Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Talking With NASCAR Historian Mitchell Stapleton!
Transcript
- 0:00Hello everyone, and welcome back to Kenny.
- 0:03Conversation brought to you by Jags, the leader in a high
- 0:07performance aftermarket car parts.
- 0:10Remember to go to jags.com to fix your hot rod or your
- 0:14everyday vehicle. All right, this next guest has
- 0:19inspired a whole new generation of people trying to make a
- 0:25living. He made headline news when he
- 0:28started becoming the go to man to tell the history of all the
- 0:33NASCAR cars haulers. My dear friend Mitchell
- 0:39Stapleton Mitchell, how are you? Pretty good, Kenny, how about
- 0:42you? Tell you what, I'm doing good,
- 0:45but I want to congratulate you before we get going and and
- 0:50you're doing what we do. You're adjusting your camera.
- 0:53You look good. Congratulations on 300,000
- 0:59subscribers for the Mitchell Stapleton YouTube channel.
- 1:04Thank you. Took a feels like it took a long
- 1:06time to get there, but maybe three years in the grand scheme
- 1:11of life is not that long. It feels like more than three
- 1:14years so. Well, let's start like this,
- 1:17everybody. The man you're looking at right
- 1:19now, Mitchell Stapleton. My notes tell me you're from
- 1:23Pennsylvania and you got on the slide and you slid on down in
- 1:28North Carolina because you wanted to try something that
- 1:35some people are afraid to do. You decided to make YouTube
- 1:40videos for a living. Let's just start right there.
- 1:43Tell me the back story of I know this, but I need to hear it out
- 1:48of the horse's mouth. How did this all start?
- 1:52Oh, well, it actually started with drag racing, like streetcar
- 1:56drag racing, which was with my daily driver, which my daily
- 2:01driver was my dad's Escalade that he made me drive to that I
- 2:05commuted to 'cause he said it was big, safe and slow.
- 2:09That is, you know, you have rules.
- 2:12I couldn't buy my own car. He wouldn't let me 'cause I
- 2:14would have bought something that was potentially dangerous or I
- 2:18could do burnouts with and hit stuff.
- 2:20I I don't know. I don't know what his rationale
- 2:22was, but that was what I had to drive.
- 2:24And that's what I did. And I kind of incrementally
- 2:28modified it to make it faster and found it to respond to those
- 2:34modifications better than it should have for how big it was.
- 2:38And I'm like, oh, this is pretty fun.
- 2:41And my, by then I was able to get a project car, a 72 Monte
- 2:47Carlo, which it was always broken because I didn't know
- 2:50what I was doing. I didn't grow up working on cars
- 2:53or anything, so I kind of had to learn just by making friends
- 2:56that were willing to teach me things, and it didn't go very
- 3:00well. I broke stuff a lot.
- 3:04Were you were you recording all this, everything you're talking
- 3:09about? Or is this before you started
- 3:12recording all your YouTube videos?
- 3:14This is before I should have been recording it though.
- 3:17I have a lot of stuff that would have made very interesting
- 3:22footage had I recorded it. Well, so there you are.
- 3:28You're learning everything in life, and I believe I'm right.
- 3:34Sometimes in life we strike gold and we don't know it, I think,
- 3:39and set me straight. That's why this is Kenny
- 3:41conversation. Was it that Escalade?
- 3:45Was it that suburban that put you on the map?
- 3:48I heard about you millions of views, 1,000,000 views When you
- 3:53really did decide to start recording this?
- 3:57Tell me exactly, was that the first try at YouTube video?
- 4:02Did you do anything before? That's a bit of a loaded
- 4:06question. So yes, you're right.
- 4:08The Escalade was the kind of stumbling into it because I, I
- 4:13couldn't tell you how badly I wanted to, you know, go get
- 4:15myself a Fox Body Mustang or something that would have made a
- 4:18better drag car. But you had to put all kinds of
- 4:24more power into this thing to make it compete with stuff that
- 4:26had half the power. But it was a it was a detriment
- 4:29at first, but that uniqueness became the the power.
