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Cleetus McFarland Holds Court At The Daytona 500 | NASCAR Press Conference · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:00
  Mattweavermotorsport.com 2 for Cletus.
• 0:02
  I've always wanted to know dating back to your ARCA stuff
• 0:04
  too. When you get your license, which
• 0:06
  name is on the hard card and do you have to fight NASCAR to try
• 0:09
  to use the the the the real name?
• 0:11
  I'm glad you brought it up. Let me see.
• 0:14
  See, I was fighting with NASCAR yesterday.
• 0:16
  They're trying to put Cletus Mitchell on my truck hard card.
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  Let's see what we ended up with. Cletus, McFarlane, Mitchell.
• 0:27
  That's all. That's all we settled on.
• 0:30
  And then ARCA just has Garrett Mitchell.
• 0:32
  So you know we're getting there though, you know it's.
• 0:35
  Progress, incremental progress. The other question I've got for
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  you too, where you are right now in your development as a NASCAR
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  style driver. You've had intermediate races.
• 0:44
  You go to Bristol. I'm curious like do you want to
• 0:46
  do more high level Oval stuff? You got the relationship with
• 0:49
  Ricky Brooks. Could you do some late model
• 0:51
  stuff? What all do you want to do in
• 0:53
  this kind of NASCAR space? Well, you know, I really, I've
• 0:59
  been trying to climb the ranks slowly.
• 1:02
  You know, when I got into this with Biff, I called him.
• 1:04
  I said I want to run the Daytona 500.
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  And he was like, I mean, you just can't.
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  And I was so excited. I was like, I want to run the
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  500. That was my only goal.
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  And now that I realize how good all the other drivers are and
• 1:19
  how fast the cars are, I'm like, wow, I definitely cannot race
• 1:23
  the Daytona 500. Biff was right and I've been
• 1:26
  slowly, you know, I've been really enjoying ARCA and you
• 1:30
  know, that level of competition has been good for me.
• 1:34
  I've learned a lot. This truck thing happened purely
• 1:36
  because Travis Pastrana is an amazing human being and pretty
• 1:40
  much handed me the opportunity to do it by putting me in touch
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  with Nice Motorsports, Black Rifle coffee and Braunt
• 1:46
  workwear. Like it all came together
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  because of Travis 100%. But don't let him fool you, he's
• 1:51
  a hell of a wheel man. And it wouldn't even have
• 1:53
  brought it up because everyone's like, oh, Youtubers are this and
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  that. I went to the Freedom 500,
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  realized there's a lot of really good drivers.
• 1:59
  And at the end of the day, one of the best drivers I've ever
• 2:01
  met at driving anything is what? What is that?
• 2:04
  Well, George and I were just talking about how it's pissing
• 2:07
  us off. Your sleeves are on your shirt
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  right now. Do you mind if we just cut them
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  off real quick? Sure, we have time for that.
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  All right, we'll make it quick. I almost trust you with that
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  knife. Are we doing a relief cut on the
• 2:22
  bottom? Nah.
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  Stand for this. Oh man.
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  Now if his shirt fully rips off right?
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  Now. Well, you RIP my arm off.
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  Put your arm out like this, you know what to say.
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  How about now? How about now?
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  All right, now we're good. We know what we're doing that.
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  Was actually professional are. You impressed.
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  Actually, one year ago today was the first time I ever ripped
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  Biff's sleeves off over in the pits.
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  So it's kind of a special moment we got to all have our sleeves
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  off this weekend. Be like Biff.
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  Where were we? Sorry I.
• 2:59
  Want to get you yellow? Frizzy there.
• 3:04
  Thanks, Mom. There's.
• 3:08
  Where did we leave off? I realized the drivers were
• 3:11
  good. I realized the drivers were very
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  good, thank you. And I was like you know, I don't
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  really want to go up. I love Arca, you know, I get to
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  they go hey yellow flag everyone come get some tires.
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  Take your time. You know, now I'm in this truck
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  I'm like man, I got to go in here at you know, Mach speed,
• 3:34
  make the turn perfect, get in the box, change the tires and if
• 3:37
  I don't do everything perfect, I'm going to lose 5 positions,
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  you know, and I'm already under that pressure so but it's good.
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  I needed that I needed to start moving up the ranks.
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  So thanks to Travis, I'm getting that opportunity to move up and
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  I hope to keep progressing, but I'm just trying to take it slow
• 3:54
  and eventually work my way to the top and make it to the 500.
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  But I don't want to be one of those guys who get to, you know,
• 4:04
  lobbies for some sort of provisional and then ends up
• 4:07
  just being getting spanked every weekend, you know.
