Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Great Talk with Mark Richards, Owner of Rocket Chassis!

Transcript

Great Talk with Mark Richards, Owner of Rocket Chassis! · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:00
  Hello everyone and welcome back to Kenny Conversation brought to
• 0:04
  you by Jags, the leader in high performance aftermarket car
• 0:09
  parts. Remember to go to jags.com
• 0:12
  because they have it all, but right now they have Jeep parts,
• 0:16
  pickup truck parts. So go there and get it all.
• 0:20
  You are looking at one of the most innovative, dirt super late
• 0:25
  model race car builders in history, the great Mark
• 0:29
  Richards. Mark, how are you doing?
• 0:32
  Oh, we're doing great, Kenny. We're happy to be on here with
• 0:34
  you. Well, I know you, but I don't
• 0:38
  know you real good. I find you, I find you extremely
• 0:42
  interesting because I feel like in a strange way, you and I kind
• 0:49
  of came up the same way. So let's spend 10 or 15 minutes
• 0:54
  at at at at the making of Mark Richards.
• 0:57
  Who, who is Mark Richards? And let's go like this.
• 1:04
  When you started, I know you had about 3 dirt tracks around you,
• 1:09
  Morgantown Speedway, Interstate Raceway, the legendary
• 1:13
  Pennsboro. But there was also an asphalt
• 1:16
  tracking in Heilburg in Pennsylvania.
• 1:19
  But then, but then you sprinkle a little bit of Rodney Combs in
• 1:23
  there and you know, Rodney goes. Nasty.
• 1:26
  We're just starting. Thank you so much.
• 1:29
  So are you a dirt racer or are you an asphalt racer?
• 1:35
  I'm a dirt racer and my dad built the racetrack.
• 1:40
  I was like 4 years old. He built the racetrack across
• 1:42
  the street, which was Interstate 79.
• 1:46
  We ended up being the promoters of it for 15 years.
• 1:49
  Steve and I did from 1990 up until 94.
• 1:55
  I watched my dad build the place when I was four years old, so I
• 1:59
  was really a dirt racer. So my dad had raced in the 50s
• 2:05
  and he had really good cars back in those days and they were
• 2:09
  racing 5-6 nights a week because there was all kinds of little
• 2:12
  speedways around here. I wasn't born until 1960 so my
• 2:17
  dad had done went broke in the racing business and when I came
• 2:22
  along he was a race fan by that time and and he was in the
• 2:26
  construction work and he did the work over here at this racetrack
• 2:30
  for the guy that still owned, well he's he's not here now but
• 2:34
  the guy that owned the property, the family still owns the
• 2:38
  property then that has turned into the auto auction so the
• 2:41
  racetrack is gone. So that's where my ties started.
• 2:45
  My dad would take me to Morgantown Speedway, to
• 2:48
  Pennsborough, to all the local tracks around here and he was a
• 2:51
  big race fan. But there's one thing my dad
• 2:53
  always said because he went broke in racing in the 50s.
• 2:57
  He said you can't make a living in racing.
• 3:00
  But on the other hand my dad would always say if you work
• 3:03
  hard enough you can get anything you want.
• 3:06
  So it kind of, you know, was a double edged sword there with
• 3:10
  that because once I got introduced to racing and we we
• 3:16
  travelled a lot of the local dirt tracks and then we started
• 3:20
  going to Heidelberg. And Heidelberg was the track up
• 3:23
  here by Pittsburgh. And that's where all the big
• 3:26
  asphalt runners back in that day would come in.
• 3:28
  And how Tom Meyer, all them guys would come in and race, Gary
• 3:33
  Blue, Bobby Allison, all them guys back in that day.
• 3:36
  And I'm a little kid. I'm a kid, 10 years old in the
• 3:38
  stands watching these guys. And you know, I watched Ed Howe
• 3:43
  come in with these two green cars and when like crazy like
• 3:49
  those, like Ed Howe was the legend in that day.
• 3:51
  And I still say he's the guy that's got us more.
• 3:55
  So to where we are in short track dirt and short track, late
• 3:59
  model racing because there's a lot of people that have sprung
• 4:02
  off of that Ed Howe deal. You know, Dylan, did you know
• 4:06
  Port City? Did you know Junior Hanley?
• 4:08
  Did you know there was all kinds of guys that sprung off of Ed
• 4:12
  Howe? And you got to realize Ed Howell
• 4:14
  was out of He was pretty much out of it.
• 4:16
  But 1985, he was out of it. I was fortunate enough to be
• 4:21
  with him from 79 to 84 and those were my real, really learning
• 4:27
  years. OK.
• 4:28
  So we're we're going to go there, let's back up a little
• 4:32
  bit you we're going to get to Ed Howell because I find that
• 4:37
  extremely interesting. Mark, let's go down South for a
• 4:42
  little bit. When do you make the move?
• 4:44
  You go to NASCAR, You go down South.
• 4:49
  Tell me about that little jaunt. Well, I I never really made a
• 4:55
  real jaunt back. Let's back up a little bit.
• 4:59
  Morgan Shepherd drove for my brother.
• 5:01
  My brother had all kinds of drivers and I was the guy.
• 5:04
  I was 13 years old and my brother brings a race car home.
• 5:07
  Now my dad's telling me, you know, you can't make a living in
• 5:11
  racing. But he loved racing.
• 5:14
  So he took me to all these races.
• 5:16
  And then my brother brings a car home and my dad's mad because he
• 5:20
  doesn't want me to pull him with a race car.
• 5:22
  You know, he doesn't want me in the pits.
• 5:23
  He doesn't want me doing none of that stuff.
• 5:25
  By the time I was 16, I was building cars because my brother
• 5:30
  had brought a guy from Georgia that worked for Clint Smith's
• 5:33
  dad, Roscoe Smith. Wow.
• 5:36
  What a name. His name?
• 5:38
  His name or I mean he had a guy that worked there.
• 5:41
  His name was Buddy Parker and Buddy moved up here and I worked
• 5:45
  with Buddy for about a year and a half and Buddy was one of the
• 5:49
  old time builders. He could go in the junkyard and
• 5:51
  get frame rails off of a 57 Chevy and front clip off of a 69
• 5:56
  Camaro and spindles off of a 64 Ford.
• 6:01
  And you put all that stuff together and that was a late
• 6:03
  model in that day. That was back in the 70s.
• 6:05
  By the time I was 16, 7475, I was building those cars.
• 6:12
  Well, Rodney Colmes came along, Morgan Shepherd was driving for
• 6:17
  us and for my brother and we was at Newport Speedway in in
• 6:23
  Tennessee and they had an NDRA race, the first NDRA race back
• 6:27
  in the day. And Morgan said I'm going to
• 6:31
  qualify. There was 147 cars and he said
• 6:33
  I'm going to qualify and put that car on the front row.
• 6:37
  The first two cars didn't have to run a heat race.
• 6:40
  He was third. Well, he had to leave that night
• 6:43
  and go race a sportsman. Race back in that day was NASCAR
• 6:46
  Sportsman up South Boston. Which is now Xfinity, yeah.
• 6:50
  Xfinity and Morgan says get somebody to drive it in the heat
• 6:55
  and I'll come back tomorrow. And I'm like, I'm just a young
• 7:00
  kid, you know? And my brother, he owns this
• 7:02
  stuff. He's 20 years older than me and
• 7:06
  Doug Kennemer, which was a World 100 winner back in the day.
• 7:09
  If you look on the world 100 winner, my brother was really
• 7:12
  good friends and we needed a driver to run it in the heat
• 7:15
  race. And Doug said, look, if I don't
• 7:16
  make it, I'll run it. Well, he made the race and we
• 7:20
  talked Robert Smalley, which was the the head guy of NDRA.
• 7:24
  We talked to him into letting us move that car to the tail of the
• 7:27
  16 race from the pole of the first heat to the tail of the
• 7:31
  60. We moved the car to there with
• 7:33
  147 cars there. There's 20 some cars in a heat
• 7:37
  race. So Rodney Combs comes over.
• 7:43
  I didn't, I didn't even know Rodney Combs.
• 7:45
  So Rodney Combs comes over and Doug brings him over and he says
• 7:51
  this guy will run the car if he doesn't make it into his heat.
• 7:55
  Well, Rodney was running third in his heat and he'd sat in the
• 7:59
  car and he'd been wanting to run a car like Doug Kennemer ran.
• 8:02
  And our car was a lot like Doug Kennemer's back in the day.
• 8:06
  And anyhow, he got in the car before the heat and he looked at
• 8:11
  me and I knew when he walked off he was coming back.
• 8:15
  He winked at me and he was running third in the heat race.
• 8:18
  And just so happens, he spins out on the last lap, he comes
• 8:24
  and gets in that car and drives it from the tail and wins the
• 8:27
  heat race with it and the car that I built.
• 8:30
  Wow. And when's the heat race with
• 8:32
  it? So now Rodney's our driver
• 8:35
  because him and his owners got into it and you know, it wasn't,
• 8:39
  it wasn't really a good deal. And you know, Rodney ended up
• 8:43
  driving our car and he raced for us.
• 8:45
  And I got to know Rodney. Rodney was.
• 8:47
  Rodney and I are like brothers because we spent.
• 8:52
  I was 19 when I got 18 when I got around Rodney the first time
• 8:57
  and was with Rodney until I was 26 and we did a lot of stuff
• 9:00
  running up and down the roads and we ran across Rusty and Mike
• 9:04
  back in those days when we were running up and down the road,
• 9:07
  Rusty Wallace and Mike Wallace and I can remember the six car
• 9:11
  that Mike drove very well like we was an I-70 and places like
• 9:15
  that. But anyhow, Rodney ended up
• 9:21
  driving for my brother. Then this guy named JD Stacy
• 9:25
  comes along. Which you probably know who JD
• 9:27
  Stacy was, right? A lot of people knew JD Stacy or
• 9:32
  knew of JD Stacy in the 80s. Because he was a coal miner,
• 9:36
  right? Wasn't.
• 9:38
  Wasn't. He sold coal mining equipment,
• 9:40
  OK, that's where he that's where he came from.
• 9:44
  He was selling a piece of mining equipment that the Dutch
• 9:47
  government was promoting, and he had open checkbook.
• 9:51
  That's where a lot of the money was coming from back in the day.
• 9:56
  So he walked in my brother's shop.
• 9:58
  He was up here selling a piece of mining equipment.
• 10:00
  My brother was wanting to get out of racing at that time and
• 10:03
  he was wanting to move to Alabama.
• 10:05
  So with another coal miner, his name was Dick White.
• 10:11
  With another coal miner, they walked in the shop and they said
• 10:14
  we want to buy everything here and we want him to go to
• 10:16
  workforce pointing at you. Oh yeah.
• 10:20
  Yeah, he wanted me to go to work for him because they had heard I
• 10:22
  was building these cars, you know, like when I was a
• 10:25
  teenager. So he bought everything my
• 10:29
  brother had JD Stacy did and there was a guy driving for us,
• 10:33
  David Spears at the time, and he was a great driver.
• 10:36
  He was from Campbellsville, KY He was a great driver.
• 10:39
  He raced 2 races, won both of those races and he was at the
• 10:44
  shop. We were getting ready for
• 10:46
  another race and the next thing I know he's gone.
• 10:50
  So the one of the guys that worked there said I took him to
• 10:53
  the airport. He wanted to go to the airport,
• 10:56
  so he went to the local airport, got an airplane ride out of here
• 10:59
  and flew back home. Well, back then there was no
• 11:02
  cell phone, so you really couldn't keep up with nobody,
• 11:05
  You know, there's no way to get back in contact with him.
• 11:07
  So he had to get back to the house before I could find out.
• 11:10
  Well, he got nervous because of all the money that JD Stacy was,
• 11:15
  you know, using and all that. So he got nervous.
• 11:19
  He'd never been around anything like that.
• 11:21
  Did he think it was illegal money?
• 11:23
  Did he think it was bad? I.
• 11:25
  Don't know whether he knew that, but we went to eat and JD had
• 11:29
  probably 30 people there. Just had a, you know, high end
• 11:33
  restaurant back in the 80s. And.
• 11:36
  The night before and and David Spears is like he's never, he
• 11:40
  told me, he said. I've never been around nothing
• 11:41
  like that. So they said get some, get
• 11:49
  somebody to drive. Well, Rodney had drove for my
• 11:50
  brother and that had went bad. That ended not well because he
• 11:55
  blew up every we blew up every engine my brother had and just
• 11:59
  about put my brother out at racing.
• 12:00
  But Rodney drove hard and he was hard like on the engines.