- 4:35If I had been able to go get something else, I wouldn't be
- 4:38sitting here right now. Now let's make sure everybody
- 4:42understands this process at at this point, you don't know
- 4:46you're going to be a YouTube superstar, but you you get the
- 4:50you get the camera rolling, am I right?
- 4:54You get the camera rolling and you start in on this Escalade.
- 4:58Is that right? I had a supercharger on it
- 5:02first. It was kind of a basic setup
- 5:04and. The camera's rolling though, yes
- 5:05or no? This is no, I started doing the
- 5:09YouTube stuff because I thought that I was going to have a shop
- 5:16where I built turbo kits for people.
- 5:18I like doing the the fabrication stuff.
- 5:20I learned that through doing my Escalade and it was really nice,
- 5:23came out really good. Other people wanted that because
- 5:26I, you know, I did it real unique.
- 5:29You saw the everything's hidden. It's real pretty.
- 5:32I put a lot of effort into it. I can do this for other people.
- 5:36Well, I tried a little bit of that and I realized very quickly
- 5:40that I did not want to do this for other people because other
- 5:43people do not allow you the creative freedom that you have
- 5:49on your own car. If I wanted to spend all day
- 5:52messing with one primary on the header to make it symmetrical or
- 5:55the other one, I can do that. But somebody else is like, why
- 5:59aren't you done yet? It looks the same as it did
- 6:00yesterday. All this stuff, I'm like, I'm
- 6:03not. We call that customer service.
- 6:06Yeah, I'm not doing I'm. Not doing that.
- 6:09Was not about that fun away from it.
- 6:12And I thought the only way I'm going to be able to work on my
- 6:15own cars and sustain it itself is through doing YouTube.
- 6:22So that's what I started doing and that started coming up in, I
- 6:26made some really crappy videos on my phone in the later half of
- 6:292019 after I left Pennsylvania to go to Oklahoma.
- 6:33So I I didn't bounce right to North Carolina.
- 6:35I went from Pittsburgh to Oklahoma City year and then to
- 6:39Dallas for a year and then we moved here.
- 6:42Wow, OK, so I heard you. I didn't know that part.
- 6:47So for all you kids out there, this is what this conversation
- 6:51is about. You want to be a YouTube
- 6:53superstar. It it's not an easy Rd. is it?
- 6:57Mitchell? How?
- 6:58How difficult has this been on you to make a living?
- 7:04Well, my process was a little bit different.
- 7:06I had enough recognition and I guess I don't know, reputation
- 7:14with the Escalade before YouTube ever happened that once I
- 7:17started YouTube, I posted stuff almost every day for 6-7 months
- 7:23that nobody was watching. It wasn't getting I, I had
- 7:2730,000 followers on Instagram from this, from the Escalade
- 7:30stuff, but it would not transferred to YouTube.
- 7:34I thought it would. It didn't.
- 7:36It wasn't until I started doing other events and doing things
- 7:42with the Escalade that kind of connected the two worlds through
- 7:47a a video company called 1320 video that does all these
- 7:51things. They, they kind of are how my
- 7:53Instagram grew and they started doing YouTube stuff with that.
- 7:57And then I think it kind of put me into the tide where people
- 8:02were already aware of me and my Escalade.
- 8:05That's key, yeah. You you got with somebody that
- 8:09was big time. Yeah, that that helped a lot.
- 8:13And it kind of went from I think it had like 5000 subscribers to
- 8:1820,000 Wow in a month. But that was from two different
- 8:24video collaborations I did. One was with a guy whose channel
- 8:28is called That Dude in Blue, and another one was with PFI Speed
- 8:32and Boosted Boys. They were in Colorado and they
- 8:36both posted their feature videos with me on like back-to-back
- 8:41days coincidentally. So that took it from stagnant to
- 8:46real, real quick. Let's, if you don't mind, we're
- 8:51going to make my Charlie Marlo, my YouTube manager.
- 8:55We're going to make him drop in something right now.
