:41:50
  He's also working for the competitor.
• 1:41:54
  And Buju knows we did not declare that they did, but you
• 1:41:58
  know, but that's something that I was so furious that day
• 1:42:03
  because I didn't get to do anything that I had planned or
• 1:42:05
  needed to do. And I I was short probably with
• 1:42:09
  some people who I shouldn't have been short with.
• 1:42:11
  And, and I mean, I even got Drew Jack to almost climb a ladder up
• 1:42:14
  to the roof to check on me. And so it's kind of those
• 1:42:17
  things, right? Like I know this is not a car
• 1:42:19
  related thing, but it's always remembering somebody's watching
• 1:42:23
  and that and I it was not in my control is the last minute.
• 1:42:26
  Hey, racing America's not here. So you need to do all these
• 1:42:29
  things and and this is just how it's going to go.
• 1:42:33
  And and you know, we make it work, right.
• 1:42:36
  But like I didn't have all the audio stuff at that time.
• 1:42:38
  I'm like I have afforded what I've been able to afford and I
• 1:42:42
  didn't have that stuff. But luckily Cody Geyer had extra
• 1:42:46
  wire that he brought so we can hook into the PA because I had
• 1:42:50
  25 footer, but he had the rest of it.
• 1:42:52
  And then Noah, who is just coming to be a fan, brought all
• 1:42:57
  of his stuff from Great Lakes TV, Great Lakes Super Sprint TV.
• 1:43:00
  And he was and he was just being a fan, but he dedicated a lot of
• 1:43:03
  hours. And I know we probably annoyed
• 1:43:05
  some fans with the sound check, mic check because we were trying
• 1:43:08
  to get sound because now my name was going to be really a part of
• 1:43:11
  this, right? Like, I mean, it's already a
• 1:43:13
  part of it, but it's like now how many people are going to
• 1:43:15
  watch this? And if the broadcast sounds like
• 1:43:17
  crap, who's that reflective of? It's not reflective of CRA
• 1:43:23
  because I'm I'm the video guy. But you know, that's where
• 1:43:26
  Noah's like, well, don't Jenna, they provide you with an audio
• 1:43:29
  person. No, they didn't give me anybody.
• 1:43:33
  And I think that's where sometimes fans and drivers don't
• 1:43:37
  purposely forget. But how many roles am I doing in
• 1:43:40
  one, right? I'm doing social media, which if
• 1:43:42
  I work for Racing America, I get paid to be social media and
• 1:43:45
  social media only. If you're a videographer, you're
• 1:43:48
  just a video guy. You don't do all the other
• 1:43:50
  engineering and audio stuff. I'm now and do my own audio and
• 1:43:54
  making that. That's why Galesburg, I was
• 1:43:56
  stressing as my mic was taking a big giant guy, you know,
• 1:43:59
  gigantic crap. And some of the audio is just so
• 1:44:02
  awful. And I'm like, you know, here,
• 1:44:04
  you know, I'm doing this for Galesburg and my mic is just
• 1:44:09
  taking a big giant one and right.
• 1:44:11
  And then it's like, but as DJ, you control what you can
• 1:44:13
  control, right? There's nothing I could have
• 1:44:16
  done about that mic at that moment in time.
• 1:44:18
  So that it, it would make no sense to show that I was
• 1:44:21
  stressed and irritated and all these things.
• 1:44:23
  It's like, OK, Plan B. Oh, Plan B didn't work either,
• 1:44:25
  by the way. So we got to go to Plan C and it
• 1:44:27
  was fine afterwards. But then I felt even editing and
• 1:44:30
  I'm like, I feel like I let people down even though I don't
• 1:44:33
  think I did. But that's how you feel, right?
• 1:44:35
  And so when you're in those moments, you know, those
• 1:44:37
  moments, it's like remembering being short with people.
• 1:44:41
  I mean, when you get Drew Jack, who wants to climb a ladder to
• 1:44:44
  check on me, you know, like, and he doesn't do ladders right.
• 1:44:47
  Like I knew them. Oh, I'm showing too much.
• 1:44:50
  I mean, I wear my emotions on my sleeve.
• 1:44:52
  And I was very stressed that day, August 30th, because it's
• 1:44:56
  also like this is our biggest St.
• 1:44:57
  Stock race. I cannot F this up right, like,
• 1:45:01
  but I'm being extra now on top of it all.
• 1:45:03
  So you know, that's where we all have, we all remember that.
• 1:45:06
  But it's again, it's those heat of the moments where it's
• 1:45:09
  control what you can control. Move on to the next lap.
• 1:45:13
  There's all you know, there's a next race.
• 1:45:14
  Hopefully for everybody. There's the next time to be a
• 1:45:17
  fan. There's the next time to do all
• 1:45:19
  this like it's it doesn't help any to wear that stress and wear
• 1:45:22
  that frustration and doesn't mean you can't be mad.
• 1:45:25
  I tell my kids all the time, you can be mad.
• 1:45:28
  You just can't throw the desk across the room.
• 1:45:30
  You know, like there's a little bit of a difference.
• 1:45:33
  Like flying desk, not helpful, but go punch a wall, go RIP
• 1:45:37
  paper, go do whatever you can. Go do that.
• 1:45:40
  Preferably not the textbook that's $300.00, but you know,
• 1:45:43
  like, you know, it's it control what you can control.
• 1:45:46
  You can be mad, you can be frustrated, but it's how you do
• 1:45:48
  that. And so, you know, DJ, you
• 1:45:51
  obviously and I should have pulled that clip.
• 1:45:53
  I now that you said I'm like, man, I should have had that
• 1:45:55
  ready for you. And if you brought it up, let's
• 1:45:58
  flashback. But with my luck, I get in
• 1:46:01
  trouble for showing that clip. So obviously we wouldn't do that
• 1:46:03
  either. But but it's one of those things
• 1:46:05
  that that moment, right that moment lives because of how you
• 1:46:08
  handled it. Even though you were hotter than
• 1:46:10
  a $2.00 pistol, If I remember, you're 1 liner and or you know,
• 1:46:15
  a matter than what it was in an albino in a snowstorm, I think
• 1:46:19
  is the other way that you described it.
• 1:46:21
  But but it again, it's just that credit where you could have just
• 1:46:24
  went off way off the deep end and Keith was up by me as you're
• 1:46:28
  going off the deep end. He's like, I got to go down to
• 1:46:30
  the pits because Keith was sitting right by me that day
• 1:46:33
  and. Yeah, you DJ actually came up to
• 1:46:35
  talk to me up there while I was sitting next to you.
• 1:46:37
  Yeah, and you were still a little bit mad then too.
• 1:46:40
  But that's where again, Keith, I think, you know, DJ brought this
• 1:46:43
  up last time, the mentor that you have been the just your
• 1:46:47
  approach to things. You really have a way of
• 1:46:51
  bringing people off the ledge. Well, I appreciate that.
• 1:46:55
  Makes you I mean, there's even moments I've reached out to you
• 1:46:58
  and you've reached out to me about some things, like with the
• 1:47:00
  driver, like not to, you know, a few years ago where you're like,
• 1:47:03
  hey, I get it, but right, Like, think of it this way.
• 1:47:07
  And you brought me back to the real reality of things and like,
• 1:47:10
  OK, yeah, that makes total sense.
• 1:47:12
  And so I think that's what makes you just such a special person
• 1:47:15
  too, is that that there are a lot of people who look up to you
• 1:47:19
  knowing that they can go to you and bent to you or whatever, but
• 1:47:22
  then you're not going to run around and tell 40 other people.
• 1:47:26
  I appreciate that that that means a lot to me, man.
• 1:47:29
  And see something I can, I can throw in there as well, is that
• 1:47:33
  whenever there's been times that I've had a rough day on the
• 1:47:36
  track, like that instant that I brought up or several times
• 1:47:42
  since then, there's one phrase that you, one question that you,
• 1:47:47
  Keith asked me a lot. And like with the incident that
• 1:47:52
  took place about a year and a half ago where we were last time
• 1:47:58
  I was on the show, I talked a little bit about the fire.