• 12:06
  So we blew up all these engines and my brother and Rodney, they
• 12:10
  parted ways. But I liked Rodney, and Rodney
• 12:14
  and I become friends. And I said, well, we'll get
• 12:17
  Rodney Combs up here to drive. So I called Rodney and he moved.
• 12:20
  He came up here and met with Stacy, met with Dick White, the
• 12:24
  guy that was in with Stacy, and they told him they'd pay for him
• 12:28
  to move to West Virginia so he could be right here.
• 12:31
  And he was down the road a little ways.
• 12:33
  A company with that we formed was called WRC back in the day.
• 12:37
  And Rodney and I formed that company with Dick White.
• 12:41
  Dick White was the WI was the R and Rodney was the C and Rodney
• 12:45
  said, look, I can come and do it with one exception.
• 12:50
  I said what's that? He said.
• 12:51
  We got to run Ed Howe's house cars.
• 12:55
  And you're building cars? Well, well, I was.
• 12:59
  Half. You know what I mean?
• 13:02
  I really wasn't like Ed Howe, you know?
• 13:04
  I'm some local kid from West Virginia that got a, you know, a
• 13:08
  love for racing and I'm building cars so I get a chance to go
• 13:11
  work with this guy that I watched when I was 10 years old
• 13:14
  with these races at Heidelberg, you know, just dominate.
• 13:18
  So this is. A big moment for me.
• 13:20
  Right now it's a big moment for me because I that was the guy.
• 13:26
  I still say he changed the landscape of where we are today
• 13:32
  because I learned to scale cars. Nobody was scaling cars.
• 13:38
  Everybody had a weight Jack, and you walked around with this
• 13:40
  weight Jack and his hydraulic weight Jack, and you checked
• 13:42
  weight and Ed was scaling cars. I learned real quick that this
• 13:47
  Ed Howe was way ahead of everybody else, and there's a
• 13:51
  guy there named Let. Me interrupt you?
• 13:53
  Yeah. Let me interrupt you.
• 13:54
  Hold on. I I don't.
• 13:55
  I'm sorry. I find Ed Howe.
• 13:59
  He's like, he's Dutch. He's he, he, you know, guys like
• 14:04
  Mike, Eddie, Bob Sineker. I can put them all in the
• 14:07
  circle. I can put Bob Sineker, Mike,
• 14:11
  Eddie, you know Ed Howe. These people are of a different
• 14:15
  breed from Beavertown, Michigan. Extremely smart.
• 14:19
  OK, now, now, I just wanted to let the fans know this.
• 14:22
  Go ahead. Well, he was like the ultimate
• 14:29
  guy back in those days, you know what I mean?
• 14:32
  Like when his car showed up, they won.
• 14:34
  So I now I've got the opportunity at 19 years old, the
• 14:37
  crew chief Ed House dirt car program.
• 14:41
  That's pretty big, right? That's bigger than big because
• 14:43
  I, I, I'm, I'm 60 years old right now and I was born in 63.
• 14:47
  Not much difference between you and myself and there's so much
• 14:51
  to say but I want to keep hearing your your line here,
• 14:55
  how, how, how you got to where you're at.
• 14:57
  This is good stuff. So anyhow, we go, we go racing,
• 15:02
  I go away. I don't know this guy.
• 15:03
  You know, Ed, a really dry guy, like he's dead serious, 100%.
• 15:12
  There's no yes, with Ed Howe and a lot of people.
• 15:16
  I I mean, I may have got a little bit at from Ed, you know,
• 15:20
  I've always been pretty serious and people didn't understand me.
• 15:23
  But when Ed got away from the racetrack, Ed was a great guy.
• 15:28
  But at the racetrack, there was no BS.
• 15:31
  And you know, he would do the craziest stuff, like when you
• 15:36
  were away from the racetrack and you were just going down the
• 15:38
  road. He's, he's liable to say the
• 15:41
  craziest stuff you ever heard or do the craziest stuff you ever
• 15:44
  seen. He just was a kid.
• 15:45
  I mean, he was like a big kid, But at the racetrack, this guy
• 15:49
  was dead serious and there was no BS.
• 15:52
  And Rodney got me introduced and and then we took over that house
• 15:57
  car program. So now we're racing with JD,
• 16:01
  Stacy, Ed House Cars and we're racing out of West Virginia with
• 16:06
  a shop that Rodney had up the street from here or down the
• 16:09
  street from here. And Rodney and I form a business
• 16:12
  with this other partner which we later bought out.
• 16:16
  And you know, we're racing all over the country and Stacy would
• 16:20
  come and race with us. He would come to the races with
• 16:25
  us as much as he'd go to those NASCAR races.
• 16:28
  There was a guy named Booby. Eric, did you know Booby?
• 16:31
  No, booby very good. He's the one that originally
• 16:34
  started taking all the pit equipment, the tires to the
• 16:37
  NASCAR. Guy after that did that, but
• 16:40
  Booby was JD's right hand man and when JD would come to the
• 16:44
  races, the dirt races, we got to know Booby well.
• 16:48
  Rodney had some asphalt experience and JD was on me to
• 16:56
  become a crop cub crew chief. He's like as hard as you work
• 17:00
  and all this stuff you do building these cars and you
• 17:03
  know, I'm not. Look, it's different today.
• 17:06
  I can't do it. I could never even think about
• 17:08
  doing what I did back in those days.
• 17:10
  I could go for 3-4 days and not sleep and work on cars, build
• 17:15
  cars. I go to Ed's, build a new car
• 17:18
  and not go to bed until it was done.
• 17:20
  And that might be 3 days. You know that you never even
• 17:23
  thought about going to sleep. And that's the way we were back
• 17:27
  then, yes. That's the way the racing was,
• 17:29
  Kenny, because we had to build everything.
• 17:31
  And we loved it. And we loved it.
• 17:34
  And I loved it. I love my experience with Ed
• 17:37
  Howe. Her brand.
• 17:38
  You know her. Her brand is.
• 17:39
  No, don't know that name. OK, Brand was the guy that
• 17:43
  started brand transmission. Herb was, he was head.
• 17:46
  He was Ed's partner when he was the engineer there.
• 17:49
  And I got to really know Herb well.
• 17:51
  We're still great friends. He sold out of the brand
• 17:53
  transmission thing. But when I'm racing, he's
• 17:56
  texting me, he's 80, some years old and he's still into it.
• 18:02
  So anyhow, this JD, Stacy, Rodney and I were running all
• 18:07
  over the country. We're at I-70.
• 18:09
  We're at Tri-City back in the day, and Rusty and Mike and I
• 18:13
  don't remember you that much back then, but I remember them
• 18:16
  that much back, you know, a lot back then.
• 18:19
  Like, and for everybody that's listening, what you're talking
• 18:22
  about is our tracks around the Saint Louis area, yes.
• 18:25
  Well, yeah, well, we raced all over the country back in those
• 18:28
  days with a little box van and an open trailer.
• 18:31
  I mean it was nothing for us to leave East side of Ohio and say
• 18:36
  all right, we're going to Kansas City tomorrow to race and we're
• 18:38
  in a box van and we and we did that stuff.
• 18:42
  It was crazy, but I got to know Mike and I got to know Rusty.
• 18:47
  And like I said, I don't remember you that much back in
• 18:49
  those days, but I do remember them really well.
• 18:52
  And I'll have a funny story about Mike here a little bit.
• 18:58
  OK, yeah. So we've we've established your
• 19:05
  your start and if we keep going the way we're going we'll be 3
• 19:11
  hours and they'll have to be a Part 2.
• 19:12
  So we we've let everybody that knows who you are right now.
• 19:17
  You're the innovator of rocket chassis.
• 19:19
  You're known as one of the smartest people in 2024 your
• 19:23
  cars win all the time. Now let's let's move forward a
• 19:27
  little bit. Mark, what I want to know from
• 19:31
  you is that engineering mind you have that that what I call Ed
• 19:38
  Howe, Bob Sinek or Mike Eddie very serious at the racetrack.
• 19:42
  We don't mess around. Did that come from your dad?
• 19:46
  Did that come from your mom or did you have you are have you
• 19:50
  been emulating Ed Howell all this time?
• 19:54
  I think it's a combination of a little bit of my dad and
• 20:01
  probably a lot of Ed Howell, because I respected that guy a
• 20:04
  lot. I respected that guy a lot and
• 20:09
  you know, he was my mentor. And when people say where did
• 20:13
  you go to school, I say Beaverton MI.
• 20:16
  Yes. Because I lived up there.
• 20:19
  I mean, when I say live there, I was there a lot, you know what I
• 20:23
  mean? I was back and forth from
• 20:26
  wherever we were racing. I mean, a lot of times we would
• 20:28
  leave the racetrack and drive straight back to Beaverton, MI
• 20:31
  to build a new car and not even come back to our home shop, you
• 20:35
  know, at the time. And Rodney and I got in business
• 20:40
  by selling our cars on the road. And you know, we, we would race
• 20:46
  and be successful and sell our car and then have to drive
• 20:50
  straight to Michigan to build another one And two or three
• 20:53
  days. I'd have a new car on the truck
• 20:55
  ready to go again and we'd sell that car and you know, back then
• 21:00
  we'd make maybe 5-10 grand on a car.
• 21:04
  And that we didn't have any money.
• 21:06
  Rodney and I didn't have any money to say to speak of as much
• 21:10
  to be in business, but that's how we got in business and it's
• 21:14
  pretty much how Steve Baker and I got in business.
• 21:16
  Yeah, I want to go with Steve Baker now.
• 21:21
  I'm sorry. I don't mean to insult your
• 21:24
  intelligence. I'm dumb on this part.
• 21:27
  Tell me about Steve Baker. Who is Steve Baker?
• 21:32
  The best partner anybody could ask for in any type, any type of
• 21:36
  business. Yes.
• 21:39
  The reason we have been so successful, when I say I have
• 21:43
  been successful, the reason I've been successful, it's been
• 21:46
  because of Steve Baker. Wow.
• 21:49
  And the reason Steve Baker's been successful, he will tell
• 21:52
  you it's been because of me, Yeah, and you're a good team
• 21:55
  together. Together we made a great team.
• 21:58
  And I feel like we both. He called me one day and that
• 22:06
  was after I sold out to Rodney. I sold out to Rodney in 1986.
• 22:10
  I got married in 85 and I was on the I was going to work every
• 22:17
  day, work until midnight. Well, I figured out that wasn't
• 22:19
  going to work. You know, I was driving 40
• 22:22
  minutes to work and going there eight, 9:00 in the morning and
• 22:26
  not coming home till 1:00 in the morning and just got married.
• 22:29
  So I figured out that that wasn't going to work.
• 22:32
  So I quit. Here I am 26 years old and been
• 22:37
  in business with Rodney since night, since 79.
• 22:41
  You know, we were in business seven years in 1986.
• 22:44
  I sell out to him and I'm just going to get me a regular job
• 22:47
  because I I'm like, I can't do this racing because there wasn't
• 22:50
  much money in racing back then. Racing wasn't where you could
• 22:53
  just make a living at it. You had to work really hard and
• 22:56
  there was very little money. And that's why I didn't go to
• 22:59
  NASCAR, because you know, Stacy wanted me to go down there when
• 23:04
  he bought the Austinland team, when Dale Earnhardt was driving
• 23:08
  for Austinland, Stacy said stop in because we need Rodney to
• 23:13
  drive this car and we want you to train under Dale Inman.
• 23:19
  So I we we stop in there one day at the old Austinland shop.
• 23:23
  I remember, Rod. Austin Yep.
• 23:25
  And and they're showing us around, Boobies showing us
• 23:28
  around and JD showing us a brown.
• 23:30
  And they said, I met Dale Inman and they said, Mark, you're
• 23:32
  going to work under Dale Inman. I mean really, if that was the
• 23:37
  direction I wanted to go, what better opportunity could you go
• 23:39
  out? Richard's head?
• 23:41
  He's crew chief. Yeah.
• 23:43
  So Dale was in there working for Stacy at that time at Osterland.
• 23:49
  So we decided that we were dirt racers that day.
• 23:54
  Rodney and I decided that we're going to keep dirt racing
• 23:57
  because we like the life we got. You know, we're dirt racers.
• 24:00
  Well, they said if you don't take this deal, we got a guy
• 24:04
  that's stopping in here in a little bit.
• 24:06
  So we're just hanging out there. So this guy pulls up in this
• 24:09
  little Porsche, gets out, he's got hair flowing down over his
• 24:15
  back, looks like a girl got silk shorts on, which you got to
• 24:20
  realize this was probably 81 or 82.
