Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Kenny Wallace & John Roberts Talk All Things NASCAR | Lights Out With John Roberts

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Kenny Wallace & John Roberts Talk All Things NASCAR | Lights Out With John Roberts · Kenny Wallace Media

0:05
Good morning everyone. It's Thursday morning.
0:10
You've heard of Coffee with Kenny?
0:14
This is Java with Johnny. And see, we got a sponsor too.
0:21
They're Paynex and. Whoa, whoa, whoa, Johnny.
0:25
Johnny Roberts, you ain't with. Kenny's with us.
0:29
Hey, McKenna, right here. How's it going, brother?
0:33
You got coffee too? I I'm doing good, you look good,
0:36
you you you you have a sponsor on Java with Johnny.
0:40
How about that man paint X they paint stuff in Charlotte X they
0:47
paint stuff good well. I'll send, I'll send you some
0:50
race car fuel and OK and and you send me some paint.
0:54
Actually, we work good together. Yes, we do, Kenna Lee, we do,
1:00
Kenna. You know what's fun, Kenna?
1:03
You called me, yes, a while back and you said, Johnny, let's
1:09
bring this thing back, man. Let's bring race day back.
1:13
We couldn't call it race day, but that's a whole other story.
1:15
We won't talk about that. It is a story, yeah.
1:20
It is a. Story and we know, but we did
1:24
trackside Kenny, we brought it back and man, what a great
1:28
memory that we had for so many years being at the racetrack.
1:31
But it's alive. It's still alive and well.
1:34
Oh, Johnny, we are so lucky in life right now, you and I.
1:38
So you go back two years ago and the Bristol Motor Speedway
1:43
called me and they said, hey, we want to bring back that NASCAR
1:48
race day fueled by Sunoco. And you, you always had me doing
1:53
that. And we would do that at the
1:55
start of the show. You know, of course they they
1:58
shut it down because they brought in the new FS1.
2:01
They got rid of speed and Marcus Smith, who owns all the SMI
2:07
tracks. He said, I really want to bring
2:08
that back. And I said there, there's no way
2:10
we bring it back unless we get the main, you know, host John
2:15
Roberts. So then I called you
2:17
immediately. Yep.
2:19
And boy, you're right, Johnny, I'll never forget it.
2:22
But still, you know, I mean, we have pitchers, but every time we
2:27
start this deal, there's thousands of people.
2:29
So it it's back and it's doing better than ever.
2:32
So we are looking forward, Kenny, to going back to a place
2:34
where one of our best shows happens with a great crowd.
2:38
We got Bristol, well Darlington this weekend.
2:40
We won't be at Darlington, but we're going to be at Bristol and
2:44
just keeping the tradition going, Man, I get so excited for
2:47
these things. To see the fans.
2:49
They come out there and they say, man, we're so glad this is
2:52
back because there's some race fans right now.
2:54
Kenny, I talked to every once in a while run into them and they
2:57
say my parents, and which is kind of bad.
3:01
My parents when I was a kid brought me to the racetrack.
3:04
We used to watch race day, Yeah. And now they're adults, but
3:08
they're back. The tradition continues.
3:10
You know, Johnny, myself and brother Rusty, Rusty Wallace,
3:14
sorry to name drop everybody, just got I was talking to Rusty
3:18
about this and Rusty said, Herman, it's sad to say, but
3:21
that's that's a generation gap and you and I should be proud of
3:24
it. And I told Kenny Schrader on one
3:28
of the shows we do, Herman Schrader.
3:30
I said, Schrader, I really believe we're becoming cool
3:34
again. I said, we're like the damn
3:36
Beatles, man. I said every, you know, we
3:40
really are. It's coming back.
3:42
And and you know, they want, they like that we have to call
3:45
it trackside live because you and I started off with the old
3:49
name NASCAR Race Day. Well, our old boss Steve
3:53
Craddock called up Marcus Smith and said, hey, we're, we're
3:57
still doing a NASCAR race That and I'm like, well, it sure
4:00
ain't showing up. Our show's better, but yeah,
4:06
because I think we're cool again.
4:08
Yeah, you told me, Kenny, one time.
4:10
Ain't nobody better than us. Ain't you better believe it?
4:13
Ain't nobody better than us. And they tried Johnny, but you
4:15
know they can't do it. Yeah, I can't do it.
