Latest / Top Row Racing Media Monday Night Rewind / Monday Night Rewind | Episode 13 | Wiktor Ivanovko + Jeremy Templeton | Joel Areaux | Brian Kucaba

Transcript

Monday Night Rewind | Episode 13 | Wiktor Ivanovko + Jeremy Templeton | Joel Areaux | Brian Kucaba · Top Row Racing Media Monday Night Rewind

• 0:58
  Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Monday Night
• 1:01
  Rewind. This is Lewis here with top Row
• 1:03
  Racing media. I already have Buju in the
• 1:05
  staging area, Drew Jackson staging area.
• 1:07
  Wichter just popped in. Jeremy's already in there and so
• 1:10
  is Joel. So we have a packed house ready
• 1:13
  to go here at seven O 5. We're going to bring on Wichter
• 1:17
  and Jeremy. I felt bad I didn't have a
• 1:18
  picture of Jeremy. I thought I did.
• 1:20
  So that's why he doesn't have his own graphic.
• 1:22
  But we're going to fix that next time we're at the track
• 1:24
  together. But anyways, we'll have Wichter
• 1:27
  on about 7:05 with Jeremy and we're going to be talking about
• 1:30
  the M40 event over the weekend and how they found themselves in
• 1:33
  that spot to be there with the truck, most truck from South
• 1:37
  Bend. And then at 7:35, we're going to
• 1:39
  have Joel from the Kalamazoo Speedway and Kalamazoo Mini
• 1:42
  wedges. I know he'll also be joining
• 1:44
  them at Berlin from time to time with the mini wedges.
• 1:46
  So we're going to have Joel on and then from Illinois.
• 1:50
  So we have all three states in our area represented, Michigan,
• 1:54
  Indiana and now Illinois, where we have Brian from Granny County
• 1:59
  Speedway who will be joining us. He's been a race director at
• 2:02
  Granny County Speedway. He's been a flag man at South
• 2:04
  Bend, racer at Illiana Motor Speedway and all over.
• 2:08
  So again at six or seven O 5 Illinois time for our Illinois
• 2:12
  listeners, but eight O 5 for the rest of us over on this side.
• 2:16
  He will be on then. So definitely share out like do
• 2:20
  all the different things. As a quick reminder before we
• 2:22
  get too deep into the show Thursday night, Throttle does
• 2:26
  come back this Thursday at 7:00 PM where we preview the area
• 2:29
  schedule with all the tracks between Michigan, Indiana,
• 2:33
  sometimes Ohio, sometimes Illinois, and try to get
• 2:37
  everyone knowing where they can find themselves on a Friday,
• 2:40
  Saturday, or once again this Sunday when the mini wedges
• 2:44
  return to Kalamazoo. So other than that, it's
• 2:48
  Showtime. Let me bring in Drew in here
• 2:51
  because he's kind of hiding in the staging area.
• 2:53
  I don't know. It didn't pop him on for some
• 2:55
  reason. So we have Drew now.
• 2:58
  So Drew, welcome. Are you in Canada right now?
• 3:01
  I am not. I am visiting a sponsor today,
• 3:04
  so I am on the road just like our next guest here.
• 3:06
  But how are you guys doing tonight?
• 3:10
  I'm tired. What about you?
• 3:13
  It's just a grind. The the season has started and
• 3:16
  you know, Kalamazoo and New Paris and M40 are full bore and
• 3:22
  the traveling series starts this weekend and it's going to be a
• 3:25
  busy summer so. Yeah, and Buju, how's your
• 3:28
  Monday going? I know you've made your
• 3:30
  announcing debut at the New Player Speedway, So what do you
• 3:33
  think about that? Saturday was a blast and I've
• 3:37
  said it on Facebook and everything, but I can't say
• 3:39
  enough about the new Paris team and made me feel super welcome
• 3:42
  right away as an anxious boy. So that was very nice and I, it
• 3:46
  was so fun on Saturday I feel I got pretty good feedback.
• 3:49
  So I mean, seems like it went pretty well and I think I'm
• 3:53
  doing it three more times this year, so.
• 3:55
  Yeah, Chris said right away he told Tracy that we gave him the
• 3:58
  gave him the dates that Jeremy won't be there.
• 4:00
  And I know a lot of people have commented, you know one who was
• 4:03
  that announcer because he's really good.
• 4:05
  And and I was telling Tracy because she heard about the
• 4:08
  Street Stock race and get to see the Street Stock race.
• 4:10
  And I said, well, when you listen to it, I said Boosie made
• 4:13
  it even more exciting. I.
• 4:15
  Was I was pacing the announcement, I was probably
• 4:17
  driving Steven and Bree crazy in that.
• 4:20
  But you know, again, and we need that right, 'cause you and I
• 4:23
  talked that, you know, you don't just have announcers growing on
• 4:26
  trees, right? And so, you know, you have to
• 4:28
  find someone who not only can deliver and manage a program
• 4:34
  because you're managing a program, you're managing the
• 4:36
  feel of the race, the feel of the night, you know, are people
• 4:39
  just in there, you know, twiddling their thumbs going,
• 4:41
  wow, it's really quiet, you know, or whatever, especially
• 4:44
  during that downtime. So, so I know you're in my left
• 4:50
  ear, so just hearing you, I'm like, OK, this is going to be,
• 4:53
  you know, he's into it. And, and when you have that
• 4:55
  passion for it, right, it makes it nice too.
• 4:58
  Just like with Joel, I mean, that's, you know, I really like
• 5:01
  what he does at Kalamazoo and, and has a different cadence to
• 5:04
  him than what you get at maybe other places.
• 5:06
  And so that's again, everyone's at least being unique and being
• 5:10
  themselves and not just copycatting one to the other.
• 5:13
  Yeah, for sure. I tried, definitely tried to be
• 5:15
  myself. And there's also like like we
• 5:17
  talked about last week beforehand, I'm very, I'm
• 5:19
  definitely influenced by others. I could, I could feel it as I
• 5:22
  the stuff was coming. Out of my mouth.
• 5:24
  While I was announcing Saturday, but yeah, it was a good time.
• 5:27
  You didn't do the grandma's cookies on the top shelf, did
• 5:29
  ya? Didn't do that once.
• 5:31
  That that might be patent. Well, again, I know we have a
• 5:36
  pack show. It's almost seven O 5 here.
• 5:38
  So I do want to thank our sponsors really quick, Federated
• 5:40
  Auto Parts, ELH detailing and of course, National compacts
• 5:44
  touring Series, which is owned by Drew Jack, who is joining us
• 5:47
  on the road. But I know I'm really excited.
• 5:50
  We were going to have Rich Bowl on, but he was sick.
• 5:53
  I'm actually I told him even on Saturday I was surprised that he
• 5:56
  was racing because I mean he didn't look well.
• 5:57
  He didn't sound well, but Haley really wanted to race and so
• 6:01
  they came out to race and then he did really well.
• 6:03
  I mean, you can't, he raced that he, you know, just felt awful.
• 6:07
  And so, but yeah, that Street Stock race, I know a lot of new
• 6:11
  pairs people, they got used to it being on Sunday.
• 6:14
  And I'm like, why is that an event?
• 6:15
  And pretty much the whole month of May, I'm at an event.
• 6:17
  So it's probably, things probably aren't really going to
• 6:19
  be uploaded by Sunday, You know, going forward, especially when I
• 6:22
  go to Corrigan in a few weeks, that's the longer trip for me.
• 6:25
  So there's I cannot stay up till 8:00 in the morning again and
• 6:28
  then try to turn around and get to Corrigan.
• 6:30
  It's just not going to happen. So with that, Are you ready to
• 6:34
  get the ball rolling? Yes, Sir.
• 6:36
  It's a big, big 1st guest here, so.
• 6:38
  Yeah, well, I mean, again, what they did on on Sunday, yesterday
• 6:42
  at M40 was incredible. And obviously Wicker and Jimmy
• 6:44
  were a big part of that. So excited to bring them on.
• 6:47
  But before we get them on again, if you can like the podcast, it
• 6:51
  gets out their comment, you know, say your favorite thing
• 6:54
  from over the weekend that you saw, share it out.
• 6:56
  Just click the share button and that'll get it out there and say
• 6:59
  join us live because again, we're on for about two hours
• 7:01
  with guests all across the the time.
• 7:04
  So with that, let's go ahead and we're going to bring on Wichter
• 7:08
  and Jeremy to the show. So again, welcome.
• 7:15
  Hello my friends. How is Sophia Inspector doing
• 7:19
  it? I, I, I am still tired and, and
• 7:24
  terrified and, and I, I apologize.
• 7:26
  I will be drinking my 11th cup of coffee throughout this entire
• 7:30
  thing. It is just kind of become
• 7:32
  routine now. Well, with that, I mean, I know
• 7:36
  you guys put in a lot of hours and a lot of time to even get to
• 7:41
  to get to Sunday. And I know the other day you
• 7:45
  guys made a video where you're like, wow, that's like 3 days
• 7:48
  from now. So, you know, so if you 2 want
• 7:53
  to just really break it down into one how you met, you know,
• 7:58
  how you came across each other, just that story 2 wichter how
• 8:03
  you found yourself at M40 Speedway, because even that in
• 8:06
  itself, right? You're from Florida, so you're
• 8:08
  new to this area. That I don't think we have
• 8:11
  enough time for that story. Either way, how you guys came
• 8:18
  across each other, then we can talk about the truck, what it
• 8:20
  was like going through. So why don't we start there?
• 8:22
  Jeremy and Wichter how? How did you find each other?
• 8:27
  I, so we met through, through, through a mutual friend, Frank
• 8:31
  Gasco. I, I, I hung out with him and,
• 8:34
  and he called me one evening and said, what are you doing?
• 8:37
  And I was like nothing. And he said, welcome to my
• 8:39
  friend Jeremy's house. We're doing race car stuff.
• 8:42
  And within 3 minutes of meeting Jeremy, I realized that he is
• 8:45
  one of my people. And I mean from from there the
• 8:49
  rest is kind of a long and and and weird story about the
• 8:54
  getting a truck donated to us and then Jeremy's welding skills
• 8:57
  being unleashed with my Silviath nonsense in the background and
• 9:02
  in his ear. That's that's a whole lot longer
• 9:05
  explanation of just that it's Frank's fault.
• 9:08
  Yeah, it's Frank's fault. It's Frank's fault that that
• 9:10
  actually works out perfectly. Just.
• 9:13
  One word, Frank. Frank so Frank's fault well and
• 9:16
  I almost thought about bringing him on too, but I know after
• 9:19
  running the event yesterday and doing all that I thought I mean
• 9:21
  I know you guys participate and you had a huge part but I'm like
• 9:24
  he probably just needs a little recovery time too so I we had.
• 9:28
  Quite a bit going on yesterday. I thought he was.
• 9:31
  Here just a few minutes ago and he was like, I'm going home.
• 9:36
  I'm whooped. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 9:38
  That's why I didn't even reach out to him, you know?
• 9:42
  And I almost had asked you guys yesterday afterwards because I
• 9:45
  knew Rich being sick, that I almost was going to say hey, but
• 9:48
  then I didn't want to jinx it just in case Rich got better or
• 9:51
  whatever. So I'm like, no, I don't want to
• 9:53
  jinx it. Plus, they're also often
• 9:54
  adrenaline high and they're just probably exhausted too and
• 9:56
  everything. Finally the world just kind of
• 9:58
  lifts, right? So with that I'm like no, I
• 10:01
  won't ask. But then when Rich sent the
• 10:03
  message this morning, like I know who I'm going to 1st so.
• 10:07
  Yeah, if you would have last asked me last night, I can't
• 10:09
  speak for Jeremy, but if you would have asked me last night,
• 10:12
  I probably would have responded with just crying and babbling
• 10:15
  and for for several minutes. I don't give up that easy.
• 10:21
  I I might have teared up just a little bit.
• 10:23
  I'm I'm not going to fall and cry though.
• 10:27
  Not again, anyway. Not again anyways.
• 10:29
  Yeah, but. Stop playing, it was.
• 10:34
  A stress for 72 hours. The last 72 hours were a little
• 10:37
  bit high stress and low sleep to say the least.
• 10:41
  Well, and so when when that do you want to talk a little bit
• 10:45
  about again just the event in itself because you know Wicker,
• 10:48
  that was your first time you had said yesterday on the track and
• 10:53
  all that. That was well to, to, to be, to
• 10:57
  begin with. It, it was, it was, I don't know
• 11:01
  if I can say I enjoyed the event at the time.
• 11:04
  Looking back at it, you know, a solid 24 hours later.
• 11:08
  I, I had a blast at the time when I got there.
• 11:12
  Frank did a great job of terrifying me.
• 11:15
  And right around the test phase of, hey, we need to feel how
• 11:18
  this truck is, is driving and, and listen and smell.
• 11:21
  Frank said, no, let's just find out if she'll do $1.20 around
• 11:25
  the backstretch. And well, I don't think we got
• 11:27
  anywhere clear to that speed. It it was, it was a from that
• 11:31
  point on, the anxiety was was high pretty much until we got
• 11:34
  the truck out of the trailer at the end of the night.
• 11:39
  Well, and to Jeremy, you got to ride along.
• 11:42
  So what'd you think being the passenger, especially,
• 11:45
  especially with Wichter, you know, with his first go on?
• 11:48
  I mean, he did some practice laps and then Frank, you know,
• 11:51
  laid it out out there and that's how WSV no, that's how ABC 57
• 11:55
  got a hold of the video. They're like, hey, we saw this
• 11:57
  and we've been following most story.
• 11:59
  Can we use this? And so you know that that
• 12:01
  practice time. So what about for you being in
• 12:03
  the passenger seat watching this all come together, All your hard
• 12:07
  work that you put into this truck?
• 12:10
  Well, I'm, I, I have to admit, the first time that work to
• 12:15
  really cut it loose, they're going into three and four.
• 12:17
  I was like, you might be coming in a little hot here.
• 12:20
  This could be, this could be bad.
• 12:22
  But he kept it under control and and it was it was a really good
• 12:26
  time. Yeah.
• 12:29
  I, I yesterday was really just a blur for me.
• 12:35
  I had, I had thought about trying to do something with that
• 12:38
  truck months ago and somehow slipped up and and said
• 12:44
  something to Victoria about it. And he's like, hold on just a
• 12:47
  minute. And next thing I know I've got a
• 12:52
  message and he said, hey, we've got the truck.
• 12:55
  So the rest is history. Well, so for fans who may not
• 13:02
  know and may not have seen exactly what you did yesterday,
• 13:07
  why don't we take a look and watch what you guys are able to
• 13:12
  do. So again, this is the outside
• 13:15
  view from the tower, and Steven Emmons is chasing down, landed
• 13:20
  inside there. Jason wasn't sure if he was all
• 13:23
  the way on me. I'm going, my camera's still
• 13:25
  there. My camera's still there.
• 13:28
  And then I'm going stop hitting the trailer.
• 13:30
  Stop hitting the trailers. You know, I'm like, hey, we got,
• 13:33
  you know, mission accomplished, but I'm like, they're going to
• 13:37
  destroy this thing on the track. I'm going to have to go hunt
• 13:38
  down my camera. That was my thought.
• 13:40
  But then it's also kind of like a holy like crap moment of
• 13:44
  watching this. So Full disclosure, because I
• 13:47
  have gotten a lot of of of people telling me that it was
• 13:51
  awesome that I took it for another lap after the trailer
• 13:54
  was loaded. Had I known that the trailer was
• 13:58
  loaded, I would not have gone for another lap.
• 14:00
  That's another story of Frank's fault.
• 14:02
  It was his job to let us know we were.
• 14:04
  Voted. And and and he did after a
• 14:07
  victory lap, apparently. Well, and that's what so let's
• 14:11
  see what it looked like from the inside as you're taking this
• 14:14
  extra lap once Steven Emmons was able to and he got a good jump
• 14:19
  off that line and as he's chased you down and.
• 14:24
  So. He nailed that.
• 14:27
  I mean, shout out to to just I mean like he that that was he
• 14:33
  nailed that. And he's just dealing with
• 14:36
  Steve. Yeah, well, he even gave a
• 14:39
  little salute, like I don't know if he knew the camera was right
• 14:41
  on camera or not, but you know, 'cause it was up there so, but
• 14:46
  everyone knew that it was in there, right, but they didn't
• 14:48
  know where it was. And so.
• 14:50
  But he did a little slut and he probably would have seen a red
• 14:52
  light flashing at him. But again, this is as you're
• 14:55
  going. You can tell he's kind of
• 14:56
  getting beat up in here. And I, I turn the sound off just
• 14:59
  so we can talk over it. But you'll see now you're,
• 15:02
  you're stopped on the backstretch.
• 15:04
  Now that's where they stopped you.
• 15:05
  And safety will be coming over shortly.
• 15:08
  I didn't get anyone claiming this was AII.
• 15:10
  Was actually super impressed. I was waiting for that to be
• 15:12
  like this is AI cause anything awesome is AI nowadays.
• 15:15
  Listen, listen, like I, like I said, if, if, if anybody claims
• 15:19
  that's AI, I'll show up at their doorstep.
• 15:21
  That was with the stress I had to go through.
• 15:23
  You're not calling that AI. But again, 'cause I know we had
• 15:26
  some people just joining in. So again, you're taking the
• 15:29
  slap. You don't know, that's quite
• 15:31
  loaded. You know, you're being haunted
• 15:32
  down. I think Frank Gasco put it best.
• 15:34
  You only had a few seconds because you know, I mean just
• 15:38
  landed perfect drove right into it again, you know, Russell's
• 15:43
  just figuring out a way to take something that was already a
• 15:46
  success and adding a little extra to it.
• 15:49
  And so from the stands, that was just impressive to watch when I
• 15:54
  watch this GoPro footage and I OK, you know, all the stress I
• 15:57
  went through of like, OK, am I gonna get the shot?
• 15:59
  Is the camera going to five? If this implodes, how's it gonna
• 16:01
  implode? Am I gonna be chasing the camera
• 16:04
  in the woods? Right.
• 16:04
  Like all the things going through my head And it's like it
• 16:07
  all, like you plan for worst case scenario and you guys got
• 16:10
  best case scenario. Oh absolutely, we got the best
• 16:12
  case scenario. So Victor, I got a question for
• 16:17
  you. You put a lot of time and effort
• 16:19
  into this. It's for the kids.
• 16:21
  So talk about the baseball field that you're raising money for,
• 16:26
  how people can still raise money for that, and how you got
• 16:29
  involved with that. So, so I want to be upfront the,
• 16:32
  the, the, I put a lot of time into it.
• 16:36
  The hard work and effort is, is going to go all to Jeremy
• 16:38
  because I, if it wasn't for him, his welding skills in the, his
• 16:43
  ability to keep me calm, cool, collected, that none of that
• 16:46
  would have been possible. So, so Jeremy needs the, the a
• 16:49
  lot of the credit for that because if it wasn't for him, it
• 16:52
  would still be in two pieces and probably still misfiring.
• 16:56
  But aside from that, they, it's the Southeast Little League and
• 17:00
  Southeast the ballpark. The fundraisers are still
• 17:03
  ongoing. You can go to their Facebook
• 17:04
  page and if you want to donate, they have the the links there.
• 17:08
  I don't, I don't handle any of the money.
• 17:11
  I'm not, I'm not going to be responsible for that.
• 17:13
  I'll do the crazy stuff and put my life on the line.
• 17:15
  Someone else can do the complicated part of accounting
• 17:18
  and all of that. But, but yeah, I mean, it was
• 17:21
  Jeremy sent me a text of the picture of the of the truck.
• 17:25
  I happen to be raking the field right next to a Gates Chevrolet
• 17:29
  banner. So I was like, well, wait a
• 17:31
  second. And next thing I know Gates
• 17:33
  Chevrolet was, was all excited about doing something with the,
• 17:36
  with the truck or to just get it off of their lot 1 of the two.
• 17:42
  And then we, we got it. We got it to Jeremy's house and
• 17:45
  the rest is history. He went to town.
• 17:46
  I was a bug in his ear. He did all the, the framework.
• 17:50
  I did a lot of the maybe some of the designing and the engine
• 17:53
  work. I will also point out the engine
• 17:55
  was the weakest part of the vehicle.
• 17:57
  So again, Jeremy should get all the credit for the hard work.
• 18:01
  No, absolutely. Jeremy's got a lot of experience
• 18:04
  with the night instructions and putting these shows together
• 18:08
  with Frank, and it's certainly A-Team effort.
• 18:10
  So the Facebook page of the Little League field again and
• 18:13
  then they have a link on there that that you can donate to or
• 18:16
  some instructions on how you can.
• 18:18
  Yes, yes. And that's the The SE Ballpark
• 18:20
  on Facebook. Nice.
• 18:22
  So if anybody wants to give a donation, I think you guys as of
• 18:26
  last night were a little over $1000 for the efforts of Jeremy
• 18:30
  and Frank and can't forget the Russell family either for
• 18:34
  providing the the race track and a big.
• 18:37
  Shout out to Tuba Towels for their donation as well.
• 18:40
  Absolutely. So Jeremy, do you want to go a
• 18:43
  little bit into what it took then to get the truck together?
• 18:46
  Because some people may not know most truck, I mean, for us to
• 18:50
  live here and probably watch either WNDU or WSBT or Part 574,
• 18:55
  Nosy Neighbors or C54 Nosy Neighbors, whatever it may be,
• 19:00
  you know, those people may know, but others may not know.
• 19:03
  So like when you guys got the truck, what was like the
• 19:06
  condition of it and what did you have to do to just get it to
• 19:08
  survive not only yesterday, but future fundraising events?
• 19:14
  Well, when we we brought that thing in, as you, as you can
• 19:18
  tell by looking at the pictures of it, the passenger side spring
• 19:22
  was all the way up through the bed floor.
• 19:25
  The shackle hanger was long gone.
• 19:27
  The whole rear section of the frame was in the bed and the
• 19:31
  bumper was still attached to it along with a hitch.
• 19:36
  We went over and looked at it at Gates in South Bend and I went,
• 19:41
  this is going to be a lot of work, but I I think I can do it.