• 1:48:00
  And Keith was a huge part of the recovery process of that.
• 1:48:03
  Because one, one question that he's asked me time and time and
• 1:48:08
  time again and it's helped keep me grounded is where's your head
• 1:48:13
  at? He'll ask me that if, if there
• 1:48:16
  was a bad day at the office or even with the fire, whatever.
• 1:48:19
  He'll ask me that three or four times a week.
• 1:48:22
  And each time, you know, the answer got a little bit better
• 1:48:27
  because it's, it's not about, you know, yeah, situation can
• 1:48:32
  suck. But, you know, getting mad and
• 1:48:36
  throwing things or whatever, it's not going to help the
• 1:48:38
  situation at all. It in fact, it's just going to
• 1:48:41
  add to it. You know, it's OK, This is where
• 1:48:45
  we're at. What can we do from here?
• 1:48:48
  And so the, the, the where's your head at question is
• 1:48:52
  something that lives rent free in my head.
• 1:48:56
  Something else that that lives rent free in my head from Keith
• 1:48:59
  is if I'm working on the car or even in the shop on a bus, a
• 1:49:03
  truck or whatever, and I need to modify something or I need to
• 1:49:07
  make a part fit, Something that also resonates is, oh, it's just
• 1:49:12
  dumb steal. You can mold it, bend it and
• 1:49:15
  make it fit to your will. I'm not going to say the other
• 1:49:19
  thing that lives right free in my head, but Keith, you know
• 1:49:21
  exactly what I'm talking about. There's a few, but hey, with
• 1:49:26
  that FIRE situation, with so many other situations, I didn't
• 1:49:29
  do anything. I put a couple words out early.
• 1:49:31
  The community helped raise raise a lot of funds and the community
• 1:49:34
  came together with a lot of donations.
• 1:49:36
  You and your kids are the one that puts the work in and, and,
• 1:49:39
  and put yourself back on your feet.
• 1:49:41
  And you know, within a couple weeks, if it was even that long,
• 1:49:44
  you had a new place. You were re established.
• 1:49:46
  You had, you know, the, the kids were covered and fed and clothed
• 1:49:51
  and you, you put the work in. Man I I just helped put the word
• 1:49:55
  out. Something that you said the day
• 1:49:58
  it happened is that and, and, and of course it took me, you
• 1:50:03
  know, probably an hour or so to process everything because I'm,
• 1:50:06
  I'm sitting on a, on a front porch across the street watching
• 1:50:10
  the fire department do their work after the smoke cleared.
• 1:50:14
  Literally, you made a statement says at the end of this, you're
• 1:50:19
  going to have a hard time figuring out what to do with
• 1:50:20
  three houses worth of things. And damn if you weren't right.
• 1:50:25
  I had so much stuff that I had to sort through, like, holy
• 1:50:29
  crap. But that's just a state.
• 1:50:31
  That's just a testament of what we've been talking about all
• 1:50:34
  this time about how we as people, not just race car
• 1:50:40
  drivers, but as people carry ourselves in front of our fans
• 1:50:45
  and how that affects how, if, how they, they can react when
• 1:50:52
  life happens, right? Because something that I firmly
• 1:50:57
  believe in and, and, and to kind of exit from the fire
• 1:51:00
  conversation is, you know, regardless as to what you face,
• 1:51:06
  what you put in is what you're going to get out.
• 1:51:09
  And that includes, but isn't limited to how you treat people.
• 1:51:14
  You know, treating people the way you wish to be treated.
• 1:51:16
  And is, is if you're going to treat someone with respect, then
• 1:51:20
  chances are you're going to get respect treated back to you.
• 1:51:23
  And if you go around walking up with your, with your head so far
• 1:51:27
  up your ass you can't smell reality.
• 1:51:29
  Well then guess what? People are going to have a
• 1:51:31
  tendency to avoid you. And you know, if situations
• 1:51:34
  happen, well, that sucks. And on the way they go.
• 1:51:38
  So you know how you treat people, what you put in is what
• 1:51:42
  you're going to get out through and through.
• 1:51:49
  Well, and I, I appreciate that. Yeah, My favorite thing that I
• 1:51:52
  would always tell people, especially even in my classroom,
• 1:51:55
  respects. At the end of the day, it's
• 1:51:58
  respect. You don't need to send each
• 1:51:59
  other Christmas cards. You don't need to even like each
• 1:52:02
  other. I don't, I'm not going to make
• 1:52:04
  you like somebody because that's not also natural.
• 1:52:07
  But what is natural is respect. And I would always give AI would
• 1:52:12
  give stories like there are people who that I don't like and
• 1:52:15
  I don't jive with, but I respect them, right?
• 1:52:20
  It's give I've always believed even if you didn't like somebody
• 1:52:23
  or don't like someone, you even give credit where credit is due.
• 1:52:26
  Like if they've had a great idea or they do something really well
• 1:52:29
  or they're really strong, like, you know, if that's their, you
• 1:52:32
  know, if that's their thing that they can, you know, their genius
• 1:52:37
  is what we would call it in the classroom.
• 1:52:39
  You know, that's their genius. Give them credit where credit is
• 1:52:43
  due. So if you know that, hey, you
• 1:52:45
  know, I like, I'd always tell my kids when I would draw on the
• 1:52:47
  board, I do stick figures. I'm not an artist.
• 1:52:50
  I didn't go to school to be an artist.
• 1:52:52
  I didn't pay enough money to be an artist or even learn how to
• 1:52:54
  be an artist. So I do stick figures.
• 1:52:56
  I made what I could make. That was within my genius, but
• 1:53:00
  my kids, most of them, their genius was creativity, their
• 1:53:04
  genius was art and doing those kind of things.
• 1:53:07
  So I would sometimes have them come up and and I'd say, Hey,
• 1:53:11
  your genius is drawing. Why don't you draw this?
• 1:53:13
  Because I know you'll do way better than I can.
• 1:53:15
  And it and and that was showing them like you can give credit
• 1:53:18
  where credit is due. And then I would challenge them
• 1:53:21
  if they had just gotten into an argument or fight with a
• 1:53:24
  classmate, I'd purposely pair them up, even though sometimes
• 1:53:27
  that also meant World War Three might have come.
• 1:53:30
  And it's like, you can work together because you both do
• 1:53:33
  this really, really well. And then they would find out,
• 1:53:35
  you know, that's how everybody in my classroom became fans of
• 1:53:38
  Titanic. And that's all we'd have to do.
• 1:53:40
  When we have downtime, can we watch something about Titanic or
• 1:53:42
  can we do a Titanic puzzle or whatever?
• 1:53:44
  Like everybody in my classroom, because one kid talked about
• 1:53:48
  Titanic. Next thing, oh, I like Titanic 2
• 1:53:50
  and all. And next thing we're drawing 12
• 1:53:52
  Titanics, you know, and they so they all joined on that, right?
• 1:53:57
  They all found like, yeah, I just actually threw scissors at
• 1:54:00
  you. But hey, let's draw Titanic
• 1:54:02
  together, you know, like it's those kind of things that that
• 1:54:05
  it was a respect, right? I didn't, you don't have to like
• 1:54:08
  them, you, but you're not going to treat them poorly or anybody
• 1:54:11
  else, right? And so I think sometimes you
• 1:54:13
  just see it in the world, that lack of respect and not
• 1:54:19
  universal, not everybody, right? I'm not painting.
• 1:54:22
  It is a broad brush. But that doesn't mean to
• 1:54:24
  everybody because then you'll get someone.
• 1:54:25
  Well, I respect everyone. You might, right?
• 1:54:28
  But I can go to social media right now and I can see a lot of
• 1:54:33
  disrespect, right? I mean, Hartford getting
• 1:54:36
  annihilated by even some of their own drivers because, you
• 1:54:39
  know, they've been doing the best they can.
• 1:54:40
  And it's like, man, you know, what if Tim and Leah just came
• 1:54:44
  on tomorrow and said, guess what?
• 1:54:46
  You think we suck? You think all these things,
• 1:54:48
  here's a for sale sign. And then what?
