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I Had So Much Fun With Cleetus McFarland At The Freedom 500 | Coffee With Kenny · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:02
  Happy Saturday morning everybody coming to you from a sunny and
• 0:08
  nice and warm Sarasota, FL staying at the Hampton Inn.
• 0:14
  Hey, I already get him for a sponsor.
• 0:18
  All right, let's put the let's put the coffee on the bed.
• 0:22
  Let's take a look outside and see what we got going on.
• 0:28
  Oh, yeah. Palm trees right next to the
• 0:31
  highway. Looking good.
• 0:35
  Looking good. Hey, Wallace, that camera is
• 0:38
  awfully close to your face and everything.
• 0:44
  Man, oh, man, I want to tell you what now I've been burning the
• 0:48
  candle at both ends. Went to Europe, got home from
• 0:53
  Europe for a little bit and got on the plane again.
• 0:58
  And as they stay down South Mosey don't down here to
• 1:01
  Sarasota, FL for the Freedom Factory 500 Cletus Mcfarland's
• 1:08
  big show. Man, I got to tell you, I I'm in
• 1:13
  shock. I really am.
• 1:16
  I have never, well, I guess the last time I've seen anything
• 1:20
  like this was never, you know, I got to, I got to go way back for
• 1:27
  a minute. I used to run the Triple Crown
• 1:31
  like 198687, something like that.
• 1:35
  The great Dick Trickle would say to me, my boy, you need to come
• 1:39
  down and run this race weekend with us or, you know, a week,
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  whatever it was, I think it was Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
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  We would run Orlando, FL, Saint Pete and then we call it DeSoto,
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  but it's it was Bradenton, FL. I went into that racetrack
• 1:57
  yesterday, you know, for a Cletus's Freedom Factory 500 and
• 2:00
  I said I'll be damned back after all these years.
• 2:04
  I told some people and they're like, Oh yeah, we worked here
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  then we still work here. So there's people still working
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  at the racetrack that worked there.
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  You know, maybe not at the old, but there's guys over the
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  asphalt track and the drag strip.
• 2:22
  But yeah, well, let's go at it. Today's Saturday.
• 2:27
  We're going to take off from Sarasota here about noon.
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  John and myself, we said, what do you want to meet in the
• 2:35
  lobby? Let's meet there at 11.
• 2:38
  We've been burning the candle. Take it easy.
• 2:41
  Simmer down. My Lord, we've been going hard,
• 2:45
  but it's been awesome. Wouldn't trade it for anything
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  in the world. I I showed up at the Freedom
• 2:53
  Factory 500 last night. Clete is the show.
• 2:57
  And first thing I noticed is it was, it was early, it was 330
• 3:03
  and qualifying didn't start till 5:30.
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  The race didn't start till 7 and the fans were already lined up
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  around the damn block. You could feel the vibe, you
• 3:16
  could feel that this was this was a show.
• 3:19
  You could feel that these people really love this event.
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  So one thing that really stood out to me was Cletus Mcfarlane's
• 3:29
  mother came by and made a point to say hi to me and I don't
• 3:33
  know, her beautiful lady pushing a stroller around Cletus.
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  I had, I guess Cletus has two kids.
• 3:42
  Respond right here. I'm getting to know Cletus, but
• 3:46
  his mother was so nice and that really stood out to me.
• 3:50
  And I texted Cletus last night and I said thank you for
• 3:54
  inviting me. Your mother was wonderful, you
• 3:58
  know, and he responded quickly. Good times.
• 4:01
  Something like that. The other thing I noticed was
• 4:07
  Cletus has a lot of help. However, and listen, I know
• 4:11
  Cletus can't do it without all the help, but I'm telling you,
• 4:15
  this guy can chew gum and walk better than anybody I've ever
• 4:18
  seen. He he knows the key to this show
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  is to not letting any downtime. You know it, it's sold out
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  standing room only hundreds of thousands of people watching on
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  his live stream, by the way, for 1999.
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  And I hear people loved it. I hear people love the live
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  stream but we, we, we qualified and then qualifying is over a
• 4:45
  little bit and then Cletus gets out of his car, he goes in
• 4:49
  field, he gets on the microphone.