• 19:46
  We brought it home. We supported the center of the
• 19:48
  frame on Jack stands and we pulled 3 bolts and pulled back
• 19:53
  into the truck came off. Had we not put those two Jack
• 19:58
  stands underneath the frame, that whole truck would have
• 20:01
  collapsed on itself as pulled those 3 bed bolts.
• 20:06
  There's absolutely nothing left of that frame from the front
• 20:10
  spring hanger all the way back. So I looked at it.
• 20:16
  Thought about it, it's like, OK, we have we have solid frame here
• 20:19
  and we have solid frame here. Let's just build a tube frame on
• 20:24
  top of it. We built the tube frame.
• 20:29
  I actually built new shackle hangers for the rear of the
• 20:31
  spring and we went ahead and and secured all that in.
• 20:38
  When we did that, we're like, OK, well, now we have to make
• 20:42
  sure it sits so it looks like Moe's truck.
• 20:47
  So we raised the rear shackles up a little bit.
• 20:51
  We remounted the bed on top of that and made sure to make it
• 20:58
  look authentic for what it is. We don't don't want to lose that
• 21:02
  iconic look. The Chevy truck world loves this
• 21:05
  thing. For whatever reason, I've I've
• 21:09
  gotten a lot of hate in the comments or of the pictures and
• 21:13
  stuff that I've posted of it. So I wanted to keep it looking
• 21:17
  like MO's truck and Wicker and and Johnny both agreed it's got
• 21:25
  to stay that way. So we we tried to keep it as
• 21:28
  authentic as possible while putting back in some structural
• 21:32
  integrity. We added the the bar behind the
• 21:36
  cab. That way if something comes
• 21:38
  through the trailer, we've got some protection inside.
• 21:43
  Of course, we had to add a trailer hitch.
• 21:45
  We almost forgot that on Saturday night.
• 21:50
  But yeah, that that would have been kind of important.
• 21:55
  Yeah, that's, that's about what we did with it, sort of showing
• 21:59
  pictures. It was, it was a lot of work.
• 22:05
  I, I really second guessed myself a couple of times.
• 22:08
  I'm like, Are you sure you should be doing this?
• 22:10
  Is this going to be safe? No, it it turned out perfect.
• 22:15
  It works out that you were second guessing during the
• 22:18
  building because I was second guessing from about the second I
• 22:20
  got out of the passenger seat with Frank until I got out of
• 22:24
  the driver's seat after the race.
• 22:25
  So I'm glad I wasn't the only one second guessing my life
• 22:28
  choices. To to be fair, Johnny didn't
• 22:32
  Weld the ramps on the trailer until Sunday morning, so you
• 22:35
  were ahead of his schedule. So it's.
• 22:37
  A little bit. We might have, we might have
• 22:39
  skipped the safety cage inside to talk to WSBP and there was a
• 22:43
  little bit of a rush there. So it was like safety cage local
• 22:45
  news. They don't call us the last
• 22:49
  minute mafia for nothing. Well, and so do you want to talk
• 22:53
  a little bit, not just segue too far, but you know, again, Andrew
• 22:57
  alluded to it. You have been just like with
• 22:59
  Frank, right? Like you and Frank go back a
• 23:01
  long ways, Jeremy, and you have been in the night of the
• 23:03
  destruction scene in this area for a really long time.
• 23:07
  Do you want to talk a little bit about like even that?
• 23:10
  And then how does like yesterday's experience?
• 23:12
  Because you made a really, you know, awesome post yesterday,
• 23:15
  just like this is probably the best thing I've experienced and
• 23:18
  you have had a very successful career and night of destruction
• 23:22
  straight. So you want to talk a little bit
• 23:23
  about like your night of destruction background and then
• 23:26
  what made that moment yesterday stand out to all the moments you
• 23:29
  have? Well, I I started out, I'm going
• 23:34
  to say I started out in 98 with a group of friends that I met
• 23:40
  through Career Center. Some of you may know Norm
• 23:44
  Sprout, Junior, Tiny Lancaster hanging around with those guys.
• 23:50
  They kind of drugged me into the Derby world.
• 23:53
  Met John Hindgartner and then Dave Hair and Stevie Smith.
• 23:58
  All through that. I kind of stuck to the Derby
• 24:02
  thing. In 2001 I did run an enduro car
• 24:06
  at New Paris. We had a 200 lap enduro.
• 24:10
  I made it exactly 1/8 of a lap. Another car exactly like mine
• 24:16
  caught on fire and caught the whole back stretch on fire.
• 24:19
  And I was like, yeah, no, I, I, I don't think I want to do this
• 24:22
  right now. So we ran their figure eights
• 24:25
  for, for the rest of the season. Then, you know, like I said, I
• 24:32
  ran the, ran the Derby stuff up until I think my last one was
• 24:36
  2013 and we had kind of dabbled in the, in the new pair of
• 24:41
  spectator stuff. They weren't really doing night
• 24:44
  of destruction type stuff. Their, their spectator races
• 24:48
  turned into a full contact thing for a while.
• 24:53
  Frank got back into it and I had been to a couple of them and I
• 24:57
  was like, yeah, maybe I'll get into that at some point.
• 25:01
  Frank invited me out one night to New Paris and said, man, I'm,
• 25:06
  I'm racing. This is my first time and I've
• 25:10
  been hooked ever since. Little little sidetrack back
• 25:15
  story. Frank and I actually met while
• 25:20
  talking back and forth on Facebook on a South Bend Motor
• 25:23
  Speedway post. I had no idea who he was.
• 25:28
  Happened to be coming home from work one day.
• 25:31
  Spotted him on the side of County Road 17 broken down with
• 25:34
  his friend David. I went, wait a minute, that's
• 25:39
  Frank Firebird. Turned around, went back.
• 25:43
  I ended up out there like 2O clock in the morning helping
• 25:45
  them out and then we've been two peas in the pod ever since.
• 25:56
  One, Frank is just, you know, he's one of those awesome guys
• 25:59
  anyways, right? I mean, you know, he's just down
• 26:01
  to earth. He's real, you know,
• 26:03
  authentically himself is what I like to say.
• 26:06
  And that's tough, you know, sometimes, right, Because, you
• 26:09
  know, he, he definitely wears his emotions on his sleeves, but
• 26:12
  I think that's what makes him so relatable to so many people.
• 26:16
  And he's knowledgeable and he has life, you know, life
• 26:19
  experience behind him that you know, I, I found a huge fan of
• 26:23
  him. He let me drive that truck
• 26:25
  around the track with the trailer.
• 26:26
  I don't know if we'll use the term knowledgeable, but aside
• 26:29
  from that, OK, maybe, maybe. Well, but they recruited again
• 26:35
  Wichter, if you want to talk a little bit about how, you know,
• 26:39
  you came up from Florida, right? So you're, you're new to this
• 26:41
  area and well, I mean, you're also Soviet, but you know, we
• 26:47
  don't want we don't, you know, I don't, we don't need the
• 26:49
  government coming and chasing you down quite yet, right.
• 26:51
  But you know, you brought the sunshine up though yesterday.
• 26:55
  But but anyways, you were at Hartford last year and you
• 26:58
  helped with Hartford and you got involved with them and that was
• 27:02
  even part of Drew Jack's show, turned into Drew Jack's show
• 27:04
  too. So do you want to talk a little
• 27:06
  bit about like how you got into racing and what it's like to be
• 27:09
  a vehicle inspector and, and your knowledge within that area
• 27:12
  too? So I, I mean, I've, I've loved
• 27:15
  cars for my entire life. And last year, I think it was
• 27:19
  around July, one of my Co workers, David Gales, he, he, he
• 27:23
  bought a truck a, a, another GMT 800 as a matter of fact.
• 27:28
  And he started putting some stuff together while he was at
• 27:31
  the shop and his time off. And you know, as, as we were
• 27:34
  talking, he was like, hey, they have a mattress race.
• 27:36
  You should come out and hold the mattress for me.
• 27:38
  It, it might scare you, but you might have a good time.
• 27:40
  And, you know, meeting the dibbles, they're, they're great
• 27:43
  people as well. Getting onto that, that, that
• 27:45
  track for, for all of 5 minutes is all it took the, the, the
• 27:49
  hook was sunk in and, and then that, that's it.
• 27:52
  I am here. And it, it's funny the, the, the
• 27:55
  way that Frank was brought up because that's actually How I
• 27:57
  Met him as well as I just one afternoon.
• 28:00
  I, I didn't have anything to do with the kids.
• 28:02
  They they had some racing going on with Russells and I comment
• 28:05
  today, maybe I go out there and Frank was like, maybe you should
• 28:08
  come and talk to me. And next thing I know I'm in the
• 28:11
  I'm in the booth and he's shoving a deep fried uncrustable
• 28:13
  in my face. And he has been changing my life
• 28:15
  ever since. And you were paid and
• 28:20
  Uncrustables you are, you know, we got that on live.
• 28:22
  You're going down in that pit area and you were handing them
• 28:24
  out. Speaking of which, I will be
• 28:26
  honest, I think I love the Russells and and and Johnny was
• 28:30
  great, but I think my cardiologist is going to have a
• 28:32
  conversation with him because handing me a plather of 25 deep
• 28:36
  fried uncrustables. I enjoyed it.
• 28:38
  I had a great time, but I doctor, Doctor Peters might not.
• 28:44
  You know, I I think we should renegotiate rather than the deep
• 28:47
  fried uncrustables. I think we go for the Turkey
• 28:49
  sliders next time. Yeah, for real, for real.
• 28:51
  Those Turkey sliders were and, and really bringing up my
• 28:54
  cardiologist about this. With the amount of energy drinks
• 28:57
  we consumed in the last 48 hours the the I I shouldn't be talking
• 29:02
  about the Uncrustables being bad for my health.
• 29:04
  We should, we should really probably talk to Monster about a
• 29:07
  sponsorship too. Yeah.
• 29:09
  They might find a red blood. They might find a red blood
• 29:12
  cellar too in Jeremy's monster stream.
• 29:17
  I mean, you don't have to put a number on it, but let's say
• 29:20
  there's a number. How many hours do you think
• 29:24
  total went from the moment that the truck showed up to the time
• 29:29
  it it arrived to Russell's that you put into it?
• 29:32
  Work wise ish. There was not a night in the
• 29:36
  last five days I left Jeremy's house before midnight and I'm
• 29:42
  fairly confident when I came back the next day there was more
• 29:46
  stuff done to it than when I had left, so I'm willing to bet he
• 29:48
  did not go to bed when I left. I would say easily 65 to 70
• 29:55
  hours in the last five days. I was, I was thinking probably
• 29:58
  somewhere, somewhere around 80 between between the two of us
• 30:03
  and we had Frank stop by and help some Frank's, Frank's a
• 30:08
  busy cat, so. We might need to include the the
• 30:11
  time or two I stuck snuck into purgatory and eluded security
• 30:16
  and stole some metal. Proof.
• 30:19
  Johnny Russell for supplying the frame to the truck unknowingly
• 30:23
  for most of the week. And we we did have Big Phil over
• 30:27
  here one night. He was able to to get away for a
• 30:30
  little bit. Team effort came together to get
• 30:35
  this put together. I like, like I said, I I
• 30:37
  absolutely don't want to take all of the credit there really
• 30:41
  if it was not for Jeremy in in keeping me sane and the intake
• 30:46
  manifold would not have been put back on Saturday night if it
• 30:49
  wasn't for Jeremy going put the intake manifold back on the car.
• 30:52
  Yeah, well. I I kind of have to run that's.
• 30:59
  That's like goal number one, right?
• 31:01
  Other than like, not falling apart while you're running yet,
• 31:03
  but, you know, taking around the track because this week, for
• 31:07
  those who may not know, you get to be the pace car at Russell's
• 31:10
  and 40 Speedway. For at least a couple of laps,
• 31:14
  we're still contemplating whether or not the number 2
• 31:16
  cylinder is is going to hit the moon, but we will see.
• 31:21
  We've not heard Uncle Rodney knocking yet, so.
• 31:25
  Well, and I saw you share the Hartford post.
• 31:27
  Are you, do you, are you thinking you're going to end up
• 31:29
  at Hartford? Not as pace car, but as a fan on
• 31:31
  Friday, maybe at Hartford? I, I am hoping to get out there
• 31:34
  Friday. I have, I have, I have all the
• 31:36
  intentions of going to Hartford quite a bit this summer.
• 31:38
  I will, I will. I will be at their night of
• 31:41
  destructions for sure, but I would like to make it out there
• 31:43
  Friday. I did kind of spring on to my
• 31:46
  wife that hey, I'm doing some stuff on Mother's Day so I
• 31:49
  should probably discuss with her before I make any plans for for
• 31:53
  future track events. Well.
• 31:56
  I do have to say, for being there on Mother's Day, she
• 31:58
  looked pretty. She looked like she was having a
• 32:01
  good time. I think she was just happy I
• 32:03
  didn't get to myself or you or Frank killed in front of her and
• 32:06
  my children on Mother's Day. I think it's, I think what's the
• 32:09
  biggest excitement right there? So that's also pretty, I know
• 32:13
  we're running low on time here. So do you guys, either of you,
• 32:17
  both of you, however you want to do it, you know, who all do you
• 32:19
  want to thank for part of this? Because you mentioned some names
• 32:22
  are already obviously with Frank Gates, was it Sam and Sam from
• 32:26
  Gates? Oh yeah, I have to.
• 32:28
  Michael. Michael Clarke, Sam Nixon, Sam
• 32:33
  Raszewski. I I still don't know for how to
• 32:35
  pronounce Sam's name, but those guys with Gates Chevrolet were
• 32:39
  amazing. Marshall Boyd with tub of towels
• 32:41
  coming through with a $500 donation.
• 32:44
  Frank obviously, Jeremy, my, my, my rock in this whole project,
• 32:49
  I'm forgetting everyone. SE Ballpark, the Russells,
• 32:53
  everyone that has donated. I'm forgetting a lot of people.
• 32:56
  Jeremy, help me out here. Yeah, no, this is your
• 32:59
  department, bud. I'm the guy that lives in the
• 33:02
  well, hood. No, that's not fair.
• 33:04
  That's not fair. I mean, I you're putting me on
• 33:06
  the spot here, but. I not done anything but work on
• 33:11
  the truck to be completely honest.
• 33:12
  Although all the other side of his venue bud.
• 33:15
  Yeah, I mean, I, I, I special shout out to Angie at the
• 33:18
  Southeast ballpark, the our, our, our board president for, I
• 33:22
  mean, she's really the one that was able to reach out and get
• 33:25
  the truck to begin with. So without her, I don't think
• 33:27
  any of this would have been possible.
• 33:29
  So. So they say it takes a village,
• 33:32
  right? You know, And so again, that's
• 33:34
  something that, you know, all that work, all those hours came
• 33:38
  together in one moment, one time that's now documented in several
• 33:41
  spots, you know, between 2 news stations.
• 33:44
  You know, what I did, what crashers did, what others have
• 33:47
  on video. So you made a moment for a lot
• 33:49
  of people and it helped a community, you know, of a
• 33:53
  ballpark community at the same time.
• 33:55
  So, you know, again, that's just a big kudos to everyone involved
• 33:59
  with, you know, bringing this whole thing together from, you
• 34:02
  know, Gates. And I mean, just think of all
• 34:04
  the timeline of things that had to line up for that moment
• 34:07
  yesterday, going all the way back to people seeing MO's truck
• 34:10
  months ago, right? Like you just follow that
• 34:13
  timeline to how it progressed and you know, for that to happen
• 34:17
  and now people get to benefit. And you know, Jeremy, kudos to
• 34:20
  you for like, we don't want to take away the identity of MO's
• 34:23
  truck, you know, to even honor that because, you know, as, you
• 34:27
  know, just in our everyday world, you can go places and
• 34:29
  legacies are wiped away, you know, just like that blend end.
• 34:33
  I mean, a McDonald's doesn't look like a McDonald's when we
• 34:35
  were growing up, you know, McDonald's and Burger King and
• 34:38
  Taco Bell all look the same. If you swap, you know, you took
• 34:41
  the logos off and said, what's the building?
• 34:43
  I don't know, it's a fast food joint.
• 34:45
  Yeah, that was like, I got a lot of comments like, oh, you guys
• 34:48
  should restore the truck and make it look brand new.
• 34:50
  And it's like, no, at that point it looks like just another green
• 34:53
  Chevy Silverado. This this has character.
• 34:56
  Yep. So Wicker, where can people
• 34:59
  follow you too? Becca?
• 35:00
  I don't want to forget that because you have, I mean, you
• 35:03
  know, a lot of people think I have a big following and then
• 35:05
  you know, when you have like 835,000 people, I'm like, I'm
• 35:10
  never going to get to that point.
• 35:12
  Oh, absolutely you will. You have the skill in the, in
• 35:14
  the angles and the timing and the trust me, you, you have the
• 35:16
  production skills that I don't have.
• 35:18
  So you're well on your way. But you can find me on, on, on
• 35:21
  the Facebook, on the on the TikTok, the Instagram.
• 35:24
  It's pretty simple. It's Wicker Ivanoffco.
• 35:26
  No, no fancy numbers or anything like that.
• 35:29
  I am on the YouTube as well with like 11 or 12,000 followers.
• 35:33
  I haven't put a lot of time in that but but I'm everywhere so
• 35:36
  you can. You can find me in my
• 35:38
  nonsensical Soviet antics wherever you want to.
• 35:41
  And do you want to give people a just a snippet of what kind of
• 35:44
  content you produce for those who may not know you?
• 35:49
  So the goal is to is to just stick with things that will make
• 35:54
  you laugh typically in an automotive themed.
• 35:57
  But let's face it, working in the automotive industry can suck
• 36:01
  97.9% of the time. And if it's one thing I have
• 36:05
  learned is nobody wants to really think about how bad it
• 36:08
  sucks while you were doing it. You know, you know what?
• 36:10
  No one wants to. How about this heat when it's
• 36:12
  90° outside? So if I can, if I can make the
• 36:16
  make it exaggerated and a little bit of laughter throughout the
• 36:19
  day, that perhaps it will be a little bit better.
• 36:21
  And that is the theme they're having.
• 36:22
  Good day. Well, and in a world where
• 36:26
  sometimes, you know, it could be crappy, right, you know, find
• 36:30
  something to laugh at, Jeremy, where can people follow you?
• 36:33
  Because again, you've done so much in the, in the short track
• 36:36
  racing community and all that. So where can people follow you
• 36:38
  and what you do? I'm, I'm on Facebook, Instagram,
• 36:42
  Tiktok. I do, I, I have done in the past
• 36:46
  a little bit of YouTube. Typically most of my stuff has
• 36:49
  been night of destruction races just from a driver's standpoint
• 36:56
  or, or I'm sorry, from a driver's standpoint, from trying
• 37:02
  to watch so that the drivers can see what is going on with them.
• 37:07
  I haven't been doing that a lot in the last couple of years.
• 37:10
  I'll get one, one or two here and there, but I don't really
• 37:14
  have any kind of a following or any any content anywhere really.
• 37:18
  We're going to fix that. Well, again you 2 are such.
• 37:23
  A awesome We might we might break the Internet.
• 37:26
  I mean, you're a great team and that's where you know, I just
• 37:29
  watching what you guys are able to do, how you bounce off of
• 37:32
  each other. Again, I just think that that's
• 37:35
  something that sometimes it's once you find your person who
• 37:39
  you can do that. And obviously Frank, I mean, you
• 37:41
  know, a lot of people can bounce off Frank too, in that sense
• 37:43
  because of just his personality and and just him as a human,
• 37:47
  right. Like the kindness that he has
• 37:49
  for a lot of people and care that he has for people that you
• 37:51
  know, you can bounce off those kind of people.
• 37:53
  And so that's something with you too.
• 37:55
  You could tell your chemistry's there.
• 37:57
  Yeah, if Frank initially told me you you got to meet this guy,
• 38:02
  He's he's just one of us and he talks funny.
• 38:07
  The second Wichter walked up, Phillip and I were here.
• 38:11
  We had a grand am that we're still actually going to be
• 38:15
  running at New Paris, potentially M40I don't know
• 38:20
  where else yet, but as soon as he walked up it was like, no,
• 38:25
  this, this guy is just one of us and he immediately fit right in.
• 38:31
  We're having a good time. We're cutting up in the shop and
• 38:34
  we're getting stuff done at the same time.
• 38:36
  I don't know if I immediately fit in.
• 38:38
  I think I immediately threw a fuel pump across your front
• 38:40
  yard, but then I fit. In.
• 38:42
  Yeah, yeah, well, I we throw stuff too from time to time.
• 38:48
  Well, again guys, I know we're a little bit past time here and
• 38:51
  and you have had many, many hours dedicated to this whole
• 38:54
  project. So I certainly thank you for
• 38:56
  giving another 30 ish minutes of your time towards this because
• 39:00
  it's just huge kudos to what you both did and what the community
• 39:03
  did to bring this all together. Well, thank you for having me
• 39:06
  for sure. Absolutely.
• 39:07
  Thank you for having us and thank you for what you guys do.
• 39:11
  Well, definitely not. I'm excited to keep crossing
• 39:14
  paths. And so I know wichter, you know,
• 39:17
  may be shadowing me from time to time, you know, just to see
• 39:20
  something. So I'm excited for that.
• 39:22
  Oh yeah. I'm going to show up randomly
• 39:23
  and unannounced. Pick up over your shoulder.
• 39:28
  What are you doing? Again, it's just thank you,
• 39:34
  Witcher for being a part of our community because you know you
• 39:37
  you've already made you made change at Hartford, bringing
• 39:39
  your personality there and doing that and seeing what you did at
• 39:42
  Russell's and blending in. I can't wait to see what you're
• 39:45
  not. Next project is and.
• 39:47
  We're just getting. Started that's what I'm excited
• 39:51
  for so again guys thank you so much for joining us and of
• 39:55
  course obviously follow Witcher on social media to keep up with
• 39:58
  all of his antics and everything he does Jeremy especially with
• 40:01
  night of destruction season coming up I know he was at new
• 40:04
  Paris a few weeks ago just kind of hanging out and and obviously
• 40:07
  we have one coming up on May 23rd and then I know like
• 40:10
  Galesburg is this Saturday. I don't know if you ever went to
• 40:12
  Galesburg Night of Destruction, but I get to experience that for
• 40:14
  my first time this week and they jump like school buses and do
• 40:17
  all these weird things up there. So I'm excited to see what kind
• 40:19
  of things they. You and Galesburg.