• 1:54:51
  You're going to wish that you could have that track back and
• 1:54:54
  to complain about the new clay, right?
• 1:54:56
  Like just stop. You know, there's a way to do
• 1:54:58
  things respectfully, you know, And so I think that's something
• 1:55:01
  that sometimes it's easy to forget that like, you know,
• 1:55:05
  you're, you're when you when you like, there's constructive
• 1:55:09
  criticism and then there's just flat out disrespect.
• 1:55:13
  You know, it's like just stop it.
• 1:55:16
  And see, you brought up, you know, we don't always send
• 1:55:18
  Christmas cards to each other. That sparked a thought.
• 1:55:23
  And, and, and along with showing respect, different people will
• 1:55:28
  show respect different ways. And I've got a group of people,
• 1:55:32
  one name in particular, I will mention here in a second.
• 1:55:35
  Keith, you might already know who I'm going to talk about
• 1:55:37
  here. But if he ain't messing with
• 1:55:39
  you, he don't like you. Yeah.
• 1:55:40
  Yeah. You already know where I'm going
• 1:55:44
  with this, don't you, Keith? Oh yeah.
• 1:55:46
  Who? Who on here knows Ken Dare in
• 1:55:49
  the Squirrel? Oh yeah, yeah.
• 1:55:52
  So you were talking ideas a minute ago, Louis, about you
• 1:55:58
  know, how how people can get ideas, creativity or whatever.
• 1:56:02
  I swear Ken can be one of the most creative individuals in the
• 1:56:07
  world and and. Safety third.
• 1:56:12
  What's that? Safety third.
• 1:56:15
  Yeah, exactly. But some of the things that he
• 1:56:19
  has done, he will take, he will take an incident and run with it
• 1:56:26
  just to just to make people laugh, make people smile.
• 1:56:30
  And and I Speaking of postcards. So I moved to a place where I'm
• 1:56:38
  at now in Griffith, and about a month later I come home from
• 1:56:42
  church and you already know where I'm going with this.
• 1:56:46
  I knew about this one before you did.
• 1:56:49
  What's that? I said I knew about this one
• 1:56:51
  before you did, before you found it.
• 1:56:54
  Well, see, I come home from church right and and there's a
• 1:56:59
  welcome to the neighborhood sign on my porch on my front door
• 1:57:03
  along with a goodie basket. And as soon as I walk up, I'm
• 1:57:08
  like, I've been here for like a month or so and I'm looking
• 1:57:11
  around looking for a hidden camera and and trying to find
• 1:57:15
  OK, who did this? I went to to my ex-wife Vivian
• 1:57:19
  and and I went to a couple of people was like, do y'all know
• 1:57:22
  who did this? And everyone is tight lipped.
• 1:57:25
  Everyone is tight lipped. Like no, we don't.
• 1:57:27
  It's like man, every everything is point towards squirrel.
• 1:57:32
  But he would have had to drive an hour and 15 minutes just to
• 1:57:34
  my house to do this. And then, like, two or three
• 1:57:38
  days go by and he sends a picture on Snapchat on my front
• 1:57:41
  porch with all the stuff on it. I'm like, oh, you stun of oh, I
• 1:57:46
  wanted to call him every name in the book and then some.
• 1:57:49
  And he's just sitting there smiling with that big cheesy
• 1:57:53
  grin, like, gotcha. And people had sworn to secrecy.
• 1:57:58
  But Ken is one of those guys where if he don't like you, he
• 1:58:02
  wouldn't do none of this kind of stuff to you.
• 1:58:04
  Yeah, right. They had the fools 200 enduro at
• 1:58:08
  Plymouth a a few weeks ago and I made reference to this on my
• 1:58:12
  first 60 seconds with the six where I drove a literal Unicorn.
• 1:58:16
  Kenny is the one that designed that car and it's he has some of
• 1:58:22
  the creativity he has in his mind is I, I want to say is, is
• 1:58:28
  kind of I'm, I'm, I'm trying to find the word here, but he
• 1:58:34
  doesn't give get enough credit for how creative he really can
• 1:58:36
  be. And he has a knack for being
• 1:58:38
  loud and obnoxious. But but all so that people will
• 1:58:43
  have something to talk about the where people will have something
• 1:58:47
  to remember. You know, that car turned a
• 1:58:49
  grand total of 6 laps. But to this day, I have people
• 1:58:53
  going, hey, you drove that Unicorn car, right?
• 1:58:56
  Yeah, I drove the Unicorn car, number 19.
• 1:58:59
  But. But, you know, again, he
• 1:59:02
  wouldn't do this kind of stuff if he didn't like you.
• 1:59:05
  If someone rubbed him the wrong way, he wouldn't give two hoots
• 1:59:09
  about being creative for you. But but if he likes you, you
• 1:59:15
  better have thick skin because he's going to find a way to
• 1:59:17
  embarrass you in a very creative PG way.
• 1:59:21
  Well, and that's. PG my ass.
• 1:59:26
  I say PG because I asked him to be.
• 1:59:30
  He's coming at your ball barrels.
• 1:59:33
  Oh yeah. Well, and that's DJ again.
• 1:59:36
  And you're someone with the personality that you can take
• 1:59:38
  those kind of things if it's from the right person.
• 1:59:41
  Right, right. Exactly.
• 1:59:42
  If it's from the right person, that's one thing.
• 1:59:44
  If some just random Joe Schmo showed up and tried to do that,
• 1:59:48
  I would look at him like, who are you and what are you doing
• 1:59:52
  going somewhere? No, there has to be an equity
• 1:59:55
  built with that individual to do that.
• 1:59:57
  Yeah, Billy Edwards and I, we have our thing.
• 1:59:59
  I'm not going to say what it is on air, but we have our thing
• 2:00:02
  each time we see each other at the track.
• 2:00:04
  It started at Springport and you know, and sometimes I'll go up
• 2:00:08
  to him and go, oh, so you're driving this shit box today.
• 2:00:10
  And but, and if someone walking by didn't know the connection,
• 2:00:17
  right, they might go, wow, that's that's our media guy
• 2:00:21
  here. But, but that's something that
• 2:00:23
  Billy and I have and. And like I said, there's other
• 2:00:26
  things that we have, but that's where, you know, it's those
• 2:00:29
  connections that you make with people where like if I just went
• 2:00:32
  up to someone else and said that, it probably wouldn't land
• 2:00:34
  the same way, you know, because I wouldn't, I might not have
• 2:00:37
  that connection with them and I wouldn't do that anyways.
• 2:00:40
  But with him, I, I know I can give a hard time.
• 2:00:42
  He gives me a hard time. And it's when we're, if we don't
• 2:00:45
  give each other a hard time, like the one what I forget what
• 2:00:48
  day it was, but I was just kind of stressed.
• 2:00:51
  There was a day after the classroom and it was really
• 2:00:52
  rough in the classroom that day. So by the time I got to the
• 2:00:55
  track, I was already 20 minutes behind of where I needed to be,
• 2:00:59
  you know, if I were on time. And he finally stopped me, he
• 2:01:03
  said, dude. And then he did his thing and he
• 2:01:05
  said, light, lighten up a little bit.
• 2:01:08
  It's OK, you're at the track now.
• 2:01:10
  You know it. But they, he knew, right?
• 2:01:12
  Like he just knew from my cadence, my everything that it
• 2:01:16
  had been a rough day and but that was fun.
• 2:01:20
  Or he'd say, well, did you go see my shit box today?
• 2:01:23
  No, I gotta go look at it. You know, just a reminder,
• 2:01:26
  right? So again, we need those kind of
• 2:01:28
  people too who keep us grounded, right and, and keep us in in
• 2:01:32
  that reality because, you know, racing is stressful too, right?
