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The Time I Cheated at The Snowball Derby | Coffee With Kenny · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:02
  Happy Monday morning everybody. It's Cyber Monday.
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  Who in the world ever thought we would be calling a Monday in our
• 0:14
  lifetime? Cyber Monday.
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  I remember when computers come out and I thought the Hell's
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  this thing? Happy Cyber Monday.
• 0:24
  Go to jags.com and buy some stuff to fix your vehicle up.
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  All right, Herman, we can talk about today.
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  Well, I got on social media on this Monday morning and I hear
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  that it's Snowball Derby weekend.
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  It's down there in Pensacola, FL.
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  It is the biggest short track race in the world on asphalt.
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  The Snowball Derby Pensacola, FL.
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  I've got a lot of memories, not as many as a lot of you though,
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  but I thought enough time has gone by that I would tell you
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  right now why tech inspection is such a big deal at the Snowball
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  Derby. So right now, if you remember
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  when Chase Elliott, he won the snowball Derby, he won it, but
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  he didn't get the trophy. He was found illegal over a
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  little technicality. So to keep the cost down at the
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  snowball Derby, they say you can only run lead.
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  Lead is a product that is very heavy.
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  It's weight and but it's a cheap man's weight.
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  In other words, lead, it's what they use to balance your car
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  tires sometimes. So the rule is you have to run
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  lead because it's cheap. You have to run lead to bring
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  your car up to weight. Well, when Chase Elliott won the
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  Snowball Derby, he had a very expensive piece of weight in the
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  car called tungsten. Tungsten is thought of as very
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  expensive, but boy, you can do a lot of good with it.
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  You could use a piece like, say, 6 inches long compared to 12
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  inches long if it was, you know, lead.
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  So anyway, a mere technicality, DQ disqualified Chase Elliott.
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  People were getting very frustrated about all this, this
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  little tech inspection. Oh, my God, you know, time.
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  Majeski won the race, but now he's got to go through tech
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  inspection. So coffee with Kenny this
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  morning is about the history of why.
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  Why is there such rigid tech inspection at the biggest
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  asphalt short track race in the world?
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  And it's coming up this weekend, the legendary Snowball Derby.
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  I'm here to tell you why. OK, back in let's say 19868788,
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  somewhere around there, I go to the Snowball Derby.
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  Now I'm going to hide some of the names because I don't want
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  them to hear, I don't want them to get roughed up.
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  So, you know, you go to the Snowball Derby, you got 50-60 of
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  the greatest asphalt short track racers in the world.
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  You know they're all going to be there and they've all won.
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  You know, whether it's my buddy, you know, Gary St.
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  Amant, Rich Bickel, Gary Hot Shoes, Blue, I mean, all the big
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  boys. I just mentioned some legendary
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  names. You know, nowadays you got Bubba
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  Pollard, Steven Massey, Ty Majeski, all the big boys.
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  Here's why tech inspection is such a big deal in my day.
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  It's like hell, we're going to soak tires so you would take a
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  brand. Here's what I did.
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  I did it because that's what you did back in the day.
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  I qualified 6 for the Snowball Derby.
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  And let me explain to you. I'm going to make the sound
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  about my throttle, OK? This would be a normal sound if
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  you had normal tires on you or normal car.
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  Here's how you your normal car sound.
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  Your throttle sound would be one lap around.
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  Pensacola would be like this down in front of the
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  straightaway. OK, you take a tire derometer
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  and you poke your tires and they supposed to they supposed to be
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  like 6060 would be on your durometer.
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  It it it's a measuring, it's a little tool and you poke the
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  rubber and it would say, oh, this rubber is 60.
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  Well, when I was done, my shit was about 25.
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  OK, and here's the way I went through the corner.
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  I thought that's going to be the pole.
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  I'm going to be I'm going to be QuickTime.
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  I come and they said you're 6. I said then they're all cheating
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  too. So the night before I had a good
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  racer help me out because he was a strong man and they all
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  listened to him. So I soaked my tires the night
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  before and the way you did it back then, it was a man's man's
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  way in others. What I did was I take, I took
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  200 mile an hour tape and I taped my side walls off.