- 8:57Charlie, let's let's grab Mitchell's up.
- 9:00Let's look at that Escalade and we're going to drop that in here
- 9:03a little bit about how many views on that Escalade.
- 9:08Last time you looked at Mitchell, where were we with
- 9:11that legendary? What?
- 9:13What are you up to now on that original post that put you on
- 9:16the map? I don't even know.
- 9:19It was a couple different. It wasn't like one big thing
- 9:23that did it. It was a kind of a combination
- 9:25of like 3 or 4. We'll make Charlie drop some of
- 9:29those pictures in here right now, and he'll do a good job at
- 9:32that. So all right, we've established
- 9:35you started in Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Dallas, now you're in
- 9:42North Carolina. I met you through Mark Martin.
- 9:48Mark was out of Batesville, AR. The great NASCAR driver Mark
- 9:52Martin texted me and he says, Kenny, you got to do me a favor.
- 9:57This Mitchell Stapleton is a badass.
- 9:59I love him. He came down here.
- 10:02We toured my upbringing of Batesville, AR and now you can
- 10:07see right now Mark Martin's son Matt has has the Mark Martin
- 10:12archive. So I see what you did for Mark
- 10:16kind of bleeding over to the Mark Martin archive.
- 10:20So I listened to Mark, I call you up and you wanted to do
- 10:25something on not just me, but Rusty and Mike, and we do it.
- 10:30OK. Now I know that everybody you
- 10:33show up to, and I saw this with The Wood Brothers, I know you
- 10:36got the camera right there, but this is what's a shocking blow
- 10:39to everybody. You walk in and everybody says
- 10:44that's all you got. That's all.
- 10:46There's no camera crew. Can you?
- 10:48Can you show us what you do everything with?
- 10:53Yep, it's just a GoPro. It's not even a new one.
- 10:58It's a it's a GoPro 8, which is what I've been using since the
- 11:02beginning. My mom got me one for Christmas
- 11:04and this isn't the original one. I still have that one.
- 11:08It still works. I just replaced it after a while
- 11:10because I was like, this is the the original one.
- 11:13I don't want to destroy it. So now I have a few GoPro
- 11:17eights, but now I don't use them.
- 11:20That's pretty incredible to think technology.
- 11:24I mean, you just showed us it. And when you walked in my door,
- 11:26you were just going like this. And I'm, I'm thinking he ain't
- 11:29going to get none of this. You know, he's everywhere with
- 11:32that thing. But when it shows up, it's
- 11:35absolutely unbelievable. Where, where they're learning
- 11:39curves. And I know this sounds silly,
- 11:41but OK, listen, there's a word called ergonomics.
- 11:45Ergonomics means you're you're comfortable in your seat, you're
- 11:49comfortable with the way you sleep.
- 11:51So did you have to learn some ergonomics with that camera?
- 11:54Do you have some idiosyncrasies that you use?
- 11:57Yeah, there's kind of a way whenever you do it enough, you
- 12:02start to figure out. I used to have to like, you
- 12:05know, touch the screen to get it to turn back on so I could look
- 12:07and see what was in frame. Now I don't.
- 12:10I just, I can hold it and I can, I just, I can see through it.
- 12:14Oh yeah, that makes sense. Like I know I know what it can
- 12:19see based on how I'm holding it and where I'm turning it, but
- 12:24that was kind of a acquired skill to and I'm thinking about
- 12:30all that stuff when I'm filming. I have to, I have to talk, I
- 12:34have to ask questions, I have to listen.
- 12:37And I also have to think about the composition of the frame in
- 12:40the camera. Like, you know, I don't want the
- 12:42top of your head to be cut off. I don't want you to be all the
- 12:45way on one side and have nothing on the other.
- 12:47I'm conscious of what's in frame all the time.
- 12:51And sometimes I, when we use microphones, I have to look at
- 12:55the audio thing too, to make sure the microphone's still
- 12:58working. And after a day of film and
- 13:00stuff, I'm fried. Like my, my brain has been
- 13:04running on all cylinders paying attention to four things at the
- 13:07same time. I'm I'm cooked.