• 2:01:35
  And then life and, and you came. I felt so bad after that
• 2:01:39
  Springport trip. It's like I was so excited for
• 2:01:41
  that. And then, you know, a few days
• 2:01:43
  later when that happened, like, oh man, you know, he just did
• 2:01:46
  all everything he could to get up here and now that right, I
• 2:01:50
  felt so awful. But again, you, the way you
• 2:01:54
  handled it though, and obviously having someone like Keith in
• 2:01:57
  your corner and a lot of people in your corner, it's like, you
• 2:02:00
  know, you've come out of that and, and you were, you were
• 2:02:03
  down, but you weren't down. You just kind of looked at it as
• 2:02:06
  an opportunity. And and that again speaks to who
• 2:02:09
  you are as a person. I didn't have time to be down.
• 2:02:15
  I'll, I'll be honest with you, Like it was just, everything was
• 2:02:18
  so rapid fire. And then, of course, two days
• 2:02:21
  later at the South Bend show, I was told that I was, that I was
• 2:02:26
  going to be there because, well, Keith, I think you were the one
• 2:02:28
  that said it's not like you have anywhere else to be.
• 2:02:32
  Yeah, I guess. When he said that I went like, I
• 2:02:36
  can't, he said that I I. Was watching that episode live
• 2:02:40
  and I saw you guys rolled gas with that.
• 2:02:41
  I was like, Oh my God. I mean but but it did.
• 2:02:46
  It goes back to it goes back to having known that person know
• 2:02:51
  where their head is, know where their heart is and that respect
• 2:02:55
  level. Yeah.
• 2:02:57
  Yep. And I just guessed because I'm
• 2:02:59
  like, he's I can't believe he said that.
• 2:03:01
  But at the same time, you have that relationship, you have that
• 2:03:04
  connection, you have that where again, if you were someone
• 2:03:07
  random or some Joe schmo, it probably wouldn't have landed
• 2:03:11
  the same way. A.
• 2:03:14
  Co worker of mine I'll share this.
• 2:03:17
  I would say at the end of the day.
• 2:03:18
  At the end of the day I'm just a world class asshole.
• 2:03:20
  I mean, that's all it is so. Yeah, Keith tells me that his
• 2:03:25
  day doesn't officially start if he if I don't at least call him
• 2:03:29
  1. So good evening, asshole.
• 2:03:31
  But but you know, I had that that week.
• 2:03:37
  I had a Co worker because we lost a cat, right?
• 2:03:42
  And man, I come into work that Monday, this was following South
• 2:03:46
  Bend and all that and I see him, his name is John, He says.
• 2:03:50
  So I hear you had a had a rough weekend.
• 2:03:53
  Yeah. He goes, you lose everything I
• 2:03:55
  say yeah, including the I lost everything, including the cat.
• 2:03:59
  He stops, looks at me. He goes, wait a minute, She was
• 2:04:02
  on her 9th again. That that that respect level
• 2:04:10
  that it and serious situation, but just able to flip a
• 2:04:16
  conversation on dime like that and and.
• 2:04:21
  That helps. But Speaking of flipping a
• 2:04:24
  conversation, I do know it's nine our time.
• 2:04:27
  DJ, you're still at 8:00. We've already lived 8:00 here.
• 2:04:30
  You're at 8:00 now and you've also been sitting in the car for
• 2:04:32
  like 5 hours, but I know it's not been 5.
• 2:04:34
  But real quick, I do want to do we can shout outs.
• 2:04:37
  We can't talk about this Keith too.
• 2:04:39
  So I, I do want to do some weekend shout outs really quick.
• 2:04:42
  So something that stands out from the weekend.
• 2:04:46
  So again, let's start with Buju because he's been unusually
• 2:04:48
  quiet tonight. So I, you know, I don't know.
• 2:04:51
  I think he's been enjoying the K&D show over here.
• 2:04:55
  Something he's plotting something I think, but but be
• 2:04:58
  that as amazed so and it could be anything.
• 2:05:00
  It doesn't have to be racing related.
• 2:05:02
  It can be whatever right. If you saw big fluffy cloud and
• 2:05:05
  that's your weekend, shout out whatever you want.
• 2:05:07
  So, Buju, let's start with you. So yeah, we already mentioned
• 2:05:10
  that Rich Bowl winning at South End this weekend.
• 2:05:12
  That was big when my for been a Rich Bowl fan for almost 30
• 2:05:16
  years of my life and never got a Victory Lane picture and I went
• 2:05:18
  and did that this weekend. So shout out to Rich Bowl on
• 2:05:21
  that one. I want to shout out Cameron
• 2:05:22
  Mccrudden. I sponsor him a couple dollars.
• 2:05:24
  He'd his best finishing a Hornet feature.
• 2:05:26
  He got second on Friday. So real proud of Cam.
• 2:05:29
  He's getting better and better all the time.
• 2:05:31
  And then Evan and Kaylee Burdine.
• 2:05:32
  Evan had some problems on Friday.
• 2:05:34
  Got it figured out Saturday. Got a nice finish at South End
• 2:05:37
  and Kaylee was on her way to the front until she met the wall on
• 2:05:40
  Friday. So proud of all the cars I
• 2:05:42
  sponsor and then my first favorite race car driver I've
• 2:05:45
  mentioned on the show before. Original.
• 2:05:47
  Yep. Evan qualified top 4, didn't he?
• 2:05:50
  Yeah, I think he qualified third.
• 2:05:52
  Yeah, qualified third, second heat third in the feature.
• 2:05:54
  I believe so. Yeah, I, I told him that night
• 2:05:57
  himself. I mean, he's, he's come a long
• 2:05:58
  way already in that car. He's he's doing real well.
• 2:06:01
  Yeah, a real problem. So, Keith, something from the
• 2:06:05
  weekend. A couple quick shout outs from
• 2:06:09
  Friday night. Plymouth Racing was fantastic.
• 2:06:11
  Kenny Wallace came to town again and he's always such a great guy
• 2:06:14
  to hang out with. I mean he's he's not only a
• 2:06:17
  world class racer obviously from being a NASCAR and racing as
• 2:06:19
  long as he has, but world class gentlemen above and beyond
• 2:06:24
  everything else. I mean, even even through the
• 2:06:26
  wreck that happened, which was pretty spectacular to watch,
• 2:06:29
  everything happens pretty quick with a car getting rolled over
• 2:06:31
  and everybody comes out fine. But talking to him on the track
• 2:06:36
  as he as he and I were walking off the track and all he was
• 2:06:38
  concerned was he just hated the whole situation happened at all.
• 2:06:42
  Even though nobody got hurt. There's a lot of race cars that
• 2:06:44
  were tore up and he just hated that he was in the middle of
• 2:06:46
  that. And regardless of who or how
• 2:06:50
  that got started, it was, you know, a racing deal with
• 2:06:52
  everybody just all in the same spot at the same time.
• 2:06:54
  But you know, he was, he's always a great guy to hang out
• 2:06:57
  with. And he, you know, there's videos
• 2:06:59
  of him talking with about 100 people back in the back in the
• 2:07:03
  pits around the wrecked car and just, you know, spending that
• 2:07:06
  time with the people rather than just running and hiding.
• 2:07:09
  You know, that's, that's always a highlight type of moment to
• 2:07:12
  see a gentleman act like what we've been talking about, how
• 2:07:14
  you handle the bad situations and then once again to reiterate
• 2:07:18
  them. And obviously we got the both
• 2:07:20
  T-shirts on and stuff tonight. Rich, to be able to see him go
• 2:07:23
  out like that, to see the photos from Turn 3.
• 2:07:26
  Somebody got a photo from high end and Turn 3 with Rich's dad
• 2:07:30
  standing on the fence with Bold driving his victory lap with the
• 2:07:34
  victory flag sunset right behind him.
• 2:07:38
  So, so such a such a touching moment with, you know, those two
• 2:07:42
  literally riding off into the sunset together like that and
• 2:07:44
  into Victory Lane. What may be the last time at
• 2:07:48
  that track for him? You know, I, I haven't known
• 2:07:52
  Rich as long as as Buju and his family and a lot of things like
• 2:07:55
  that. But you know, actually this race
• 2:07:58
  car that the, the phone's actually mounted to you right
• 2:08:01
  now. I mean, this is one of Rich's
• 2:08:02
  Old Street socks that I bought from Rich that helped get me
• 2:08:05
  into that class. And you know, not, not a lot of
• 2:08:07
  people always understand Rich. You know, he's kind of got one
• 2:08:10
  of those, you know, even in Victory Lane, he looks like he's
• 2:08:13
  mad typefaces. And so not a lot, not a lot of
• 2:08:16
  people understand them the way some people, some of us do.