• 24:25
  I can't wait to hear who this is.
• 24:28
  And Dale and and here Dale Earnhardt had just quit the two
• 24:33
  car. He was driving that car the week
• 24:36
  before. Dale Earnhardt.
• 24:38
  OK. Yeah.
• 24:39
  Which in those days you heard Dale Earnhardt.
• 24:41
  You didn't think of it the way you think of it now, or you
• 24:45
  know, a few. He was wrecking everybody's
• 24:46
  stuff. Yeah, so he didn't like Stacy's
• 24:50
  deal and they had the Wrangler on the car.
• 24:52
  So that changed over to that Stacy pack Whenever they did the
• 24:56
  vitamin deal and this guy walks in, gets out of this little
• 25:01
  Porsche walks in, and JD says I want to introduce you to Tim
• 25:05
  Richmond. That's who I thought you was
• 25:07
  going to say. And he said, if you guys, if you
• 25:12
  guys don't want this deal, Tim Richmond is here and is going to
• 25:17
  take over driving this car. Well, I've never heard of Tim
• 25:20
  Richmond. None of us had, you know,
• 25:22
  because back then it wasn't all the media, all the stuff online
• 25:27
  like there is today, you know, So we had to figure out who Tim
• 25:33
  Richmond was. Well, we get to read in the
• 25:35
  papers. Tim Richmond wins this USAC
• 25:37
  race. You know, he's winning.
• 25:38
  Well, let me tell you something. About a month after that,
• 25:41
  everybody knew who Tim Richmond was because that guy was
• 25:46
  unbelievable, you know, in a Cup car.
• 25:49
  And you know, that was my my connection.
• 25:52
  That almost made it to NASCAR. That's when I change my path in
• 25:56
  life and or pick the the right lane instead of the left lane at
• 26:01
  the Y and I went to the dirt stuff.
• 26:04
  OK, so let's Fast forward. I want to say I'm sorry that we
• 26:09
  can't do every little thing. So I know Dave.
• 26:13
  I know, I know of Davey Johnson. I raced him in the Bush series.
• 26:18
  I knew he was a great dirt racer.
• 26:20
  So, Mark, we're fast forwarding. Yes.
• 26:24
  So Davey wins a really big race in one of your cars with your
• 26:30
  well with one of your front ends on it.
• 26:32
  OK, with the legendary blue front end, he.
• 26:36
  Actually it was. It wasn't the blue front end
• 26:38
  yet, but I'll bring you up to speed.
• 26:40
  Steve and I goes in business at 86.
• 26:43
  Got to go quick. We're 1/2 hour already.
• 26:46
  Steve says, all right, you know, Ray Callahan wants us to go into
• 26:51
  business. And I and I, that's when I left
• 26:53
  Rodney's and I've said I'm going to do something different in
• 26:55
  life. And I I was dittling around and
• 26:58
  I didn't really have to be back to work that quick, but I was
• 27:03
  trying to figure out where I wanted to go.
• 27:04
  So Steve's a great guy and I wanted to be, I wanted to go in
• 27:10
  business with Steve. So Steve says let's sell bullet
• 27:13
  cars and we built a little shop here on the property where we're
• 27:17
  at now. My dad gave me an acre of ground
• 27:20
  and I built a little 4000 square foot shop and that's what we
• 27:23
  started then. So we were selling bullet cars,
• 27:26
  picking them up in Indiana, putting them together and we
• 27:31
  were selling quite a few of them.
• 27:32
  We'd sell 75 to 100 of them a year, which was quite a few in
• 27:36
  those days. That's a lot.
• 27:37
  And and then and then it got bad.
• 27:42
  It got, it went bad. Master built came along and the
• 27:45
  bullet thing slowed up and we couldn't sell a car.
• 27:50
  So make a Long story short. I'm going to Fast forward here.
• 27:53
  I had Callahan to build me a car.
• 27:57
  A bull. It was a bullet car quote with
• 28:00
  the changes that I wanted for Rocket or or not, I didn't know
• 28:04
  Rocket the changes I wanted. Yeah, yeah.
• 28:07
  And we put this car together and Davy Johnson had just came back
• 28:12
  from the Bush deal and he was trying to get a dirt ride.
• 28:16
  And Davey and I are again, me and him's like brothers and I
• 28:20
  know Davey well, and Davey wanted to drive, but I wasn't
• 28:25
  sure I wanted Davey to drive. So he finally called my wife at
• 28:30
  the time and my son Josh and talked them into it because he
• 28:35
  was friends. We were all friends.
• 28:37
  And I said, OK, I'll let you drive.
• 28:42
  So we went to West Virginia Motor Speedway and this car was
• 28:46
  new and he won two races that day.
• 28:49
  They were double features, stars, events, which they were
• 28:52
  big events at that time. He won both races that day, beat
• 28:56
  Donnie Moran, beat the top guys. Well, the car was different.
• 29:01
  When I got home, Ray Callahan called me on Monday and he said
• 29:07
  that car is a lot better, but there's not going to be any more
• 29:10
  of them. Well, we sold five that day and
• 29:14
  I said, what do you mean there's not going to be any more of
• 29:16
  them? He said.
• 29:18
  I should have never built that car.
• 29:21
  In a way he was a little bit right, because that car kind of
• 29:25
  changed the way you drove and back before that, there was a
• 29:31
  lot of sideways sliding through the corner and this car had to
• 29:35
  be driven straight. You know, it was more of a drive
• 29:38
  track car. If you can for a minute, I know
• 29:41
  it's going to be hard on your brain.
• 29:43
  What was? What was different in that car?
• 29:46
  You don't got to tell me one thing, but what was different
• 29:48
  about that car? We narrowed that car up.
• 29:52
  That car had a wide. The the original how car or the
• 29:54
  original bullet car was a wide track car.
• 29:57
  It was really wide. So we narrowed the car up 3
• 30:01
  inches. We straightened the the lease
• 30:03
  springs were really angled so that made them stiff.
• 30:07
  So we straighten the lease springs up and made the car
• 30:11
  softer, made the suspension softer and look the bullet cars
• 30:17
  in the day were really great cars, but they ran fast in the
• 30:20
  mud. They didn't run fast when it was
• 30:23
  slick so. Where the money was made.
• 30:26
  Where the money was made and we changed the front end geometry.
• 30:29
  I had him to put some different spindles.
• 30:31
  At that time AFCO was big and AFCO had a front end and I put
• 30:35
  the AFCO front end on that car. It was way before the blue front
• 30:39
  end car. And anyhow we built the car and
• 30:42
  then Callahan calls me on Monday and says there's not going to be
• 30:45
  any more of them cars. And I said you're forgetting I
• 30:49
  built cars. You know, I I that's my history
• 30:53
  is building cars. And I just hired the boy that
• 30:57
  had took my place at Rodney's because Rodney had moved to
• 31:00
  Charlotte. He went in with Richard and did
• 31:03
  the driving school thing with Barry Graham and Rodney and
• 31:07
  Barry Graham and Richard did that driving school thing
• 31:09
  together and Rodney left here and moved to Charlotte.
• 31:12
  Rodney also did a lot of stuff in the diecast business with
• 31:17
  action with Fred and all that back in the original days.
• 31:21
  But anyhow, I hired this kid that works for Rodney.
• 31:25
  Had to just gradually graduate. I want to say something about
• 31:28
  that it it blew my mind that such an incredible dirt racer.
• 31:34
  I mean Rodney Combs back then was equal to Bloomquist Moyer
• 31:39
  and all of a sudden one day just he's selling diecast cars high
• 31:42
  end. And I admire Rodney and I know
• 31:45
  Rodney it it. I just wanted to say that it
• 31:49
  just we all change in life, but. We change and Rodney, Rodney had
• 31:54
  done very well in Australia and he had done well.
• 31:59
  He took WRC to to Charlotte and I think he sold out to Pete
• 32:03
  Pistone's son or son-in-law or somebody ended up buying WRC off
• 32:08
  of it. And then he started that driving
• 32:10
  school with Richard and Barry Graham from Australia and then
• 32:15
  he sold out of that to Rich, the the Bush team and everything.
• 32:18
  He sold out and got his portion out of it.
• 32:21
  And then he went to Florida and kind of semi retired and that's
• 32:25
  how he got back into the diecast thing and that's what he does
• 32:28
  today. Rodney's 10 years older than me.
• 32:31
  That's why I always know how old Rodney is, because I know it's
• 32:34
  right at 10 years. So right, so how do we get to
• 32:39
  now? Now we need to get to Rocket
• 32:40
  chassis. OK.
• 32:42
  So Steve and I go in business in 86 and we called it Mark
• 32:46
  Richards Racing. We sold bullet cars.
• 32:48
  So now Callahan's not going to build these cars.
• 32:50
  This is where we're at. Callahan's not going to build.
• 32:52
  These cars. And I'm like, you're forgetting
• 32:55
  I built cars. Well, I just hired this kid that
• 32:58
  worked for Rodney and he's. I got to say he is another piece
• 33:03
  of this company that since Rocket chassis started.
• 33:07
  He's a big piece of it. He's still there.
• 33:11
  We built over 6200 cars since that in 1991 / 6200.
• 33:18
  I like this. I'm going to say that loud and
• 33:20
  proud. I had, you know, I I did my
• 33:22
  studying on you. You were two pages.
• 33:24
  I was, you know, at 5000. So now you're at 6000 200.
• 33:31
  Are you OK, this is. Let's hold.
• 33:33
  Let's hold it for a minute here. Are you now the number one, have
• 33:38
  you surpassed CJ Rayburn? Have you surpassed at how?
• 33:43
  Where are you at? I know.
• 33:45
  I think you're the biggest. Where are you at?
• 33:47
  I don't know what kind of records they had.
• 33:50
  I know. I kind of know what GRT did and
• 33:53
  I kind of know what Callahan did with the bullet thing that I
• 33:57
  think they were close to 3000 when they went out.
• 34:01
  And I don't know if there was any records cap of the Rayburn
• 34:04
  thing. So I'm not going to claim that.
• 34:05
  I'm not going to claim that we're bigger.
• 34:07
  But you got to realize, Kenny, we've been doing this for over
• 34:10
  30 years and there was years we were building, we were building
• 34:14
  over 300 cars a year in the heyday.
• 34:17
  Yeah, you're you're the biggest now.
• 34:20
  I'm going to brag on you. So Larry Shaw's a very good
• 34:23
  friend of mine and Larry built that mod about four years ago,
• 34:27
  never raced it but he put 5000 on it.
• 34:30
  He said Kenny Wallace, I talk, I talk to Shaw every week or so
• 34:34
  and and he said Kenny Wallace, I just outdid Ed.
• 34:37
  How I said what are you talking about?
• 34:38
  He goes 5000 so everybody respond right here, right now.
• 34:43
  In my opinion, you are the number one most built dirt car
• 34:47
  in the history of dirt racing. I wanted to brag on you and
• 34:51
  that's that's my results. So go ahead.
• 34:54
  So we hire this kid and there's three of us and we're actually
• 34:59
  going when when Callahan says there's not going to be any more
• 35:02
  than cars. I was at a crossroads because I
• 35:06
  was 1/4 of $1,000,000 in debt. I had no cars sold except the
• 35:09
  five I sold that day with that car winning.
• 35:12
  And now he says, we're not going to build these cars.
• 35:16
  So I walked out in the shop and Steve Baker was there and Scott
• 35:20
  Perky, This is the guy that works for me.
• 35:22
  Scott Perky. Scott Perky, I said we got two
• 35:27
  options. I said we got I had no
• 35:31
  inventory, $2000 would have covered my inventory.
• 35:34
  I owed 1/4 of $1,000,000 in debt and I had to make the decision
• 35:38
  to go to work. Listen to this, kids.
• 35:41
  Listen to this. Kids I look at any time there's
• 35:45
  a small business, Kenny, somebody has to make a decision,
• 35:49
  and it's usually a serious decision.
• 35:53
  In order for that business to be successful, somebody has to make
• 35:57
  that decision. So I went out in the shop and I
• 35:59
  and I got Steve, my partner, and Scott, the only employee we had,
• 36:03
  and the only guy getting a paycheck.
• 36:04
  Because you got to realize Steve and I wasn't even getting a
• 36:07
  paycheck. I was selling used cars, used
• 36:10
  trucks, trying to make enough money for Steve and I to live on
• 36:15
  top of that we had. We took the racetrack over
• 36:17
  across the street. And it was like Brian Shirley
• 36:20
  selling cars. So we go race dirt cars.