• 40:23
  So again, if if nothing to do on a Saturday, might come on out
• 40:27
  and see what that's like. So.
• 40:29
  I got AI, got a race, a pace car.
• 40:31
  That you'll be busy, but just in case you never know someone
• 40:35
  listening. But again, enjoy driving the
• 40:37
  pace car because that'll be fun with late models right behind
• 40:40
  you, right on your tail. So.
• 40:43
  There's an anxiety level. Again, thank you.
• 40:45
  Thank you. I appreciate it.
• 40:48
  What better way to end than to give you a little anxiety
• 40:52
  thinking about cars behind you doing about 70 mph chasing you
• 40:55
  down while you're trying to get off the track so they could do
• 40:57
  like 90 so. 90 Both of you do assume my truck's going to do
• 41:01
  70. We can get the nitrous bottle
• 41:05
  out. It's.
• 41:05
  Fine, Oh, that's like super troopers right there, you know,
• 41:09
  and Tommy boy, right, or no, not Tommy boy.
• 41:11
  That'd be black sheep, black sheep when he was in black sheep
• 41:14
  yet. And I know you're a movie guy,
• 41:15
  Wichter, so you know, I knew you'd get that reference, but
• 41:20
  yes, but again, not going to have to watch it.
• 41:23
  I think it's on Tubi. But again, guys, thank you so
• 41:25
  much for joining us tonight and and obviously, again, kudos to
• 41:28
  everything that you did. Thank you.
• 41:30
  Welcome and thank you for having me.
• 41:32
  Oh, absolutely. All right.
• 41:34
  Well. I don't know what to do with my
• 41:36
  hands. Even 24 hours later, still
• 41:40
  trying to figure that out, right?
• 41:41
  Still. Still, I don't know what to do
• 41:42
  with my hands. But again, thank you guys so
• 41:46
  much and hope to see you guys around the track shortly.
• 41:50
  So while we're well, why don't we just transition and Joel,
• 41:53
  because Joel's a big fan of Victor.
• 41:55
  And so Joel, I, you know, here you go.
• 41:57
  You get to meet Victor briefly. You know, my friend.
• 42:02
  Pleasure to meet you. Hey.
• 42:06
  You gave me catalytic advice on how to keep my catalytic
• 42:10
  converter safe and and now I'm on a list so.
• 42:15
  Right here, the catalytic converter theft deterrent
• 42:18
  system. That's exactly.
• 42:19
  What I'm sending? No, I'm on a list.
• 42:22
  I can't fly anywhere. To the FBI watching that is
• 42:24
  inert. It has been drilled.
• 42:26
  It is not the one that I keep for I mean that that that's not
• 42:30
  that's the only one that I have and it is not explosive.
• 42:32
  That's what they. It's a Claymore store around the
• 42:35
  shop here with Victor. Yes, yes it is.
• 42:38
  I mean, no, no, we don't have a. Claymore either probably look
• 42:42
  for that, might not want to leave that later on spicy.
• 42:44
  Pineapple. No retired Soviet firearms.
• 42:48
  Nothing. Nothing.
• 42:49
  There's also not an axe over my shoulder, no.
• 42:53
  Again, I, I enjoy you Wicker. I just, you know, just to bring
• 42:56
  it, you know, keep keep people laughing because again, we just
• 43:00
  need a lot of that in the world now, so.
• 43:02
  The world is dark enough if you if you can't find the bright
• 43:05
  brightness you make, make your own.
• 43:07
  Oh absolutely. And the Soviets bring us a
• 43:09
  smile. Who would have thought that so
• 43:11
  many decades later? So.
• 43:13
  There we go, There we go. But again, thank you, Jeremy,
• 43:17
  and thank you Wichter for joining us.
• 43:20
  And again, I hope to see you guys soon.
• 43:22
  And I know Joel, I thought, why am I going to RIP Joel off of
• 43:25
  this moment where, you know, I, I told him, I said, well, you
• 43:28
  get to fuck, you know, follow Wichter now.
• 43:30
  And so he said, I'm a fan of his and, and the advice.
• 43:33
  And so I'm like, why am I going to almost RIP that opportunity
• 43:35
  away from Joel? So that's why I wanted to bring
• 43:38
  him on to just connect. You better talk about that
• 43:41
  shirt. That's an awesome shirt.
• 43:43
  So I I I at least I expect a 2 minute breakdown of that shirt.
• 43:48
  Well, Joel, you want to talk a little bit about that shirt?
• 43:51
  So it all started Jim Vidlak. I don't know if any.
• 43:55
  You probably have a lot of dirt racers that follow.
• 43:57
  Oh, this would have been a race in the offseason, really.
• 44:01
  But Jim Vidlak got a lot of blowback because he always pops
• 44:05
  up in the back of interviews. And that blowback caused the
• 44:09
  Internet to take Jim Vidlak's side and he used it for for
• 44:13
  good. He didn't want any of the fame.
• 44:14
  He's just a guy that kind of pops up in the background
• 44:17
  photos. So this shirt actually is a
• 44:20
  fundraiser for the Steve King Foundation that helps racers
• 44:25
  that are in need. You know, a lot of times we find
• 44:27
  ourselves falling on hard times. And donations to the Steve King
• 44:31
  Foundation go to benefit racers in need.
• 44:34
  It's a photo bomb. It absolutely is Jim the
• 44:40
  interview bomber. He, he pops around if you ever
• 44:42
  check out like Flo Racing, he pops up in the background.
• 44:45
  He just, he just casually just walks through and you'll know
• 44:50
  his big old mustache. And Yep, that's Jim the
• 44:52
  interview bomber. That's awesome.
• 44:56
  You might have it's. It seems like he has an idea
• 44:58
  now. That's what I'm thinking.
• 45:00
  That's what I'm thinking. I see the mouse wheel go in
• 45:04
  there, you know, because I mean even it's like mind blowing with
• 45:08
  photobomb, you know, like you know, you just you got something
• 45:12
  cooking up there. I what it.
• 45:15
  Is Jeremy. I'll be at your house tomorrow
• 45:16
  at 3:30. The.
• 45:18
  FBI is watching. I didn't give them any ideas.
• 45:23
  Again, that's and while that's awesome, I I forgot you didn't
• 45:26
  tell me you're going to wear that shirt, but I know you're so
• 45:28
  Dang proud when you got that shirt and you even have that.
• 45:31
  He has the fat hat of him too. I got a big old Jim Jidlike
• 45:34
  fathead. He's going to photo bomb some
• 45:36
  interviews this season out at Kalamazoo.
• 45:39
  Beth is awesome. Well, winter, we were talking
• 45:42
  about you coming up to Kalamazoo, so you'll have to
• 45:44
  come up and check it out. And and that's for Druid.
• 45:47
  Sometimes Druid beer there on a Friday, I'm there on a Friday,
• 45:50
  Joel's there on a Friday, so you'll have to come check us
• 45:52
  out. And then I just in case you ever
• 45:55
  go over to Illinois, I know he's in the staging area hiding from
• 45:57
  all of us, so no one can see him yet.
• 45:59
  But you know, we have Brian Kasabo who's kind of been
• 46:01
  hanging out with us and, and he's at Grundy County Speedway.
• 46:04
  So there's a lot of tracks still in this area.
• 46:06
  If you ever take a road trip and want to see where you can take
• 46:09
  your Soviet antics, it. It seems like you are trying to
• 46:12
  make my gas bill go higher, but it it sounds like I'm going to
• 46:15
  have to to to make that trip. It's they've done a lot of great
• 46:20
  things over at Grundy. You know, I used to go there as
• 46:22
  a kid way back. And so just to see all the
• 46:25
  primates, they made sense. I went and it's a fairground.
• 46:27
  So, you know, if you want to go see the goats, they have goats,
• 46:31
  you know, and racing, right, So you could get.
• 46:33
  You had you had me at the goats, so I'm now I'm going to have to
• 46:35
  go. So, and I'm going to.
• 46:40
  I tried not to do it. I tried not to sneeze on camera,
• 46:42
  but there it was. Well, I well, I've kept you
• 46:45
  actually 10 minutes longer than what we had planned.
• 46:47
  So that sneeze would have been off camera.
• 46:49
  If I had any production skills to say, you know, I'm not to do
• 46:53
  the Midwest, goodbye, I will. Give you the I will give you the
• 46:55
  blame. Yeah, I'll take full fault.
• 46:58
  So Frank's fault, everything. 'S Frank's fault?
• 47:01
  Yeah, and it's and it's not Friday night, so we can't blame
• 47:04
  Dan Housing. So there's no curse here.
• 47:06
  So, you know, it's not a curse thing.
• 47:07
  It's just, you know, it's just, it's how it goes.
• 47:10
  But again, I'll let here. Yeah, that too.
• 47:14
  And joel@kalamazoospeedway.com. That's where you can send your
• 47:18
  complaints. I'll filter through those, but
• 47:20
  yes. Hey, send your hate mail out
• 47:22
  there joel@kelmswhospeedway.com. But but I'm going to let Wichter
• 47:28
  and Jeremy, I'm going to hide you back in the stage room
• 47:30
  because I and you guys are welcome to pop out or listen if
• 47:33
  you want to. But like I said, you, you've put
• 47:35
  a lot of times for this and I know you're way tired so I
• 47:37
  don't. Want to take a nap?
• 47:38
  I think I'll switch over to the and watch on the phone and and
• 47:41
  and go to sleep it. Was a pleasure to meet you.
• 47:45
  Thank you. Absolutely pleasure to meet you
• 47:47
  as well. All right, so again, we'll see
• 47:49
  you guys later. Thank you again.
• 47:51
  And that's where, oh wow, Buju, you got to, you got to have to
• 47:54
  be a. Little taller here.
• 47:57
  Sponsors now so but Joel again, I I'm like, why would I almost
• 48:01
  RIP you of that opportunity so it's like I appreciate it that
• 48:06
  would have been poor of me so you would have had to fire again
• 48:08
  the production guy for doing that so.
• 48:11
  Dude's a busy guy, so I would have got it if he if he had to,
• 48:14
  if he had a tight schedule. I'm going to try this Buju and
• 48:17
  see if that helps you. No, it actually didn't do
• 48:19
  anything. It just you know, it made it a
• 48:21
  little bit more snug. But but anyways, Joel, again,
• 48:24
  thank you so much for coming on and making time tonight and and
• 48:28
  you know, joining us so of. Course, thank you for having.
• 48:31
  Me, I think everyone's number one thing is because this was a
• 48:35
  theme like 2 years ago of how do you say your last name?
• 48:40
  So Joel, not Joel, who's you? What do you think?
• 48:45
  You spoiled it last week for me, so I know the answer.
• 48:47
  Well, but what if I said it wrong?
• 48:50
  That's fair. Eru.
• 48:51
  Is it Eru? That's how my family pronounces
• 48:54
  it. We have no idea if that's right.
• 48:56
  If you go to Louisiana or if you go to France or if you go to
• 48:59
  Quebec, it might not be even close.
• 49:01
  But yeah, we say Eru. I so I was eru before, so I was
• 49:05
  close. I was too far off.
• 49:07
  Yep, close enough. It was always handy back in the
• 49:09
  days of house phones. We could always tell if it was
• 49:11
  somebody that you wanted to talk to 'cause they they really
• 49:13
  butchered. Is Mr. and Misses Eric's there?
• 49:16
  Yeah, yeah. Never heard of?
• 49:18
  Him. I'm with you on the butchered
• 49:19
  last name, brother. That's why I go by the nickname.
• 49:24
  So, Joel, do you want to talk a little bit about, you know,
• 49:26
  'cause Buju just made his, you know, debut as an announcer on,
• 49:30
  you know, on Saturday at New Paris.
• 49:32
  And he didn't dance on the front stretch to do it.
• 49:34
  And he wasn't a copycat top row racing media to do that.
• 49:37
  So he didn't find his way into an announcer booth doing that.
• 49:41
  But you found your way into the announcer booth by being able
• 49:44
  to, you know, shake down and throw down.
• 49:46
  So you want to talk a little bit about your background and how
• 49:49
  you got into racing and then how you found your way up to the
• 49:53
  perch at Kalamazoo Speedway. So I, yeah, I started out for
• 49:58
  Reese and front wheel drives. I started at Kalamazoo.
• 50:03
  I was, I had fun with it. That we'll say that I had fun
• 50:06
  with it. I mean, I wasn't wasn't taking
• 50:08
  Home Hardware or anything, but I had a blast doing it.
• 50:10
  It's so it's kind of appealed to me.
• 50:12
  Just ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
• 50:14
  So I had found a lot of free time on my hands and built a
• 50:20
  race car, raced it for a whole season, wrecked it.
• 50:23
  At the beginning of the next season they needed some help on
• 50:26
  the infield. So I helped out wherever I could
• 50:29
  while I was still rebuilding my car.
• 50:31
  And one night it was a night of destruction.
• 50:35
  I ended up there was a either a dumpster fire or some bit.
• 50:39
  There was a big fire up in the upper pits of Kalamazoo
• 50:41
  Speedway. Rumor is still burning.
• 50:44
  Like 20 minutes of downtime there and people were getting
• 50:48
  restless up in the stands. So it was Jason Selzer that was
• 50:52
  playing some dancing music up in the announcer's booth.
• 50:55
  I went out and just climbed on one of the ramps out there and
• 50:58
  just started dancing. My my only fans career hadn't
• 51:00
  taken off. So I figured I'd try to showcase
• 51:03
  my skills out there at at Kalamazoo and and I was getting
• 51:07
  egged on in the headset. Man, if you I'm sure, I think
• 51:10
  top row actually has a good solid video of that.
• 51:14
  And I was getting egged on every time I tried to walk away.
• 51:17
  I'd I'd told, Hey, hey, get, you know, get your ass back out
• 51:19
  there. You keep dancing, dance, monkey
• 51:22
  dance. And so I got kept dancing.
• 51:23
  And then there was there's some big changes out there at
• 51:26
  Kalamazoo Speedway later on. And so I got moved up from
• 51:30
  infield announcer like infield Victory Lane stuff.
• 51:35
  And I ended up being the the main main guy running my mouth
• 51:38
  up in up in the booth there. So now you guys get to hear hear
• 51:43
  this voice all night at the in the Alamo Valley.
• 51:47
  Well, and that's something that you took over for a legend,
• 51:50
  right? That those are big shoes to
• 51:52
  fill. That's that's been very big
• 51:53
  shoes to fill. Has there been any nervousness
• 51:56
  with that? Oh, 100%.
• 51:59
  Oh, yeah. I mean, it's not just, I mean
• 52:02
  it's not just Jason Selzer. That's an absolute legend out
• 52:04
  there. I had, I had family that was a
• 52:10
  legend out there. Mick Schuler, you know, before
• 52:13
  even Jason and it's be extended divorce family.
• 52:18
  But you know, I still just because I divorced the wife
• 52:21
  didn't mean I divorced the family.
• 52:23
  So you know, I've got Jason Seltzer's shoes to fill.
• 52:25
  I've got Mick Schuler's shoes to fill.
• 52:27
  You know one thing that I do carry up there, it was Julie,
• 52:33
  Mick's daughter that told me that he always because I was
• 52:35
  blowing out my voice there every night, man.
• 52:37
  And turns out Mick had that problem too.
• 52:40
  And he'd always keep lifesavers, Lifesaver candy hard Candy's up
• 52:44
  there, chew on throughout the night.
• 52:45
  And that seems to have helped. So I keep those up in the stands
• 52:49
  or up in the up in the press box up there.
• 52:52
  But but yeah, it's, it's definitely something that's on
• 52:55
  my mind every single night. You know, I'd be, you'd be crazy
• 52:59
  not to. I mean, that's, you know,
• 53:00
  Jason's been out there for, God, 15 years, 16 years, something
• 53:04
  like that. And.
• 53:05
  He's been there since the. 90s I look up to that guy.
• 53:10
  Jason started in the flag stand and then eventually moved his
• 53:13
  way up to the announce tower. He's probably the one of the
• 53:17
  longest tenured employees that have been there in the last 30
• 53:21
  years. So other than Mick Schuler, so
• 53:24
  who was there in the 80s and 90s?
• 53:26
  So maybe even the 70s, I don't know, but.
• 53:30
  And Jason, Jason I saw commented, gave you the same
• 53:34
  advice he gave me. Just chat like you're chatting
• 53:36
  with friends up there and that that sounds solid advice.
• 53:41
  And I did hear, I heard I listened to some of the clip's
• 53:44
  top role with playing. Man, you did great out there,
• 53:45
  Buju. Thank you.
• 53:47
  I appreciate it. Joel, absolutely be like you,
• 53:48
  man. I don't know, I thought he was
• 53:53
  mediocre, but that's just me. One, I was giving him a hard
• 53:56
  time, but I, you know, I well, Lewis.
• 53:59
  On on on most nights the Internet thinks me and you are
• 54:02
  mediocre, so we're. Oh yeah.
• 54:03
  Oh, I accept that title just fine.
• 54:06
  I mean, I think it's like 10 and one right now, so I'll take
• 54:08
  that. I'll take that record anytime
• 54:10
  but if. If you're mediocre, that means
• 54:12
  you tried, right Franz? Yeah, then hey, you know, you
• 54:15
  can't always win the race, but can you win the moment?
• 54:17
  So. Or I'm just too stupid to quit
• 54:20
  one of the. Two, we like the abuse.
• 54:23
  Poker comes in. So did you ever think you would
• 54:28
  be let alone an announcer? And I swear you have a
• 54:31
  doppelganger or whatever it's called that works at the four
• 54:35
  Windsor Fire Keepers Casino or wherever I was at a gun wake.
• 54:39
  So did you? I mean, how many?
• 54:41
  Casinos have been to this weekend.
• 54:43
  Who knows? I never thought I'd end up up
• 54:48
  there. No, not my craziest dream.
• 54:49
  So in the, it took me about, I, I wasn't sure I would do it.
• 54:54
  So during that whole transition process out there at the track,
• 54:59
  there was a week I'm like, Nope, this is a good time to kind of
• 55:01
  step back. And Jason Seltzer's shoes too
• 55:04
  big to fill. Good luck, guys.
• 55:06
  And I had some people talk me up.
• 55:08
  Jason was one of them saying, man, get in there and do it.
• 55:11
  And so I did. I got in there.
• 55:14
  But no, I never thought I'd be where I'm at.
• 55:17
  I've always loved racing. I've always loved talking.
• 55:21
  I've always loved broadcasting. In fact, there was a point where
• 55:25
  I was going to school, I thought that was what I wanted to do,
• 55:27
  was broadcasting and got into sales.
• 55:30
  But, but no, no, to answer your question, Drew, no, I never
• 55:33
  really thought that that this would happen.
• 55:35
  It's kind of a kind of a dream come true that I didn't even
• 55:38
  realize that I wanted. This is going to be both for
• 55:41
  Buju and you. So what's the most challenging
• 55:43
  thing doing your first night of announcing on your own?
• 55:46
  And then what's the most enjoyable thing that you've
• 55:48
  gotten out of it for both of you?
• 55:51
  I'll let Joe go first. He's our guest.
• 55:54
  Well, let's see. The the most challenging thing
• 55:57
  is, I don't know if it's the most challenging, man.
• 56:02
  Sometimes there's some last names up there that throw you
• 56:04
  for a loop and somebody with a silent X at the end of their
• 56:06
  last name. If I come across that in my race
• 56:09
  pass and I stumble on it, I'm I'm usually messaging that racer
• 56:12
  the next day going, hey man, how do you how do you say it?
• 56:14
  Spell it for me like I'm in kindergarten.
• 56:17
  So, so pronunciations are big keeping everybody happy.
• 56:21
  That's keeping a crowd flowing. I used to be a DJI used to host
• 56:27
  karaoke out at Rhino. What what used to be rhinos in
• 56:30
  Plainwell and that was keeping a crowd of maybe 50-60 people
• 56:37
  happy on a Friday night. I could be keeping anywhere from
• 56:40
  800 people to 6000 people happy. And that's, that's always
• 56:46
  challenging. Everybody's got different
• 56:48
  tastes, everybody's got different flavor.
• 56:50
  And it's how do you how do you meet right there in the middle?
• 56:53
  So those are real challenges. Yeah, I, I, for me, it was
• 56:57
  filling time. I mean, the, I can call a race,
• 57:00
  I mean, I've seen a million races in my life.
• 57:02
  I can talk about the cars going around on the track and what
• 57:04
  they're doing and what's happening.
• 57:05
  I can make that sound exciting. Not to sound arrogant, but I've
• 57:08
  done it playing PlayStation Two in my bedroom for so long.
• 57:11
  I can make race on exciting. I think it's that in between
• 57:13
  time where nothing's happening or the safety crew sweeping the
• 57:17
  track, it's like I can't tell them to go to the concession
• 57:19
  stand again. I've done that the last six
• 57:21
  breaks, you know what I mean? So it's finding the stuff to
• 57:24
  fill the time. And I mean, I feel like we got a
• 57:26
  little better about at it as the night went on, but that was the
• 57:29
  challenging part for me was when the cars aren't going in
• 57:31
  circles. What does Buju talk about?
• 57:34
  Well, I've actually, I was talking to Louis last Friday
• 57:37
  night. I said, man, I'd, I'd love to
• 57:38
  have somebody to bounce off of up here.
• 57:40
  So if you're ever at Kalamazoo, brother, you, you come up to the
• 57:42
  booth, we'll give you a microphone and we'll we'll
• 57:44
  bounce back and forth up there. I appreciate that, sounds good
• 57:47
  to me. We we don't pay in untrustables
• 57:49
  though, we pay in pennies. All the pennies, too.
• 57:55
  Those are hard to find these. Days I was trying to think
• 57:57
  they're hard to find, but where are you finding?