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  OK, tape the side walls off. Then I took, then I took like a
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  blanket and I cut the blanket 1011 inches wide the width of
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  the tire. Then I wrapped the tire in that
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  blanket. Then I wrapped it that you know,
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  then I taped the blanket on both sides.
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  The key was you didn't want any of this chemical to roll off on
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  the side side of the tires. So I, I taped the side walls,
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  then I put the blanket around and I tape the blanket, then
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  cellophane like like a wax paper, like they used to cook,
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  then tape that, tape the cellophane around.
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  A lot of work, lot of work. Soaking tires is magic.
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  But back in the day, this is the way we did it.
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  Then what you did, you sliced at the very top.
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  You slice something, you slice that cellophane and you had a
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  full quart and you would put that quart in and every 15
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  minutes you would rotate that tire, rotate that tire.
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  You sit there, drink beer, get drunk, get high because that,
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  that stuff smelled. So you was drinking beer and
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  getting high at the same time. And you'd sit there all night
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  long and soaked in four tires. Well, now they they'd also check
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  your tires. But somebody that was so
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  powerful helped me get through tech.
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  That man went up to the tech inspectors and said you're going
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  to let Herman go, you're going to let Kenny Wallace go and I
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  made it and I went on through tech inspection.
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  My friends, that was all day long of the snowball Derby.
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  The snowball Derby became famous for that.
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  Respond right here with your cheat and snowball Derby
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  stories. I know people that had a little
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  bitty people like guys that were small, kind of like Tony Glover.
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  You know, Glover's my brother, loving, loving.
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  I love Tony Glover. Tony is a smaller guy.
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  I know guys that were so crazy that when they go through tech
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  they put a person up underneath the car.
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  Y'all know who it is? I ain't going to say respond
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  right here. I know people that went through
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  tech inspection at Snowball Derby with a person in the car.
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  OK. And then the person would come
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  out of the car and and the car would just keep on going and he
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  didn't get run over because, you know, he'd go out the back.
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  I know people that ran aluminum wheels, but they wanted you to
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  think that they were aerodynamic and had covers on the wheels.
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  They didn't have covers on the wheels because they wanted you
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  to think they were that they wanted you to think they were
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  aerodynamic. But aluminum wheels are illegal.
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  I know people that cheated so bad, it's like they should have
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  lapped the field 6 times, but they didn't.
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  All right, everybody respond right here with your snowball
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  Derby. The old snowball Derby.
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  Cheating. Hey, I'm going to leave you with
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  this one real quick. I know we're at 9 minutes, but
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  this one's a good one. The best cheating scandal I've
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  ever heard of. It's a set quick time at the
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  snowball Derby. You know, you're only supposed
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  to run gasoline. This guy had a tank inside his
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  gas tank and it was alcohol or a maybe not alcohol, but a really
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  good like it was massive horsepower.
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  You're like, well, how do you get away with a carburetor
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  behind the behind the distributor?
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  He had a little little case in there and with 180° headers
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  were, so he had, he had another carburetor slid down in a little
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  cabinet. And when, when the the tech
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  inspection guy he was, he was taking like 5-6 cars at the same
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  time, he'd say pull your carburetor off.
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  Let me see your carburetor. Well, they had old switcheroo.
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  They pull the carburetor off and then they grabbed that
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  carburetor that was warm down inside above the transmission
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  and they'd give him that carburetor with just normal gas
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  in it. I know guys that soaked their
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  tires, had a little people underneath their car to go
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  through tech and ran alcohol, had a had a small gas tank
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  inside their gas tank and then did the old switcheroo because
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  they had the carburetor was riding along behind the
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  distributor. I soaked tires qualified 6.
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  I think the damn coil wire fell out or something. 80198687 or 88
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  something like that. Respond right here.
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  It's the greatest week of the year.
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  And that, my friends, is why Snowball Derby tech inspection
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  is so harsh nowadays.