• 36:23
  Well, and we took the racetrack over and we were doing fairly
• 36:26
  well with the racetrack and Steve and I did wasn't taking no
• 36:31
  money out of the company and the only person was getting paid was
• 36:33
  Scott. He was the only guy getting a
• 36:35
  check from Mark Richards Racing at that time.
• 36:39
  Well, Davey drove the car, won those two races, he said.
• 36:42
  That thing comes off the corner like a rocket.
• 36:45
  I said there's our name. So Davey actually dubbed the
• 36:48
  name the Dave. The name came from Davey Johnson
• 36:51
  Dublin Rocket chassis. And we started and I told the
• 36:57
  guys, I said, look, we got two choices, either I declare
• 37:01
  bankrupt, we declare bankruptcy or we get to work and they said
• 37:06
  let's go to work. So there was three of us and I
• 37:10
  built. I stayed there on Thanksgiving
• 37:16
  weekend in 1991 and finished the first car.
• 37:20
  And when that when Scott and Steve came back on Monday, I had
• 37:23
  the car done, the first rocket, the bridge, the original first
• 37:28
  rocket, car #1, serial number #1.
• 37:32
  And you know we had no idea what was going to happen because it
• 37:35
  was new territory for us at that time.
• 37:38
  I mean I'd built cars prior to that but not heading into a it's
• 37:43
  going to become a business like it ended up being.
• 37:46
  So the first year we sold like 60 cars and it and you know Ray
• 37:50
  Callahan was right, I got to give him credit that he.
• 37:54
  Felt like those. Cars was going to be hard to
• 37:57
  change the way people drives because people drove sideways.
• 38:02
  Yeah, shake it on entry. And and you remember the.
• 38:05
  Days of of guys like Ed Dixon and guys like that back in the
• 38:09
  day, they violent sideways, violent, violent.
• 38:13
  So these cars wouldn't run sideways.
• 38:16
  They'd spin out. So I it took me about a year and
• 38:24
  a half or two years to figure out how to keep them from
• 38:27
  spinning out. Number one, the steering was too
• 38:30
  slow. That was one of the biggest
• 38:31
  things that we changed was speed of the racks up because back
• 38:34
  then it was a 2 1/2 inch rack. So the guy was, you know, sawing
• 38:39
  on the wheel like crazy trying to keep up with this thing and
• 38:42
  couldn't keep up with it. So we shortened the steering
• 38:44
  arm. There was a lot of stuff that we
• 38:45
  done in the day to get it to where we could race these
• 38:48
  things. And by I'm going to say 2-3
• 38:53
  years later, we're building 150 to 200 cars a year and people's
• 38:58
  coming. We got, we're starting to get,
• 39:01
  you know, all kinds of guys in our cars and then Tim Hick comes
• 39:05
  along. And we're running a house car.
• 39:09
  Program with him in 1992. It started a year after we
• 39:13
  started building cars. I didn't have any money.
• 39:15
  He didn't have any money. I said, look, I'll furnish a
• 39:17
  car, you furnish a motor, We buy an old junk van and an old junk
• 39:22
  trailer. We start racing.
• 39:24
  Well, about 1996. The dirt late model industry was
• 39:33
  starting to change because we were starting to get a lot more
• 39:37
  people paying attention, a lot more people building these cars.
• 39:41
  We had GRT in the business, we had masterbuild in the business.
• 39:46
  Callahan was starting to get out of the business because his son
• 39:49
  got his son got sick and and ended up dying at a young age.
• 39:54
  I mean Brett passed away and his son was the the the key to that
• 39:58
  business. So this kid that works for me
• 40:01
  now is welding helping me Weld these cars up through the 90s.
• 40:06
  And by the late 90s, I'm starting to get to where I'm out
• 40:10
  of the welding part. And now Scott's taking that over
• 40:15
  and we've hired somebody to Weld with him.
• 40:17
  One thing I want to say about Scott Perky.
• 40:21
  Over 6200 cars. He's welded on every one of
• 40:24
  them. That's amazing.
• 40:25
  Scott Perky, ladies and gentlemen.
• 40:27
  Remember that name. He's welded it on every.
• 40:31
  One of those cars that has been built, that's a tough man
• 40:36
  because. I call that foundry work.
• 40:38
  You know, Rusty, Mike and myself, dingleberries in your
• 40:42
  ears. Got to be a professional welder.
• 40:46
  Scott is one of the. Most efficient guys, I know it
• 40:49
  would take two to three people to keep up with him and do what
• 40:53
  he does, what he's done over the years because he's constant
• 40:57
  motion, like he's working as he's going to do something else.
• 41:01
  He's making something else happen.
• 41:03
  So he might be nauseous a piece of tubing over here cutting a
• 41:06
  piece of tubing and over here been in a piece of tubing all
• 41:10
  three jobs going on at one one time.
• 41:12
  So it's just hard to find people that have that kind of drive and
• 41:18
  he's got that and how demeanor about it like he's a serious guy
• 41:23
  you know he doesn't and and some people get offended by the way
• 41:29
  that you know that type of personality is you understand
• 41:34
  what I'm saying. They don't understand.
• 41:36
  I want to. I've heard.
• 41:37
  Everything out there, I've heard that you're a hard ass.
• 41:40
  And for everybody listening to this right now, you don't
• 41:44
  listen. People say to me, why do you
• 41:46
  like Donald Trump? I said because he's just like my
• 41:49
  brother Rusty Wallace. He's just like Larry Phillips.
• 41:52
  When I was around Larry Phillips and my brother Rusty, there was
• 41:55
  no time for any bullshit. I know Larry well.
• 41:59
  Right. So I mean I.
• 42:00
  Watched somebody come up to Larry Phillips at Springfield.
• 42:04
  You know, I'm maybe nine years old.
• 42:06
  Larry, give me your autograph. And Larry, turn around and say,
• 42:09
  boy, here's a dime. Go call someone like here.
• 42:12
  I don't got no time for you right now.
• 42:14
  I grew up with my feelings getting crushed.
• 42:17
  Nobody hurts my feelings, you know, Mark.
• 42:20
  Nobody. I grew up.
• 42:22
  I don't mean to hurt. I don't mean to.
• 42:24
  Hurt feelings. But what a lot of people took
• 42:27
  and didn't understand. And if you listen to what I'd
• 42:30
  said, Steve and I didn't have any money.
• 42:32
  We're almost bankrupt. So when you're when you're at
• 42:35
  that point, yeah, shit. Serious.
• 42:39
  Shit. Serious.
• 42:40
  Because you could go on, you could go under and I kept my
• 42:44
  nose to the grindstone and when Josh was here and my son drove
• 42:49
  and you know, he had a very successful career in dirt cars.
• 42:55
  That was just me and Josh. And one other guy, we ran this
• 42:58
  race team out of here. We didn't have any other help.
• 43:01
  And we work. Look, I work seven days a week
• 43:04
  because to run a race team at the level we're trying to race
• 43:08
  even, well, we race today. We were trying to do that in
• 43:11
  2008, 2009 when Josh, Josh started in O 4.
• 43:16
  So I can say O four. We were trying to do that and I
• 43:19
  didn't have any money to pay help.
• 43:22
  So you work your butt off if you want to make it.
• 43:25
  And back in those days I was still working like I was at Ed
• 43:28
  House, you know, work for a couple days, not go to bed.
• 43:33
  And you know, I did all the jobs and then get in the truck and
• 43:37
  drive the truck to Kansas City or wherever it may be, Nebraska
• 43:42
  or South Dakota and take my kid racing.
• 43:45
  Because you got to realize my kid never raced anything except
• 43:49
  a dirt late model car. He never raced a go Kart.
• 43:52
  He never raced a crate car. He never raced A modified.
• 43:55
  He climbed in the first day. Steve Francis was driving for
• 43:58
  me. And Josh never did ask to get in
• 44:02
  the car. And he'd come in one day after
• 44:04
  school on this four Wheeler on two wheels, 15 years old riding
• 44:11
  around us. We're in the infield practicing
• 44:13
  across the street at the dirt track across the street that we
• 44:16
  was running. And I said, hey, you want to
• 44:19
  drive that car? And he said, I don't care, I
• 44:22
  don't care. I said we'll get in there and
• 44:24
  drive it. You got to realize he grew up.
• 44:28
  With me and was on the road with me by the time he was 5-6 years
• 44:31
  old. So he understood racing.
• 44:33
  He absorbed the knowledge. Without teaching, he saw, he
• 44:36
  absorbed way more of it. Than I thought he did and but at
• 44:41
  the racetrack he was driving a pack car at six years old.
• 44:44
  He wanted to drive a pack car at six years old and I seen he
• 44:47
  could do it and I got out one day and I said there you go, he
• 44:50
  ran for two hours at six years old.
• 44:53
  Now who put, I mean what kid gets in a car at six years old,
• 44:57
  a full size car, an old run in car that we ran the track in
• 45:00
  with and drive for two hours. That's when you knew you had.
• 45:04
  Something special. Well, so he.
• 45:06
  Gets in this car with Francis. That day Francis had been
• 45:10
  practicing. He gets in the first.
• 45:13
  Lap he was within. 4/10 of Steve and about 6 or 8 laps later he
• 45:19
  was right there at Steve's speed.
• 45:21
  And Steve turns around, looks at me.
• 45:23
  Steve will verify all this. He said there's your next
• 45:26
  driver. I said, yeah, you might be
• 45:28
  right. I said it looks like it.
• 45:31
  So Bard Hartman drove for me the next year.
• 45:35
  Bard Hartman, man. What?
• 45:37
  A name. He drove the house car.
• 45:39
  And Josh, we was dragging him along and when I was home I'd
• 45:42
  take him local race and by the time he was 68 races into it,
• 45:50
  he. He could go run an.
• 45:51
  Outlaw race and make the race like with 70 cars there and we
• 45:56
  did that at Lernerville, 6 races into it.
• 45:58
  There were 77 cars there. You know I take Josh on the road
• 46:02
  that first year and Bart sees he's starting to run as good as
• 46:06
  Bart and beating Bart some nights and Bart's like at the
• 46:10
  end of the year. He said look man, you just, he
• 46:11
  was really great about it. He said you need to take him
• 46:13
  racing. So the next year was our first
• 46:16
  year out on the road and he won rookie of the year and he won
• 46:19
  his first World of Outlaw race. The next year at Lebanon Valley
• 46:25
  over in New York he won over there at Halle Commander's Track
• 46:28
  and that was Josh's first win because he didn't run local.
• 46:33
  We had him out running the Outlaws 25 races into his
• 46:37
  career. He was on the road with us, so
• 46:40
  he grew up quick and and raced a lot and won a lot of races in
• 46:45
  the in his career and won championships.
• 46:48
  He won five or six national championships and you know he
• 46:52
  just decided that he wanted to do something different in life.
• 46:56
  I I want to. You know I have to.
• 47:01
  I have to talk to you about. You your boy.
• 47:04
  I know you love your son very much.
• 47:07
  When my wife and myself got married, Father John who married
• 47:14
  my wife and myself, he said be careful, competition will kill
• 47:18
  you. You know, I broke out in hives
• 47:21
  before, you know, worried about, you know, doing good in my
• 47:25
  career. So Father John's right.
• 47:28
  Be careful. Competition will kill you.
• 47:31
  Me and my brother Rusty, we have been in knock down drag outs.
• 47:35
  I mean it's it's been brutal stuff.
• 47:37
  I don't want nobody to see. So knowing you love your boy so
• 47:43
  much, Josh, and knowing you've done it all.
• 47:46
  I mean when you look at your boy's stats they're Hall of
• 47:49
  Fame. I mean your your, your boy is
• 47:52
  one of the greatest racers of all time.
• 47:55
  It's all there is to it. That's why I've been scrolling
• 47:58
  right here. You know he's like you said you.
• 48:00
  You nonchalantly said he's 5 champions now these aren't these
• 48:04
  are big ones. So for everybody you know, let's
• 48:10
  D bullshit it. Did your boy just get burnt out?
• 48:15
  Is it? Is that what happened?
• 48:18
  I I think. Because he started at a such a
• 48:22
  young age and like I said, six years old.
• 48:24
  He was in the truck with me running all over the country.
• 48:27
  Yeah. And.
• 48:28
  And he never got a child, really, to be a kid.
• 48:32
  Does that make sense? Yeah.
• 48:34
  And 100% like Jeff Gordon. He never went to the he never
• 48:38
  went to the prom. He never did a lot of stuff that
• 48:41
  normal kids was doing nor did he want to either.
• 48:43
  He wanted to be with me and he wanted to be on the road.