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  So the big tracks, the restrictor play tracks, a lot of
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  fun. It's easy for me to be
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  competitive. You mentioned the intermediate
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  and the short tracks. Very challenging.
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  I mean, I was racing at Rockingham earlier this week.
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  Wow, is that fast. Wow, is Bristol hard too?
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  I mean, extremely challenging. So what I guess I'm trying to
• 4:32
  say is I got a lot to learn and I need more seat time, more time
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  in in ARCA, more time in late models, maybe with Ricky Brooks
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  and just get better. He sells himself short.
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  He's one of the best wheelman like just natural Wheeling
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  because he's he drives more vehicles than almost anyway.
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  Jumps into a plane race and freaking wins that jumps into
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  boat races wins it like he can drive anything.
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  And as Denny Hamlin told me when I was trying to lobby for a spot
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  of the the 500, he goes, look, there's so these guys been
• 4:59
  working their whole life to learn how to drive NASCAR.
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  But when you put a restrictor play race here at Daytona, like
• 5:04
  the biggest thing is that you keep having fun.
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  You keep being aware of everything that's going on
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  around you. You try not to mess up the pits,
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  which we got to talk about because I I'd overshot the pit
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  bot. You 50 mile an hour feels like
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  you're stopped and then you just hit the brakes and you slide for
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  you know, because you're still going 50.
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  But you'll you'll figure that out.
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  But if you don't make so many mistakes here, someone like
• 5:22
  Cletus who can drift anything, who can drive anything when
• 5:27
  people start bumping and shoving and I tried the crown VIX.
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  I thought that was a joke out here.
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  I was like, sure, I'll go over like crown VIX around Daytona.
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  But we got here. I was bumping and shoving and
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  moving this guy and he stayed right on that line and I said,
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  you know what, we're going to have a lot of fun and there's I
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  mean, you got Tony Stewart, you got so many guys dropping down.
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  It's it's going to be. A.
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  Well, Stenhouse on on the team nice.
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  Like he's he wanted us over there at 3:00.
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  We got some press, but I was like, as soon as you're done the
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  Arco, we've got some some homework to go overnight.
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  We got a great team and what what did we say earlier?
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  We're so good at crashing. It helps.
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  It helps us not crash. Yes, that's where our skill set
• 6:02
  helps out. Dave Moody from MRN and SiriusXM
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  NASCAR Radio Clete hard card debates notwithstanding, just
• 6:09
  for broadcast purposes. So we all know do you want to be
• 6:13
  Garrett? Do you want to be Cletus?
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  Do you want to be the combo? Garrett, Cletus, MacFarlane.
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  I think I Cletus MacFarlane for. Everything that's the one that
• 6:22
  cashes the check, so I figured that would be.
• 6:24
  It. Yeah, it is for everything all
• 6:25
  right. That's what it'll be then.
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  Thank you. A friend called me in back in
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  the day. Personality.
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  That's where the words, yeah, I mean, changed my life the day he
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  said it. And I don't even know it just it
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  was at first it was like a redneck personality and then it
• 6:43
  just merged with my actual personality.
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  And now I'm stuck. I'm like the Hulk, but I'm stuck
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  in between. Bob Parker's Fox Sports for
• 6:51
  Cletus, the better your truck has the tribute to Greg.
• 6:55
  I'm curious, is there any like certain meaning to like the
• 6:57
  number of stars or anything of the Halo or and that maybe we
• 7:02
  don't know just by looking at it?
• 7:03
  No, there's, I mean, what you see is, is just the the tribute
• 7:08
  there just be like Biff and and his number.
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  Obviously there's nothing extra to it.
• 7:14
  Steven Toronto S Toronto 92 Network This is going to be a
• 7:17
  question for Cletus. You were a part of the launch of
• 7:21
  NASCAR's new branding, that commercial that dropped after
• 7:24
  the Super Bowl, the Pell. Yeah.
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  You know, kind of leaning into NASCAR being it's authentic
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  self. You know, you, you you've really
• 7:31
  tapped into the kind of badass, you know, Hell yeah.
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  Woo. NASCAR, part of stock car
• 7:37
  racing's culture. So what What was it like to be a
• 7:40
  part of that and get to do what you did with Carson?
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  Well, I got to say, NASCAR has done a great job of embracing
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  and I don't think the whole hell yeah commercial is just, you
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  know, like I'm not taking credit for it or anything.
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  But like, I can tell you, my fans loved it and I think I was
• 8:00
  excited when they said they're doing a hell yeah commercial.