- 13:09Yeah. Well, you have become ever
- 13:12popular in the What's that? What was that you just showed
- 13:15me? The your dog?
- 13:17Yeah. She came up and dropped the ball
- 13:18at my feet. She started making noise, so I
- 13:21he'd start woofing at me if I didn't throw it.
- 13:24So I had to throw it. You're really good at
- 13:26production, so, you know if you throw the ball, she won't bark
- 13:30and mess up our our interview. But hey, listen, I did Brian
- 13:34Deegan, the great X Games motorcycle rider and his camera
- 13:38was going everywhere. Dog.
- 13:40Dog was barking. I said, no, it sounds great.
- 13:44All right, so you become ever popular in the NASCAR world.
- 13:51Your videos have not just inspired a generation, but they
- 13:55have really saved a lot of NASCAR, NASCAR archives.
- 13:59Now, we won't get into detail, but I know people have been
- 14:01calling you because you're so good.
- 14:03You did something with my brother Rusty for the old Blue
- 14:06Mac shop. My question to you is,
- 14:09throughout your time documenting NASCAR history, what is the one
- 14:15video that made you go, wow, this is pretty special?
- 14:19This is pretty big. It could be two or three, but
- 14:22what is one? Oh, man, the, the one we did
- 14:31with Mark in Batesville was one where that was not planned.
- 14:36We only went there to do his museum.
- 14:38And then we got talking about, you know, I was like, where was
- 14:41your dad's old trucking company at?
- 14:42And he's like, well, it's just down the street.
- 14:44I can show it to you if you want.
- 14:45So that whole hometown history tour format package was
- 14:50inadvertently invented by Mark when he decided to take us, you
- 14:55know, and drive us around town. And then it became really
- 14:58profound. I could see it in in him that he
- 15:02had noticed these things that he hadn't looked at in a long time
- 15:06and was reflecting on it. And he was open about it.
- 15:08And I'm sitting there. We hadn't done a bunch of these
- 15:11yet. I'm not familiar with all these
- 15:15guys at this time. We're just people who, you know,
- 15:17mess with our own cars and did videos about it.
- 15:19We didn't do NASCAR history for the first 100,000 subscribers.
- 15:23And I'm sitting in Mark Martin's Yukon Denali, and he's talking
- 15:29about all these really heavy topics and his dad and being a
- 15:33man and owning up to what you say and you.
- 15:35Were therapy for him, You were therapy for Mark.
- 15:39It, it seemed like it, it, he said how much that meant to him.
- 15:42And I'm just like, I didn't know what to say.
- 15:44Like I'm just some guy holding a camera.
- 15:46Like what, what do I get myself into?
- 15:48Like this is really heavy. This is this is special.
- 15:52It's important. And I thought we could do this
- 15:56with anybody, anybody who has a story.
- 16:01So you're telling me, was I the second?
- 16:05Yeah. You were the second one.
- 16:08Oh my gosh. You were a big part of that.
- 16:11It was like Mark led to you and then you know everybody.
- 16:16So if I'm like, hey, we want to do video with this guy.
- 16:20Do you think they'd be interested?
- 16:21And then you would just help facilitate that, like Rusty, do
- 16:25you facilitate the one with Rusty?
- 16:26And then once we had a few of these built up, it enabled me to
- 16:32contact people on my own. They look at the page and
- 16:35they're like, oh, this guy's not full of crap.
- 16:38And that that really like you and Mark Martin are like the the
- 16:42godfathers of this whole history thing.
- 16:45You enabled that to to be what it.
- 16:47Is I will please. I want to apologize for stealing
- 16:52just a little bit of your limelight.
- 16:55You really helped me, and I'm going to tell you how you helped
- 17:00me. People have a vision of how
- 17:04people make it in life. You know, how did those Wallaces
- 17:08get to where they're at? And I've had a lot of people
- 17:11come up to me after watching that very long and lengthy
- 17:15documentary. And even my brother Rusty, who's
- 17:19extremely serious all the time. He said, Herman, I watched that.