• 48:47
  He wanted to be racing. I never will forget the first
• 48:50
  year he drove. He almost won the national up at
• 48:53
  Cedar Lake and that was the first year and he beat
• 48:57
  Bloomquist in the heat race by half track and they end up doing
• 49:02
  a crazy pill draw for a dash and well, make a Long story short
• 49:05
  I'll go into it. He starts 15th in this race.
• 49:09
  Dale Mcdowell's leading the race.
• 49:12
  Josh. Catches him with.
• 49:13
  Like 8 laps to go for SEC. He's 2nd and catch Dale McDowell
• 49:19
  and he'd. Never been to Cedar Lake.
• 49:22
  And. It's the first year he.
• 49:23
  Drove he ended up breaking an Axel tube off.
• 49:27
  He lost breaks the the Axel didn't break clear off.
• 49:31
  The Axel stayed in but he he he lost his pedal because the the
• 49:35
  wheel was moving back and forth and he lost his brakes.
• 49:40
  So when it was over he didn't run like the last five laps or
• 49:44
  so. So when it was over, I said, How
• 49:47
  did you know how to drive that car?
• 49:51
  He said I drove just like Davy. Drove it when he won here in
• 49:54
  2000 in our car. Now that was 2005, and in 2000
• 50:02
  Davey Johnson won the race and he was in the infield with me at
• 50:06
  12 years old, walking around the infield.
• 50:10
  And here he is going to win a night a race at Cedar Lake.
• 50:15
  The first year he drove because he he was watching.
• 50:18
  So he got, I mean. He spent a lot of time like me.
• 50:22
  I've made a lot of sacrifices. I'm going 200 nights a year
• 50:25
  still today and that takes sacrifices to do that you got,
• 50:31
  you got to make your. Mind up, this is the.
• 50:34
  Direction that you're going and you know not every it's not for
• 50:39
  everybody. I I can tell you that it's not
• 50:42
  cut out for everybody and people ask me today why you still doing
• 50:45
  it and truthfully the love I had for the sport and the passion I
• 50:50
  had is the reason that I did it for so long.
• 50:53
  Now it's my business and I it's a it's a necessary evil because
• 50:59
  somebody has got in order for us to build cars, somebody's got to
• 51:02
  be out there proving the cars and you know, that makes it a
• 51:08
  tough deal just to say that you're going to quit because
• 51:11
  nobody's going to do it like you do it.
• 51:13
  You know what I'm saying? Nobody's going to if I did this
• 51:16
  with another team, that team's not going to feel comfortable
• 51:19
  giving that information to other competitors.
• 51:23
  So when I, you know, gather information and we do data and
• 51:28
  we do all the stuff we do, I can do whatever I want with it
• 51:32
  because it's what we did, not what another team did.
• 51:35
  So that's why we still run this program.
• 51:38
  I'm 63. I've been doing it since I was
• 51:41
  13. So you inspire me.
• 51:45
  I'm. 60 And they they they want to know why the hell I'm still
• 51:48
  doing this. And I I said, I asked.
• 51:50
  I asked, You know the great Don Perdome, the drag racer, Walker
• 51:56
  Evans, you know, 12 time off road champion.
• 51:59
  I said, hey, I'm thinking about quitting.
• 52:02
  Both of them were drinking together.
• 52:05
  Don Perdome, Walker, Evans. They come up out of their lawn
• 52:07
  chair and they said no. The snake said I miss drag
• 52:11
  racing so much, Walker said. I I won my last championship at
• 52:17
  62. So Mark, I hear you.
• 52:20
  I think what you're saying is if.
• 52:22
  You quit, you die. You know it.
• 52:24
  It. You quit, you die.
• 52:25
  And and. That's with anything I I see
• 52:28
  people, you know, that works their whole life to retire.
• 52:32
  And around here, the coal mining was the big industry around here
• 52:36
  and coal miners would say, you know, I can't wait to retire.
• 52:41
  Usually about two. Years Max, and then about you.
• 52:46
  Yeah, OK, let let's let's change everything right now.
• 52:50
  Let's change the whole dynamics of of this conversation.
• 52:54
  I'm going to, I'm going to. This is going to be fast-paced,
• 52:58
  so, so keep up with me. This is going to be weird
• 53:02
  different for you, OK, I just want you to comment on this when
• 53:06
  I say it to you. Dirt racing's changed.
• 53:09
  Nobody even welds anything on their cars anymore.
• 53:12
  You just buy everything, bolt on.
• 53:16
  Are you here? OK.
• 53:18
  That, that. That's good stuff.
• 53:20
  Plus I didn't like welding anyway because it it hurts me.
• 53:25
  The dingleberries. Yeah, I love Bolton shit on my
• 53:28
  car nowadays. That's awesome.
• 53:29
  OK, another one. Dirt racing and rocket chassis
• 53:35
  go hand in hand together. This is me.
• 53:40
  You guys need each other. You need the World of Outlaws.
• 53:43
  You need Lucas Oil. You need all the divisions.
• 53:47
  Do you all go hand in hand? Do you all need each other?
• 53:51
  We all need each. Other right.
• 53:53
  So we don't need to get rid. Of any divisions, we want
• 53:55
  everybody. No, we we need the.
• 53:57
  Divisions, because if it becomes one division, then what happens
• 54:02
  is there's less travelers. So when you have a big show like
• 54:05
  the World 100 or the Dream, there's less guys that are going
• 54:10
  to be competitive at that level. And you know if you narrowed it
• 54:15
  down and let's just say there was just the World of Outlaws
• 54:18
  and no Lucas, OK, now you got whatever the points is, is what
• 54:22
  you're going to have following. If they're paying 12 spots at
• 54:25
  the end of the year, you're going to have 12, maybe 13 or
• 54:28
  14. That's going to be it.
• 54:30
  If there's a rookie hanging out there in 13th that's going to
• 54:33
  get a rookie check, you're going to have 12 to 13 cars.
• 54:36
  But if if Lucas has got spots paying 12 over here and and
• 54:41
  World Outlaws has got spots paying 12:00, you got 24 cars
• 54:45
  out there that are national cars and when you yeah instead.
• 54:49
  Of 12. And the more you race, the
• 54:53
  better you get, right? OK, do it.
• 54:57
  The, the. The.
• 54:57
  Great. I well, there's one something I
• 54:58
  want to say my best, one of my best friends is not far from you
• 55:01
  right now. And that's Schrader.
• 55:04
  Oh, Eddie. Well, Schrader.
• 55:05
  'S. Schrader's one of my best
• 55:07
  friends, but Ed told me he said, Richards, you know what this is?
• 55:11
  When he tells me stuff, it's like sticks in my brain, you
• 55:14
  know what I mean? And he told me this, Yeah.
• 55:18
  So he told. Me this, like 3-4 years ago, he
• 55:20
  said. There's three things you need to
• 55:22
  make a race team good. And I said, Oh yeah, what's
• 55:25
  that? A drive?
• 55:27
  A great driver. You need a great.
• 55:31
  Crew with a leader and you need a lot of money.
• 55:35
  Now he didn't mention cars, motors, shocks, nothing.
• 55:39
  And really, when you look at that, that is what makes a race
• 55:42
  team successful. Because the race team will get
• 55:46
  whatever they need with the money.
• 55:48
  Yeah, but it takes. Somebody to lead?
• 55:50
  That crew and you got to have a great crew and it takes a great
• 55:53
  driver. Those are the three things that
• 55:55
  you need tomorrow. I'm Eddie.
• 55:59
  Eddie Petroff has four Saint Louis Cardinal baseball tickets.
• 56:03
  He's in the green seats and and he he gave me 4 so tomorrow I'm
• 56:08
  I'm going to the ball then because of Eddie.
• 56:10
  He's so nice. OK, how was?
• 56:14
  Dirt racing doing. Today.
• 56:17
  I think on the national. Level.
• 56:18
  It's really doing great. I think on the local level, I
• 56:24
  think there's a lot of promoters and we see it all the time.
• 56:27
  We're losing race tracks. You know, I look at it like a
• 56:31
  lot of ponds with a lot of fish. If you think about having a lot
• 56:37
  of fish ponds with a lot of fish in it, and you take a pond away,
• 56:42
  where does that fish go? Yeah, go to the next one.
• 56:45
  OK. Now you take another pond away,
• 56:48
  where do them fish go? And pretty soon there isn't
• 56:51
  enough in that pond for them to eat.
• 56:55
  And that's what happened. That's where we're at today on
• 56:57
  the local level. I think I'm probably going to
• 57:01
  get I I got to watch how I say this, but we've got a double
• 57:08
  edged swords going on with the streaming and all the stuff.
• 57:12
  It's a double edged sword. It's made the top level great,
• 57:17
  but it's hurt the lower level and we have no more heroes in
• 57:21
  this sport. And a local heroes, yes, when I
• 57:25
  say. Heroes.
• 57:26
  Locally, when Ed Dixon was the hero over there around Saint
• 57:29
  Louis. You know what I'm talking about.
• 57:30
  Yeah. Oh yeah, My brother Mike.
• 57:33
  You. Went to the racetrack when you
• 57:34
  went to the. Racetrack.
• 57:35
  And you watched that guy win. You thought he was the greatest
• 57:37
  guy out there. But what we have now is we have
• 57:40
  this streaming and there's a local guy winning a race
• 57:44
  somewhere, some little racetrack and the guy sitting in the
• 57:47
  grandstands watching a world of outlaw race or a Lucas race and
• 57:50
  sees Bobby Pierce win this race when he's watching some guy
• 57:54
  here. There's no way this guy could
• 57:56
  run with Bobby Pierce. I just watched this race.
• 57:58
  OK, We have killed the local heroes with with the, with the
• 58:04
  streaming and the access to make.
• 58:08
  Fans National. Fans, now it's really helped the
• 58:12
  national end of it. It's accelerated that.
• 58:16
  But the local track promoters, they're feeling it.
• 58:24
  They're feeling it everywhere I I'm really.
• 58:27
  Glad you said that without me asking you because that's what I
• 58:30
  hear all the time. You know they were basically
• 58:33
  hoping the late models would be killed off here in Saint Louis
• 58:36
  because we got, we got I-55 Raceway and they did not race
• 58:41
  them anywhere and we only had 22.
• 58:45
  There's they're still barely live.
• 58:47
  But we don't have Eddie Dixon no more.
• 58:49
  We don't have Kevin Gundeker. We don't have Mike Wallace.
• 58:52
  No local heroes, no merry stoolers.
• 58:54
  No local heroes? And what you said is like, I see
• 58:59
  it all the time. I'm at a damn baseball game and
• 59:02
  I'm right there. And there's the batter and
• 59:04
  somebody's on their phone. I'm like, no, you're at the
• 59:07
  game. Jughead, who helps me, he helps
• 59:11
  me and he's in my trailer and he's on his phone and said what
• 59:13
  are you doing? He says I'm looking at the car
• 59:16
  count, the heat race at Farmer City.
• 59:18
  I said, Jughead, we're here, It is a it doesn't matter, Kenny.
• 59:21
  You guys do it too. What does the deal with that?
• 59:25
  The whole race. We, I, I I'm not sure.
• 59:30
  We haven't overlooked everything in life with these phones.
• 59:33
  And I'm sure you've probably seen that cartoon.
• 59:35
  Nobody sees Sasquatch anymore. You want to know why everybody's
• 59:40
  looking at their phone. It's the.
• 59:42
  Damnedest thing ever seen because nobody's looking.
• 59:45
  Out into the field or out into the, you know, the woods, you
• 59:49
  don't see anything anymore because everybody's staring at
• 59:52
  their phone. I find myself doing it.
• 59:54
  You probably around yourself doing it.
• 59:56
  We're all guilty of it. It's the only one I've kept my
• 59:58
  career. Going if we.
• 1:00:01
  Could back up 25. Years.
• 1:00:03
  And you asked me how racing is. I'd tell you it's the greatest
• 1:00:05
  thing going. Yeah, right Now I can tell you
• 1:00:08
  the national level is really strong.
• 1:00:11
  But one of the things that's came along with this is it's
• 1:00:16
  when you put money into something and you make it to
• 1:00:19
  where you're racing for more money, it just costs more money.
• 1:00:22
  And that's where we're at. The local tracks can't keep up
• 1:00:25
  because they can't pay more money.
• 1:00:28
  But in order for the late models to go there and be competitive,
• 1:00:32
  it takes $125,000 car. Yeah.
• 1:00:36
  So how do you? Justify that Now that $125,000
• 1:00:40
  car running out there at the national level is pretty much
• 1:00:44
  the norm. But along the way, and I told
• 1:00:48
  Michael Rigsby this and Michael Rigsby are great friends.