4:18
So so Kenny, you know what was funny?
4:19
You and Kyle Petty years ago when we're doing a race day
4:22
show, you guys started doing this thing called Twitter.
4:26
And I said, what? What are you guys doing?
4:29
What do you, how does this thing work?
4:31
And, and, and you, but you guys were on the cutting edge.
4:34
You were one of some of the first guys in NASCAR that were
4:36
really taking advantage of reaching the fans like this.
4:40
It was something that found me social media, as we know now is
4:44
here to stay in social media. My God.
4:47
Yet you have the Pope over there in Rome, Italy, the Pope is on
4:51
social media. The, the presidential races,
4:54
it's NASCAR. Everybody you know, you got
4:58
TikTok, you got Instagram, you got X, you got Facebook, you got
5:03
Snapchat. Johnny.
5:05
We were ahead of our time and we didn't know it.
5:08
When you and I and Kyle Petty were doing this TV, we'd go to
5:11
commercial break and we found this app and we could we could
5:15
converse with the fans. You guys had work, you got to be
5:18
working it during the. Commercial break, Yeah.
5:22
You know, you were doing all the, you were doing all the
5:24
work. You were, you were bringing us
5:26
in from commercial break. You were sending us out and Kyle
5:30
Petty and myself, we'd get on there and we would talk with the
5:32
fans and they would give us content.
5:35
And it's it's here now. It's the new world.
5:38
And only people like you and I keep talking about the kids.
5:41
They don't know any better. They just think that's the way
5:43
it always was. So Kenny, I got to tell people,
5:46
I got to share people a couple really good race day stories
5:49
with us. One time we're walking into
5:52
Bristol. You, me and Kyle Petty and a
5:57
couple drivers who shall go nameless walk by the fans.
6:01
Nobody said anything. You and Kyle walk by and the
6:05
fans started going crazy. They started yelling and I
6:09
thought, man, the drivers went by and didn't really say the
6:12
active drivers, active drivers at the time.
6:15
They went by and the fans don't really say anything, but Kenny
6:19
and Kyle go by and they go nuts. And I thought that spoke volumes
6:22
about our show. It it does.
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And and once again, I think a lot of brother Rusty, he's very
6:29
successful and he said to me one day, Johnny, I'll never forget
6:33
it. And I have a perfect response
6:36
for you on that subject. Rusty says, you know, harm, all
6:39
those years you drove that race car, nobody could see you, but
6:43
now you're on TV and your whole head fills the screen up.
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And I never thought about it that way.
6:51
So, you know, you could be in a, you could be anywhere.
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And all you got to do is like, look, and that NASCAR race day,
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Johnny, your head, my head, Kyle Petty said.
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We filled the whole TV screen up.
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And so people just recognize this everywhere we went.
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OK, here's another cool race day story which I thought really
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validated things. The great Carl Edwards, who was
7:15
a thinker, who was beyond just a driver.
7:20
You guys are, well, the three of us are walking down at
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Darlington and Carl makes a point to come over, stops you
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and Kyle and says, guys, thank you so much for telling it like
7:33
it is. You remember that, Kenny?
7:35
I do remember that. He said.
7:37
You guys are the only ones on TV right now.
7:39
It's talent like it truly is. And you know what, people would
7:45
ask me and of course, I'm sure they asked Kyle too.
7:50
Is NASCAR ever mad at you? I might want to know.
7:53
They're they've never talked to me.
7:55
Now, I did get a text one time from Mike Helton and we were
8:01
Bristol. And I said, well, NASCAR, I said
8:04
NASCAR is going to do whatever they want anyway, because at the
8:07
very end of the rule book, it says we can do whatever we want
8:10
to do. And I get a text from Mike
8:12
Helton. He goes, I'll remember that.
8:14
And but it was true. And we, you know, we never took
8:21
a knife. We never punctured skin, Johnny.
8:24
We took the knife and we would just go right here.
8:28
And we're like, this is what's going on.
8:29
This is the truth. And, and, and you know, Johnny,
8:33
if you remember the ratings were coming out at that time and it
8:38
was the Cup Series, then the race day show.
8:42
Yep. Then Xfinity, then like IndyCar
8:46
and trucks. So that damn NASCAR race day
8:48
show we were doing, we were second highest rated show and we
8:52
weren't even a race because we were always telling what was up.