• 2:08:19
  But man will definitely give you the shirt off his back right
• 2:08:22
  there on the spot if you ever needed it.
• 2:08:23
  And such a great man to see him watch, see him have that victory
• 2:08:27
  that night was very, very, very touching.
• 2:08:30
  Very, very cool moment that we all got an opportunity to live
• 2:08:33
  with him for sure. Well, and that's where, you
• 2:08:38
  know, Rich, he'd reached out to, hey, man, I want to be on your
• 2:08:41
  show. And then he had to go to Florida
• 2:08:43
  at the beginning of the season. Like everything was just too
• 2:08:46
  much, had too much to do. And then last time he was going
• 2:08:48
  to be on, he was sick. And he felt really bad about it,
• 2:08:50
  right. And so, you know, I just felt
• 2:08:52
  like when he reached out, I mean, he's the one who reached
• 2:08:55
  out and said, you know, can I be on your show?
• 2:08:57
  You know, to talk about the announcement that he did at
• 2:08:59
  South Bend, it was one of those like, I just felt very honored
• 2:09:03
  about that, that he would want to do here.
• 2:09:06
  And he even said, you know, and that was like 4 in the morning
• 2:09:08
  was one of my nights. I was pulling an all nighter and
• 2:09:11
  you know, he is messaging and going back and forth and asking
• 2:09:14
  like, well, how are you affording this and how are you
• 2:09:16
  doing this and how are you doing that?
• 2:09:17
  And like really getting to have a conversation.
• 2:09:19
  He even said, hey, man, I know that, you know, you and I
• 2:09:22
  haven't always, you know, agreed eye to eye and, you know, we
• 2:09:26
  butted heads, but I respect what you do.
• 2:09:28
  I appreciate what you do. And it's like, you know, coming
• 2:09:30
  from someone like him, and that's what I mentioned,
• 2:09:33
  knowing, you know, that this could be like his last year as a
• 2:09:36
  full time competitor, I said, well, if you'd ever be
• 2:09:40
  interested in an onboard camera, we can at least document your
• 2:09:43
  last year. So we always have that.
• 2:09:45
  So at at new Paris, at least every time that he's there, you
• 2:09:49
  know, he has a camera. And I always told him you can
• 2:09:51
  always tell me to F off to and go away.
• 2:09:53
  You know, like there, it's fine drive that will take it.
• 2:09:56
  So you know, there's there's always a front wheel drive.
• 2:09:58
  People take it right. But joking aside, it was like, I
• 2:10:01
  just felt like really honored, you know, by that, that he would
• 2:10:05
  want to do that on this show, this platform, you know, and
• 2:10:09
  that someone of his caliber, you know, sees what I do,
• 2:10:13
  appreciates what I do not, not that I always need those kind of
• 2:10:16
  things. But I'll tell you, there's some
• 2:10:17
  tough days where it's like, or when I'm like super tired, like
• 2:10:20
  now it's like, you know, but right, it's that fuel that keeps
• 2:10:25
  going. Like there are people out there
• 2:10:27
  who appreciate it and not everyone's going to.
• 2:10:29
  I mean, how many people dislike go racing, you know, and dislike
• 2:10:32
  racing America for different reasons, Like, you know, you're
• 2:10:35
  just not going to get everybody and that's OK.
• 2:10:37
  It's just sometimes those voices are the loudest.
• 2:10:40
  And so then it gets exhausting, right, because it's a it's those
• 2:10:43
  few minor. But then you have someone like
• 2:10:45
  Rich who, you know, went out of his way to say that.
• 2:10:47
  It's like, you know, you hold on to those kind of things.
• 2:10:49
  So when I saw his post and his win and getting that, it's like,
• 2:10:53
  you know, you can't think of anyone more deserving,
• 2:10:56
  especially at that track, that so much history with that
• 2:11:00
  family, you know, from what was it his dad went over the wall
• 2:11:04
  and turned 3 at one point, or was that Hannah's?
• 2:11:06
  I can't remember if it was a bowl or.
• 2:11:08
  That was Hannah, but. Oh, Hannah.
• 2:11:10
  But you know, but them battling, right, having different things
• 2:11:13
  in that and bulls being such a huge part of that, that that
• 2:11:17
  facility. 88 championships there alone.
• 2:11:21
  I mean, he's got 2 I think 2:00 at Plymouth and another 8 plus
• 2:11:24
  at South Bend, so. So for him to get that moment,
• 2:11:28
  it's like especially if that's the last time that shoot socks
• 2:11:31
  are are there. Again, we don't know, right?
• 2:11:33
  His the book, as Buju said, is not quite written or closed yet.
• 2:11:38
  But but if that is the moment and that's the last moment that
• 2:11:41
  shoot socks are there at least it it went out in style if
• 2:11:45
  anything, right so. At least for his career, I mean,
• 2:11:49
  if not, if not for the track, at least for his career.
• 2:11:51
  Yep. So again, you can't wrap that
• 2:11:54
  bow any better, right? It's kind of one of those bow
• 2:11:56
  rap moments. I know you guys have some
• 2:12:00
  missed, missed connections, but if you get a chance to get bowl
• 2:12:02
  on, definitely do that because it's talk about somebody that
• 2:12:05
  can have some stories. I mean, he's got a lot of
• 2:12:07
  history that he could he could talk about.
• 2:12:09
  Yep, yeah, him and even Haley, you know, I've been going up to
• 2:12:12
  her just before racing like the first night, I've said, are you
• 2:12:16
  nervous? Are you OK?
• 2:12:17
  And then then when she led the race and everything, I went down
• 2:12:20
  during the intermission said, see, you're out there leading
• 2:12:22
  laps and challenging and doing all these things and you're a
• 2:12:25
  racer. Just go race, right.
• 2:12:26
  And and then the following week or following show, she did just
• 2:12:30
  as well. She didn't do trifecta, but it
• 2:12:32
  was the weekly after that that she you know, it's like don't be
• 2:12:35
  nervous. And she was nervous.
• 2:12:37
  But as I'm I'm rooting for her. I she's going to be 1 to watch.
• 2:12:41
  I I could see a championship or her soon.
• 2:12:44
  You know, maybe Pat, I'm not saying this year, right, because
• 2:12:47
  she's just starting, but she's, she's going to be 1 to watch for
• 2:12:51
  a really long time in this area. So or just in racing in general.
• 2:12:56
  You know, I, she's got that next level kind of talent to her.
• 2:12:59
  You can already tell how she processes on a track.
• 2:13:02
  You know, even in that street stock, you know, she was putting
• 2:13:05
  in places where you don't always see people put it and and she's
• 2:13:09
  racing. I mean, she didn't look nervous
• 2:13:10
  when she was behind the wheel. So that was pretty, that was
• 2:13:13
  exciting to see her do that so. We'll talk about somebody that's
• 2:13:16
  growing up in it and has has some great role models that
• 2:13:18
  she's watched literally every single week.
• 2:13:20
  Yep, Yeah, that's where, yeah, she's, she's fun.
• 2:13:25
  She's going to be a fun one to watch.
• 2:13:27
  And then DJ, because I know we're getting close and I don't
• 2:13:30
  want to keep you guys any longer because we've already been on
• 2:13:32
  for 2/2, a little over 2 hours and it's late for you guys.
• 2:13:37
  What's your weekend shout out? I mentioned it a little while
• 2:13:42
  ago, but the gear man Chris Wilhelm getting his first ever
• 2:13:45
  career win out of M40, he put some stats out the next day of
• 2:13:51
  how he raced for several years. I think he was dabbling in
• 2:13:55
  street stocks and, and then he got a hold of this car actually
• 2:13:59
  from Brandon Trees back in I think 2023 and has just been
• 2:14:03
  constantly working on the car, but trying to find speed and
• 2:14:07
  things like that. And, and I was actually running
• 2:14:11
  in the same race with him. I, I finished third to that
• 2:14:15
  race, but knowing, just knowing how special that first win can
• 2:14:21
  be for somebody. And it's, you know, when, when I
• 2:14:27
  won my first race, which was I, I remember the dates for some
• 2:14:32
  reason, I remember dates really well.