• 57:59
  Well, he goes to the casino, so maybe that's where they're
• 58:00
  hiding all the pennies. Well, one thing that Buju did
• 58:04
  really well that we talked about after when Chris Tracy and I
• 58:07
  were doing a debriefing at the end of the night just to like we
• 58:09
  usually do, we usually touch base at some point at the end of
• 58:12
  the night. As I said, well, he was selling
• 58:14
  your concessions really well tonight because, you know, you
• 58:17
  brought that perspective of you travel around and you kept
• 58:20
  promoting like, man, these are some of the best prices that
• 58:23
  I've seen at a racetrack concession.
• 58:25
  And I think that's the one thing that, you know, more and more
• 58:28
  people who are coming back to New Paris, you know, I'm seeing
• 58:30
  more and more posts from drivers who maybe have kind of for
• 58:34
  whatever reason in the past, you know, left, but they've come
• 58:37
  back and they're seeing changes, right?
• 58:40
  They're seeing finally, you know, it's taken Chris and Tracy
• 58:43
  time, you know, they inherited A reputation and just get rid of a
• 58:47
  reputation and, and that reputation was many decades in
• 58:51
  the making, right? I mean, that track's been there
• 58:53
  for 7-8 years. It's not something that they
• 58:55
  just did, but they've, they've had to change things over time.
• 58:58
  And, you know, more and more people are giving them, you
• 59:01
  know, credit where credit is due.
• 59:03
  And, and that doesn't mean they're perfect, right?
• 59:04
  And they'll tell you they're not perfect.
• 59:06
  Nobody's perfect, right? But I think that's something
• 59:09
  that you did a really nice job pushing that idea so that way
• 59:12
  people can think like, oh, you know, I'm going to go to the
• 59:16
  concession stand and man, that feels like that's expensive.
• 59:18
  But you were highlighting well, at other tracks, what you're
• 59:21
  seeing here is less than what you would pay at others.
• 59:24
  And so, and you didn't call out any tracks specifically for
• 59:28
  either. Like you didn't say they're well
• 59:29
  Dang, you know, Dang, in that Bedrock Speedway, you know, they
• 59:32
  charge this much for a Turkey leg and like here you can get
• 59:36
  right. You didn't do that.
• 59:37
  You didn't say a specific track. I mean, you've been to Eldora,
• 59:39
  you've been to the Dome in Saint Louis.
• 59:41
  You've been all over, right? Like you who have seen prices.
• 59:43
  So that's something that you did really well.
• 59:46
  And I like Joel's management with the sponsors.
• 59:48
  He does such an incredible job with the sponsors where
• 59:52
  everybody's getting a shout out. He does.
• 59:54
  He takes the time to pre record those things and that's not easy
• 59:57
  to do. So what gave you that idea to do
• 1:00:00
  that? Because it's almost like going
• 1:00:01
  to a college football game or an NFL game where they have these
• 1:00:05
  recordings going where, you know, that fills in some of that
• 1:00:08
  time. That's actually where I got my
• 1:00:11
  inspiration was I've been to a lot of professional sporting
• 1:00:14
  events and there's not a lot of time.
• 1:00:16
  You don't hear something being plugged on the microphone.
• 1:00:19
  You go to a Lions game, they're they're plugging stuff.
• 1:00:22
  They're talking about the action on the field, but they're not
• 1:00:24
  talking about the action on the field.
• 1:00:25
  They're talking about who the official Bank of Ford Field is
• 1:00:30
  on go to AK Wings game. They're constantly.
• 1:00:33
  We don't have a big old Jumbotron, but I mean there's
• 1:00:35
  constantly all the sponsors are listed out there.
• 1:00:38
  When's the last time you've been there?
• 1:00:41
  K Wings. Oh, it's been about, it's been
• 1:00:43
  probably a year. I think I went once last year.
• 1:00:46
  That $1,000,000 Montrocity that they got hanging over the ice,
• 1:00:49
  you don't think that's big? No.
• 1:00:52
  That that that giant we no, we like.
• 1:00:54
  Kalamazoo Speedway doesn't. Have a Jumbotron?
• 1:00:56
  Yeah. Like Kalamazoo, Like Kalamazoo
• 1:00:58
  doesn't have a Jumbotron. But like, like the Kalamazoo
• 1:01:01
  Wings, I mean, they're Jumbotron.
• 1:01:02
  I mean, it's filled with sponsors, so racing's expensive.
• 1:01:07
  If it weren't for these sponsors, man, you'd have a lot
• 1:01:10
  more dollar generals out there. So I mean, anything I can do to
• 1:01:13
  give an edge, you know, you want to, you want to throw our
• 1:01:16
  racetrack money, That's the least I can do is, is say your
• 1:01:19
  name on the speakers. It'll give you a little
• 1:01:23
  recording that you can share on Facebook or throw a video on and
• 1:01:27
  make an advertisement out of. So it's just something that I,
• 1:01:30
  I've always wanted to give back because of that, that that ties
• 1:01:34
  back to my racing roots. It's not anymore when you're
• 1:01:38
  asking for a sponsorship as a race car, it takes a lot more
• 1:01:41
  than, hey man, I'm going to get your logo seen by 5000 people
• 1:01:44
  every Friday. Cool, I've got to sign on
• 1:01:48
  Westnidge. I see.
• 1:01:49
  You know, I, my logo gets seen by 50,000 people a day.
• 1:01:52
  It's what's the extra edge, you know, is it social media?
• 1:01:57
  Is it broadcasting? So, So I've always, I've always
• 1:02:00
  taken that to heart. If you're going to give our
• 1:02:02
  tracks some money, I'm going to make sure you get some air time.
• 1:02:06
  No, you were talking about Techworks trailer sales, the
• 1:02:10
  street stock sponsor, where they were videoing your commercial
• 1:02:14
  and then putting it on their own social media.
• 1:02:16
  So that just shows the value. And this is not only for race
• 1:02:19
  tracks, but drivers taking a quick 32nd social media like
• 1:02:25
  Wichter did with a cup of towels, putting us get together.
• 1:02:29
  Be creative. That's how you're going to get
• 1:02:30
  the extra dollar from these sponsors that's not there.
• 1:02:33
  Honestly, we Joel knows we get 18 knows before we get a yes.
• 1:02:38
  And we put a lot of effort into Joe Schmo's bar.
• 1:02:42
  Before we even got a yes into that, we had to prove the value
• 1:02:45
  of the racetrack. So just don't walk into a
• 1:02:47
  racetrack or a business expecting you're getting money
• 1:02:50
  for your race team, let alone a racetrack or, you know, a Little
• 1:02:56
  League organization that goes for everything involved.
• 1:02:58
  Look like Wichter's doing for the sponsors of the Southeast
• 1:03:01
  Little League field over in Indiana.
• 1:03:04
  It's just you got to be creative nowadays.
• 1:03:07
  And Joel, you are creative, so we'll give you that.
• 1:03:11
  And Boo too, I don't know about. Creative.
• 1:03:13
  Well, you are, I mean. It's.
• 1:03:15
  I guess thoughtful in that aspect, but well, but yeah,
• 1:03:18
  it's, it's important to to give back.
• 1:03:20
  I mean, you got to support those that support us.
• 1:03:22
  Otherwise these tracks dry up. You want to, you want these big
• 1:03:25
  payouts, these big purses, It comes from a sponsor.
• 1:03:30
  Well, do you want to talk a little bit about where you are
• 1:03:32
  creative? Don't sell yourself short.
• 1:03:34
  When you were racing, you would always like when you would tear
• 1:03:39
  down your cars and you do all these things and you're building
• 1:03:41
  them together. You do videos, you do different
• 1:03:43
  things. You'd have commentary going even
• 1:03:45
  when you're driving a race car, you have commentary going.
• 1:03:48
  So you know, do you want to talk a little bit about what went
• 1:03:51
  into that? Because you always shouted out
• 1:03:52
  your sponsors every single time. I mean you just like they rolled
• 1:03:56
  right off the top of your tongue without I don't even think you
• 1:03:59
  took a breath while you were doing it.
• 1:04:00
  So. No, for the, for the same reason
• 1:04:03
  that that I I'm passionate about giving these sponsors at the
• 1:04:06
  track record. I take that a little more
• 1:04:09
  personally. You give my my race team, you
• 1:04:11
  give me money, you give me in kind sponsorship.
• 1:04:15
  Absolutely. I'm going to do the same thing.
• 1:04:17
  And that's something that if I could give anybody advice while
• 1:04:19
  you're racing, man, if there's a microphone in your face, that's
• 1:04:22
  not the car, that's not my car. That's the ABC company
• 1:04:27
  Chevrolet, that's the may automotive Kia Soul.
• 1:04:30
  That's the, you know, the chapter 2 customs.
• 1:04:33
  You know, it's shout out your sponsors, man.
• 1:04:36
  That's, that's an easy plug. That's, that's the alpha
• 1:04:38
  delivery Monte Carlo out there. It's, it's important, you know,
• 1:04:44
  think about your sponsors. One of the things I, I learned
• 1:04:47
  while I was doing the Victory Lane interviews, I mean, a lot
• 1:04:51
  of these guys are relying on their looking at their cars to,
• 1:04:54
  to list off their sponsors. And it's, it's like take, take
• 1:04:59
  1/2 hour every Friday, write them on a, write them on a card,
• 1:05:02
  recite them. So that way you get a camera in
• 1:05:05
  your face. You rattle that off.
• 1:05:06
  That's the XYZ company Honda, that's the XYZ company Ford out
• 1:05:12
  there. You know, just give your
• 1:05:14
  sponsors that extra little edge. It's.
• 1:05:18
  Speaking of sponsors, go ahead, Lewis.
• 1:05:20
  No, no, go ahead. Nope.
• 1:05:22
  You might help my next question anyway, so go ahead.
• 1:05:25
  Mine was more of a point than a question, but I was just gonna
• 1:05:28
  after Saturday I'm never going to forget a hunter engineering
• 1:05:31
  light models Monteith Best won St. stocks on the Raber dirt
• 1:05:34
  works 4 cylinders and new parents.
• 1:05:36
  It's burned in here. Hopkins, as the Hornets had,
• 1:05:40
  you're lucky they didn't have a sponsor.
• 1:05:42
  So, you know, because oh boy, that that feature needed some
• 1:05:46
  help. So I was cold and it was windy
• 1:05:49
  and I was running out of patience very quickly.
• 1:05:50
  I almost got off the roof one time and I said, if you're going
• 1:05:52
  to crash one more time, I'm done.
• 1:05:54
  You know, I will video the next race so you can figure it out.
• 1:05:57
  But Joel, one thing I wanted to ask because I know we're also
• 1:06:01
  running low on time and I'm excited.
• 1:06:05
  Yeah, everything's going fast. And Brian has been waiting too.
• 1:06:08
  And so I'm like, man, we just got we are rolling right through
• 1:06:12
  here. So it doesn't.
• 1:06:13
  That's why I'm like, it's already 8 O 5.
• 1:06:14
  Holy cow. But with that, what has been
• 1:06:17
  your favorite memory, not only from a racing standpoint,
• 1:06:21
  whether as a fan of any other racing or from your racing
• 1:06:24
  career itself? And then what's been your
• 1:06:27
  favorite thing that you've gotten to announce, whether
• 1:06:29
  that's a mini wedge thing or at the big track, something that
• 1:06:33
  stands out to you? Well, the I guess the best thing
• 1:06:37
  that I ever got to announce was the the birth of my baby girl.
• 1:06:41
  I, I had a baby girl that was that was born back in August.
• 1:06:46
  And so I've, I had to step out of the racing scene, but it's,
• 1:06:51
  it's for good reasons. I love her to death.
• 1:06:53
  Her name's Marlow. So so that's, that's been
• 1:06:57
  probably the best thing that I've ever announced.
• 1:07:00
  Second best thing be at the Kalamazoo Speedway mini wedges.
• 1:07:03
  Getting to see these these kids come up be rising stars the the
• 1:07:08
  next generation being being involved with that out there at
• 1:07:12
  Kalamazoo Speedway on on Sundays.
• 1:07:14
  They race up at Berlin on some Saturdays.
• 1:07:17
  So so that's been that's been my favorite thing to announce.
• 1:07:20
  Probably my my, the birth of my daughter and and the mini
• 1:07:24
  wedges. And from racing.
• 1:07:28
  What's that? And then from racing, what was
• 1:07:31
  like what's in memory either as a racer or watching as a fan
• 1:07:34
  racing? Well, I say the biggest memory
• 1:07:38
  is, is man, that I don't know if you've ever hit the wall out
• 1:07:41
  there and turn #1 but man, that'll that'll change your
• 1:07:46
  world. I know about a favorite memory,
• 1:07:49
  but that's definitely something that's burned into my burned
• 1:07:52
  into my memory. Making sure that I said Chapter
• 1:07:57
  2 customs did a great job making sure that my my safety equipment
• 1:08:00
  performed as as designed. Got good camera angles of that
• 1:08:05
  one. So I don't know about favorite,
• 1:08:06
  but that's definitely one that's that's burned into my memory out
• 1:08:09
  there at Kalamazoo. And Buju, he gets out of his car
• 1:08:13
  after hitting turn 1, smiling, talking with the fans, living
• 1:08:18
  his best life, just like before the race.
• 1:08:22
  And after the race, you couldn't even tell he was walking through
• 1:08:24
  the stands, smiling like, I'll get out.
• 1:08:26
  I'm like, when I've never seen him like angry.
• 1:08:29
  And maybe it does happen and maybe he's one of those types
• 1:08:31
  when he's like a volcano, Joel, maybe like once you go off, it's
• 1:08:35
  like, holy cow, wow. That's the side that we don't
• 1:08:37
  want to see again. Stay happy like Disney.
• 1:08:39
  But you know, it's like, I don't know.
• 1:08:40
  It's just huge kudos to who you are as a person because you
• 1:08:43
  know, you manage a lot and you do a lot and you always do it
• 1:08:47
  with a smile on your face. And so if you didn't know him
• 1:08:50
  hitting that Turn 1 and you saw him in the pits, you wouldn't
• 1:08:53
  even know that he hit Turn 1. And it's hard.
• 1:08:55
  It wasn't like it was a light tap.
• 1:08:58
  It was hard and smiling the whole time talking to fans.
• 1:09:03
  You gave my girlfriend an absolute heart attack because
• 1:09:05
  all she saw was the steam rising out of out of turn 1.
• 1:09:08
  Poor Devin had a had a fit over there in the pits but she
• 1:09:12
  couldn't see what happened. All she saw was steam and she
• 1:09:15
  saw KTS take off like lightning, man.
• 1:09:19
  So Buju, I I know, I kind of. So what did you wanted to ask
• 1:09:22
  something. I was just curious whether you
• 1:09:24
  starting as a mini wedge announcer before you moved on to
• 1:09:26
  the big cars? That's I did the same thing.
• 1:09:28
  I announced many wedges at South Bend before I did the show at
• 1:09:30
  New Paris Saturday. Do you think announcing the mini
• 1:09:32
  wedges before you did the big cars kind of gave you a
• 1:09:34
  different perspective on the big cars?
• 1:09:36
  But I think it did for me. A. 100% it definitely did but I
• 1:09:45
  I want now I'm thinking about the timeline 'cause I I've been
• 1:09:50
  involved with mini wedges almost as long as I've been involved
• 1:09:52
  with racing. So I want to say I think I
• 1:09:56
  started announcing both around the same time, but definitely
• 1:09:59
  it's another world calling these mini wedges.
• 1:10:00
  So where you've got you know 1617 seconds to call a front
• 1:10:07
  wheel drive race per lap, you've got 8 to 10 seconds to call a
• 1:10:12
  mini wedge race. So it's it's more like calling a
• 1:10:15
  race of like herding cats. So, yeah, definitely sharpen my
• 1:10:18
  skills is to be able to to call a race.
• 1:10:21
  Not, you know, I still trip over my words a lot, get the turns
• 1:10:24
  confused. But yeah, definitely mini wedges
• 1:10:27
  was a good exercise. And I mean, that's the idea of
• 1:10:29
  the program. I mean, we're we're not only
• 1:10:31
  grooming these kids to be the next the All Star of, you know,
• 1:10:35
  racing. It helps all of us keep our
• 1:10:38
  skills sharp. We have a lot of a lot of people
• 1:10:41
  out there. Taylor Sexton's a race director,
• 1:10:44
  it helps keep her skills sharp. She's calling races.
• 1:10:47
  It's so it's good practice all around and so absolutely, it
• 1:10:49
  definitely gave me an edge before stepping onto the big
• 1:10:51
  track. Maybe that's what we asked Brian
• 1:10:54
  when he comes on, because with him being a race director, then
• 1:10:57
  he's been a flag manager. He feels like sometimes it's
• 1:10:59
  like herding cats, you know, if he if he has that.
• 1:11:02
  So maybe that's what we can ask when we bring him on.
• 1:11:05
  But other than that, Joel, I know we're up against time and
• 1:11:07
  you have a you've had a long day already And and you know, you,
• 1:11:12
  you again, you've been a you've brought a different energy to
• 1:11:16
  the announcing. So I definitely I've appreciated
• 1:11:18
  and that's you have hard shoes that you've had to fill.
• 1:11:21
  You know, Jason being up there for so long and you know, and
• 1:11:25
  and you know, you'll never, you can't be Jason, right?
• 1:11:27
  Nobody can be Jason but Jason. And so you've brought, you're
• 1:11:31
  going to. Be me.
• 1:11:32
  No, I was going to say no offense.
• 1:11:33
  Nobody wants to be Jason because Jason is his own announcer.
• 1:11:36
  Absolutely. Joel is creating his own
• 1:11:38
  identity out there. So again, that's just.
• 1:11:42
  I want to be me. Hey, before we let him go,
• 1:11:46
  Lewis, he's he's very involved. He's got a lot going on this
• 1:11:49
  weekend. He's got many wedges at Berlin
• 1:11:51
  and many wedges at Kalamazoo. We don't talk enough about the
• 1:11:54
  mini wedge program. Let's get him a little plug at
• 1:11:56
  what's going on this weekend at double header.
• 1:12:00
  Yeah, absolutely. So, so Friday night we have the
• 1:12:03
  main action for Fast Fridays. Then Saturday night the mini
• 1:12:06
  wedges are in action for the first time out of Berlin Raceway
• 1:12:09
  out in Marne, MI. If you guys haven't already made
• 1:12:13
  plans, definitely want to see you out there.
• 1:12:16
  National Compact Touring Series is out there at Berlin as well.
• 1:12:19
  And then Sunday we're going to be back at Kalamazoo Speedway
• 1:12:23
  again. We're going to have the mini
• 1:12:24
  wedges in action. So for those of us that race or
• 1:12:28
  you know, myself, I'm involved on Friday nights, Taylor Sexton
• 1:12:30
  races. It's going to be a triple header
• 1:12:32
  for for a lot of us out there, but looking forward to it.
• 1:12:36
  Make sure to check out Kalamazoo Speedway Mini Wedge's Facebook
• 1:12:39
  page. You can check out all the
• 1:12:40
  schedules there. But this Saturday we'll be out
• 1:12:42
  of Berlin, back this Sunday out to Kalamazoo Speedway.
• 1:12:46
  So hope to see you guys out there.
• 1:12:50
  Well, and Kenny's built an incredible program with that
• 1:12:52
  too, and he keeps getting it and and doing all these things.
• 1:12:55
  Just so you know, he retired to be busy.
• 1:12:59
  A lot of us, a lot of us keep telling a man every time he hits
• 1:13:01
  that group chat, up we go. When's he buying a race car
• 1:13:03
  again? My my girlfriend very much
• 1:13:07
  included that she, you know, text message goes off, you know,
• 1:13:09
  8:00 at night. Who is it?
• 1:13:11
  It's my work wife Kenny. Is he going to buy a race car?
• 1:13:17
  Well, again, that's like I said, I know you, you have, you just
• 1:13:22
  keep busy and stay busy. And again, you know, I think
• 1:13:24
  Joel for connecting me with Federated Auto parts as a
• 1:13:27
  sponsor of Top row Racing media when I jumped into that this
• 1:13:29
  year. So I mean, he and as part of
• 1:13:31
  that, he's helped me do voice over stuff.
• 1:13:33
  So you hear his voice across a couple different things on top
• 1:13:36
  row. And so I definitely appreciate
• 1:13:38
  that cause this not a this not a voice over voice.
• 1:13:42
  So, you know, I know my lane and my lane's behind the camera.
• 1:13:44
  So but anyways, again, Joel, thank you for that too.
• 1:13:48
  But other than I've got a. Face for radio.
• 1:13:52
  Well, and a lot of people think you've done radio just because
• 1:13:55
  of how you manage your program, but I say no, he's a DJI,
• 1:13:58
  thought he was radio too. Which to me, if you have to
• 1:14:00
  manage a bride, that's like managing radio.
• 1:14:02
  So you know, 'cause bride's got to be happy, and if bride's not
• 1:14:05
  happy, everybody knows so. It's actually the bride's
• 1:14:08
  mother's. You'd be surprised.
• 1:14:10
  Actually, the bride's mom's, right?
• 1:14:11
  They're all about having a good time.
• 1:14:12
  I don't know if I've ever had an upset bride.
• 1:14:15
  Oh, good. But moms right.
• 1:14:17
  So, but again, Joel, thank you so much for taking time out of
• 1:14:21
  your night tonight for joining us and and thank you for having
• 1:14:24
  me. You got to connect with Victor
• 1:14:26
  too. That was so cool, thank you for
• 1:14:28
  allowing me to do that. I've been following him for
• 1:14:30
  years. Yeah, and that's when I almost
• 1:14:32
  bumped them off. I'm like, wait, why am I going
• 1:14:34
  to do that to Joel? That's not fair.
• 1:14:35
  So. So I appreciate you, brother.
• 1:14:38
  Yeah, you. Checked another one off the
• 1:14:39
  bucket list chat with Wichter. Yeah.
• 1:14:41
  You do have a heart, Lewis. You do have a heart.
• 1:14:44
  I do, you know, I try, right? You know, I some people may not
• 1:14:48
  think that, but I try, right. So, but again, Joel, thank you
• 1:14:50
  so much and and now everybody knows how to say your last name
• 1:14:54
  so. I still don't, so I just call
• 1:14:57
  them Joel. I'm taking, I'm taking you up on
• 1:15:00
  that offer. Joe L on the radio because it's
• 1:15:03
  too close to Joe. I'm taking you up on that offer
• 1:15:07
  for the booth of Kalamazoo too, so I'll see you up there.