- 17:23It was long, but damn it, you were right on.
- 17:26So I want to thank you because that really helped people calm
- 17:31down. People have a vision that Mark
- 17:34Martin was born in the money and Kenny and Ross, you were born in
- 17:38the money. When you when you document our
- 17:40humble beginnings, that saves us from the vultures attacking us.
- 17:46Want to want to thank you for that.
- 17:47Do you find that in any of your interviews or any of your
- 17:51documentary that the people really appreciate it because it
- 17:55explains to people their history?
- 17:59Yeah, yeah. And that's, that's part of what
- 18:01makes it so fulfilling is like I, I grew up watching you guys
- 18:06and seeing that stuff. Every time I go to a gas station
- 18:09counter and I see stacker two, I think of the the, the Bush car
- 18:13you used to drive. Like that's wired in my brain
- 18:15permanently. And to now be in a place where I
- 18:19can do something to provide value back is is really cool.
- 18:25Like the one we did with Carrie Earnhardt and his hometown and
- 18:29upbringing and his whole story. He's told that story before,
- 18:34like on Junior's podcast and maybe a couple other places, but
- 18:38you never get to see where those stories happened.
- 18:42The the picture. Yeah, when you're standing in
- 18:45the spot, when we're standing in front of that shop where you
- 18:48were talking about Poor Boy Chassis and Valley Park and
- 18:52getting burgers across the street, and I'm like, this is it
- 18:55this, this is where this happened.
- 18:57It doesn't. You can't get any more close to
- 19:00the story than standing where it happened and listening to it.
- 19:03You, you have done an incredible job.
- 19:06Let's start winding this up. I believe that YouTube is the
- 19:14new TV. I feel like what you're doing,
- 19:19even though you don't realize it, have you thought about it
- 19:22that what you are doing right now with this incredible new
- 19:26digital era, you're creating TV documentaries.
- 19:32Do you realize that? Yeah, I think not at first.
- 19:36That was never the intention to become history guy.
- 19:40I was always interested in it. Mostly just became that way
- 19:43because I was distracted by it and I thought I can either be
- 19:48distracted by this or I can use this interest productively.
- 19:54So it just went that way. But yeah, it, it became a thing
- 19:57where I was like this. This historical archive is going
- 20:02to be of more and more value as time goes on.
- 20:06And not necessarily for you, 'cause you'll live to be 130
- 20:09years old, you'll still be racing, but the older guys like.
- 20:13Nick Waddell Wilson and Ed Pink, they're Harry Gant.
- 20:16They're in their 80s and sometimes nineties. 1010 years
- 20:21from now, they might not be here.
- 20:24And if they are here, they're they're not going to be able to
- 20:26tell the stories in the way that they could right now.
- 20:28So I kind of think like this is the closest thing I have to a
- 20:32time machine is pretend I could go back in time 20 years from
- 20:36now. What would I want to do right
- 20:38now? That is going to matter a lot
- 20:42then. And that's kind of how I make
- 20:44those decisions because I do want these videos to be of value
- 20:48to, you know, fans of Motorsports and racing then.
- 20:53And and I even think about it from the perspective of these
- 20:57videos will be of value to the families of the people we're
- 21:02doing them with. Their their kids, their
- 21:05grandkids, their great grandkids. 300 years from now,
- 21:08somebody's going to be able to watch that.
- 21:11And we're going to do one like we do with you.
- 21:13We're going to do with Brad Keselowski.
- 21:15And he had talked about the importance of him to do that for
- 21:21for his generations, 'cause he was upset that he doesn't know
- 21:24that much about his ancestors and he can't find it, 'cause it
- 21:27wasn't there. He wants to make sure that down
- 21:31his lineage that they will be able to know him.
- 21:35And I take that seriously. That's a that's a big
- 21:37responsibility for for in motivator for me to do a good
- 21:41job. So this is morphed into more
- 21:44than making a living, you feel the responsibility now.