• 1:00:50
  So I can say it. He knows.
• 1:00:52
  I say it all the time. This streaming will kill it all.
• 1:00:57
  And I told him that 17 years ago.
• 1:00:59
  Yeah. I just started when it started.
• 1:01:03
  17 years ago and and and him and I, because I know Michael from
• 1:01:08
  the time he started to where he's at today.
• 1:01:10
  And you know, because I'm around racing and we became friends and
• 1:01:14
  we're still friends. I'm not sure we haven't heard
• 1:01:18
  the overall picture. Now they'll argue.
• 1:01:23
  They can argue and say, well, we got all these fans online, but
• 1:01:28
  what about the local guy at Farmer City or the local guy
• 1:01:31
  down at Pevely, the local promoter?
• 1:01:34
  You know, he doesn't have all those fans in the stands like he
• 1:01:37
  had because we got, we got. I'm don't don't take this the
• 1:01:41
  wrong way when I say it and I don't want the public to take it
• 1:01:43
  the wrong way. It's just the way I say things.
• 1:01:46
  We have lazy race fans, although they're fat and.
• 1:01:49
  Lazy. They're fat.
• 1:01:50
  They're they're big. I'm not going to say they're
• 1:01:52
  fat. I'm saying lazy because because
• 1:01:57
  it's a lot of work to go to a a dirt race.
• 1:02:00
  It's a lot of work. You got to drive there, you got
• 1:02:03
  to go up there and set in the stands and get you something to
• 1:02:06
  eat. And if you got kids, it's
• 1:02:08
  expensive. All right, so drive back home
• 1:02:12
  an. Hour and a half two.
• 1:02:13
  Hours. That's a lot of work, right?
• 1:02:14
  Yeah. When you can sit, sit.
• 1:02:16
  On your ass, on your couch and just watch it on your phone.
• 1:02:19
  Watch it on your phone. You can be doing other things,
• 1:02:22
  like you said at a baseball game or a football game or whatever,
• 1:02:26
  and get to watch the race as well.
• 1:02:29
  So I think the local promoter has hurt through all this and
• 1:02:36
  the only thing that keeps that guy alive is when he has a big
• 1:02:40
  event and hopefully that pays for enough to keep his year
• 1:02:43
  going because we're losing race tracks.
• 1:02:45
  I mean, you know that it's not, it's not a secret.
• 1:02:49
  I mean the property becomes more valuable because the promoters
• 1:02:52
  not making any money. So he gets an offer that's more
• 1:02:56
  valuable than what he can do with the racetrack.
• 1:02:59
  I have no idea how farmer. City stays afloat.
• 1:03:01
  I'll look up there. They'll have 9 or 10 late models
• 1:03:06
  and Fager wins the feature. And I see plenty times our
• 1:03:09
  tracks have eight or nine cars each.
• 1:03:12
  I mean, right now, 2024, OK, let's move on.
• 1:03:15
  There was a race. At Paducah the other night,
• 1:03:18
  Schrader told me about it. Go ahead 8 cars there for 5000
• 1:03:21
  to win. And Fager wins it what?
• 1:03:25
  What was that all about? There just ain't no local.
• 1:03:28
  Cars. That's what it's all about,
• 1:03:31
  $5000. To win a.
• 1:03:35
  Lot of money. Well, in today's world, is it?
• 1:03:39
  A lot of money. No, it's not.
• 1:03:42
  It's. Not because of inflation.
• 1:03:43
  We got this whole inflation deal.
• 1:03:45
  I know about your price, but what?
• 1:03:47
  What's a 4 by 8 sheet of aluminum now?
• 1:03:49
  I couldn't tell you. I don't.
• 1:03:51
  Know nothing about price. Yeah, I I got, I was down in the
• 1:03:53
  shop the other day and I was looking for something and I was
• 1:03:57
  back in one of the rooms where there was stuff and I pulled
• 1:03:59
  these. I pulled this box out and it had
• 1:04:01
  some catalogs in there from 2000, three in 2004.
• 1:04:05
  It was Rocket Chassis Catalogs, and I put them out on Twitter.
• 1:04:08
  They're on my Twitter. I took pictures, a bare frame.
• 1:04:12
  I saw them. 2004 was. $3100, That frame today is close to
• 1:04:17
  11,000. Yeah, that's inflation.
• 1:04:20
  The cost of metal and aluminum, we're talking 20 years.
• 1:04:23
  Kenny and a complete car. A complete late model car was
• 1:04:27
  16. Nine.
• 1:04:29
  Yeah, that. Same car.
• 1:04:31
  Today is probably 50 plus for what that car came with that
• 1:04:37
  car. OK, fire, we're going.
• 1:04:40
  To fire another, we got to we got to start wrapping up here.
• 1:04:45
  In my opinion. 2012 I believe I'm in a oak shade and you got
• 1:04:52
  this guy driving your car that I I thought to myself, why is
• 1:04:57
  Brandon Shepherd in? That great race.
• 1:05:00
  Car. So what did you see in Brandon
• 1:05:04
  Shepherd when I didn't? See it?
• 1:05:07
  I I wrapped up the 2012 Summer national championship in that
• 1:05:11
  race and and that was the first time I watched him on a national
• 1:05:15
  level. What did you see in in B shell?
• 1:05:19
  What I've seen in him. Was a guy that really wanted it.
• 1:05:24
  I mean, what I'm I would watch him and he was in a greasy old
• 1:05:28
  uniform. Had one crew guy and here he is
• 1:05:32
  like 17 years old driving this truck all the way to Cedar Lake
• 1:05:36
  and Josh won the race that year, which it was a national and he
• 1:05:41
  almost beat us in the heat race and then he broke and he ended
• 1:05:46
  up starting in the back of the race and he's up there battling
• 1:05:49
  us for second like in. This race and.
• 1:05:53
  Josh was talking about going and spending a year driving the
• 1:05:57
  Nationwide stuff. OK, So I started had to look for
• 1:06:01
  a driver and I'm looking around and this guy is really impressed
• 1:06:04
  me. Now there's places that I
• 1:06:08
  learned about drivers that experience is important.
• 1:06:11
  And when I say experience in different conditions, different
• 1:06:15
  track configurations, different parts of the country you've
• 1:06:18
  traveled around, you know, tracks are different.
• 1:06:21
  What's in Illinois and that black dirt isn't the same.
• 1:06:25
  What's in eastern Pennsylvania over there on them big half
• 1:06:28
  miles like Williams Grove and places like that.
• 1:06:31
  So I made a deal with Brandon to come here.
• 1:06:35
  I made him stop in Indianapolis. I said you stop out there and
• 1:06:38
  get a new uniform off of Simpson, you know?
• 1:06:42
  Because he had this greasy old. Uniform and And those days,
• 1:06:47
  Brandon Shepherd would have slept underneath of the hauler
• 1:06:50
  outside in a rainstorm to drive this car.
• 1:06:54
  That was Brandon Shepherd and that's what I liked about
• 1:06:56
  Brandon and Ed Petroff helped me.
• 1:07:00
  My car had Petroff on the front of it, on the nose.
• 1:07:03
  Take Brandon Shepherd racing that first year.
• 1:07:06
  Well, we started with the Outlaws because Josh went
• 1:07:09
  Nationwide racing and we. Started with the Outlaws.
• 1:07:13
  And I realized this kid don't have the experience we.
• 1:07:18
  Took him to a couple tracks. Up in Pennsylvania and he didn't
• 1:07:22
  have experience like he had no idea how to race this tan, dusty
• 1:07:27
  dirt like we have over here in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New
• 1:07:31
  York, and over this way. Red, dusty, slick dirt.
• 1:07:35
  Well, he'd raced in that black dirt out there in Illinois and
• 1:07:38
  was really good. So I made my mind up that we
• 1:07:42
  went to a couple outlaw races and I've seen that he needed
• 1:07:45
  some experience, so. I thought, well, you will.
• 1:07:49
  Spend this year, we'll take off from the Outlaws and we'll go
• 1:07:53
  race the summer Nationals. And we raced that whole summer
• 1:07:57
  Nationals. The hottest summer Nationals
• 1:07:59
  ever in the history of summer Nationals, right.
• 1:08:01
  It was, it was over. It was over 100 if you remember
• 1:08:04
  right that year. Oh yeah, like, like. 14 days.
• 1:08:07
  It was over 100. And you know, we actually
• 1:08:10
  canceled Lincoln because it was too hot to race the Hell's over.
• 1:08:14
  It was the hell hell. Tour that was, but anyhow by the
• 1:08:18
  end of the year after we missed the.
• 1:08:21
  Outlaw Races I. Was taking him back to outlaw
• 1:08:23
  races and by the end of the year we had Brandon win an outlaw
• 1:08:27
  races so he did. Josh is coming back from the
• 1:08:31
  Nationwide deal, so 13. Josh has an incredible year.
• 1:08:34
  He won almost 700,000 in 2013, 128 out of 60 races, 60 some
• 1:08:43
  races and we had an incredible year and Brandon went back and
• 1:08:46
  ran the house car or the family car, Not the house car but the
• 1:08:49
  family car, the B5 car. Stevie, he ran the grandpa's car
• 1:08:54
  and anyhow he ended up going to best.
• 1:09:00
  Bess put him out there on the road getting experience.
• 1:09:04
  I got him experience. Then he went back to the grandpa
• 1:09:06
  car and got experience and then Bess put him out running the
• 1:09:10
  Lucas Steel and the second year at best, he won the Dirt Track
• 1:09:15
  World championship. He'd come in my trailer and he
• 1:09:17
  was terrible. He was like 20th in the B main
• 1:09:20
  and I said what are you doing? And he told me what he was doing
• 1:09:23
  and I'm like, just bring all that stuff over here.
• 1:09:24
  I'll set it up just where our car is because Josh was the
• 1:09:28
  fastest qualifier and won the heat and everything.
• 1:09:30
  Well, this Shepherd starts like 10th and the B Main drives up
• 1:09:33
  through there and wins it after you help him.
• 1:09:37
  He drives up through there and wins.
• 1:09:38
  It and then Josh is leading this race and Brandon's coming
• 1:09:42
  through the field. Josh tears the nose off when the
• 1:09:45
  tires in the infield, so Brandon ends up winning the race and he.
• 1:09:50
  Told me, he said I'm. Quitting tonight when the race
• 1:09:52
  is over and anyhow Josh ended up third.
• 1:09:58
  We got our boys dragging the nose and we ended up running
• 1:10:02
  third with Josh and Brandon wins this race and he gets out that
• 1:10:05
  car and quits. Wow.
• 1:10:07
  Yeah, but now, Brandon Shepherd. Has a whole lot more experience
• 1:10:11
  than he had in 2012. Now he's really ready for.
• 1:10:14
  Your car. So then, Josh.
• 1:10:16
  Decides he's going to move to Ohio.
• 1:10:21
  Near Eldor, which is where? He lives now and that's where
• 1:10:24
  his wife was from and now Josh is going to drive the best car.
• 1:10:31
  And then I called. Brandon and I said, Hey, you
• 1:10:33
  want to come and drive this stuff?
• 1:10:36
  And he said what's he doing? And I said he's going to drive
• 1:10:38
  the best stuff. And he said no, I'm going to
• 1:10:41
  call him because I'm going to tell him he needs to stay there.
• 1:10:45
  Well, he called me back and he said, Josh says he's moving to
• 1:10:47
  Ohio and his wife is from that area and that's where she wanted
• 1:10:52
  to live. Should that he lived 25 minutes
• 1:10:54
  from the best team from where Best was from, but that's where
• 1:10:59
  his house is. So anyhow, Brandon started
• 1:11:03
  driving for us. In the first year we won all
• 1:11:06
  kinds of races, and the second year we won all kinds of races.
• 1:11:10
  And to make a Long story short, since 2016 it's been 8-8
• 1:11:15
  seasons. Up until the beginning of this
• 1:11:17
  season, this team's won over $6 million and that was averaging.
• 1:11:24
  Up until last. Year averaging about a little
• 1:11:27
  over 700 a year. But you still can't make money
• 1:11:30
  at that. A lot of people looks at that.
• 1:11:32
  You, man, you made all kinds of money.
• 1:11:33
  Well, that's not enough to cover it.
• 1:11:35
  You got to have great sponsors. I'm going to mark sponsors.
• 1:11:38
  Let let me stop right here. I'm going.
• 1:11:40
  To mark this down, I'm going to have Charlie Marlo.
• 1:11:42
  We're going to we we edit pieces of this to get to the good part.
• 1:11:46
  So we're going to start right now at 112 and I'm going to ask
• 1:11:49
  you the question. Last year I created controversy
• 1:11:54
  by saying race car drivers cannot make money.