• 2:14:34
  April 21st, 2023, it was opening weekend in South Bend.
• 2:14:38
  And that was when I brought out the LHR tribute card, the blue,
• 2:14:41
  black and white that people confused for Mark Martin's
• 2:14:43
  Viagra card. But you, you could get me to
• 2:14:48
  shut up for a week. And, and you know, Chris is, I
• 2:14:54
  mean, yeah, he, I told him, I called up with him afterwards.
• 2:14:57
  I says, man, how was you able to get, get out of the out of the
• 2:15:00
  car as big as your head is, you know, and but he understood
• 2:15:03
  that, you know what I meant by that?
• 2:15:05
  And and so, but just seeing him, or anybody for that matter,
• 2:15:10
  getting that first taste of victory is always so sweet, so
• 2:15:13
  special. And and that instance I was able
• 2:15:17
  to have a pretty good seat to watch it.
• 2:15:22
  Oh yeah, well, and and they always say you won't ever forget
• 2:15:26
  your first win. Exactly.
• 2:15:28
  So that well, that's where, you know, even hearing you say that
• 2:15:33
  someone who I think is getting close, you know, the late model
• 2:15:37
  class at Kalamazoo is kind of like wide open this year.
• 2:15:41
  Excited to see how that is. But Mason Metzger, he man, he's
• 2:15:46
  coming. He's, he ran good last week,
• 2:15:51
  well, not two weeks ago and then even last Friday he started in
• 2:15:53
  the far back and moved his way up to 3rd and, and he's getting
• 2:15:57
  there. And that's where sometimes I
• 2:15:58
  with my onboard cameras, I see people maybe at their most
• 2:16:01
  vulnerable moments. And there's a couple moments,
• 2:16:04
  you know, you know, he's he's learning, he's young, he's, you
• 2:16:07
  know, obviously got the Bozell's, you know, there with
• 2:16:11
  him. But but that's something that
• 2:16:12
  he's been he's been coming and last week he ran third really
• 2:16:16
  strong race. But last year there are a couple
• 2:16:18
  moments that obviously I'm not going to show on an on board
• 2:16:21
  camera that I but I cut out. But there are times that you
• 2:16:24
  know, he's found himself in spots or put himself in spots
• 2:16:28
  where he's lit emotion out and obvious.
• 2:16:31
  Like I said, I would never include that or even post that
• 2:16:33
  anywhere, But you know, you see those moments like I remember
• 2:16:36
  going up to him saying, hey, don't, no, like don't, don't
• 2:16:40
  beat yourself up, don't do these kind of things.
• 2:16:42
  So I think he's coming and I'm excited to see when he can get
• 2:16:45
  that win because I one, I think they're going to celebrate
• 2:16:49
  Fireball Friday, if it's at Kalamazoo, will be super special
• 2:16:53
  that day. But that's someone that you
• 2:16:56
  just, you know, you root for those people to get their, you
• 2:16:59
  know, to get those wins, especially when you see the
• 2:17:01
  highs and the lows. And I know, you know, I mean,
• 2:17:03
  Chris has been doing it for a while and and to have that
• 2:17:06
  moment at M40I mean again, you, you're not going to forget that.
• 2:17:10
  Right. Well, when you see him have that
• 2:17:12
  moment of that car, every single one of us has those moments in
• 2:17:15
  the car. We just don't all have cameras
• 2:17:17
  on us at the time. Yeah.
• 2:17:19
  I've often times wondered how much you you edit out some what
• 2:17:23
  I like to sometimes called non Sunday school language out of
• 2:17:27
  your in car camera. Well, if I chart well, you can't
• 2:17:31
  charge pennies anymore. So I guess if you went up to a
• 2:17:33
  nickel, I might be able to buy a big cruise ship at some point.
• 2:17:35
  But but you know, that's something that I don't catch
• 2:17:38
  every one of them. And I always, because sometimes
• 2:17:41
  drivers will come up to me and I'm like, if I had a nickel for
• 2:17:44
  every time, you know, I, I would maybe not be broke.
• 2:17:47
  But, but it's one of those that I always say, if you're going to
• 2:17:50
  do it, do it under caution because, you know, give once the
• 2:17:53
  caution lights turn on, give a second or two.
• 2:17:56
  And then if you're just going to let it all out and make a sailor
• 2:17:59
  proud and then some, go for it because no one, nobody will know
• 2:18:02
  but me, you know. But if you do it under green or
• 2:18:05
  sometimes you get the salute to America that we sometimes do and
• 2:18:14
  Stone Cold Steve Austin style. And I'm like, and I can't always
• 2:18:19
  cut those out. If it's like under green flag
• 2:18:21
  conditions, it's and sometimes if it's dark, I don't see it.
• 2:18:24
  But then inevitably someone messages me.
• 2:18:27
  Did you know that the driver was saluting the number one sign?
• 2:18:32
  Can you show me the time stamp? Because I definitely missed it.
• 2:18:35
  And I do look for it, but it's sometimes like, you know, be
• 2:18:38
  you, who cares? You know, like I'm not going to
• 2:18:41
  lose sleep over that salute. And, you know, now if they're
• 2:18:45
  destructive, this is where it's been trouble.
• 2:18:48
  If they get destructive, I don't post it.
• 2:18:50
  I won't post it. That's not a thing.
• 2:18:53
  But then that that's hard where sometimes I've had to go to
• 2:18:55
  someone and be like, you know, you didn't need to do that at
• 2:18:58
  all. And it's on camera now, so you
• 2:19:00
  can't even deny it. And and now, now the track is
• 2:19:03
  interested in watching it, so good luck.
• 2:19:05
  But it's like, that's the times that I worry more than the curse
• 2:19:08
  words and all the other stuff. Or wait, the Sunday school
• 2:19:11
  language you know. Sunday school language.
• 2:19:14
  Number one. I'll say we we all turn into
• 2:19:17
  Ryan Blaney. Ryan Blaney when we're in the
• 2:19:19
  car, in the heat of the moment at times.
• 2:19:22
  Ryan Blaney. I was just thinking Dale
• 2:19:24
  Earnhardt when Jeremy Mayfield bumped him out of the way of
• 2:19:26
  Pocono and he called him #1 They're on track after the race.
• 2:19:33
  Buju, I know you've seen that race.
• 2:19:35
  Yeah, for sure. Yeah, sometimes those on boards
• 2:19:39
  are really interesting. But like I said, I will never
• 2:19:41
  post. Like, let's say someone's going
• 2:19:44
  way off or whatever, I'm never going to post that, right?
• 2:19:46
  Like I cut off those moments because it's like, you know,
• 2:19:49
  that's not that's not what we're going to do here.
• 2:19:51
  But but otherwise, I mean all those shout outs are I that's
• 2:19:55
  something boos you. I forgot to tell boos you, but I
• 2:19:57
  mentioned I'm like, man, we should find time to do like
• 2:19:59
  weekend shout outs, even with guests, like get a weekend shout
• 2:20:01
  out before someone goes just again, we're now in the season.
• 2:20:04
  Let's start recognizing some moments and spots and, you know,
• 2:20:08
  get names out there who may not always get mentioned.
• 2:20:11
  And so, you know, I think a first win is pretty awesome and
• 2:20:14
  everything and and obviously rich a classic win, you know, on
• 2:20:18
  a career that. You know, certainly winding down
• 2:20:21
  at least full time. And so that and, and I was also
• 2:20:24
  thinking, you know, for a shout out and why I thought of it is
• 2:20:27
  like the Galesburg night of destruction.
• 2:20:29
  I just, you know, I, I tell people I don't make enough money
• 2:20:32
  to fluff anybody. You know, I'm going to say what
• 2:20:34
  I feel and think, obviously in a professional, respectful manner,
• 2:20:40
  But that's something that, you know, on here.