• 1:15:09
  You. Guys, have a good evening.
• 1:15:10
  We'll see you guys. Thank you again for having me.
• 1:15:13
  Yep. I'm well, thank you.
• 1:15:14
  We'll. See you this Friday again.
• 1:15:18
  Now we're going to jump in. I know we're just a few minutes
• 1:15:20
  behind and Brian's been hanging out with us this whole time.
• 1:15:23
  So brown man or wait is a brown guy?
• 1:15:27
  Brown. Guy see, I messed that up right
• 1:15:29
  away. But anyways, we do have, I want
• 1:15:32
  to make sure it's the right title there we have Brian Kusevo
• 1:15:35
  who's done it all and racing, you know, between being a flag
• 1:15:39
  man and then we lost. Him we had Brian.
• 1:15:42
  You offended him, He's gone. Figures.
• 1:15:45
  You know, he was, well, he's kind of jumped in and out a
• 1:15:48
  couple times anyways tonight that you know, so I don't know
• 1:15:50
  Signal, but it's like, oh, of course we transition right to
• 1:15:52
  him and that's when even though he's been waiting there.
• 1:15:54
  But I'll bring him back on. How you doing Brian?
• 1:15:58
  Good. Having technical difficulties
• 1:16:00
  now, right? Put me.
• 1:16:02
  On I know I am like that's perfect timing, right?
• 1:16:04
  It's. I'm like, I'm like, OK, cool.
• 1:16:06
  I'm hearing everybody and then all of a sudden you're talking
• 1:16:08
  to me. I'm seeing the lips move and I'm
• 1:16:11
  not hearing anything. So let's try this again.
• 1:16:15
  Well, how many drivers maybe hear that, right?
• 1:16:17
  You know, because you've been a flagman and race director,
• 1:16:19
  you've had to get people and you've been a driver too.
• 1:16:21
  So maybe you sometimes you're like, your lips are moving, but
• 1:16:23
  I'm not listening. Well, if you see how many times
• 1:16:26
  I get tagged on on memes where they're trying to hear what the
• 1:16:31
  race director is saying and it sounds like want want, want,
• 1:16:34
  want want. But again, that's where I'm so
• 1:16:38
  glad that you're able to make time and you've been hanging
• 1:16:40
  out. I mean, literally you've been
• 1:16:41
  here since the start of the show.
• 1:16:42
  I'm like, man, he's been here since 6:00 his time.
• 1:16:45
  So I definitely appreciate you joining in and being a part.
• 1:16:48
  And I know you've been watching too.
• 1:16:49
  I mean, I see you in the chat each week and all that.
• 1:16:51
  So I know you've you've been a part of it.
• 1:16:53
  But I'm like, yeah, he's just hanging out in the staging area.
• 1:16:55
  So. So again, thank you for joining
• 1:16:58
  us tonight. Well thanks for having me.
• 1:17:00
  You should have made this a questionable last name episode.
• 1:17:05
  How to How to pronounce people's last names?
• 1:17:08
  Oh well, and I want to know. I mean, I've been saying it,
• 1:17:10
  right, right. Like.
• 1:17:11
  Hussein Yes, yes, 100% yes. So what?
• 1:17:14
  How have other people announced it then?
• 1:17:16
  Oh, well, we've, we've rearranged the, the letters all
• 1:17:19
  in my life. So, so I don't know how they
• 1:17:22
  figured the bee is in front of the sea.
• 1:17:25
  And yeah, it's I've, I've had some wild ones.
• 1:17:30
  I I would have said Cuba. Oh.
• 1:17:33
  I've I've actually had that too, as a matter of fact.
• 1:17:38
  And I wonder if I got to cheat because I was at South Bend as a
• 1:17:40
  fan and he was the flagman at that time and he also did him.
• 1:17:45
  And Oh my gosh, why am I drawing a blank?
• 1:17:49
  He lives next to the green pool guy.
• 1:17:51
  Oh, Jason. Moorhead.
• 1:17:54
  Mr. Moorhead. Mr. Sprinkles.
• 1:17:56
  Yes, sprinkles, I'm like, why am I going to mess this up?
• 1:17:59
  But you know, you guys did an incredible video at Ileana where
• 1:18:02
  you did at Ileana walk and going around that.
• 1:18:04
  So I know we, we have so much to cover, you know, just I know
• 1:18:09
  your time from South Bend and on and I followed you since you've
• 1:18:12
  been over at Grundy and I know you were training to be race
• 1:18:15
  director kind of shadowing over at South Bend and then you got
• 1:18:18
  the opportunity. But you've also been a racer,
• 1:18:20
  you know, as we, I got this picture from your profile, I
• 1:18:23
  couldn't, I didn't know what photographer to tag for it.
• 1:18:26
  So I did not tag because I'm like, well, I don't really know
• 1:18:30
  who I can tag for it but. If I remember correctly, I think
• 1:18:33
  that is a good acre photograph. OK.
• 1:18:37
  All right, right. So I'll have to fix that just so
• 1:18:39
  they get their credit where credit is due.
• 1:18:41
  But but you've also been a racer, you you race at Ileana
• 1:18:45
  and all that. So in in your case, where would
• 1:18:48
  you like to start your story? I guess, I guess we can start at
• 1:18:56
  the very, very beginning. I didn't come from a from a
• 1:18:59
  racing family at all as a kid. I seen it on television.
• 1:19:05
  We didn't have cable at the time, so whenever stock car
• 1:19:09
  racing was on TVI, for some reason I was fixed on that and
• 1:19:15
  my dad noticed it and he asked me one one day, do you want to
• 1:19:19
  go to the stock car races at Santa Fe Speedway in Willow
• 1:19:23
  Springs? So I so I got all excited.
• 1:19:26
  We went and we went a couple more times after that.
• 1:19:30
  And then I believe the following year my dad had asked me, do you
• 1:19:34
  want to go to see asphalt racing?
• 1:19:37
  And I, I didn't care. I didn't know, I really didn't
• 1:19:40
  understand what the difference was.
• 1:19:42
  So my first asphalt race was at Raceway Park in Blue Island.
• 1:19:49
  And that's really where, that's where everything really started
• 1:19:54
  turning for me, obviously for the, for the good.
• 1:19:58
  So we we would go. A couple times a year I remember
• 1:20:03
  going around 4th of July and they had the absolute best
• 1:20:07
  fireworks show that I had ever seen before I saw the sours
• 1:20:13
  extravaganza of a firework show. So as I got older, got into high
• 1:20:21
  school, a friend of mine that lived a couple blocks away, his
• 1:20:26
  sister was dating a driver that was racing at Raceway.
• 1:20:29
  And he's like, hey, you want to go?
• 1:20:30
  You want to go to the track? Absolutely.
• 1:20:32
  So we went, I'm I met this driver.
• 1:20:35
  We talked, we went several times after that.
• 1:20:39
  And then one time my friend couldn't go and I wanted to go
• 1:20:42
  and it was a Saturday night. I wasn't doing anything.
• 1:20:45
  So I went out there. I talked to that driver and his
• 1:20:50
  name's Lenny Koprowski, whom I started helping on his car a
• 1:20:54
  couple years later once I was pretty much out of high school.
• 1:21:00
  And he introduced me to some people and one of them being
• 1:21:04
  Peter Hernandez, whom was was touring at the time with the Mid
• 1:21:11
  American Stock Car series. So I got introduced to him, hung
• 1:21:17
  out with him a lot, worked in his shop quite a bit and went
• 1:21:22
  went touring with him for about 1/2 a season back in, I want to
• 1:21:27
  say it was like 999899. Did a bunch of races with him.
• 1:21:35
  Then come 2000 I really had the itch and went and bought a car.
• 1:21:43
  It was big. It was a big money.
• 1:21:46
  I think I spent 6 or 800 bucks on it.
• 1:21:49
  It was a roller trying to find a trans, trying to find an engine.
• 1:21:54
  Borrowed this, borrowed that and finally got the car enough
• 1:21:57
  together to run. The last two nights Raceway Park
• 1:22:01
  was open. So not knowing that that those
• 1:22:05
  were going to be the last two nights that that track was going
• 1:22:08
  to be open, we were preparing for the following season.
• 1:22:12
  And on the news, it popped up that Raceway Park had been sold
• 1:22:17
  and will be closing. So now what do I do?
• 1:22:20
  I just bought a car I'm I've got plans for for the 2001 season
• 1:22:26
  and everything just fell apart. So that is when Ileana was in
• 1:22:34
  the middle of redoing everything at the track and put a quarter
• 1:22:39
  mile on the inside of the half mile like it used to be way back
• 1:22:43
  in the day. So everybody from Raceway that
• 1:22:47
  ran St. Stock out there went over to
• 1:22:50
  Ileana. So in 2001 I ran maybe one or
• 1:22:58
  two nights. 2002 I ran five nights because that was the
• 1:23:04
  maximum I could run in order to keep my rookie status.
• 1:23:09
  So after following everybody, just taking notes and seeing how
• 1:23:17
  cars run, we decided that a full size money was not going to be
• 1:23:22
  able to compete. So in the in the winter of 2002,
• 1:23:28
  we came across a metric car, took everything apart and built
• 1:23:37
  that car from the ground up. We didn't skimp on anything we
• 1:23:41
  had. We pretty much put the best of
• 1:23:43
  the best at that time in that car.
• 1:23:46
  And now it was pretty much time for me to prove myself if I
• 1:23:50
  could do, if I could do it or not.
• 1:23:53
  And surprisingly enough, I was actually able to do it and won a
• 1:24:00
  couple heat races that year and later on that year.
• 1:24:03
  We were off at Ileana one night. So we were looking for a place
• 1:24:08
  to race. I think about 8 or 10 of us.
• 1:24:12
  We went out to Plymouth. Most of us never ever seen that,
• 1:24:16
  seen that racetrack before we go out there.
• 1:24:19
  We had a ball. I was running third at the time
• 1:24:23
  with about 3 or 4 laps to go. My best friend Bill Service was
• 1:24:30
  battling with Rodger Rubino for the lead.
• 1:24:33
  They were trade. They were trading lead back and
• 1:24:35
  forth. Both of them got together and
• 1:24:38
  hung up. Coming out of turn four with two
• 1:24:42
  to go. I motored by both of them and my
• 1:24:47
  heart was racing and I didn't know.
• 1:24:50
  I didn't know what to do after that.
• 1:24:52
  I spent, I spent however many laps, you know, running third
• 1:24:57
  and now I'm leading for the first time and have I have no
• 1:25:01
  clue what I'm supposed to do other than just keep it
• 1:25:04
  straight. And that turned out to be in my
• 1:25:09
  very first feature win of my career.
• 1:25:11
  And they always, they always say, you'll always remember the
• 1:25:15
  first one. Well, after I crossed the
• 1:25:18
  stripe, I was so excited I forgot to turn in turn 1.
• 1:25:24
  The car drifted up and if you remember way back when, before
• 1:25:29
  they repaved everything, there was grass at the top.
• 1:25:33
  So the right, so my right sides hit the grass and I looped it in
• 1:25:38
  turn 1 and I and I didn't care if I look like a Jackass because
• 1:25:43
  I just won my very first race. That's so funny that.
• 1:25:50
  Is hilarious. Looking back on it, yeah, I
• 1:25:54
  yeah, I could, I could, I could just smack myself for not for
• 1:25:59
  not, you know, holding my composure and just making the
• 1:26:02
  turn. But.
• 1:26:03
  But again, you know what it that it was the first time I, I ever
• 1:26:06
  want to feature. I, I never thought in my wildest
• 1:26:09
  dreams that I would have been at that point.
• 1:26:13
  All I, all I wanted to do was be able to race, you know, from
• 1:26:17
  when it, when that seed was planted as a kid up to, you
• 1:26:22
  know, where I was at then. And to actually come out on top,
• 1:26:26
  you know, it was, it was absolutely a dream come true.
• 1:26:30
  You won with flair. That's how you should say I won
• 1:26:33
  with flair. And I my own little kind of a
• 1:26:35
  burnout sort of looking. Yeah, before burnouts were
• 1:26:38
  burnouts. So you could trademark then say
• 1:26:41
  I started that trend. But, you know, and that's where,
• 1:26:45
  you know, as you're sharing your story, it's like you and I have
• 1:26:47
  very similar pathways in that sense.
• 1:26:49
  I grew up going to Santa Fe Speedway.
• 1:26:50
  You know, I'm a Chicagoland kid born in Chicago, you know, lived
• 1:26:54
  on the Midway side. Tony Izzo actually worked on my
• 1:26:57
  dad's car and, you know, over he had an auto shop not too far
• 1:27:01
  from Midway at one point. And that's how we learned about
• 1:27:03
  LaSalle. You know, it had just come back
• 1:27:05
  from being the movie theater, which the screen's still there.
• 1:27:08
  It's in trees now, but it's still there when it was a drive
• 1:27:12
  in movie theater, right? And so, you know, but I've gone
• 1:27:14
  Blue Island and then obviously I don't remember if we ever went
• 1:27:17
  to Rockford or not, but you know, Ileana was the place we
• 1:27:21
  went. Grundy is a place that I went as
• 1:27:22
  a kid. You know, we did Grundy on
• 1:27:24
  Friday nights and LaSalle on Saturday nights and when they're
• 1:27:27
  racing weekly. And so, you know, all these
• 1:27:29
  tracks as you're sharing your different memories, I'm like,
• 1:27:32
  you know, these are tracks that I grew up a part of and remember
• 1:27:35
  Ileana before the pave and then after the new pave.
• 1:27:38
  And then it, you know, it's like they did all those renovations.
• 1:27:40
  They only got a few years out of it, right?
• 1:27:42
  And so, you know, that's so tough.
• 1:27:44
  And I know then the town, you know, the town bought it and
• 1:27:46
  it's still there. I mean, they, they dismantled a
• 1:27:48
  lot of things quickly and then left the rest of it.
• 1:27:50
  And they, they haven't done anything with it since then.
• 1:27:52
  It's like, man, you know, someone could have got that.
• 1:27:55
  Maybe possibly, you know 'cause I keep playing.
• 1:27:59
  I keep playing the lottery. Yes.
• 1:28:01
  'Cause I keep saying if if I win a Big Lottery, the town of
• 1:28:06
  Schererville will not be able to say no to me.
• 1:28:09
  Well, and that's where do you ever do you still make trips to
• 1:28:11
  that? Because I know that place meant
• 1:28:13
  so much. You were you, Jason.
• 1:28:15
  And who? Who else joined you on that walk
• 1:28:18
  it? Bill Service was with me, I
• 1:28:25
  believe, trying to remember who else was with us.
• 1:28:30
  But yeah, that was that was the first time I had been back at
• 1:28:38
  the track after it closed. And to be honest with you,
• 1:28:42
  that's the last time I've been there.
• 1:28:45
  You know, I've, I've driven by every time I drive by, I check
• 1:28:49
  myself in there. You know, the it's, it's painful
• 1:28:54
  to see this, the sign still there, but it's still, you know,
• 1:28:57
  brings back a lot of memories. You know, that that sign is
• 1:29:00
  still there in the in the winter time when you go by, there's no
• 1:29:04
  leaves in the trees. You can see the bones sitting
• 1:29:07
  there and I've seen drone footage.
• 1:29:12
  I know some of the some of the area towns util actually still
• 1:29:17
  utilize the track for their police departments.
• 1:29:21
  They do they do pit maneuver trainings there.
• 1:29:25
  So the track is being utilized for something, but not what it
• 1:29:30
  should be utilized for, you know, And and if in in a dream,
• 1:29:37
  if I if I could bring that place back to life, those
• 1:29:41
  municipalities would still have that place to practice.
• 1:29:46
  Yep. I, I, I would, I would
• 1:29:48
  absolutely welcome them with open arms and say just because
• 1:29:51
  we reopened as a Speedway doesn't mean you can't practice
• 1:29:55
  here. Also it's.
• 1:29:57
  Truly a sad deal because I was so excited.
• 1:30:00
  I moved into the Chicago land area about 2015 and actually
• 1:30:05
  booked our first NCTS race. We got rained out two 52,015.
• 1:30:11
  But in 16 we had a lease deal with Greg Mccarns that we're
• 1:30:13
  going to be there with Arkham Midwest and racing just got put
• 1:30:17
  on hold. Everything went to auction, all
• 1:30:19
  that good stuff. But unfortunately a lot of
• 1:30:21
  people don't know is that the Township or the city of
• 1:30:24
  Schererville mismanaged some community funds.
• 1:30:26
  I think they use Rd. funds to purchase the the Speedway
• 1:30:30
  property and it was just a bad deal so they should have never
• 1:30:33
  purchased it to begin with. They they just had AI hate to
• 1:30:38
  say it. That's like any small town would
• 1:30:40
  or big town may not have been countries in the 50s and the
• 1:30:45
  suburbia moves out there and the people just hate it.
• 1:30:48
  They wanted to get rid of it and they found a way to do it.
• 1:30:52
  But I I got to go one time with Jason Sulzer and Tony Aldridge
• 1:30:57
  there. They had the CRA.
• 1:30:59
  I want to say it's probably about 2011 or 2012.
• 1:31:01
  It was a lot of fun out there and it's just sad that the one
• 1:31:06
  time we actually had a race book there, we got rained out and the
• 1:31:09
  other time, unfortunately, the owner wanted nothing to do with
• 1:31:12
  Greg Mccarrins putting one more last race there.
• 1:31:15
  So, but it it, it's sad every time I drive by there.
• 1:31:20
  I don't live in Chicago land, but I used to drive by there
• 1:31:22
  quite a bit when I lived over there.
• 1:31:24
  And it's just sad to see it sit there.
• 1:31:26
  And unfortunately I never got to see the memories you did.
• 1:31:31
  But there's a lot of history that came from that track, like
• 1:31:34
  Mike Richardson, Josh Keystone and Ryan Hoffman that have run
• 1:31:39
  with the NCTS and are really the core founders of it.
• 1:31:42
  So even though it's gone, it still gave a lot of, you know,
• 1:31:48
  you working at South Bend. So what's your biggest memory
• 1:31:51
  you have from Grundy County Speedway?
• 1:31:54
  Just as a driver fan, what's the greatest experience that you've
• 1:31:59
  had there before it closed? Oh, Oh yeah.
• 1:32:04
  Ileana, sorry. I was going to say because I
• 1:32:06
  don't have, I don't have many driving memories at Grundy.
• 1:32:09
  I never did well at Grundy. The well the picture that is
• 1:32:16
  featured for tonight for me is the one that sticks out the
• 1:32:21
  most. I could tell you about my first
• 1:32:26
  feature win at Ileana, but the one that sticks out was
• 1:32:32
  Bettenhausen Night 2011. So my wife and I, we got married
• 1:32:38
  that year and leading up to the 2011 season I had said that I
• 1:32:45
  wasn't going to race a full season because we're trying to
• 1:32:48
  save money for a wedding and all that.
• 1:32:50
  So I said I won't run a full season.
• 1:32:53
  The original, the original schedule for me was going to be
• 1:32:58
  6 to 8 races. So I ended up I think running 8
• 1:33:01
  races that year and I think we had 12 or 10 point nights.
• 1:33:06
  The rest of the nights were all rain outs.
• 1:33:09
  So my partial schedule turned into almost a full schedule, but
• 1:33:15
  I did. But I did say I am going to run
• 1:33:17
  the Bentenhausen because that's one of my favorite nights to
• 1:33:20
  run. And like I was saying earlier,
• 1:33:24
  you drivers will always remember their first feature when I think
• 1:33:29
  the other thing that they will always remember is when they win
• 1:33:33
  on a special night. And to win on Bettenhausen
• 1:33:39
  night, that was that that was one of the targets for for all
• 1:33:44
  of us. It was you wanted to win the
• 1:33:48
  Mullener Memorial race. You wanted to win the Elmer
• 1:33:53
  Musgrave race. You wanted to win the
• 1:33:56
  Bettenhausen race. You know, the the Bettenhausen
• 1:34:00
  Memorial was geared toward, you know, more for, you know, the
• 1:34:04
  Super late models, you know, but as as each track builds
• 1:34:11
  divisions, you have to have, you know, more of a show instead of
• 1:34:15
  just one race for 100 laps. So as we were allowed to run on
• 1:34:22
  Bettenhausen night, that became a prestigious race for all of us
• 1:34:28
  that ran St. Stock out there.
• 1:34:30
  And so we had we had a crosstown challenge between Ileana and
• 1:34:38
  Grundy. So it made it, it made it more
• 1:34:41
  prestigious. It wasn't just Ileana cars, it
• 1:34:44
  was, it was a shy town crosstown challenge.
• 1:34:49
  And that year it was 3 races. There was a race at at Grundy
• 1:34:53
  and two at Ileana. The one at the first one at
• 1:34:56
  Ileana was on the half mile. Then we would go to Grundy for
• 1:35:00
  their race. And then the third leg of the
• 1:35:02
  crosstown was for the Bettenhausen.
• 1:35:05
  And to be able to win that race, you know, in front of in front
• 1:35:09
  of my family, in front of pretty much a packed house, cuz
• 1:35:14
  everybody always came out for the Bettenhausen.
• 1:35:16
  You know, seeing seeing that big of a crowd and and you a lot of
• 1:35:22
  times, like you may not hear people cheering, you know, if
• 1:35:28
  you won. But that night the cheers were
• 1:35:30
  loud. And that is a race I will never.
• 1:35:36
  Yeah. That that is instilled in my
• 1:35:39
  head. So talking about I heard you
• 1:35:43
  when you were growing up, you were watching racing on TV.
• 1:35:47
  Was that NASCAR but or the weekly program that used to put
• 1:35:51
  on show Chicagoland? Like I don't know if it was
• 1:35:53
  public access or maybe like Channel 52 or something back in
• 1:35:58
  the day. There's a lot of old YouTube
• 1:36:00
  clips of the Chicagoland Raceway Weekly from Blue Island and
• 1:36:04
  other tracks in the area. It's it started as NASCAR with
• 1:36:10
  us not having cable at the time. You know, we whenever, whenever
• 1:36:16
  the Winston Cup race was on, that's, that's what I would be
• 1:36:20
  watching. Always watch the Daytona 500,
• 1:36:24
  always watched one of the races from Talladega trying to
• 1:36:29
  remember some of the I I know they televised one of the
• 1:36:32
  Michigan races. I know there was a couple
• 1:36:36
  others, you know, and at the time, you know, not a lot of not
• 1:36:42
  a lot of people like there is now had cable or you know,
• 1:36:46
  people nowadays, you know, everybody switching to
• 1:36:49
  streaming. So cables kinda kinda going by
• 1:36:53
  the wayside it, you know, as the years go on.