• 1:11:57
  And of course, you know, I don't want to call them rednecks.
• 1:12:02
  I'm brutal. I'm brutal because rusting is
• 1:12:04
  brutal to me. So you're going to catch it from
• 1:12:06
  me. You cannot make money racing
• 1:12:09
  dirt unless you have sugar daddies, people that you know
• 1:12:12
  own coal mines and construct hoker and you know Petroff,
• 1:12:17
  that's the only way you can make it.
• 1:12:19
  Now I want to hear your opinion on what I just said.
• 1:12:24
  Well, I think we're. No different than the NFL, OK,
• 1:12:30
  when it really boils down to it, how many NFL players that make
• 1:12:35
  it to the NFL actually make a lot of money?
• 1:12:39
  How many is there that really? Makes a lot of money.
• 1:12:42
  How many Tom Brady's is there in the country?
• 1:12:44
  How many Peyton Manning's is there?
• 1:12:46
  You know, over the decades, a lot of NFL players make whatever
• 1:12:51
  the minimum is. OK, maybe 400,000 a year.
• 1:12:55
  And then by the time you pay taxes, they might make 200,000
• 1:12:58
  for and their manager takes a part.
• 1:13:00
  Of it and the cost of living for them to live that lifestyle,
• 1:13:04
  they got a lot of expense and they end up being a cup crew.
• 1:13:07
  Member for pit stops. Yeah, well.
• 1:13:11
  Racing's not much different and the the few drivers that make it
• 1:13:16
  to where you can quote, make money are it's it's a slim
• 1:13:22
  number. It's way less than people wants
• 1:13:25
  to think it is and you know it. It's it's way less and you're
• 1:13:31
  right. It takes what Petrov tell us,
• 1:13:34
  takes money, right, Takes money. This team never had money and
• 1:13:40
  difference that. I feel like I've been here all
• 1:13:43
  these years and through the hard times, the good times, whatever.
• 1:13:49
  But to give you a number, today, this team, I don't even count
• 1:13:55
  the cars. So let's take the cars out of
• 1:13:57
  the picture. OK, 'cause it's Rocket chassis,
• 1:14:00
  OK, the cars belong to Rocket Chassis.
• 1:14:03
  OK. It takes me about 700 a year to
• 1:14:07
  keep this team going, 700. $1000 and that does not count the race
• 1:14:11
  cars, OK? So last year we won 1,035,000.
• 1:14:20
  That's what we took in total. Gross, yeah.
• 1:14:24
  Now I just. Told you it took seven. 100 to
• 1:14:26
  break even, right? You dominated.
• 1:14:28
  And made 300 grand. You got to listen.
• 1:14:32
  I'm not getting it. I know I'm good.
• 1:14:34
  I'm with you the. Driver and the crew gets. 50% of
• 1:14:37
  it. Oh.
• 1:14:38
  Oh, yeah. OK.
• 1:14:38
  Yeah. We're still going.
• 1:14:41
  Wow. So now I won a. $1,000,000 and
• 1:14:45
  I've lost 200,000 without. My sponsor help.
• 1:14:50
  Yeah. OK.
• 1:14:52
  So let's say that you go through a year and you don't make a
• 1:15:01
  million. Let's say you make 600,000.
• 1:15:03
  Yeah. OK.
• 1:15:06
  I told you I need 700 right now. I took in 600.
• 1:15:10
  All right, I get half of that. Wow.
• 1:15:14
  Now I'm at. 300 So. Now I'm down 400.
• 1:15:19
  The driver got. His percentage out of it, out of
• 1:15:22
  that 600 probably got off the top of my head around 200 and
• 1:15:27
  something I'm down 400. So the sponsorship money is very
• 1:15:34
  important. That's where it comes from at
• 1:15:35
  this level. So that makes it hard.
• 1:15:39
  And and you know, you know, I just went through a driver chain
• 1:15:43
  and you know that. And when you look at the roster
• 1:15:48
  and you take what I look at with a driver, first of all, he's got
• 1:15:53
  to have car control. He's got to be able to drive.
• 1:15:55
  That's number one. Number two is experience.
• 1:15:59
  How much experience has he had at all these different tracks
• 1:16:04
  that we're going to go to that somebody already paid for?
• 1:16:08
  Because I don't want to be the guy paying for experience.
• 1:16:11
  I did it with Brandon Shepherd in 2012.
• 1:16:13
  I did it with Josh Richards back in O 5.
• 1:16:17
  I don't want to pay for it. I want to find somebody that has
• 1:16:20
  raced all these races, that has been to Granite City, has been
• 1:16:27
  to Peebly, that has been to Cedar Lake, has been to
• 1:16:31
  Fairbury, that has been to Lincoln, PA not Lincoln, IL.
• 1:16:37
  Williams Grove, Gaffney, SC. I want to brag on you.
• 1:16:43
  Yeah, I want to brag on you. So, Joe Gibbs, Howard.
• 1:16:47
  Joey Logano. Struggled, was not ready to be
• 1:16:50
  Cup, then Rodger Penske said. I'll take him because now he's
• 1:16:54
  ready because he got experience. Yes, yes, yes.
• 1:16:59
  Somebody paid for that experience, Yeah, Joe.
• 1:17:01
  Gibbs And then yeah, with this, with this last driver change
• 1:17:06
  happened. I wasn't ready for it, believe.
• 1:17:10
  Me. I didn't want it to happen.
• 1:17:12
  I was not ready for it. OK, I'm just going to leave it
• 1:17:15
  there. And we're just going to say I
• 1:17:18
  wasn't ready. And it took me like the the one
• 1:17:23
  before that was Shepherd. I was ready for.
• 1:17:25
  I'd made my mind up. I'd looked at it and Hudson
• 1:17:28
  O'Neill was my guy, because Hudson O'Neill had a lot of
• 1:17:31
  experience for his age. At 22 years old, he had raced
• 1:17:36
  almost seven years at the Lucas level across the country and
• 1:17:40
  somebody got paid for him to get that experience same.
• 1:17:44
  As I did with Brandon Shepherd. Back in 2012, 2012, Ed Petroff,
• 1:17:51
  one of my, I got to say, one of my best friends in racing over
• 1:17:56
  the years. We might not talk to each other
• 1:17:58
  for six months, but I guarantee he knows he can call me.
• 1:18:01
  And I know I can call him. That's how you know you've got a
• 1:18:03
  friend, Kelly Earnhardt. Kelly Earnhardt, said Kenny
• 1:18:06
  Wallace. I like you.
• 1:18:08
  You're a no maintenance friend, and I think I like I.
• 1:18:12
  Like that because. We don't need to talk, but I
• 1:18:16
  have your We just know we're friends.
• 1:18:18
  And and I feel that way a little bit about you.
• 1:18:21
  I know you a little bit, but I know I can call you a lot.
• 1:18:24
  Yes, text each other a lot. We.
• 1:18:26
  We know who our friends are, yeah.
• 1:18:28
  So anyhow, I was ready with the Hudson deal.
• 1:18:34
  So when the press releases went out, we had a driver to fill the
• 1:18:37
  seat. Brandon Shepherd's leaving
• 1:18:40
  Hudson O'Neill's coming in. What I wasn't ready for.
• 1:18:45
  Was this time because? I was caught off guard.
• 1:18:49
  Completely. And I'm going to say, you know,
• 1:18:57
  when Richard Childers, when Tyler Reddick said he was
• 1:18:59
  leaving, you know what happened? Not really.
• 1:19:04
  But tell me. But what happened was he was
• 1:19:08
  going to. Drive the rest of the year, OK.
• 1:19:12
  Yeah, Yeah. OK, I'm not going to go into.
• 1:19:15
  It OK, so I'm left here wondering.
• 1:19:21
  What I'm going to? Do and I look at the the roster
• 1:19:26
  Lucas, World of Outlaws. Who's been at these races?
• 1:19:29
  Who can you get that? List is small.
• 1:19:33
  That has experience that can. Win.
• 1:19:37
  Guys that can. Win.
• 1:19:38
  And has experience all right that narrowed it down.
• 1:19:43
  Well, what? I wasn't ready for that.
• 1:19:45
  That happened on a Tuesday within.
• 1:19:52
  I'm going to say 16. Hours, 18 hours, I wasn't ready
• 1:19:57
  for my phone. Was going.
• 1:20:00
  Crazy because the word had got out.
• 1:20:05
  At one time, I looked at my. Phone I had 50 texts that I
• 1:20:08
  hadn't opened and I had over 30 phone calls that I had, I'd
• 1:20:13
  missed and everybody did they. All.
• 1:20:15
  Did they say I want #1? Did they say I want to drive
• 1:20:18
  your car or #2? Did they say what happened?
• 1:20:21
  What? What?
• 1:20:21
  What? What?
• 1:20:22
  Which one was? I never answered.
• 1:20:24
  Because my main goal was to get to my sponsors and talk to my
• 1:20:28
  sponsors and get a plan together, which a lot of people
• 1:20:32
  doesn't understand. The sponsors are #1 in this
• 1:20:35
  business was without them I can't do it.
• 1:20:38
  I thought it was 200. I'm not going to lose 204
• 1:20:40
  hundred grand a year because I can't afford to.
• 1:20:42
  I'm not a guy that has a business that sold.
• 1:20:48
  Out for millions of. Dollars that I can just do this
• 1:20:50
  to play. I got this is how I I got here
• 1:20:54
  by running it like a business and I got to keep running it
• 1:20:57
  like a business because I don't, I don't have another business
• 1:21:00
  that I made money from to be in this business.
• 1:21:02
  Does that make sense? Oh yes, absolutely.
• 1:21:04
  OK, so. So now I talked to the sponsors
• 1:21:09
  and A. Couple of sponsors called
• 1:21:14
  because. They'd heard it and.
• 1:21:18
  We kind of came up with a. Plan.
• 1:21:20
  And the list was really short of who could be on it, of whether
• 1:21:26
  we were going to go forward or we change our plan as a team of
• 1:21:30
  what we do. You know, do we come become an
• 1:21:33
  R&D team or do we become or do we still stay out there and try
• 1:21:36
  to campaign our car on the Lucas deal?
• 1:21:38
  Well, if you're going to stay on the Lucas deal, you got to have
• 1:21:40
  somebody that's in the points. Well, that narrows it down even
• 1:21:44
  more. But the biggest thing it's got
• 1:21:46
  to be somebody that the sponsors will approve everybody likes.
• 1:21:52
  If the sponsors. Has a problem with this guy.
• 1:21:56
  It don't matter. I'm.
• 1:21:58
  Not I can't lose a sponsor because I got to have the
• 1:22:00
  sponsors money to make up the difference at the end of the
• 1:22:02
  year. Yeah, so it narrowed it down
• 1:22:06
  really we we is actually down to two drivers at the end and I'm
• 1:22:12
  not going to go in to say who they were, but we were down to
• 1:22:15
  two. So now I'm getting all these
• 1:22:17
  texts from all these people and this is where I'm going to you
• 1:22:19
  with Mike. Your brother.
• 1:22:24
  Oh, oh. Mike calls you no.
• 1:22:28
  I get a text. I get a text from Mike.
• 1:22:30
  Now I haven't seen Mike since Josh.
• 1:22:32
  Random trucks for Kyle. Now I'm shocked right now.
• 1:22:35
  I. Can't wait to hear this so I get
• 1:22:38
  this. Text and it says Have you found
• 1:22:40
  the driver for the seat? For the seat of the rocket.
• 1:22:45
  One, yeah. And it says, Would you consider
• 1:22:49
  an X dirt racer an X NASCAR racer?
• 1:22:54
  Veteran driver Mike. Wallace.
• 1:22:58
  What in the world? And I laugh.
• 1:23:03
  I go ha ha ha. Great to hear from you Mike.
• 1:23:05
  I haven't heard from him, you know, and probably since 2010
• 1:23:09
  when Josh was racing them trucks and I'm like great to hear from
• 1:23:14
  you And he says no, I'm serious, I would like to drive that car.
• 1:23:18
  And I said, well we have picked the driver and at that time we'd
• 1:23:21
  already made the deal with Timmy and and he says, well, if you
• 1:23:26
  know of any other rides out there, you know I would like to
• 1:23:30
  have a ride driving a dirt car, my brother Mike.
• 1:23:33
  Like this is a month ago. Mike Wallace, my.
• 1:23:37
  Brother Mike's 60. Four years old, Let me call it.
• 1:23:40
  Hey, brother, what the fuck are you thinking?