8:57
Yep. And and also Kenny, you know
8:59
that along those lines, this is another thing about, you know,
9:02
telling the truth the way it really was.
9:04
We did have a meeting with NASCAR at the beginning of just
9:08
about every year and they never said.
9:10
I remember it very clearly. It was Robin Pemberton, the
9:13
great Robin Pemberton, great friend, awesome dude Mike Hilton
9:19
and John Darby member Darby. Always but.
9:24
Yeah, but they said to us, Kenny, they said wait, wait.
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Ain't here to tell you how to do your job.
9:30
We're not here to tell you what to say.
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But if you're gonna say something about NASCAR, give us
9:36
an opportunity to respond. We may say no, we may come on
9:40
your show or we may not care about it, but just give us an
9:45
opportunity to tell our side of it, which is it's transparency
9:49
at its best. Yeah, and, and I do believe that
9:54
NASCAR reached out to us a lot. If you remember, Johnny, I
9:57
believe you were part of it. We all went to Mike Helton's
10:00
farm and Mike Helton, president of NASCAR at that time, and we
10:06
had the best time ever. We were shooting clay.
10:09
We were riding go karts. Mike had a hell of a farm.
10:12
And you know, it it it did bring us together.
10:16
And it was a look inside my Kelton.
10:18
Hey, he's just like us, but he's the leader.
10:21
And I respected that. And I really like that.
10:24
And I would say for the most part, we were always just
10:27
talking about controversy inside the garage area.
10:31
I can remember it. One time you looked at me and
10:34
you said, Kenny, Tony Stewart and Bobby Labonte are teammates,
10:41
but Tony Stewart's running a lot better than Bobby Labonte.
10:45
And, and I said, yeah, that's because Tony Stewart's got
10:48
better engineers and and better crew members.
10:51
And Bobby was the one that told me that.
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Well, I said it and boy, it pissed Bobby off.
10:58
And and we talked about, I said, Bobby, you're the one that told
11:01
me that. And then we laughed because the
11:03
next thing that Bobby Labonte said to me made me laugh.
11:05
He goes, I know I told you that. It was just hard to hear on TV.
11:12
Hey, and another thing though, I mean, you remember the Spencer
11:15
days, which were great. You know, Jimmy Spencer, it's
11:18
everybody talks about Jimmy Spencer being the rough and
11:20
tumble guy. You know the tough guy.
11:22
Jimmy Spencer give you the shirt off his back if he was naked.
11:26
And he also garden too. He's a gardener.
11:28
So there was a soft side of Spence.
11:31
But remember, Spence would say things about people that he felt
11:35
he was telling the truth. He was he was telling again,
11:37
like it is. And then I could feel in my
11:41
pocket sometimes, Kenny, my phone would buzz after Spencer
11:45
said something in a buzz. And that was the person he said
11:48
about. Hey, man, tell Spencer to shut
11:49
up. No, I'm not gonna you tell him.
11:53
You come on the program and say there's several different people
11:57
that were mad at what Spencer said, and we said come on the
12:00
show. That's the way we tried to
12:01
approach it. So I will never forget Scott
12:06
Ackerson. Scott came in and his job was to
12:09
shut speed down and we all knew it, but we thought OK, we're
12:13
going to be part of the FS1 and we were.
12:17
But Scott gave me some advice. Let me see if I can get this
12:20
right Johnny. He said, say what you mean and
12:25
mean what you say. So our show, you know, they,
12:29
they told, they told me, OK, they said we want you to say
12:35
what you see. Because Kenny, you ran 905
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NASCAR races. You were on the racetrack.
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And I and Johnny, I remember when I would come on NASCAR race
12:45
day, the real 1 and, and I would just get out of the race car
12:49
from the Xfinity race the day before and, and, and they would
12:53
roll some tape of me running in the top five.
12:55
And you would say to me, you'd say, Kenny Wallace, you were
12:58
just out there yesterday. You finished third.
13:01
You finished whatever it was. And it was real because I just
13:05
taking my fire suit off. And, and so from that
13:09
standpoint, I was doing what my boss has told me to.
13:13
I was, I was, I was just came out of the race car.
13:16
Now, you know, it's not my style to lie and not say what I see.