• 2:20:41
  I've been very public that I think, you know, the new Paris
• 2:20:44
  night of destructions are just tip top.
• 2:20:46
  You know, I, I haven't been to many that, you know, give me the
• 2:20:51
  adrenaline rush to the exhaustion point.
• 2:20:53
  Like there's where they, I just start to finish.
• 2:20:56
  But man, that Galesburg won. You know, I told Bob, I said I
• 2:20:59
  don't, I don't Bob Garrett, he's the promoter at Galesburg.
• 2:21:03
  I said, I don't fluff anybody. If new pairs of people here,
• 2:21:06
  they'd sit there and go, oh boy, you know, they would.
• 2:21:09
  They want me to get some ideas, you know, because it's like if
• 2:21:12
  they had a competition between the two, that's, that's a battle
• 2:21:17
  for like #1 and two, someone, you know, you'd only win by TKO,
• 2:21:22
  not physically knocking out, but like, you know, start to finish.
• 2:21:26
  Because Galesburg, I know they get a lot of, how do I say this?
• 2:21:33
  They have a reputation too, like New Paris, you know, that is
• 2:21:37
  generations in the making. And so they sometimes get a bad
• 2:21:41
  rap from outside people, not so much inside people, but outside
• 2:21:45
  people. And it's like, I don't know,
• 2:21:47
  every time I've been there, it's been nothing but respect,
• 2:21:50
  nothing but class. You know, the drivers are
• 2:21:53
  respectful, the staff is respectful, greets you, talks
• 2:21:57
  with you, helps out. And I'm not there all the time.
• 2:22:00
  So maybe there's times it's not that way, but it's like, from
• 2:22:03
  everything I've seen, it's like, you know, not everyone can look
• 2:22:05
  like an Owosso and, and have millions and millions of dollars
• 2:22:09
  pumped into it. We need tracks like Painesville
• 2:22:12
  that you pull up to and you're like, what am I pulling up to
• 2:22:15
  this? I think of it like the Taco
• 2:22:16
  Shack. You know, when you real, when
• 2:22:18
  you yeah, Montville, you know, when you want authentic tacos,
• 2:22:22
  you know, you don't go to the fancy restaurant that's all
• 2:22:24
  decorated like it is in Mexico. You go to the one that looks
• 2:22:27
  like it's from Mexico and, and, and, and you know, like, oh,
• 2:22:31
  this is going to be the the good stuff, right?
• 2:22:33
  You know, authentic is authentic to be so like a Montville, like
• 2:22:37
  a Galesburg, like a new Paris. We need tracks like that too,
• 2:22:39
  that are just down to earth historic.
• 2:22:42
  You know, they may not look fancy, you know, they may not be
• 2:22:46
  on your marquee all the time, but you know, they they're doing
• 2:22:50
  what they can and they're keeping racing alive at, you
• 2:22:53
  know, for what they can afford to do and all that.
• 2:22:56
  So I think it's those shout outs that we need to remember those
• 2:23:00
  those tracks to those people who, you know, they're just
• 2:23:02
  barely making ends meet and and every track is in that way.
• 2:23:05
  I'm not saying others aren't, but it's like, you know, when
• 2:23:08
  tracks have these reputations, it's like, OK, when's the last
• 2:23:11
  time you were there? Or did you really give them a
• 2:23:12
  fair shot or you just mad about something And that's why you
• 2:23:16
  don't carry this forward. So that was that's why I was
• 2:23:19
  thinking, you know, what more can we do on here for the Monday
• 2:23:23
  night throttle boy, Monday night Rewind to give people and
• 2:23:29
  tracks, you know, because they're all doing what they can
• 2:23:32
  right now. So so I'm going to be purposeful
• 2:23:35
  about that with each guest. So you're like the Guinea pigs
• 2:23:37
  for that. So, but other than that, I know
• 2:23:40
  it's late. Buju and I were kind of talk
• 2:23:41
  about a short show, but I also said that if the conversation is
• 2:23:44
  going, I'm not going to, I don't want to cut it off.
• 2:23:47
  And so we've covered a lot and a lot of themes tonight.
• 2:23:50
  So I definitely appreciate you both coming on, but I know
• 2:23:52
  you've, you've put in your days of work and everything and it's
• 2:23:55
  almost 930 and DJI, you've just sat and not moved.
• 2:23:59
  You know, we've all taken a chance to move a little bit.
• 2:24:02
  So I know you drive a bus all the time and all that.
• 2:24:04
  So you're probably used to sitting.
• 2:24:05
  But even myself, I'm like, I'm getting dark now.
• 2:24:07
  I had to go turn on the light while you're talking.
• 2:24:09
  That's why I put you full screen.
• 2:24:11
  I'm like, nobody needs to see me getting up to go turn on the
• 2:24:13
  light, but let there be light. But again, I definitely
• 2:24:16
  appreciate you both coming on, especially on the Monday, stormy
• 2:24:20
  Monday. Early we we, I appreciate you
• 2:24:23
  letting you come on and invite me on and I know it's been a
• 2:24:25
  couple years. I've race full time and you
• 2:24:27
  know, still be involved and still be a part of everything.
• 2:24:30
  I I appreciate, I appreciate it for sure.
• 2:24:33
  And, and I've always enjoyed any time I get to interact with you
• 2:24:38
  and, and, and for you to have me on the show, it's always an
• 2:24:41
  honor, always a pleasure to be on here.
• 2:24:44
  Yeah, I like I said earlier, and you know, like I said, I don't
• 2:24:46
  get paid enough to fluff anybody.
• 2:24:47
  I'm, I'm huge fans of who you guys are as people, not just who
• 2:24:52
  you are as racers or what you've done as racers.
• 2:24:55
  Even last week, you know, one of our guests when I talked about
• 2:24:58
  success and they'd said, well, I've only actually like one, one
• 2:25:01
  thing. And I said I don't measure
• 2:25:03
  measure success in the amount of wins somebody has or checkered
• 2:25:06
  flags that capture trophies they can hang up.
• 2:25:11
  That's something that success can be in a lot of different
• 2:25:13
  ways. And it's what's the impact
• 2:25:14
  you've made. And so that's where you know,
• 2:25:18
  Buju has a win right in the bumblebee, but he's not been in
• 2:25:21
  the in a car as often lately. But I still think of him as
• 2:25:25
  having a successful career because of what he's made impact
• 2:25:30
  wise off the track. And you can't replace that
• 2:25:33
  right, Keith? You might not be in the car all
• 2:25:35
  the time, but it but think of how many fans you made just by
• 2:25:39
  being you just by walking in the stands, interacting with people,
• 2:25:43
  engaging with people, sitting with people, talking with
• 2:25:46
  people, making that personal connection at a time a lot of
• 2:25:49
  others weren't. And then obviously, DJ, you
• 2:25:52
  know, everything you've done, the story that you've told, the
• 2:25:55
  vulnerability that you've had to tell your story and have those
• 2:25:59
  moments and do your live videos where you would talk about your
• 2:26:02
  connection to Jesus and, and, and your faith and your passion
• 2:26:06
  and your purpose and, and doing that.
• 2:26:09
  Again, there's a lot of people who don't do those kind of
• 2:26:11
  things, who allow themselves to be vulnerable.
• 2:26:14
  And even at the track, you are who you are, you're
• 2:26:16
  authentically yourself. And again, you can't replace
• 2:26:20
  those kind of things. So, you know, as long as we have
• 2:26:23
  a, a platform like this to give, you know, those, you know, to
• 2:26:27
  help drivers like you, people like you tell your story, we're
• 2:26:32
  going to keep doing that because that's, I think from feedback
• 2:26:35
  and booze. You, I don't know if you get the
• 2:26:36
  same thing, but at least when I go to tracks, that's what people
• 2:26:39
  really like about this Rewind is there like you just, you get to
• 2:26:42
  talk with people and learn about people.