• 1:23:43
  Well, you know. I said he's got to be my age
• 1:23:45
  because back in the 80s when I was out there, I know he was
• 1:23:50
  like him and Rusty was. I thought they were right.
• 1:23:53
  At my age, Mike was. Mike was a great dirt racer.
• 1:23:59
  Incredible. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:24:01
  And and. You know, I I told him.
• 1:24:05
  I said I got to tell you, this is the most surprising applicant
• 1:24:09
  I've had. Absolutely.
• 1:24:10
  I'm shocked. He might have been in the vodka
• 1:24:13
  that night. Well, listen.
• 1:24:16
  Mark, we we're. We're going on an hour and 25
• 1:24:19
  minutes. I want to thank you so much.
• 1:24:24
  Let's let's have fun and leave like this out of all the dirt
• 1:24:29
  racers. Now this is going to be
• 1:24:30
  difficult. I understand.
• 1:24:32
  But you know, when I think about what I'm going to talk to you
• 1:24:36
  about #1, I want you to tell your story.
• 1:24:39
  And. And we did.
• 1:24:41
  And we've kind of gone through, you know, dirt racing a little
• 1:24:44
  bit out of all the race car drivers, whether it's Duvall,
• 1:24:51
  Bloomquist, Moyer, Pierce, you name it.
• 1:24:56
  And it could be the dad, Bob Pierce.
• 1:25:00
  Out of everything you've seen now, this is what's important.
• 1:25:04
  Totality. Totality means builder, race
• 1:25:09
  cars chassis, the not the day's drivers.
• 1:25:12
  Not today's drivers. I'm talking about the guys that
• 1:25:15
  that, you know, chassis, their cars, check their own stagger.
• 1:25:20
  Bloomquist, Moyer. Duvall, Buck St.
• 1:25:24
  All those guys, Which one? Which one makes you perk up?
• 1:25:32
  You're Ed Howe right now. Which which was the guy?
• 1:25:36
  I mean, I I got to get. I got to.
• 1:25:41
  You want two? Right.
• 1:25:42
  You. Yeah.
• 1:25:42
  I'm going to give you leeway. Well, one of them you mentioned.
• 1:25:47
  Earlier in the show and and I give him all the respect in the
• 1:25:51
  world which not many people's going to know.
• 1:25:53
  This guy, you know him well, I got to.
• 1:25:56
  Say Larry Phillips. Larry Phillips, you.
• 1:25:59
  Damn right buddy, that man I got to say I went to.
• 1:26:02
  Florida with him. I was around Larry Rodney was in
• 1:26:06
  Australia and he called me up and said hey, I want you to go
• 1:26:09
  to Florida with me and crew or crew on my car down there at
• 1:26:13
  Volusia. And I knew Larry.
• 1:26:15
  Larry was a lot like Ed Howe. No bullshit there.
• 1:26:20
  Was no BS with. Larry Phillips Zero.
• 1:26:22
  Let me tell you something right now.
• 1:26:24
  Terry Phillips grew up with a tough with a.
• 1:26:31
  Tough with a tough. Dad, me and Terry talk, me and
• 1:26:34
  Terry, you know, I told. Terry Phillips, I said, Terry,
• 1:26:37
  the reason your dad was so mean is 'cause he grew up poor, he
• 1:26:41
  had no money. Well, that's, that's what.
• 1:26:44
  Happens and people don't understand that.
• 1:26:46
  They take that the wrong way and maybe you know if you've got a
• 1:26:51
  goal and you want to try to achieve that goal sometimes.
• 1:26:56
  You can't be a nice. Guy all the time, if that makes
• 1:26:59
  sense. You got no time to be a nice
• 1:27:01
  guy. And that's what I tell people
• 1:27:03
  all the time. I got enough people now I can
• 1:27:05
  talk like I couldn't have did this show back in the day.
• 1:27:08
  There's no way I could have took an hour and 20 minutes and sit
• 1:27:11
  here and talk to Kenny Wallace. I had too much.
• 1:27:14
  I had too much crap to do. I had too much crap to do.
• 1:27:17
  But now I got people doing it and it it it's loosened me up a
• 1:27:22
  little bit and I'm able to be, I guess, more human.
• 1:27:28
  Maybe that's the right word, because I was a lot like Larry
• 1:27:32
  and a lot like Ed Howe and and those guys.
• 1:27:35
  But. I think probably overall.
• 1:27:41
  And everything that I've seen. And everything.
• 1:27:43
  I know the guy that could build the car.
• 1:27:49
  And go win the race. Dominate the race.
• 1:27:52
  Race after race. There's one guy.
• 1:27:56
  That's Scott Blumquist. Yep.
• 1:27:58
  Yep. That's what you know.
• 1:28:00
  I I I'm right there with you. You know the I I say Billy
• 1:28:04
  Moyer. But I don't think Billy Moyer
• 1:28:08
  was the car builder from the ground up like Scott Bloomquist
• 1:28:13
  was creative. I went to Scott Bloomquist's
• 1:28:15
  place last year. I was allowed on the compound.
• 1:28:19
  This is good because for a. Long time you wasn't.
• 1:28:23
  Allowed there and you know after spending an afternoon, well a
• 1:28:27
  morning and an afternoon, there was Scott, because I was there
• 1:28:30
  before the crowd came and and we had a whole crowd of people and
• 1:28:34
  what I got to see out of Scott was and I respect him for this
• 1:28:39
  is. He did his own.
• 1:28:42
  Thing. And he built his own cars.
• 1:28:45
  And his dad. That's the most incredible story
• 1:28:51
  of visiting Scott Bloomquist. It's his dad's, his dad's
• 1:28:56
  airplane inventory. I hear about this all.
• 1:29:00
  The time tell me about this. It's crazy.
• 1:29:03
  It's the. Craziest thing I ever walked
• 1:29:05
  into this This man's up in his 80s putting these planes
• 1:29:09
  together from World War One. He's got all World War One
• 1:29:12
  planes and they all fly. He's got a whole garage full, a
• 1:29:16
  whole hangar full of them. He's building the The one he's
• 1:29:19
  building right now is a twin engine, 101 foot wide, wingspan
• 1:29:24
  span. He's got the wings off of it in
• 1:29:26
  the building, building this plane.
• 1:29:28
  But the planes are Immaculate. Kenny I I I'm like, I'm looking
• 1:29:33
  at this work and I'm like, he built all this stuff.
• 1:29:36
  Some of the stuff was built from scratch, not even No plan.
• 1:29:42
  And then he's got planes that were crashed and he bought them
• 1:29:46
  and rebuilt them and I'm looking at this stuff and I'm like, who
• 1:29:49
  did this paintwork? He said I did it and I'm telling
• 1:29:53
  you, it's muse museum quality stuff.
• 1:29:56
  It's crazy. It is it fair to say?
• 1:30:00
  I mean this humbly and respectfully.
• 1:30:03
  Is it? Is it fair to say that the
• 1:30:05
  Bloomquist family is so smart? They're like Elon Musk's smart,
• 1:30:12
  and we can't communicate with them.
• 1:30:14
  They're just that. Are they that ahead of us?
• 1:30:19
  I don't know. I mean they are definitely
• 1:30:21
  smart. Scott and I, you know we started
• 1:30:24
  the Outlaw deal, wouldn't have started if Scott and I wouldn't
• 1:30:27
  have got together and got those 12 drivers together back in O 4,
• 1:30:30
  we actually Scott. Bloomquist and I put that.
• 1:30:33
  Together. And what was the name of that?
• 1:30:37
  Young, A Dirty Dozen. A dirty dozen, I'll.
• 1:30:40
  Be damned. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:30:42
  And that's another. Well, yeah, that's another story
• 1:30:44
  for another time we can go into. And there's a lot to that story.
• 1:30:48
  You're getting ready now. I've.
• 1:30:49
  Got a lot of respect for. Scott And I think Scott will
• 1:30:54
  tell you he has a lot of respect for what we've done and he's
• 1:30:59
  learned. He's learned more about what
• 1:31:02
  I've done over the years because I think for a long time he
• 1:31:04
  didn't understand who I was. And there's like you, you didn't
• 1:31:08
  understand who I was or who I was because I was in the shop
• 1:31:13
  and I I wasn't out running around and talking and and when
• 1:31:16
  I was at the racetrack, I mean, I got a lot of crap to do.
• 1:31:19
  I had a lot of crap to do because, you know, I did
• 1:31:22
  everything from changing the motors to grooving the tires to
• 1:31:26
  driving the truck to all that back in those days that we were
• 1:31:30
  trying to get on the ground and trying to get help.
• 1:31:33
  And when Josh left here, this is when I changed.
• 1:31:37
  Josh left here in 2016 to move to Ohio to drive for the best
• 1:31:42
  team, the number one best team. And I said, you know, I told
• 1:31:47
  Baker, I said if I'm going to do this, I'm going to hire help
• 1:31:51
  because I'm getting old enough now that I can't do it.
• 1:31:53
  Like I've been doing it and I sure can't do it with Josh not
• 1:31:56
  being here because Josh, contrary to what anybody wants
• 1:32:00
  to believe, he worked his butt off to do this.
• 1:32:03
  And there's a lot of guys out there today that drive that have
• 1:32:08
  no idea how much work that guys did 2025, thirty years ago to
• 1:32:14
  race these cars. And there's a lot of drivers
• 1:32:19
  that I got a lot of respect for. Bob Pierce was one of them.
• 1:32:21
  Bob Pierce, you know, I got all kinds of respect for Bob and you
• 1:32:26
  know, he's very fortunate. He's gets the race with his kid
• 1:32:30
  and his kids, one of the best drivers, if not the best driver
• 1:32:33
  in the country today. I'm going to say Bobby is.
• 1:32:37
  The best driver in the country? Yeah, I agree.
• 1:32:39
  I agree. And I've said it.
• 1:32:41
  I've said it. Yes, I got all kinds of respect
• 1:32:43
  for Bobby. You know, but over.
• 1:32:48
  The years Dale McDowell and and Rick Eckert and Steve Francis
• 1:32:52
  and guys like that, that I ran around with up and down the
• 1:32:55
  road. They never had big sponsors.
• 1:32:58
  Kenny Racing was. Different We weren't.
• 1:33:01
  Racing for as much money and they made it happen because
• 1:33:06
  that's. What they love to.
• 1:33:07
  Do made it happen, make it happen.
• 1:33:12
  Today it's more about how much money because it takes so much
• 1:33:16
  money to run these cars. I just told you 700 grand to run
• 1:33:19
  this car. You got to win 1.4 million to
• 1:33:22
  break even. So, so if you're given 50% of it
• 1:33:28
  back to the crew and the driver, and that's where I'm at, it
• 1:33:32
  takes that. If you want to have good crew
• 1:33:33
  and you want to have a good driver, it's going to cost you
• 1:33:35
  right well there. He is the great Mark Richards.
• 1:33:39
  Mark, you're getting ready to be our longest interview ever and
• 1:33:42
  it was well worth it. And we we need to have a Part 2.
• 1:33:46
  I want to let you know that I admire you.
• 1:33:49
  I look up to you. Nobody has built as many dirt
• 1:33:52
  cars as you, 6200. You're the king of dirt, Super
• 1:33:57
  late models. If it's stopped right now,
• 1:34:00
  you're in the. Hall of Fame and by.
• 1:34:02
  The way you need to work on those boys, they need a much
• 1:34:05
  better building. That should be your next
• 1:34:08
  project. Let's get the dirt Super Late
• 1:34:10
  Model Hall of Fame in a much more respectful They got a great
• 1:34:14
  idea, but it's got to be a it's got to be a better building.
• 1:34:19
  I went in there in 2. 1011 and and my partner's going in.
• 1:34:23
  This year. Steve's going in 2024, so, you
• 1:34:27
  know, I'm, I'm kind of excited for Steve because Steve has put
• 1:34:31
  his heart and soul into this. And.
• 1:34:33
  And you're right, it does need to be in a better building.
• 1:34:36
  Yes. All right, well, listen.
• 1:34:37
  Everybody remember we are in podcast form.
• 1:34:40
  You can listen to this one on your way to work in the morning
• 1:34:43
  on your way back home four times and learn all about the great
• 1:34:48
  Mark Richards. He innovative.
• 1:34:50
  He run Rocket Chassis his whole life.
• 1:34:53
  We're in podcast form, iTunes and Spotify.
• 1:34:57
  Mark, thank you so much, buddy. And I hope to see you at the
• 1:34:59
  next dirt track. All right, Kenny.
• 1:35:01
  Thank you. I appreciate it.
• 1:35:03
  It's goodbye everybody. Goodbye.