• 1:36:57
  But after we did get cable, I did start watching some of
• 1:37:02
  those, some of those races that they they had on public access
• 1:37:07
  from Raceway Park. And that, you know, that that
• 1:37:10
  kind of that kind of put the itch in me also because I
• 1:37:12
  thought, oh, well, this is cool. You know, it's, this is a track
• 1:37:16
  that I've been to and it's on TV.
• 1:37:17
  So maybe when when I get older, I can be on TV, you know, just
• 1:37:21
  like these guys. No, absolutely.
• 1:37:25
  If anybody's interested in Blue Island or Raceway Park, just put
• 1:37:29
  it in YouTube. There's a lot of great good
• 1:37:30
  content. The weekly show that's there and
• 1:37:34
  I even came across what you say, pure stock TV or something, the
• 1:37:38
  four-cylinder reality show that they did out at Grundy.
• 1:37:41
  So there. There's a lot of good content
• 1:37:44
  for Chicago land racing still out there, even though the
• 1:37:47
  tracks may be gone. Motorsports Unlimited too.
• 1:37:51
  I'm sure Brian knows about that. Oh yeah, Sports Unlimited.
• 1:37:54
  That's there's some great content out there for that too.
• 1:37:57
  Motorsports Unlimited featuring Bill Welt.
• 1:38:00
  Yeah. Rest in peace, Bill Will.
• 1:38:02
  But there's some good stuff on YouTube there too.
• 1:38:04
  So we talked about Ileana and you mentioned Santa Fe and all
• 1:38:07
  your other tracks, Brian, but I know, I know you also have a lot
• 1:38:09
  of history with Rockford. I was there for the last Bahama
• 1:38:12
  Bracks. I saw your reaction to the
• 1:38:14
  tracks last night and I very much felt that.
• 1:38:17
  So let's talk about your experience at Rockford a little
• 1:38:19
  bit and why that place was special to you.
• 1:38:22
  For a lot of people, Rockford tended to be a love hate
• 1:38:25
  relationship. Mine was more so a love than a
• 1:38:29
  hate. The very first time I had ever
• 1:38:32
  been there, I I about went deaf. This was when I was helping
• 1:38:38
  Peter Hernandez with a with his mid am car.
• 1:38:41
  So we were there for at the at the time, it was what, what is
• 1:38:48
  now known as the the Midwest tour, But they had they had a
• 1:38:53
  NASCAR 400 lap late model race. So we had, we had our race on
• 1:38:59
  Saturday night. We spent the night on Sunday.
• 1:39:03
  We sat in the front row on the backstretch.
• 1:39:06
  I didn't realize how loud that place was and I sat there for
• 1:39:10
  400 laps and was about deaf. I remember driving home thinking
• 1:39:16
  all I can hear is ringing in my ear.
• 1:39:18
  But for some reason, I absolutely fell in love with
• 1:39:21
  that place in 2003 when I, my rookie year, I didn't bring the
• 1:39:29
  car up there. I ended up helping everybody
• 1:39:33
  because I wanted to learn more about what this Bahama bracket
• 1:39:36
  thing is. In 2004, I finally hit the high
• 1:39:41
  banks there and I, I just fell in love with the place.
• 1:39:45
  You know, the, the feeling of going down, going down the
• 1:39:51
  straightaway and hitting the banking and having that just
• 1:39:56
  just push, push you down in your seat was something that I'd
• 1:40:00
  never felt at, at Ileana before or even at Plymouth.
• 1:40:04
  And I thought, boy, this is, this is really different.
• 1:40:07
  And the more I ran, the more I learned, the more I appreciated
• 1:40:12
  and the more I loved running a high bank track.
• 1:40:17
  Never won a feature there, but did win a couple.
• 1:40:23
  A couple heat races, a bash race, last chance race, but
• 1:40:29
  every year that was that was like our Daytona 500 and instead
• 1:40:35
  of the beginning of the year, that ended our year.
• 1:40:38
  But every year I loved and always, always got excited when
• 1:40:46
  the regular season was over 'cause we all knew that it was
• 1:40:50
  time to get the cars ready for for the brackets and the the
• 1:40:55
  camaraderie at Rockford was second to none.
• 1:41:00
  You battled people all year long at Illiana.
• 1:41:04
  Even the people at Rockford, they battled each other all year
• 1:41:08
  long. When you got to the brackets,
• 1:41:11
  the tracks became their own team and you cheered each other on
• 1:41:18
  and you, you, you probably couldn't stand somebody that you
• 1:41:22
  raced against all year, but you still ended up cheering that
• 1:41:26
  driver on because you wanted to make sure all of your home track
• 1:41:31
  cars made the made their particular feature.
• 1:41:34
  That that's the uniqueness of what the brackets were at
• 1:41:38
  Rockford. And that is something that we're
• 1:41:41
  trying, we're trying very hard to do now that it's at Grundy.
• 1:41:46
  Yeah, I've been recruiting for you over here.
• 1:41:48
  I mean, you know how much fun we had when we came out there last
• 1:41:50
  year. Me and my brother Derek both ran
• 1:41:52
  the brackets out of Grundy last year.
• 1:41:54
  Man, it was so fun. We're recruiting hard for you
• 1:41:56
  out here. We're going to try and make make
• 1:41:58
  that a big show out there. Grundy, too.
• 1:41:59
  It was awesome time last year. I can't speak highly enough
• 1:42:02
  about it. I mean, do you guys have enough
• 1:42:04
  cars? You could almost have your own
• 1:42:06
  bracket. The problem is, is getting them
• 1:42:10
  to be motivated enough to get them all ready and
• 1:42:13
  operationable. Hey, that's five months away,
• 1:42:15
  man. We got time.
• 1:42:16
  You you have to start now. You could be 5 years.
• 1:42:19
  I know your brother Buju. We're close, man.
• 1:42:22
  We're good in there, brother. Well, so Brian, a little bit.
• 1:42:26
  Do you want to? Because obviously, you know,
• 1:42:28
  you're Grunny now and some of the history has followed you to
• 1:42:30
  Grunny, right? Grunny has taken on a lot of
• 1:42:33
  things from Ileana, has taken out a lot of things from
• 1:42:35
  Rockford, you know, because it's kind of like the last asphalt
• 1:42:39
  track standing. Not so much maybe in that area,
• 1:42:42
  but it's the one that was connected to so many in that
• 1:42:45
  area. Because I know like when we
• 1:42:47
  would go to Grundy on a Friday night if we didn't go to LaSalle
• 1:42:52
  on Saturday, we went to Illiana because we followed Shulers.
• 1:42:56
  We followed a whole bunch of, you know, drivers or they'd be
• 1:42:58
  hanging out at a festival and we'd go to that festival and
• 1:43:01
  they'd give us tire turds and all the things.
• 1:43:03
  But so you want to talk a little bit about not only one, your how
• 1:43:08
  you got to be a flag man at South Bend and and getting over
• 1:43:12
  there and doing that, but then how you got into the whole, you
• 1:43:16
  know, learning to be a race tracker and then transitioning
• 1:43:19
  over to Grundy and then now how your role has shaped there.
• 1:43:23
  So kind of like go back to come, you know, go backwards to come
• 1:43:27
  back forward where we are now all.
• 1:43:29
  Right. So, so as we're all getting
• 1:43:31
  ready to open at Ileana in 2016, the rug got pulled out from
• 1:43:39
  underneath us and we're all trying to figure out what are we
• 1:43:43
  going to do. I honestly thought that was
• 1:43:46
  going to be the end of me, you know, working at a racetrack and
• 1:43:51
  going to races all the time because with Grundy running on
• 1:43:55
  Friday nights, it was it was almost impossible for me to make
• 1:43:59
  it there. And I thought all that's, that's
• 1:44:02
  the end of this. And then I got, I got a message
• 1:44:07
  from Matt Arvia and he said somebody's going to be
• 1:44:11
  contacting you about flagging at South Bend.
• 1:44:15
  So I got a message from Tony Eldridge introducing himself and
• 1:44:19
  saying, Hey, we're looking, we're looking for a flagman if
• 1:44:24
  you're interested. So we went back and forth on
• 1:44:27
  messages and I talked, I talked to my wife about it.
• 1:44:31
  And so we, we decided, yes, you know, I, you know, I'm, I would
• 1:44:38
  be honored to, to head out there.
• 1:44:40
  So that's kind of that was the stepping stone of that, but it
• 1:44:45
  will back it up a little bit further than that.
• 1:44:49
  So the after, after I was pretty much done racing at Ileana, I
• 1:44:56
  started working there, I worked in tech and then I had I had
• 1:45:02
  interest in flagging. So they they allowed me to flag
• 1:45:07
  practice. We already, we already had a
• 1:45:10
  full time starter there, but they needed somebody to help
• 1:45:14
  out, you know, for practice and qualifying.
• 1:45:17
  So that's how I got my feet wet doing that.
• 1:45:21
  And from there on, that's when Matt had contacted Tony and Tony
• 1:45:27
  contacted me and I was brought out there and I was introduced
• 1:45:32
  to everybody. And The funny thing was, the
• 1:45:34
  very first time I walked into South Bend, I thought this was
• 1:45:41
  a, a spitting image of Raceway Park, just with bank corners.
• 1:45:47
  I, I, I couldn't believe how similar the, the track was, the
• 1:45:52
  facility was it, it was almost like I was a kid again.
• 1:45:57
  And, and I had a feeling this, this was going to be something
• 1:45:59
  good. So from 2016 until 2020 when we
• 1:46:06
  had COVID was my time at, at South Bend.
• 1:46:11
  Then I after, after leaving South Bend, I was immediately
• 1:46:17
  contacted by Steve Bechtel, who, who's the promoter at Grundy
• 1:46:23
  County Speedway. And he asked me, you know, if,
• 1:46:25
  if I would wanna, if I would wanna come out there and work.
• 1:46:29
  And Steve and I, we had been friends for I couldn't tell you
• 1:46:31
  how many years. So he, he invited me over.
• 1:46:37
  I talked to the general manager, Joe Debello about it.
• 1:46:41
  He, he said he, he would love to have me on board.
• 1:46:45
  So it started off as doing, doing race Seaver in which that
• 1:46:53
  prior to me leaving South Bend, I was, I was just starting to
• 1:46:58
  get an idea of what was going on as far as the Race Seaver goes.
• 1:47:04
  So I told them, I said, well, I never really, I never really
• 1:47:08
  spoke over it, but I've, I've listened, you know, with my,
• 1:47:12
  during my time in the flag stand.
• 1:47:15
  So I started, I started doing a couple different things that I
• 1:47:20
  guess prior people that did Ray Seaver never did.
• 1:47:24
  One of them was just talking to the drivers, giving them heads
• 1:47:28
  up on stuff it it started to snowball more into wishing them
• 1:47:35
  luck and then thanking them for being there.
• 1:47:39
  And a lot of them really appreciated that, you know, for
• 1:47:42
  hearing a voice in their ears saying that.
• 1:47:46
  And I had a lot of people tell me that they they just never had
• 1:47:49
  that before. So in the winter of 2020, they
• 1:47:59
  were making plans for the following season and they had
• 1:48:03
  some personnel changes and I was asked if I wanted to become the
• 1:48:08
  race director there. And I thought, boy, these are
• 1:48:11
  some big shoes to fill. I, I, I don't know if, I don't
• 1:48:14
  know if I would be able to, you know, be able to take on that
• 1:48:17
  kind of role. So again, my wife and I, we, we
• 1:48:19
  discussed it, Steve and I discussed it.
• 1:48:22
  And Steve's like with your, with your racing background, you've
• 1:48:25
  been in the flag stand, you've done a, you've done tech before,
• 1:48:29
  you've done, you've, you've held a lot of hats, you know, within
• 1:48:34
  racing. He's like, I think you'd be
• 1:48:36
  really good at this. So I, I accepted and really not
• 1:48:43
  knowing what to do what I, you know, how I should speak, You
• 1:48:48
  know, it was, it was a rough first year.
• 1:48:52
  After the first year, it was basically, you know, I just, I
• 1:48:56
  just needed to be myself, you know, and I think after, after
• 1:49:02
  allowing myself to be myself, I think I started gaining some
• 1:49:06
  respect from drivers. I ended up having to take a year
• 1:49:12
  off. I had a lot of stuff going on at
• 1:49:14
  work, the stresses at work, the stresses at the track.
• 1:49:20
  I just I needed to take a year off.
• 1:49:23
  So I took it was 2024, I believe I took off and that yeah, that's
• 1:49:31
  right. And then I came back, they
• 1:49:34
  allowed me to, to take over the duties on the ramp, allowing
• 1:49:41
  cars out. We had, we had somebody there
• 1:49:43
  that was retiring and they needed somebody, you know, to
• 1:49:46
  take over that spot. And I'm like, well, I, I used to
• 1:49:48
  do that at Ileana. So, you know, that's right in my
• 1:49:51
  wheelhouse. We already had a race director.
• 1:49:55
  I told them, you know, if if he was ever, you know, off, you
• 1:49:59
  know, if he took vacation or whatever, I wouldn't mind
• 1:50:01
  filling in in that role. So last year went ahead and I
• 1:50:08
  was, I was on the ramp or I was playing it, planning on being on
• 1:50:12
  the ramp all year. And then we had, we had a change
• 1:50:16
  with the race director and we, we were looking at not having a
• 1:50:21
  race director. We didn't have anybody.
• 1:50:23
  So I stepped, I stepped in and I said, all right, you know, I'll,
• 1:50:27
  I'll, I'll fill out, you know, for, for a month or so while the
• 1:50:31
  month or so ended up being the whole year and I wasn't, I
• 1:50:35
  wasn't 100% certain I wanted to go back into that role.
• 1:50:40
  I had a lot of people talk to me in, in the offseason that really
• 1:50:45
  wanted me to be in that role again between drivers, crew
• 1:50:50
  members, people that, that I work with there.
• 1:50:55
  So come this, this past March, I, I decided to take the role
• 1:51:00
  back and that's, that's where we're at now.
• 1:51:05
  So what's the most difficult thing, you know, because
• 1:51:08
  obviously you took on a position that is maybe one of the least
• 1:51:13
  popular at times, you know, at a racetrack, maybe being an owner,
• 1:51:17
  promoters, the next least or the first least, you know, like
• 1:51:21
  there's there's spots that are challenging.
• 1:51:23
  And So what you know, for those who are watching, who obviously
• 1:51:28
  many of them probably haven't had the headset on, haven't had
• 1:51:31
  to make the call, haven't had to do any of those things.
• 1:51:34
  You know, what does it take to be a racetracker and what what
• 1:51:37
  process do you go through to make a call or to make the
• 1:51:41
  difficult decision like this is a 5149 decision.
• 1:51:46
  We're going to get it right or we're going to get it wrong.
• 1:51:47
  But this we have to go with what we believe to have happened or
• 1:51:52
  whatever the process is. So I've, I've had my ear full
• 1:51:57
  from a couple, a few different race directors over the years, a
• 1:52:03
  couple I liked, you know, how they did things, a couple I
• 1:52:06
  didn't like how they did things. So, you know, I tried to, I
• 1:52:10
  tried to figure out what was the best way to go on about this.
• 1:52:14
  And, and I let everybody know in, in the drivers meeting,
• 1:52:19
  especially, you know, when, when it's opening day, that I have a
• 1:52:24
  team of people that I rely on this team.
• 1:52:30
  They are the people that help make the calls.
• 1:52:33
  It's not 100% on me. You know, the, the hardest thing
• 1:52:38
  to me is the call. I, I don't want to make the
• 1:52:43
  wrong call, even though in somebody's eyes the call is
• 1:52:46
  going to be wrong. I, I finally realized that, that
• 1:52:51
  I can't make everybody happy, But if, if everybody sees it,
• 1:52:59
  you know, a certain way and I see it a different way, I'm not
• 1:53:03
  going to say, well, guess what? This is how I saw it and this is
• 1:53:06
  how the calls going to be. I, I don't think that's fair to,
• 1:53:10
  you know, everybody else that's trying to help because at that
• 1:53:13
  point there's no sense of me saying that this is my team.
• 1:53:17
  You know, I'm, I, I'm the, the problem we had in the past was
• 1:53:23
  I, I, I personally, I feel that they didn't feel like they were
• 1:53:28
  part of a team. I've heard, you know, in in past
• 1:53:33
  years before I was in the race director role, you know, nobody,
• 1:53:38
  nobody would would say anything on the radio, you know, as far
• 1:53:42
  as what they saw. And I think at the very
• 1:53:45
  beginning when I introduced that to everybody, a lot of people
• 1:53:50
  weren't really used to that. You know, now they understand
• 1:53:54
  what I'm trying, what I'm trying to do, you know, and, and I get
• 1:53:58
  a lot more feedback than I did, you know, five years ago when I
• 1:54:02
  first started doing this as the race director.
• 1:54:06
  I think the, the call, you know, I, I, I tell drivers that we, we
• 1:54:13
  do it this way to make the most right call that we can possibly
• 1:54:19
  make, you know, and, and we're not perfect.
• 1:54:21
  We're going to, we're going to miss something, you know it.
• 1:54:24
  And the other thing that I, I let drivers know is everybody's
• 1:54:28
  vantage point at that racetrack is totally different.
• 1:54:31
  You know, and I, I sit 37 rows up in the air, that's the top
• 1:54:37
  row next to, next to the announcers booth.
• 1:54:41
  And I'm, I would say I'm 10 feet to the right of the announcers
• 1:54:45
  booth. That 10 feet, their vantage
• 1:54:48
  point is going to be different than what I'm seeing versus what
• 1:54:51
  the flag man is seeing versus what my tech guys are seeing in
• 1:54:55
  turn one versus what the turn 2 ramp is seeing and so on.
• 1:55:00
  You know, I, I stress the vantage point is is different
• 1:55:05
  everywhere you go on that racetrack.
• 1:55:08
  And, and I think finally the drivers and the spotters
• 1:55:11
  they're, they're starting to understand that because the
• 1:55:14
  spotters they're affixed on one car and one car only and it's
• 1:55:18
  theirs and they get up in arms. Why didn't you see that?
• 1:55:23
  Well, we're, we are at NASCAR sanction track now, but that
• 1:55:27
  doesn't mean we have that that much personnel that we can hire
• 1:55:32
  on. You know, we don't have the
• 1:55:34
  ability to have 2025 sets of eyes to have on every single car
• 1:55:41
  every night for every race. It's impossible to do that.
• 1:55:45
  You know, we're we're going to miss something.
• 1:55:47
  Every track is going to miss something.
• 1:55:49
  You don't know. It's it's how you it's how you
• 1:55:52
  go about it and how you correct it.
• 1:55:57
  Yeah, and I think that's the thing for people who haven't
• 1:55:59
  been to Grundy, which I highly recommend the bleachers, the
• 1:56:03
  same bleachers that were there when I was a kid and and you can
• 1:56:06
  see the highway, you can see water towers, you can see all
• 1:56:08
  the things from way up top. And that's where we always sat
• 1:56:11
  was at the top row, you know, 'cause that that was just, you
• 1:56:15
  can see everything. And that track is so big too,
• 1:56:18
  you know, for people who haven't been there that, you know,
• 1:56:19
  there's a lot that happens. It's a fast track and you know,
• 1:56:24
  but that's where even at Kalamazoo, you know, I'm on the
• 1:56:26
  roof with our race director, Raymond.
• 1:56:29
  We're right next to each other. And even though we have a great
• 1:56:32
  vantage point there, there are times that if they get in a
• 1:56:34
  certain spot on the track, it is still a little difficult to see
• 1:56:38
  or the angle we see versus if we were sitting over and turn 4 or
• 1:56:43
  whatever, right. You know, where something
• 1:56:44
  happens or turn 3 is not, is not the same.
• 1:56:47
  And I think sometimes that you know, not everyone always
• 1:56:51
  understands those kind of things.
• 1:56:53
  And it's and a former promoter that used to be around you would
• 1:56:57
  say if you can get 70% of your calls right in the night, you've
• 1:56:59
  done pretty well. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 1:57:03
  Because 70% of your drivers are going to be walking out happy at
• 1:57:08
  least. Yeah, and because you won't make
• 1:57:10
  them all happy, right? You know, you say, you know, you
• 1:57:12
  could, I heard someone else say one time, you know, you could
• 1:57:15
  sell 100 hot dogs, but you know, there's going to be about 10 of
• 1:57:19
  them that that people don't like, you know, and that's OK,
• 1:57:23
  right? You, you're not going to, you're
• 1:57:25
  not going to be perfect. And, and so that's something
• 1:57:28
  that I think a lot of people, you know, in the heat of the
• 1:57:31
  moment, they may forget, but it's like, you know, you're,
• 1:57:33
  you're one person and one spot. And, and you, you know, people
• 1:57:37
  might be videoing and, and you have race your wives who have
• 1:57:40
  their videos and you have this person who has that video and
• 1:57:42
  you're like that, you might have that video, But we got to go
• 1:57:46
  with what we, you know, what we can and what our rules dictate.
• 1:57:48
  And I think sometimes people forget those kind of things,
• 1:57:51
  right? That, you know, you have an
• 1:57:52
  obligation to the track and, and the flow of the race and all
• 1:57:56
  these other things. And you can't just take their
• 1:57:58
  video, you know, especially if it's been clipped.
• 1:58:00
  You're like, what happened before that, right, right.
• 1:58:03
  You know and. The, the, the, the other thing
• 1:58:06
  you can't do with the video is go back and chain change the
• 1:58:10
  call in the middle of their piece, right?
• 1:58:12
  All, all, all we can do as, as people that work at the, at the,
• 1:58:18
  at the racetrack and people that race is learn from it.