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  Then he says to me, hey, come over here in my office whenever
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  you can cause I've missed the drivers meeting.
• 4:57
  We took off at 8 O clock from Saint Louis, but we just we had
• 5:01
  to stop and get gas and down in Georgia and it was 4 hour flight
• 5:07
  stop and think about it. St.
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  Louis, MO all the way to the bottom of Florida pretty much
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  down here in in Bradenton South of Tampa a little bit.
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  So I go into Cletus offices office or he's he's going to
• 5:22
  debrief me a little bit about the rules and he's on his
• 5:25
  computer and I said, my God, you don't ever stop.
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  So I'm not going to call Cletus A1 man band because he does have
• 5:33
  a, you know, a host of characters, But I'm just telling
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  you what I what I see a show a lot of vibe, a nice family, well
• 5:45
  grounded family, mom, mother, you know, good looking, wealthy
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  looking lady is the way as Missouri people would say it.
• 5:56
  That's a compliment Cletus and then how hard Cletus works.
• 6:02
  He's only 31 years old and I'm going to tell you, at 31 years
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  old you could not outwork me either.
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  But like the downtime, There was no downtime.
• 6:12
  They got these and I know you've all seen them.
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  They got these vans like a family van and they cut it in
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  half because it's front wheel drive.
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  So the acid of the van is dragging, but it's got like
• 6:26
  these little skis on it so it doesn't mess up the asphalt on
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  the racetrack. And and they run these damn vans
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  cutting half asses dragging. You can hear him going around
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  the racetrack, crowds going nuts.
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  You can hear them just then all of a sudden Cletus takes out.
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  Now you've seen the video of me in it.
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  I mean, I no longer. I got there, started to eat.
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  I got 2 bites of food in my mouth.
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  I'm like 1-2. I hear Herman.
• 7:00
  It's Cletus. Come on.
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  So me and Wyatt Miller, you know, Kelly Earnhardt's and and
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  LW Miller's child, the kid. He's a good racer, by the way.
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  Really good racer. Come on.
• 7:14
  I'm like, what are we getting into?
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  Hands me a helmet. The helmet sat on top of my
• 7:18
  head. This Chevrolet Camaro had 1000
• 7:22
  horsepower and I'm tell you what I got this damn thing and you
• 7:25
  could I mean it like had better than race car power.
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  It is amazing though the horsepower that they can put in
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  a streets car had to you know, it was upgraded, had great seats
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  in it, some aftermarket parts, but Cletus could drift the hell
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  out of that car. Man, those those Drifters man,
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  they got some massive power. I can go on and on.
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  But in the end, I got to tell you the fireworks after the
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  race, my God, I thought it was over.
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  And he goes, oh, it's not over. Then he had a buddy mix some
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  lights. And I mean, at the end it was
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  you could, you could, the fireworks were in your gut. 27
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  cars started. We run forth.
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  Now I know why they run the Crown VIX.
• 8:09
  Those damn things are like German tanks.
• 8:12
  My God, we hit each other a couple times and I thought I'm
• 8:15
  knocked out this race. Nope, just kept on going.
• 8:21
  Hayley Deegan's dad won the great Brian Deegan.
• 8:25
  Little did I know in Victor Lane that Pastrana and Brian Deegan,
• 8:30
  they don't like each other. A rivalry from the past, from
• 8:35
  the X Games. Oh well, Travis Pastrana says Oh
• 8:38
  my God, anybody but Brian, damn Deegan, he come by me.
• 8:42
  I'm like, no, it was so good. Great.
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  Victor Lane, we did some doughnuts.
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  Hey, took that old Crown Victoria, just stuck in low and
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  good times. I felt like a kid again.
• 8:55
  Hell, I fit right in with him. I'm 62 going on 31.
• 9:00
  All right, everybody, we're going to head on up to Bristol.
• 9:03
  We'll see tomorrow, Saturday or no Sunday, Sunday at noon, we've
• 9:08
  got Kyle Larson, Kyle Busch, last night's truck winner,
• 9:12
  Christopher Bell, and yeah, it's going to be a good time.
• 9:18
  All right, see you tomorrow.