Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / The Time I Spun Dale Earnhardt & Other Texaco Havoline Car Stories | Coffee With Kenny

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The Time I Spun Dale Earnhardt & Other Texaco Havoline Car Stories | Coffee With Kenny · Kenny Wallace Media

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  Happy Friday morning everybody from Arnold, MO, home of the big
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  one. Alright, I know you see it.
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  It's a sad day, October 3rd, and the legendary swimming pool is
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  closed. But we still got the hot tub.
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  All right. We we wear that hot tub out in
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  the winter. Kim and I really like it.
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  So the swimming pools closed. It's a sad day.
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  That means we got to get ready for winter.
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  The leaves fallen. OK, drinking coffee over on
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  Facebook and I'll post it right here because I took a picture of
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  it, A man said, Kenny Wallace, tell us about the days you drove
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  the number 28 Texco Haviland Ford Thunderbird and respond
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  right here. There's Louis the Legend, by the
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  way. There he is.
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  Respond right here. What day do you compare yourself
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  to with the 28 Texco Haviland Ford Thunderbird?
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  Was it Davy Allison? Was it Ernie Irvin?
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  I drove it when Ernie Irvin got hurt and I'll tell you a couple
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  stories about it. I know we got a lot of big Ford
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  fans out there. I love Ford, I love Chevrolet.
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  Hey, you know the one I forgot to tell you about here lately
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  was I drove for Dodge too. Yes, when I drove for Bill
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  Davis, yes, Only vehicle I've ever had.
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  I had a Dodge Ram pickup truck and it literally blew a motor.
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  The only vehicle that I've ever had were blew a motor in a
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  passenger vehicle. Yeah, sure did.
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  OK. And and Dave Jumper will
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  remember that. Donnie's brother, Dave Jumper.
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  Dave's got a repair shop and never forget that.
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  Have you has your has your passenger vehicle ever blew a
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  motor? Pretty rare, isn't it?
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  OK, I'll never forget when Ernie got hurt.
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  It was a very sad, tough day for everybody.
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  I got a phone call from Robert Yates.
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  Herman, do you want to drive the Texaco, you know, car?
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  And I'm like, oh, my God, yeah. What?
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  I mean, it was under tough circumstances.
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  Somebody was going to drive it. It might as well been me.
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  So I was honored and I had some what I call legendary runs in
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  that car and I'm going to tell you about two of them.
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  First one was Martinsville, and we all know Martinsville's My
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  Jam. I've won two Xfinity races
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  there. We have two grandfather clocks.
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  Dong Ding Dong got a grandfather clock here at the house and one
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  up in the up in the shop up in the party home up there.
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  So Larry McReynolds says, Herman, let's go test.
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  I said, all right. And they'd always they'd always
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  run bad at Martinsville. So they knew I was good there.
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  So they said, let's go test. Let's try to get this car
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  running good here at at Martinsville.
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  So I'm just going to clean it all up and tell you exactly what
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  got that car going. Back in the day when Penske
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  shocks came along, there was a lot of bleed.
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  A lot of the fluid would go through the piston and then hit
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  the Shim stack, so on so forth. Maybe I'm not explaining it
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  right. Let me make something very
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  clear. When I know, when I know about
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  something really good, I know all about it.
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  It's it's like it's like a motor.
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  I cannot build a motor, but I can definitely change the valve
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  springs, set the valve lash. I can maintain Tuna motor as
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  good as anybody. I don't build motors.
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  I don't put the Pistons in and the rods and all that.
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  So when it comes to shocks, I don't build shocks.
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  But I know about shocks. OK, So what we did, we'd go down
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  the front straightaway at Martinsville and I'd go to get
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  on the brakes and the front end would fall down way too easy and
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  then it would get loose. No wonder Ernie and Davy never
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  ran good there. But it but it was it was our
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  test that got that Texaco for Haviland Thunderbird, which is a
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  mouthful got that thing going. What we did is we, we back in
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  those days, we, we plugged the shaft, we, we made the fluid go
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  only through the Shim stack. In other words, we, we stiffen
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  the front shocks up if you want to dumb it down.
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  So when I went in the corner and I gave it break, the front end
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  was slowly and it used to now when I get it on the brake
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  transferred weight very slowly to the front.
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  Then I could get in and turn left.
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  So that was really good. That picks us up a lot.
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  And then at the very end Larry says, OK, we need about 1/10,
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  what do you need? And I said I need to rotate the
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  middle better back in those days.
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  Hey, you see the video out there, go to YouTube.
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  Kenny Wallace spins Dale Earnhardt out Martinsville.
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  So Earnhardt. I it's early in the race.
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  Earnhardt's coming. I pull over.
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  I let him go. Well, I don't pull over.
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  I just let him go. But I let off the gas early and
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  then I turned down and Earnhardt's all jammed up.
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  He's not ready to go. I hit him and ass spin him out.
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  I spin Dale Earnhardt out. The caution comes out, Earnhardt
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  does a 360, Keep going. And everybody says, what did
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  Earnhardt say to you when you spun him out?
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  Earnhardt come up. He's laid low in that seat like
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  this. Got that mustache, got the
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  bubble goggles on, and he was my buddy.
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  Dale Earnhardt was my friend. He come up to me.
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  He looked over here and he said he knew.
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  He knew I didn't mean to spit him out.
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  He was like Herman, we went on, but we run 5th in that race and
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  and as you all know, I've showed you pictures of the the rotor
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  and the brake caliper. Everybody signed it, you know,
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  Robert Yates, Doug Yates, Larry Mack.
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  So anyway, what got that car going was we plugged the front
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  shocks went to a 7-8 sway bar in the front, which is which is
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  little. I hey, back in those days that's
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  that was good that that was way better than this arrow nowadays.
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  Back then we had mechanical grip.
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  We didn't so much rely on air, but I got down that corner.
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  Rotate that some bitch. I said, boys, we're ready.
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  So we finished fifth, qualified I think 9th, but Larry Mack said
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  that's the best we've ever qualified Herman at
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  Martinsville. So what an honor to drive that
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  Texaco Ford. I'll leave you with the next big
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  one we go to. We go to Atlanta and at that
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  time I'm driving a car and it's Goodyear versus Hoosier.
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  Hoosier sits on the pole with Jeff Beaudine and I'm like, OK,
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  so I go out to qualify and I'm on Goodyear tires.
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  I like this son of a bitch. I, I drove that some.
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  It's so hard. It was like, it's like, there's
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  no way you can drive it this hard.
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  Well, that, that car had massive power, but Robert Yates's
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  motors, they never, they, they, you never felt the torque.
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  In other words, they didn't go wait, wait.
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  They just went like a diesel. So Robert Yates's motors back in
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  those days just had massive girth.
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  Girth, girth, that's what she said.
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  So qualified second and Goodyear executives came to Larry
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  Mccrells and said that's as fast as we could have ever expected
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  our Goodyear tires to go see that.
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  That's right, bitch. Herman Hader leg that mother
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  out. All right, everybody, I hope you
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  enjoyed those 20 in the race. I sucked.
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  I was no good, but my best run in the Texaco car was fifth at
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  Martinsville and there's a lot more stories, but we had 8
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  minutes now, so hope you enjoyed it.
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  Have a great Friday everybody and I'll see you trackside live
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  this Sunday. Charlotte Motor Speedway, 11:00
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  Special guest, handsome Harry. Harry Gant.