• 1:58:22
  You know, there are, there are plenty of times where people
• 1:58:25
  have sent me videos. Hey, this is what happened, you
• 1:58:28
  know, and again, going back to vantage point, you know, they're
• 1:58:33
  affixed on their car, only my head is on a swivel looking
• 1:58:38
  around, you know, making sure that nothing's happening over
• 1:58:42
  here. And in Turn 4, while the leaders
• 1:58:44
  are coming out of turn 2, you know, I'm constantly scanning
• 1:58:48
  that racetrack, you know, making sure, you know, somebody doesn't
• 1:58:53
  accidentally, you know, come out of the pits walking, you know,
• 1:58:58
  not that we would ever have that.
• 1:58:59
  But you know, we we've all seen bizarre things that have
• 1:59:04
  happened at race tracks. Well, and, and you're probably
• 1:59:09
  responsible for managing even part of the facility in that
• 1:59:13
  sense, where like, did someone follow the grandstand or did we
• 1:59:16
  have this or did we have that right?
• 1:59:17
  And you know, because you have a headset, so that might fall on
• 1:59:19
  you too. And you're like, well, now we
• 1:59:21
  got to throw a caution. Now we got to throw a red flag
• 1:59:23
  because we have a medical emergency.
• 1:59:24
  We got to get people in the right spots and right.
• 1:59:26
  There's just so much that goes into it that I again, I, I,
• 1:59:30
  that's where, you know, we've been lucky in this podcast where
• 1:59:33
  we've had so many people who have done so many different
• 1:59:36
  roles to kind of explain, you know, different parts.
• 1:59:38
  And we've not had a race tractor yet where you know, now you it's
• 1:59:43
  kind of like, Hey, this is a this is a crucial role at a
• 1:59:46
  track And, and it's not easy. And you think most people know
• 1:59:49
  it's not easy, but I don't think everyone knows everything that
• 1:59:52
  goes through your ears on any good night.
• 1:59:55
  Correct. You know, And it's not just what
• 1:59:57
  goes through my ears, it's what I have to deal with, you know,
• 2:00:01
  on that. Top row.
• 2:00:05
  So then, what do you think has been the most exciting thing
• 2:00:08
  that you've done as a race director?
• 2:00:10
  The most exciting moment that you've gotten to experience, you
• 2:00:14
  know, going back from not only your days as a kid watching, but
• 2:00:17
  then to racing and getting your first future win and then
• 2:00:20
  flagging and flagging people's first future wins are these
• 2:00:22
  things to now race directing and you know, you have the difficult
• 2:00:25
  side, but what's that fun side? The the the fun side is is
• 2:00:30
  watching the victory and especially if it's somebody
• 2:00:35
  that's overcome adversity, somebody that's that struggled
• 2:00:40
  first time winners are are such a highlight for me.
• 2:00:45
  So for the for those that don't know when I'm on race seaver,
• 2:00:51
  there's there's a few things that I say every single time we
• 2:00:56
  we have a division come out. I for the feature.
• 2:01:00
  You know, I'll I'll let I'll let them know we're one at the line.
• 2:01:04
  I thank everybody for coming out tonight.
• 2:01:07
  Let's have a fun safe race and whether it's a heat race or a
• 2:01:12
  feature, I will congratulate number whatever it is on your
• 2:01:17
  heat win or your feature win. And that small that that small
• 2:01:24
  saying has gone such a long way with a lot of these drivers.
• 2:01:29
  I just it was just something I felt nice to do.
• 2:01:35
  You know, I wanted them to know that I, I appreciated them being
• 2:01:40
  there and I want them to know that yes, I, I, I'm happy that
• 2:01:44
  you won. And so many times I've seen
• 2:01:49
  first time winners and been able to call that out on race seaver
• 2:01:54
  to them. It that took that to me is
• 2:01:57
  probably one of my biggest joys of being a race director there.
• 2:02:05
  So now, Buju, because I know I've asked a lot of questions
• 2:02:07
  over the last couple years, you, you know, I, I know I don't want
• 2:02:10
  to cut you out here. So one thing I want to ask you
• 2:02:14
  about Brian, is outside of our local area, I know you take the
• 2:02:16
  yearly trip down to Talladega race down there.
• 2:02:20
  So what are your favorite? What's maybe your favorite
• 2:02:21
  memory? Favorite yearly Talladega trip
• 2:02:23
  to watch the NASCAR race? Oh boy.
• 2:02:25
  Well, I've been going down there since 1992.
• 2:02:29
  Oh, there's quite, there's quite a bit of history in my mind
• 2:02:35
  going down there. I mean, you know that this, this
• 2:02:41
  past spring was an awesome race, one of the better ones that I've
• 2:02:47
  that I've seen in recent years. I was there when Dale Earnhardt
• 2:02:53
  won his last race. Another track that's full of,
• 2:02:59
  you know, full of first time winners throughout its history.
• 2:03:04
  I think, I think like the transitions, you know, from we
• 2:03:11
  go from Winston Cup racing to Nextel to know, you know, where
• 2:03:18
  we're at today and the transition of not only just
• 2:03:24
  sponsors, but how the cars transition.
• 2:03:27
  And if you, if you, if you haven't been there as long as I
• 2:03:32
  have, then you haven't really noticed the transition in the
• 2:03:35
  racetrack. You know, there's, there are so
• 2:03:38
  many improvements that have happened over, over, you know,
• 2:03:41
  the last 35 years that I've been there.
• 2:03:45
  You know, I, I, I remember back when there was no, there was no
• 2:03:50
  Tri Oval grandstand. You had the main grandstand that
• 2:03:55
  was coming out of four that went through that, through that short
• 2:03:59
  shoot there. And then when you went through
• 2:04:01
  the Tri Oval, you had your next grandstand, which is where I
• 2:04:05
  usually sit right by the start finish line.
• 2:04:12
  Yeah. I mean, you know, 35 years ago
• 2:04:16
  on there. I mean, there's there, there's a
• 2:04:18
  lot of memories, there's a lot of a lot of fogginess too, just
• 2:04:22
  for, for all the all the years going.
• 2:04:25
  Another time I remember is when they had something like like 60
• 2:04:31
  or 70 different lead changes, like official changes, you know,
• 2:04:36
  when they, when they changed the aero package the one year, you
• 2:04:39
  know, and they said, they said unofficially there was well over
• 2:04:44
  150 lead changes, you know, between the time you hit the
• 2:04:49
  stripe 2 times. Yeah.
• 2:04:51
  So it's safe to say that tradition's not stopping anytime
• 2:04:54
  soon, huh? No, not anytime soon.
• 2:04:56
  And then we're we're actually heading down to Charlotte next,
• 2:05:01
  next Thursday. We leave.
• 2:05:02
  And that that has become a tradition for my wife, my wife
• 2:05:06
  and myself. We've been going down there
• 2:05:08
  since about, I want to say like 2005.
• 2:05:14
  No, no, no. It was after that.
• 2:05:16
  No, yeah, about 2005. 2006 I think was the first time we went
• 2:05:20
  and we haven't missed many Coke 600 since.
• 2:05:24
  Yeah, that's and so we look forward to the next.
• 2:05:27
  Yeah, a pretty good one to add to your schedule for sure.
• 2:05:30
  Yes, I know we've kept you a long time and I definitely don't
• 2:05:32
  wanna zoom out too far. What are you excited about a
• 2:05:34
  Grundy this year? Well, we've got, we've got a
• 2:05:37
  bunch of different things coming up this year.
• 2:05:39
  We just, we just finished race one for our six pack series and
• 2:05:46
  what that is, is we have 6 big late super late model races this
• 2:05:50
  season instead of running them weekly and to cut the cost down
• 2:05:55
  for them, we we ended up doing a six race schedule.
• 2:06:01
  They're racing a couple more times, but it's 6 main races.
• 2:06:04
  So on our schedule, the next time we're having them out is
• 2:06:09
  June 13th and it's honoring Larry Schuler.
• 2:06:14
  So so it that one's called the Junkyard Dog Triple 30s.
• 2:06:18
  It'll be 330 lap features for those that are coming for the
• 2:06:25
  July race at Chicagoland. If you if you all want to come
• 2:06:29
  out a day earlier on Thursday, July 2nd, we are having leg 3
• 2:06:37
  for the six pack race. It's a it's, it's going to be
• 2:06:40
  100 lap late super late model feature that night.
• 2:06:44
  We also have our now popular Figure 8 school bus races.
• 2:06:49
  The first one is going to be on June 6th.
• 2:06:53
  There will be advance tickets for that.
• 2:06:55
  So if you're coming out, I definitely suggest getting
• 2:06:59
  advance tickets for that. We also have we also have
• 2:07:05
  trailer races on April 1st, which is also going to be our
• 2:07:10
  five O night. So for these that don't know
• 2:07:13
  what the five O night is, these are actual police officers race
• 2:07:18
  and they're they're current and retired police officers in Crown
• 2:07:21
  Vics and they raise money for for Illinois for the for special
• 2:07:32
  needs, you know, like that. They've been doing this for
• 2:07:36
  several years, even prior to coming to Grundy.
• 2:07:40
  We got a hold of them a couple years ago when there's when
• 2:07:44
  their original race was canceled and they had nowhere to run that
• 2:07:47
  race. So I believe this is year 4 for
• 2:07:51
  them and they absolutely love running the asphalt.
• 2:07:55
  They've been doing dirt all, all the years prior to that.
• 2:07:59
  So yeah, for for for special needs, you know, this, this is a
• 2:08:03
  great benefit for, you know, for kids that, you know, that are in
• 2:08:07
  need for, you know, help, you know, financially.
• 2:08:10
  They they raise a lot of money through not only just this, but
• 2:08:15
  they also do cop on a roof at the Dunkin locations, you know,
• 2:08:20
  and they raise a lot of money through that as well.
• 2:08:22
  So that's, that is 1 if you if you want to see a bunch of cops
• 2:08:26
  racing each other, crashing into each other, that that is
• 2:08:30
  something to watch cuz most of them they're not regular racers.
• 2:08:36
  Well, they don't race the Crown VIX, so that's even more
• 2:08:38
  exciting, right? Yes.
• 2:08:39
  Yes, and the ever popular Bettenhausen Memorial, you know,
• 2:08:45
  toward the end of the season. That's our last main show.
• 2:08:51
  That one is slated for September 17th, 18th and 19th.
• 2:08:56
  The 17th will be practice, 18th we have limited Late model St.
• 2:09:02
  Stock, Pier Stock Super Cups and Crown VIX.
• 2:09:06
  And then the 19th is the big one where we have the Super late
• 2:09:11
  model Bettenhausen Memorial 100 featuring the Mid American stock
• 2:09:15
  car series, Midwest Super Cups and our Sixer division.
• 2:09:20
  And to round the season off is the Bahama Bracket Nationals
• 2:09:25
  that were hoping to see a bunch of Davis family racing cars.
• 2:09:31
  Showing up. That's the plan well at least
• 2:09:35
  four of us want to come race so yeah and we're recruiting
• 2:09:38
  everybody believe me. Anybody that's heard me talk
• 2:09:40
  about racing in the last seven months or whatever it's been
• 2:09:42
  since the brackets has heard how much of A blast I had so I'm
• 2:09:46
  trying brother. We're trying to we're trying to
• 2:09:47
  bring a Brig Indiana, Michigan contingent out there.
• 2:09:50
  It's so much fun. I.
• 2:09:51
  Can't. I hope so.
• 2:09:53
  I, I would love to see the Bahama brackets become as big as
• 2:09:58
  what it was back when I was racing.
• 2:10:01
  And I, I feel that the opportunity is there, especially
• 2:10:04
  now that it's closer for everybody that's east of here to
• 2:10:08
  come and travel. Yeah, the Grundy's a super easy
• 2:10:12
  commute from the South end area where I'm coming from, so that
• 2:10:15
  that definitely makes things easier too.
• 2:10:16
  Yeah, I just can't speak enough about that race for even with
• 2:10:19
  the with the transitioning over to Grundy recently and it's
• 2:10:22
  still growing and it not being as big as it was at Rockford
• 2:10:25
  when we were there, Grundy last year, it was still so much fun.
• 2:10:28
  One of my favorite racing weekends ever.
• 2:10:29
  See ya get off to the brackets if you're not.
• 2:10:31
  If you're free that weekend, I know you are because it's so
• 2:10:33
  late in the year. Get over to Grundy for the
• 2:10:35
  Bahama brackets. Have some fun.
• 2:10:36
  I can't preach enough how fun it.
• 2:10:38
  Is do not tear those cars down just yet.
• 2:10:41
  Wait till. Wait till after the brackets.
• 2:10:45
  Well, that's one that I thought about.
• 2:10:46
  I almost spent last year because I haven't been to Grundy since
• 2:10:51
  probably 95 or 96. I'm trying to remember when we
• 2:10:56
  moved to Indiana and we just never went back.
• 2:10:58
  So for me, it's been quite a few years, but I still follow it.
• 2:11:01
  I still have fond memories of it.
• 2:11:03
  And the hot dogs there, I'm sure they've changed by now.
• 2:11:06
  But you know, I mean, but there's, you know, you just
• 2:11:08
  remember those things. Like you said, you have
• 2:11:10
  flashbacks as like a kid, you know, when you do these
• 2:11:13
  different things. So that's one track that, you
• 2:11:15
  know, I just haven't been back to in a long time where it's
• 2:11:18
  like, you know, I, I just kind of want to get back in those
• 2:11:21
  stomping grounds. And so I know I have the Bahamas
• 2:11:24
  on my schedule just to be a fan. You know, I don't, I don't
• 2:11:27
  really get to sit at a track and just be a fan.
• 2:11:30
  And I don't know if I would be able to just be a fan.
• 2:11:34
  And I think in my head I'd probably have clocks running
• 2:11:36
  like I should be doing this. I'm at a racetrack.
• 2:11:38
  I should be doing that. I'm at a racetrack, right?
• 2:11:39
  Trying to restrain myself. But you know, but that's
• 2:11:43
  something that, you know, I have that on my calendar for, you
• 2:11:46
  know, just to go set, bring nothing with me, you know, just
• 2:11:50
  go, go set. And Brian, Brian mentioned
• 2:11:53
  earlier talking about the the track versus track rivalries
• 2:11:56
  back in the day. And I it's I still the first
• 2:11:58
  time I ever went when it was still at Rockford.
• 2:11:59
  It's very much a racer's race, which I think also gives it a
• 2:12:02
  very special feel too. So awesome weekend.
• 2:12:05
  Get out to the brackets. I'm I'm salty for it.
• 2:12:08
  We Eric Fraser raced one of our front wheel drives down there
• 2:12:13
  and left there thinking. We finished second and like 3
• 2:12:17
  weeks later we got a a nice note saying we have been dequeued.
• 2:12:22
  So. We're going on for our
• 2:12:24
  qualifying time and got no check so but the, the the brackets
• 2:12:29
  were always fun. We had a blast when that was
• 2:12:31
  probably 15 years ago when we went to Rockford with it.
• 2:12:35
  But it, it traditionally, I, I don't know, I'll ask you this,
• 2:12:39
  Ryan, do you think the novelty is not the same as what it used
• 2:12:42
  to? Because like Super Shoot
• 2:12:43
  nationals and the brackets used to be pretty much the same
• 2:12:46
  thing, Kalamazoo and Rockford. But at Kalamazoo that was
• 2:12:51
  wearing off, wearing off. And we made a format switch
• 2:12:54
  probably the last two years and went to this like individual
• 2:12:58
  racing per classes and it's skyrocketed the car counts.
• 2:13:01
  How do you think you can get that back to where it was, where
• 2:13:04
  it was at Super Shoot and at Rockford for the the Bahama
• 2:13:08
  Bracket Nationals? We've been we've been beating
• 2:13:12
  our heads up against the wall, just not for the brackets, but
• 2:13:15
  just like the whole, the whole season overall.
• 2:13:18
  How do we get how do we get cars back?
• 2:13:21
  How do we get fans back in the stands?
• 2:13:24
  You know what, what, what is it going to take?
• 2:13:27
  I've seen so many different tracks offer this.
• 2:13:30
  They try and do that. We've done several things.
• 2:13:35
  I don't I don't know if there's a great answer.
• 2:13:40
  I don't know if there's a right or wrong answer to you.
• 2:13:43
  You talk about the novelty. I don't I I wouldn't say the
• 2:13:46
  novelty has worn off as much as just the times are so much
• 2:13:53
  different now. You know, the, the expense to in
• 2:13:59
  my opinion, the expense is one of the killing aspects of this.
• 2:14:06
  When, when we built my car that I didn't spend this kind of
• 2:14:11
  money, but that car was every bit of a $10,000 St. stock.
• 2:14:16
  Nowadays a $10,000 St. stock. You're running at the back.
• 2:14:22
  There's, you know, there's, there's no, no other way to look
• 2:14:25
  at it. I think you know when, when the
• 2:14:29
  brackets were in its heyday at Rockford, you, what you saw out
• 2:14:34
  there were a lot of, a lot of big enduro car type cars.
• 2:14:42
  We, we don't that that was, that was a big chunk of that field
• 2:14:47
  and we don't see that anymore. You know, luckily we have we
• 2:14:51
  have a big support from from 4 cylinders, you know, be it
• 2:14:56
  Hornets, pure stocks, you know, front wheel drives.
• 2:14:59
  You know, that that contingent of of car has has helped.
• 2:15:06
  We just, I, I think what's going to help is shows like this and
• 2:15:12
  the word of mouth and the, the excitement, you know, that we
• 2:15:16
  provide in getting people wondering, Hey, what, you know,
• 2:15:20
  what's, what's the Super shoe nationals all about?
• 2:15:24
  What are the small car nationals at Slinger all about?
• 2:15:27
  You know, what are the Bahama brackets about?
• 2:15:30
  You know that that kind of we, we need to continue to
• 2:15:35
  advertise, you know, these type of shows in order to keep these
• 2:15:39
  type of shows going and keeping them unique like this.
• 2:15:45
  Absolutely. It's all about user experience.
• 2:15:47
  If people like Muju and his family are going down there and
• 2:15:50
  having fun and they come back and they tell 10 guys, they
• 2:15:53
  might bring five more with them out of those 10 guys they talked
• 2:15:56
  to. So it's the same thing with our
• 2:15:59
  Freedom Factory events. They didn't go for the money.
• 2:16:02
  They did not travel 17 hours from Michigan and Wisconsin and
• 2:16:06
  20 hours from out on the East Coast.
• 2:16:08
  While $2000 sounds like a lot of money for compact rates, that
• 2:16:12
  didn't even cover the fuel bill if they want.
• 2:16:14
  So just creating the experience and I think you guys are on to
• 2:16:17
  that. Well, I think, I think another
• 2:16:19
  thing that is helping in the last few years how, how much the
• 2:16:24
  crown Vics have exploded, you know, across the country that
• 2:16:28
  has become the, it's, it's become like a racers, A racers
• 2:16:37
  division. You know, you, you don't have to
• 2:16:41
  put big money in them cars. Well, you can.
• 2:16:44
  You can still find those cars all over the place.
• 2:16:47
  You can get a decent deal on them, throw a cage in it, get
• 2:16:50
  your safety stuff. In reality, you don't have that
• 2:16:54
  much money invested in them. You know, we're trying to build
• 2:16:59
  the division that we have called the Sixers.
• 2:17:01
  It was, it was a division that migrated down from Rockford when
• 2:17:05
  they closed. It's AV 6 division, very basic.
• 2:17:09
  You, you put a cage in it, you have your safety stuff and
• 2:17:13
  that's it. Everything else has to be stock.
• 2:17:16
  So how many, how many V6 cars are out on the street?
• 2:17:20
  A ton of them. So you're telling me that I all
• 2:17:23
  I got to do is put a cage in it, knock the glass out of it,
• 2:17:28
  anything any kind of like lights, they got to come out and
• 2:17:32
  I can go racing? Absolutely you can.
• 2:17:35
  You can probably build a a sixer car with only needing maybe 1500
• 2:17:44
  to $2000. It's and that's and sometimes
• 2:17:49
  that's even with purchased car. Wow.
• 2:17:54
  And you didn't think about that and you think like that's,
• 2:17:57
  that's, I don't want to say small potatoes, but that's small
• 2:17:59
  potatoes too. Sometimes what people feel like
• 2:18:01
  they need to spend, right? Like I need to be, I need to
• 2:18:05
  spend $10,000 to win. I don't know.
• 2:18:07
  Sometimes they see cars that you wouldn't think are winning are
• 2:18:10
  dominating, right? You know, they just built it
• 2:18:13
  with what they have and they didn't put much into.
• 2:18:15
  They just, they did, they did the work, right?
• 2:18:17
  You know, they didn't just kind of buy the work, they did the
• 2:18:20
  work. Go ahead, Sorry.
• 2:18:24
  Well, I, I was going to say these these type of divisions,
• 2:18:27
  like what, what we've got with pure stacks, you know, Hornets,
• 2:18:31
  Sixers, crown vics, these types of divisions, these are the ones
• 2:18:37
  that are, are helping these race tracks stay open.
• 2:18:40
  You know, the, the cost to run a super late model on a weekly
• 2:18:47
  basis is just out of this world. I mean you're you're 6 figures
• 2:18:52
  upside down right off the bat just getting a car.
• 2:18:56
  Yeah. And then you have the tire bill
• 2:18:59
  and fuel and you want to raise and yeah, you're, you're close
• 2:19:04
  to, you're, you're pushing ahead easily a half, $1,000,000 for a
• 2:19:09
  season. You know, I certainly can't
• 2:19:13
  afford that. Yeah, me.
• 2:19:16
  Me neither, brother. Probably not.
• 2:19:18
  I mean, especially without sponsor work, right?
• 2:19:22
  And sponsor help, like strong sponsor help, like actual money
• 2:19:26
  from sponsor help, not just we, they, you know, they're friends
• 2:19:30
  of ours and we put them on the car because they're friends and
• 2:19:32
  they help us with like actual money, you know, like that's,
• 2:19:35
  that's probably really difficult for a lot of people.