- 21:49You're an archive maker for NASCAR, whether you know it or
- 21:52not. I know people have been getting
- 21:54a hold of you, talking to you. We'll keep that amongst
- 21:57ourselves. But congratulations.
- 21:59I I would be remiss if I did not bring up that good looking
- 22:05blonde that's with you all the time.
- 22:06Are you married or is she your girlfriend?
- 22:09Where are we at? Everybody wants to know about
- 22:11her. We're not married, but we do
- 22:14live together. We do pretty much everything.
- 22:17Well, I did. I didn't mean to ask that.
- 22:19I apologize. But yeah.
- 22:22So anyway, I wanted to bring her up.
- 22:24You know, I find that people like it when people love each
- 22:29other. It's not so much sexual.
- 22:31It's like, man, people are always looking for love.
- 22:34So you 2 always being together inspires people.
- 22:40You know, I love my wife with everything I have.
- 22:43And, and you know, it's kind of like the Johnny Carson show.
- 22:46I'm old, I'm sixty. Well, you had you had Johnny
- 22:48Carson and then you had the sidekick Ed McMahon.
- 22:52And we we sure do like seeing you too.
- 22:57Travel America and let's kind of end it like this.
- 23:02Do you have any plans to take that camera and go overseas?
- 23:07Are you are you going to go up into Canada?
- 23:09Any other countries with the Mitchell Stapleton show?
- 23:13You know, I would love to and I've thought about that, like
- 23:16how cool it would be to go to Germany and see the go Kart
- 23:21track for Michael Schumacher race go karts at like I would,
- 23:25I'd be all about that stuff. But going to Europe is expensive
- 23:30and we don't have the the resources to do that yet.
- 23:34But eventually I would, I'd love to do that.
- 23:37I'd go to Brazil and see where Ayrton Senna came from.
- 23:41I I go anywhere? Well, we really will end it
- 23:47right now by this. What is your advice?
- 23:51What is your advice to people that want to be like you?
- 23:54You're at 300,000 subscribers. We know that there's people out
- 23:58there to have millions, but listen, 300,000 is a big, big
- 24:03deal. What is your advice to people
- 24:06that want to be like you? My advice would be you can be
- 24:12the most like me by not being like me, but by being like you.
- 24:18Like being being how not not you as in Kenny Wallace, but you're
- 24:23be. Be yourself.
- 24:25Chase, but chase your internal desire.
- 24:29Whatever sparks your curiosity, lean into it and stay true to
- 24:34what you are interested in. Don't do things because you
- 24:39think it's going to be popular. You think you can make money
- 24:42doing it. You won't be fulfilled.
- 24:44It's not sustainable. You'll get burned out and people
- 24:47will be able to tell when you're disingenuous.
- 24:49And I think that's why so many people open up to us when we
- 24:54come do these videos because they start talking and we're
- 24:57listening, we're engaged, we actually care about what's going
- 25:00on. And if someone is there just
- 25:02because they want to get the video and do the story and they
- 25:06don't actually care about the what they're talking about, that
- 25:09that affects the quality of the the interaction.
- 25:13Do you want good interactions? Be authentic, be present, and
- 25:18lean into what you're interested in.
- 25:21Great advice, and I just heard you.
- 25:23Thank you for giving me that advice.
- 25:25In other words, don't copy nobody, be yourself.
- 25:27Well, all right, everybody, remember we are in podcast form.
- 25:32We are in iTunes, we're in Spotify.
- 25:34You can listen to Mitchell on the way to work and you can turn
- 25:38around and turn him right back on when you head back home that
- 25:42night. Until the next Kenny
- 25:44conversation. We have some good ones in the
- 25:46pipeline. Mitchell, thank you so much.
- 25:51Thank you for having me here. Glad to be here.
- 25:54All right, everybody, check out Mitchell Stapleton.
- 25:57I know he's going to get to 1,000,000 subscribers.
- 26:00Until next time, goodbye everyone.