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  I was like, absolutely, I'll be in that, you know, and I, I
• 8:06
  think that NASCAR is embracing A newer wave of, of culture of
• 8:11
  that hell yeah mentality. And like, I really think that
• 8:15
  what this, the promotions they've had the last few months
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  have been in the right direction and just being a part of it,
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  especially with Carson, who's one of my best friends in the
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  industry, really fun, really awesome.
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  Whose idea was it? Shoot fireworks out of the Dell
• 8:30
  truck? Launch a flamethrower off of the
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  Dell truck? Who?
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  Who suggested? That that was the production
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  team. I didn't even have to suggest
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  it. I showed up and they're like, we
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  have. I mean, I knew we were doing
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  something with the Dell truck, Carson's Dell truck, and I was
• 8:44
  impressed that they were like, they went all out.
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  They had flamethrowers ready for me when I got there.
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  I mean, they're really doing it. For both of you, you're going to
• 8:52
  get to share a track with Tony Stewart tomorrow.
• 8:56
  How cool is that, for one? And for two, do you have any
• 8:59
  kind of iconic moments of his that you like to think about?
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  Dude, I got a text from Tony Stewart like 2 days ago.
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  It was freaking fantastic. No, so Tony, my first full
• 9:13
  season, first race here at Daytona, Tony was up in the
• 9:16
  front kind of he said he's just figured out what the car was.
• 9:18
  He jumped at the time was Nationwide and he dropped.
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  So my spot are excited, Trevor Bayne on the team and they're
• 9:23
  like all right, Trevor's going to be up there mixing it up.
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  Just don't make a mistake. Take what you can get.
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  You know, we'll we'll see at the end of the race and I'm just
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  driving around the back. I'm like, this is freaking
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  awesome. I'm driving at Daytona and Tony
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  Stewart comes back and my spotter goes, hey, Tony said
• 9:35
  jump on his bumper. Kasey Kahne got him behind me
• 9:38
  and net on the 43 jumped in behind him.
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  We all went up into the top ten. There was a crash and everything
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  happened and I I lost Tony. Then he went on to win and I
• 9:46
  went across the finish line backwards after Larson put it
• 9:49
  into the anyway. But I was still as the top ten
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  finish and I had the most fun of my life and was a full NASCAR
• 9:55
  fan from there and huge Tony Stewart fan from that day.
• 9:58
  He goes from from the front, drops to the back, has my
• 10:01
  spotter tell me to get on his bumper and takes me all the way
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  up to the front. It was freaking awesome.
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  That's I hope he does it again. He's a legend.
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  You know, Tony came, he comes to my Crown Vic races.
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  And you know, it's just something I'd never expect from,
• 10:14
  you know, a guy like Tony Stewart, like, you know what an
• 10:18
  accomplished driver, he comes out of his way, flies in the
• 10:22
  town to run our Crown Vic races. And I can specifically remember
• 10:26
  we were on the last lap of the race and there was a six, 3210.3
• 10:32
  liter big block was the prize for our Crown Victoria race.
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  So it's high stakes. Tony's leading the race.
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  And one of my buddies, you know, one of my, you know, guys who
• 10:42
  works in my shop, works on our race cars every day who's also
• 10:45
  in the race, just taps Tony, gets him loose, Tony spins and
• 10:50
  loses the race. And Tony comes flying up after
• 10:54
  the race. And I'm like, oh, he's going to
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  be pissed. You know, I know, like, I
• 10:57
  watched Tony growing up and he gets out.
• 10:59
  He's like, that was awesome, you know, And I'm just like, man,
• 11:03
  he's so cool. He's exactly what you'd expect.
• 11:07
  You see him on TV, you think he's awesome.
• 11:08
  He is awesome. And I texted him today,
• 11:11
  actually, I was going to put in an official, an official protest
• 11:14
  with NASCAR. He didn't come to the rookie
• 11:16
  meeting for the trucks, so that was pretty outrageous, but I'll
• 11:21
  let it slide and I'll I'm really excited to see him out there.
• 11:25
  Can I mention something really quick?
• 11:26
  Sure. Can.
• 11:27
  I want to invite all of you press to come to the Freedom
• 11:31
  Factory at any time this year. You can look up the schedule.
• 11:35
  Totally free to come. I'll give you an e-mail if you
• 11:38
  want to write it down. It's events at FF fl.com.
• 11:44
  You e-mail us, we'll give you guys media credentials.
• 11:46
  We'd love to have any of you if you want to see some redneck
• 11:49
  stock car racing.