• 2:19:39
  Not everybody's time, Majeski, where they can get Menards on
• 2:19:42
  board. Oh, or I mean, just think of in
• 2:19:49
  this area right there, there are some businesses in Michigan,
• 2:19:52
  Indiana that have in the past been strong short track
• 2:19:56
  supporters and but they've cut down, right, because they've
• 2:19:59
  even laid off people. They've had this, they've had
• 2:20:01
  that like right sizing their workforce, you know, and so, you
• 2:20:05
  know, those sponsor dollars are getting harder and harder and
• 2:20:07
  harder to find and, and even from a corporate level, right?
• 2:20:10
  And so it it's just one thing that it's like.
• 2:20:14
  You know, and then that probably won't change for a while, right?
• 2:20:17
  So it's like we got to do our part.
• 2:20:19
  And, and I think a lot of people, again, they, they get on
• 2:20:23
  social media and say, man, if you offered $15,000 to win
• 2:20:27
  because they see that some other track can do that.
• 2:20:30
  Well, that track might be able to do it, but not every track
• 2:20:32
  can do that, right? Right.
• 2:20:35
  They got to live within their means.
• 2:20:36
  So they can open next week, you know, like, and it's 15,000 to
• 2:20:39
  win. What is second place pay?
• 2:20:41
  What is third place pay? So yeah, it's 15,000 to win, but
• 2:20:44
  you're probably paying $40,000 in a total purse, right?
• 2:20:47
  And £500 in the stands are not paying for that purse, not at.
• 2:20:51
  All not at all. So I know I was looking at the
• 2:20:57
  time because I'm like, man, we have, you have been with us for
• 2:20:59
  now what, 2 hours and 20 minutes.
• 2:21:02
  You've been on the, you know, show just kind of hanging out
• 2:21:04
  and the stage and we brought you on and you've been on for an
• 2:21:07
  hour plus. I'm like, we've kept you a long
• 2:21:09
  time and it didn't feel like that long because I just knew
• 2:21:12
  you had so much that we could cover, right?
• 2:21:15
  And so especially with you going to Grundy and doing that, you
• 2:21:19
  know, we Boozoo and I on Thursdays have been promoting
• 2:21:21
  Grundy and getting that out there just because it's a track
• 2:21:24
  that, you know, we both have been to and and I know we have
• 2:21:28
  Illinois, you know, fans who watch the show or watch it
• 2:21:31
  later. So it's like go out to Grundy,
• 2:21:32
  go out to take a key, you know, let's support these tracks.
• 2:21:35
  So I know I've been purposeful in the graphics of including
• 2:21:38
  Grundy. A lot of the names that you're
• 2:21:40
  mentioning, like Larry Schuler, like that's someone that, you
• 2:21:43
  know, the Schuler family, we followed around and watched.
• 2:21:45
  And so it's like, you know, it's kind of throwback for me
• 2:21:49
  hearing, you know, hearing you talk about the different things.
• 2:21:51
  So, but with that, I also don't want to keep your time any
• 2:21:56
  longer because I'm like you, it's late for you and and us.
• 2:21:59
  But anything else good for the group too, because I know we
• 2:22:03
  could even scratch more with, you know, Grundy, but I want to
• 2:22:07
  make sure that I don't cut anyone else's question out.
• 2:22:12
  I'd say in closing for everybody, you know, we, we, we
• 2:22:17
  talk about it all the time. Go support your local track.
• 2:22:22
  You. We, we can, we can say it so
• 2:22:24
  we're blue in the face. But when when you have your home
• 2:22:28
  track, home track taken from you, you, just you, it's a
• 2:22:32
  feeling that let me tell you people, you don't want to feel.
• 2:22:36
  You know, we, my heart was broken when, when we lost
• 2:22:41
  Illiana, you know, I spent so many, so many Saturday nights
• 2:22:46
  there. You know, I, I went to Raceway
• 2:22:49
  for so many years. But the feeling when that closed
• 2:22:54
  versus when Ileana closed, I, I can't compare it 'cause I
• 2:23:00
  literally was heartbroken when, when we found out Ileana was no
• 2:23:04
  longer. Same thing with Rockford.
• 2:23:06
  You know, Rockford, we had an idea that eventually it was
• 2:23:11
  going to happen is everything was being built up around there.
• 2:23:14
  And thankfully the dairies gave us one more year with the
• 2:23:20
  announcement. And I remember, I remember that
• 2:23:25
  last day leaving the brackets knowing that that was it for
• 2:23:31
  Rockford. I remember talking to some
• 2:23:35
  people saying that this leaving Rockford was actually harder
• 2:23:40
  than leaving Ileana. Because Ileana, like I said
• 2:23:43
  before the rug was pulled out from underneath us.
• 2:23:46
  We didn't have a final season. We didn't have those final
• 2:23:50
  memories. You know, we were we were
• 2:23:52
  preparing for the next season. Rockford, at least everybody was
• 2:23:57
  prepared. Everybody knew what was
• 2:23:59
  happening. And I think that one, that one
• 2:24:02
  hit harder in some ways than Ileana did.
• 2:24:06
  But Ileana will always be my home track.
• 2:24:09
  And if if you have a home track, please support it.
• 2:24:14
  If you if you're on vacation and you want to head out to a
• 2:24:18
  racetrack, go search for one. You know, I'm, I've when, when
• 2:24:24
  we've gone down to Charlotte, I, I went to a couple tracks down
• 2:24:30
  there. One of them, one of them's now
• 2:24:32
  closed. You know, I'm thank, I'm
• 2:24:34
  thankful I went to, to that track.
• 2:24:37
  You know, I got to experience, you know, you know, something
• 2:24:40
  down there, it's, you were talking about, you know, going
• 2:24:45
  to going to Grundy, you know, possibly for the brackets and
• 2:24:48
  just not, not doing anything, just being a fan.
• 2:24:51
  You know what it do that It's very relaxing.
• 2:24:55
  To. Just to just sit there and not
• 2:24:57
  have any responsibility and to just actually watch racing.
• 2:25:02
  It's it's, it's refreshing. But if you, if you sit high
• 2:25:07
  enough, I'm, I'm going to put you to work.
• 2:25:11
  Bob I probably would be at the top row because that's that's
• 2:25:13
  just where I'd like to sit. I'm even as a kid, that's where
• 2:25:16
  we sat. It's a good, it's a good view.
• 2:25:19
  It's just a long. Hike.
• 2:25:21
  Oh, yeah. And those stands are not short.
• 2:25:23
  I mean, like I said, that was my favorite thing is always
• 2:25:25
  watching the highway. You know, during the downtime,
• 2:25:27
  we'd watch the highway, see the semis go by.
• 2:25:29
  There used to be not too far from there.
• 2:25:32
  There's a truck stop that we would stop at.
• 2:25:34
  My dad always ate the liver. That sound.
• 2:25:37
  You, you must have went to our place.
• 2:25:40
  Oh, OK. Yeah, it's yeah.
• 2:25:42
  Yeah. So, so that so that restaurant
• 2:25:44
  is no longer there. It's a it's a different name
• 2:25:47
  now, but you, you, when was the last time you were at Grundy?
• 2:25:51
  Back in the 90s? Like 9596.
• 2:25:54
  Oh you, you would be so shocked at how much it's developed
• 2:25:58
  around there. There's not just one truck stop
• 2:26:01
  now, OK and and Route 47 is no longer A2 lane Country Rd.
• 2:26:08
  It's a four lane divided Rd. Wow, yeah, yeah.
• 2:26:12
  I mean, it's been a while. And I I mean, there's so many
• 2:26:14
  times that I put Grundy and my maps to get ready to go and I'm
• 2:26:18
  like, no, you know, I just, I don't, right.
• 2:26:21
  And it's kind of one of those that I just need to get over the
• 2:26:23
  hump because it's, you know, if I have that time, it's like, you
• 2:26:25
  know, I can go and sit there and I can try to be a fan.
• 2:26:28
  And I, but I just know like I sat one time at Springport, you
• 2:26:33
  know, just because there's downtime, I'm like, OK, I need
• 2:26:35
  to go do this. And I didn't need to do anything
• 2:26:37
  for like 2 hours. But in my head, right?
• 2:26:40
  It's like, OK, it's 3:00, I need to go do this.
• 2:26:42
  It's 4:00. I need to be doing this.
• 2:26:43
  I need to be here by 5:00, right?
• 2:26:45
  And so I don't know the last time that I actually just sat
• 2:26:49
  somewhere as A and just sat with no responsibility, you know,
• 2:26:56
  which I choose. But yeah, I mean, that's the
• 2:26:58
  other thing to get back and just see how much has changed.
• 2:27:01
  You know, Kankakee, I remember the combine demolition derbies,
• 2:27:04
  and I don't even think to do those anymore, you know?
• 2:27:07
  And so that would be something that, you know, we used to hike
• 2:27:10
  Starved Rock and Mathiasen and we'd go to LaSalle.
• 2:27:13
  We'd walked in, you know, the Illinois, Indiana or Illinois
• 2:27:15
  Michigan Canal. I mean, there's so many things
• 2:27:17
  that we did as a kid there where it's like I kind of want to just
• 2:27:20
  have like a throwback weekend just to go back, see experience,
• 2:27:24
  you know, just to said and do so.
• 2:27:27
  So you might see me at some point this season, you know, if
• 2:27:30
  there's an opportunity. I know at least for brackets,
• 2:27:32
  I'm pretty sure there's nothing that weekend for me where I'm
• 2:27:35
  like, OK, we're just going to circle this.
• 2:27:36
  But not as a videographer, not as a GoPro camera guy, as a fan.
• 2:27:43
  That sounds great. So you yeah, make sure, make
• 2:27:45
  sure you more than circle it. Make sure you put a check mark
• 2:27:48
  on. That you know if.
• 2:27:51
  If, if you guys are ever wanting to come out, let me know.
• 2:27:55
  You know, I'll, I'll meet you guys, show you around.
• 2:28:00
  You guys can hang out with me all the way up top.
• 2:28:04
  I'll, I'll, I'll bring oxygen tanks for all of us, 'cause
• 2:28:08
  we're gonna 'cause we're gonna need it.
• 2:28:10
  I, I keep, I keep asking them every year.
• 2:28:13
  When are we putting the escalator in here?
• 2:28:17
  I, I state one of the couple races we did there with the
• 2:28:20
  Midwest Dash, we were parked all the way on the back by the
• 2:28:23
  airport. So I just stayed up there for
• 2:28:25
  heat races. I never went back down.
• 2:28:27
  Like my big ass couldn't take it anymore going up and down those
• 2:28:30
  stairs. I mean, they're tall.
• 2:28:33
  I, I, I, we, I mean, the pictures don't even do it
• 2:28:36
  justice. But you know when you're at
• 2:28:37
  Grundy because from the highway you can see everything.
• 2:28:39
  So there's that turn on the highway where you can start to
• 2:28:42
  see the glow of the track. Like if it's at night when
• 2:28:44
  you're leaving, right? You can still see the glow even
• 2:28:47
  on the way. You're like, unless that's been
• 2:28:49
  built up, it's like, oh, there's the bleachers and.
• 2:28:52
  You can, yeah. You can still see it.
• 2:28:54
  You can still. See it?
• 2:28:55
  Yep, they're high above and you're like, OK, it's time.
• 2:28:57
  And I would just as a kid, I just get so excited because we
• 2:29:00
  were almost there and, and that's when we lived in Joliet.
• 2:29:04
  We made that drive all the time. So that was our Friday, Saturday
• 2:29:08
  routine And and like I said, always at the top row.
• 2:29:10
  We never sat anywhere different. I was always at the top and
• 2:29:14
  because it's just that's the best view.
• 2:29:15
  So I, you know, other people may have their spots from like, I
• 2:29:19
  just, I've always loved the top row, you know, so it's a hike.
• 2:29:25
  It is a hike, but yes the the view there is is you're right,
• 2:29:30
  it's it's the best view to see the whole track.
• 2:29:33
  Yes, and, and the pit area clearly, I mean, you know, it's
• 2:29:38
  just something that, yeah, like I said, it's, it's one of those
• 2:29:42
  that I've I've there's so many times, I can't even count how
• 2:29:45
  many times that I've put Grundy County Speedway right into the
• 2:29:48
  thing. And I'm like, OK, I could go
• 2:29:50
  this way or I could go that way. And then I just clear it out and
• 2:29:53
  I'm like, OK, maybe next time. But I I know I need to change
• 2:29:57
  that so. Yeah, I'm going to hold you to
• 2:30:00
  that now throughout the season. Oh, absolutely.
• 2:30:03
  Well, and I probably could be talking to bringing some Gopros,
• 2:30:05
  but the other camera will stay. You know, James Dimmick does a
• 2:30:07
  really great job out there, so I'm not going to step on him.
• 2:30:11
  He can have all that. I don't, you know, I don't want
• 2:30:13
  to do that. So that's from like if I leave
• 2:30:15
  the camera's home and someone else, I'll be like, oh, I'm
• 2:30:17
  sorry, I didn't bring anything. No, there you go.
• 2:30:20
  I've been told never do that. That's actually a dumb thing to
• 2:30:22
  do. But I'm like, I don't know.
• 2:30:24
  I might try it one time. Just see what I think.
• 2:30:27
  Just be a fan. Yes, even if it's one time a
• 2:30:31
  season, right? You know, just to give yourself
• 2:30:33
  a break and be like this is what it was like.
• 2:30:36
  This is what I remember just sitting here.
• 2:30:38
  You know, so going to the just be a fan part, I am trying to
• 2:30:44
  make it out to M40. Oh yeah.
• 2:30:49
  So, so forever, everybody's like, you got to go to M40
• 2:30:53
  forever. Oh, you got to race out at M40.
• 2:30:56
  So and, and what the Russell's have done, you know, over the
• 2:31:00
  last few years, I'm like, I really need to make it out to
• 2:31:04
  M40. So, so I have that kind of
• 2:31:08
  circle share on my list, you know, and if it's not, if it's
• 2:31:13
  not that I might, I might pop in at Plymouth.
• 2:31:18
  My original plan was to be there for the Mid American Stock Car
• 2:31:23
  series. Yeah, You know, but now with the
• 2:31:27
  rain out and the rescheduling, now it's, you know, it's on a
• 2:31:32
  Friday night that we're racing, you know, at the end of this
• 2:31:35
  month. So there's I won't be able to
• 2:31:37
  make it out there for that. But there's a there's a
• 2:31:40
  possibility OBG might be popping in at at Plymouth.
• 2:31:47
  Shoot me a message. You head out this way.
• 2:31:49
  Brian, I most definitely will. Good.
• 2:31:53
  Well, again, I that's where I'm I'm I'll probably be messaging
• 2:31:57
  at some point be like, so I'm gonna come just to just to do
• 2:32:02
  it, you know, even if because I have a Friday night where, you
• 2:32:04
  know, Kalamazoo's off and I've filled in, you know, something
• 2:32:09
  just has a possibility to go. But again, it's kind of one of
• 2:32:11
  those that sometimes I'm like, it'd be nice to just not that I
• 2:32:14
  want to do it all the time because I obviously love what I
• 2:32:16
  do. But just to go and set no
• 2:32:21
  responsibility, stuff my face with food and just sit there and
• 2:32:25
  take in the night as a fan again, just to almost kind of
• 2:32:28
  like a refresh, right? Like a reboot, you know, just to
• 2:32:32
  just to do it. Because I think that's sometimes
• 2:32:34
  that even as drivers, you know, you'll hear drivers who are not
• 2:32:37
  chasing points anymore. They're like, yeah, let's go pop
• 2:32:39
  open a beer and sit in the stands.
• 2:32:41
  And it was really nice. You know, they, that's not that
• 2:32:43
  they don't love racing and it's not that they weren't itching
• 2:32:46
  because they heard an engine. And they're like, you know, in
• 2:32:49
  their head, it's the trigger, right?
• 2:32:51
  But they're like, but I had my beer in my hand and I knew I
• 2:32:54
  could drink it because if I were in the pits, I wouldn't be able
• 2:32:56
  to. So right, right.
• 2:32:58
  Like this kept me here in the stands and I'm like, OK, you
• 2:33:01
  know, I can get chicken tenders and sit happily.
• 2:33:05
  And at the same time you're supporting.
• 2:33:07
  Yeah, absolutely. And that's what we all need to
• 2:33:09
  do. So and I, and again, I thank you
• 2:33:13
  for supporting us and, and, and, and be able to come on.
• 2:33:15
  And I mean tonight, like I said, you've dedicated a lot of time
• 2:33:18
  to us tonight. And I know you've been watching
• 2:33:20
  each week you've been popping in.
• 2:33:21
  And that's when I said, hey, we need to get you on, you know,
• 2:33:24
  just because of your story and what you, I knew what you'd be
• 2:33:27
  able to tell. So that's why I definitely
• 2:33:28
  appreciate you supporting us, you know, 'cause that we're all
• 2:33:33
  in it together. That's the thing that I, you
• 2:33:35
  know, Jay Free, you know, I kind of changed his quote a little
• 2:33:38
  bit one time. He said, well, we're all in it
• 2:33:39
  together alone. And so I kind of think I've
• 2:33:42
  twisted it to where, you know, we're, it's, we're all doing our
• 2:33:45
  part individually. You know, what can we do
• 2:33:48
  individually to support this whole community?
• 2:33:50
  Because it takes a village to do these things and keep tracks
• 2:33:53
  open and, you know, support drivers wherever that may be,
• 2:33:57
  because, you know, you've seen tracks closed.
• 2:33:59
  Tracks that I used to go to as a kid are obviously closed.
• 2:34:02
  And so in this area, you know, we've lost Montville, we almost
• 2:34:06
  lost South Bend, we've lost Illiana, right?
• 2:34:08
  You know, we might lose Thunderbird, Barefield.
• 2:34:12
  You know, there's these tracks that we have lost that it's like
• 2:34:15
  we need to appreciate. You know, it's easy to go on
• 2:34:17
  social media and complain and do all these things, but eventually
• 2:34:20
  a For Sale sign's going to be on there.
• 2:34:22
  And it's never a guarantee that it's going to remain a track.
• 2:34:26
  You know, data centers are popping up everywhere, Solar
• 2:34:29
  farms are popping up everywhere. You know, there's property that
• 2:34:32
  people are probably looking at to build something.
• 2:34:35
  So it's like, just remember, you know once the for sale sign goes
• 2:34:39
  on, you may not have something to complain about again.
• 2:34:42
  Right, right. Yeah.
• 2:34:44
  You're gonna, you're gonna wish, you know, one year, five years,
• 2:34:48
  10 years down the road that you wish you still had that place to
• 2:34:52
  complain about. Yes, yes, because it, you know,
• 2:34:56
  and I think sometimes people in general don't think about those
• 2:35:00
  kind of things and it's not a purpose.
• 2:35:02
  I don't think it's always intentional.
• 2:35:04
  I think it's just right. People get in the moment, they
• 2:35:06
  get in the heat of the moment, they get in whatever it's like.
• 2:35:07
  But just remember your words do carry actions at some point and
• 2:35:11
  you're going to hit the wrong button at the wrong time.
• 2:35:14
  And gates locked for sale. Yeah, there's so many times
• 2:35:20
  where where I'm in the middle of sending a message to somebody.
• 2:35:24
  You know, that somebody complaints about what what
• 2:35:28
  happened Friday night at the track and I'm in the middle of
• 2:35:31
  typing it out and I'm rereading it.
• 2:35:33
  And about 90% of the time I'm deleting the whole thing and not
• 2:35:38
  even responding because because I've been down that road, I've
• 2:35:44
  been the complainer and I've seen what happened, you know, so
• 2:35:49
  now it's like, you know, and it, it doesn't even have to really
• 2:35:54
  so much do with my current role as much as it does, you know
• 2:35:58
  what these words are. They're, they're not going to be
• 2:36:03
  able to be deleted. They're always going to be there
• 2:36:06
  at somebody will be able to pull those up at one point or
• 2:36:10
  another. Even even if I were to edit it,
• 2:36:14
  Somebody, somebody much smarter than me will be able to show the
• 2:36:19
  world that Brian originally said this.
• 2:36:23
  And 10 minutes later he realized that, oh, I, he should have said
• 2:36:28
  this and he added that out. But this is the original, you
• 2:36:33
  know, posting that was there. Yep.
• 2:36:36
  And I think a lot of times we forget that, but but I know it's
• 2:36:40
  935 for us, it's 835 for you. And I know Boozer, you're
• 2:36:45
  probably getting close to time 'cause you your day starts
• 2:36:47
  early. So, you know, Brian, what we'll
• 2:36:50
  probably have to do is just like what we've done with Ron Vash,
• 2:36:53
  you know, as as Granny gets into its season a little bit more,
• 2:36:56
  you know, bring you back on to promote it again or even bring
• 2:36:58
  you on on a Thursday to promote, you know, some of those big
• 2:37:01
  shows coming up. You know, that way, you never
• 2:37:04
  know, might be able to sell some tickets on this side if, you
• 2:37:07
  know, just to travel around or at least get a car over there
• 2:37:10
  who might be like, I'm going to go try that, you know, so so
• 2:37:13
  again, I appreciate all of your time tonight.
• 2:37:16
  And with that, like I said, if there's anything else good for
• 2:37:21
  the group, if not, I think we're we're ready.
• 2:37:24
  But again, thank you, Brian so much for coming on.
• 2:37:28
  Thanks for you guys for having me, I appreciate it.
• 2:37:30
  Anytime you guys want to want me to chat with you, I'm more than
• 2:37:33
  happy to do it. Oh.
• 2:37:35
  Absolutely. Pleasure.
• 2:37:37
  So don't forget this Thursday everybody while we saw Brian on
• 2:37:41
  here, we'll obviously be be plugging the Grundy County
• 2:37:44
  schedule again this Friday or this Thursday like we have been.
• 2:37:47
  So you know, definitely get out there to check it out.
• 2:37:49
  They have a great program. But Thursday night throttle is
• 2:37:52
  back at 7:00. But other than that, this has
• 2:37:55
  been the Monday night rewind winding down with Brian Kasaba,
• 2:37:59
  race director at Granny County Speedway.
• 2:38:01
  So boozoo, it's, you know, we're a few days away.
• 2:38:04
  It's almost time to turn left and go fast because.
• 2:38:07
  We'll see you at the races. We'll see everyone at the races
• 2:38:09
  again. Thank you so much, Brian.
• 2:38:11
  Thank you guys.