• 2:26:44
  And, and, and I mean, we have some who watches the whole time
• 2:26:47
  we're on and they'll be on from start to finish.
• 2:26:49
  We have others who are on or off.
• 2:26:50
  We have others who watch afterwards and come back, you
• 2:26:53
  know, and that's the feedback that I get.
• 2:26:54
  I don't booze you. What kind of feedback have you
• 2:26:56
  gotten in your corners? Yeah, same thing.
• 2:26:59
  I mean, yeah, everybody seems to be enjoying the show and the
• 2:27:01
  variety and like is that most shows are going to have the big
• 2:27:06
  names and I'm not especially talking.
• 2:27:09
  We have a few guests on right now.
• 2:27:10
  I'm not saying you guys aren't big names, but nobody's going to
• 2:27:13
  have a front wheel drive racer and a Hornet racer on for two
• 2:27:17
  hours and 20 minutes, I promise. You that or night of destruction
• 2:27:21
  competitor or small series. I mean that's something that
• 2:27:25
  it's like, you know, yes, we had like Wicker last week right and
• 2:27:28
  that obviously is a really big name and next week we have will
• 2:27:31
  Greenwell, who is a star in the announcing world, you know, but
• 2:27:36
  it's but it's just hard down the earth.
• 2:27:39
  You know it's we're not scripted.
• 2:27:40
  We just kind of shoot from the hips and have conversation and
• 2:27:44
  it's you know and it's natural. But again, that's why I'm so
• 2:27:47
  appreciative of you both coming on.
• 2:27:49
  Obviously Boozoo. I mean, he commits a lot of time
• 2:27:51
  to doing these live shows each week.
• 2:27:53
  And so, you know, there's just a a very deep appreciation for you
• 2:27:57
  guys, who you guys are as people and the fact that you took this
• 2:28:00
  amount of time out of your night to do this.
• 2:28:03
  So again, thank you so much. I appreciate that.
• 2:28:08
  Hey Buju, love you man. Keep up the great work you're
• 2:28:10
  doing with your health journey. You're looking fantastic, man.
• 2:28:13
  Louis, keep doing what you're doing.
• 2:28:15
  You're loved and respected way more than you may know.
• 2:28:19
  Oh, but that's what keeps me going is it's, you know, like I
• 2:28:22
  always tell people, I don't always need to hear that, but
• 2:28:26
  I'm one of those who get who appreciates that That's the
• 2:28:29
  extra fuel. So as I set up finishing this
• 2:28:31
  calendar zoo program for the rest of the night that I'm like,
• 2:28:35
  OK, I got every almost everything done from the
• 2:28:37
  weekend, but at that. And it's one of those like, it's
• 2:28:40
  OK, you know, I know people are looking forward to it and it's
• 2:28:43
  OK, I'm going to be tired, but it's going to be worth it
• 2:28:45
  because the people who appreciate it are going to
• 2:28:48
  appreciate and the people who are like, why is it taking so
• 2:28:50
  long? Whatever, you know, it's no big
• 2:28:53
  deal there. I know this group appreciates it
• 2:28:55
  and that that's the motivation that keeps going because it's
• 2:28:58
  not it's not cheap, you know, doing any of it.
• 2:29:01
  And a lot of this is, as you guys know, not, you know, I
• 2:29:05
  might make money on how do I say this?
• 2:29:07
  I might earn money on YouTube and Facebook, but Buju saw how
• 2:29:11
  much I how much I made-up some stuff.
• 2:29:14
  And I can promise you it's not buying me a hot dog at the
• 2:29:17
  racetrack anytime soon. So, and it certainly didn't
• 2:29:20
  cover any of my expenses from last month.
• 2:29:22
  So that's something that it's like, but it's, it's the passion
• 2:29:26
  behind it that keeps going because I could, if I didn't
• 2:29:28
  have the passion, it would be very easy to just say
• 2:29:30
  everything's for sale and I'm done.
• 2:29:33
  I'll go back to being in the stand so I can have my chicken
• 2:29:35
  tenders and or chicken strips and French fries and just do
• 2:29:39
  that. And you know, and I think that's
• 2:29:43
  why I like even today, it was a very, not that it was a
• 2:29:46
  purposeful thing, but it was a theme throughout passion,
• 2:29:48
  respect. What can we do to help this
• 2:29:50
  sport? Because everybody here on the
• 2:29:53
  screen is doing something to help the sport.
• 2:29:55
  So again, just thank you guys for everything that you do.
• 2:29:59
  Thanks man, it was a great time. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:30:02
  Thanks. Guys, thank you for having us
• 2:30:03
  and it's thoroughly enjoyable and you know, let me echo what
• 2:30:08
  what Keith said. You 2 keep doing what y'all are
• 2:30:11
  doing. I'm looking forward to the next
• 2:30:12
  episode of the Buju Bullring and yeah, can't wait for the next
• 2:30:17
  one. I do want to do a quick shout
• 2:30:19
  out. I saw Kenzie Epping was on here.
• 2:30:23
  She's a mini wedge racer and she she got a victory at Kalamazoo
• 2:30:27
  yesterday and one of the heat races and, and she's going to be
• 2:30:30
  1 to watch if if her next step future is going to be into the
• 2:30:34
  big cars because, you know, she just has a knack for the track.
• 2:30:38
  And so I'm excited to watch her. A couple mini wedge racers have
• 2:30:41
  been here on here. Like I said earlier, I'm not
• 2:30:43
  ignoring comments on purpose. It's just a lot to manage on
• 2:30:46
  different sides and I'm not always on the right screen to
• 2:30:48
  see all the comments coming in. So that's more my fault.
• 2:30:50
  I need to always remember to switch things over.
• 2:30:53
  But one thing I did want to remind everyone before we hang
• 2:30:55
  up here for the night is that you've been watching the Monday
• 2:30:58
  Night Rewind on Taco Racing Media National Compact Touring
• 2:31:01
  Series Facebook pages and then Taco Racing Media YouTube.
• 2:31:06
  Obviously on YouTube, it's always there.
• 2:31:07
  You can always go back on Facebook.
• 2:31:08
  It stays on for about 30 days and then it deletes off.
• 2:31:11
  So definitely like share, get it out there.
• 2:31:15
  We're looking for guests for booking into June now.
• 2:31:18
  We've been talking with DJ Mccotter, who races the number
• 2:31:20
  six front wheel drive and does night destruction.
• 2:31:22
  Already said he'll be at New Paris this coming weekend.
• 2:31:25
  Excited to see him in person. And it sounds like you might
• 2:31:28
  have a ride. And then we've also been talking
• 2:31:30
  with Keith Barringer Junior. This is his car from a few years
• 2:31:33
  ago at the South Bend Auto Show. And next Monday night at seven O
• 2:31:37
  5, joining us again, one of the top voices in the nation, Will
• 2:31:41
  Greenwell. And this Thursday, Buju and I
• 2:31:43
  are back for another live episode of the Thursday night
• 2:31:46
  Throttle, where we preview the upcoming weekend.
• 2:31:49
  And definitely don't forget if you're looking to get your car
• 2:31:51
  detailed, especially now that it's spring, use the code top
• 2:31:54
  row over in bridge from Michigan and ELH Detailing.
• 2:31:58
  While you're getting car detail and joy Waco Beach, you know,
• 2:32:01
  get a car around to go downtown or go to Saint Joe while you're
• 2:32:05
  waiting. Definitely take advantage of
• 2:32:07
  that. And when you do, you might have
• 2:32:08
  a chance to get on the House free full detail from ELH
• 2:32:12
  Detailing. We're going to be announcing two
• 2:32:16
  different times, so you pay how many times go to ELH?
• 2:32:18
  You might get lucky and can get 2 details on the House from ELH
• 2:32:22
  Detailing. Other than that, this has been
• 2:32:26
  Keith Junior with us, DJ Mccotter, of course, Buju, the
• 2:32:30
  master of the bull rings, and Lewis, owner of Top of Racing
• 2:32:33
  Media. It's almost time to turn left
• 2:32:35
  and go fast Buju, because. The other races.
• 2:32:39
  We'll see everyone at the races.