13:22
So as far as Jimmy Spencer Spence had ill will towards
13:29
people that did him wrong. And, and, and he was he, he, he
13:34
was going to tell you on national TV.
13:36
And it was hard for those people to hear, you know, and I knew
13:41
what was up and it was it was good TVI could tell you that.
13:46
But. But.
13:47
Yeah, no question and. That's why my hair is this
13:49
color. Remember, we started, I had
13:51
brown hair. And, and I understand, I
13:56
understand that it it was hard, but boy, I tell you what, the
14:00
views were big and they were through the roof.
14:02
Yep. And again, it was just sad.
14:04
I think we we knew Kenny, we had something pretty cool going on
14:07
at the beginning when we started it.
14:09
But the way it grew and the way it was and the way fans and the
14:14
way fans still talk about it is, is so cool.
14:17
NASCAR's changed, TV's changed. And I heard what you said the
14:21
other day, Kenny, because I, I pay attention to coffee with
14:25
Kenny every day. When I see coffee with Kenny, I,
14:31
I watch Connie coffee with Kenny.
14:33
Kenny, there's some drivers out there knocking the crap out of
14:36
each other. We saw it last week at the
14:39
Xfinity Series race and man, you were out there again.
14:42
You're out there kind of your TV, dude, but you're talking on
14:45
almost 900 starts in NASCAR, right?
14:48
When you see something like that, what's your reaction?
14:51
Because some people got on social media.
14:53
And so that's absolute crap, absolute BS, not racing.
14:57
What do you think? My reaction was, holy moly, how
15:02
times have changed. Because, you know, I race.
15:06
I've thought about this, Johnny. I think the easiest way for me
15:08
to explain this to people is I raced in the Bush Series against
15:13
Dale Earnhardt, senior Harry Gant, Dale Jarrett, Kenny
15:18
Schrader, you know, Dale. I mean, I raced against all the
15:23
NASCAR Cup drivers in the Xfinity Series.
15:26
And if, if you drove those guys, if if I just took them out like
15:32
they do now today, they would kick my ass after the race.
15:38
So they were my teachers and I was the student.
15:43
And they would say, boy, you know, I can remember, I can
15:47
remember Terry Labonte. I was at Phoenix.
15:50
There was a wreck and I ran through the wreck and I ran wide
15:52
open around, you know, to the caution flag.
15:57
And boy, Terry roughed me up. And I said, why are you so mad
15:59
at me? He said, Kenny, we don't race
16:03
back to the caution. It's a gentleman's agreement.
16:05
We all agree when there's a wreck, we all stop.
16:08
And I said, oh, and so today, you know, Johnny, it's like a
16:14
Rubik's Cube. There's a there's a reaction to
16:17
every action, right? You know, they know that old
16:19
cliche. Well, because there's no Cup
16:22
drivers in Xfinity anymore. Nobody respects anybody.
16:27
They just run all over each other.
16:29
I, I believe that if we had some teachers in the Xfinity Series
16:35
right now, you would, you would teach those boys a little bit
16:39
about how to get ready to go to the Cup Series.
16:46
So, Kenneth, we're talking the other day with Denny Hamlin on
16:51
on trackside and we're talking about how a lot of people had
16:55
lost a little bit of respect for some of the drivers because they
16:58
all thought that that every driver was born with a silver
17:01
steering wheel in their hands and had had stuff handed to him
17:06
and a lot. It just really couldn't be
17:09
farther from the truth. I remember you telling me when
17:12
you're trying to become a race car driver about sucking sewage
17:17
out of septic tanks. So if anybody thinks Kenny
17:21
Wallace got something handed to him and you didn't have to earn
17:25
it, you started from humble beginnings.
17:29
Well, I really did. And, you know, I think here I'm
17:35
going to tell you what, I'm going to tell you what Schrader
17:37
said to us on Herman Schrader. And, and I couldn't.
17:41
I mean, I agreed with him so much.
17:43
Here's the easy way to debuild this.
17:45
Johnny Kenny Schrader was an ARCA car owner.
17:50
And these kids would come to him with, you know, millions of
17:54
dollars and Schrader would let him drive the car.
17:58
And he said, you know, even though it was mom and dad's
18:00
money, they were good drivers. But as soon as the money dried
18:05
up, their career was over and you never heard from them again,
18:09
even though they were good drivers.
18:11
And I think that's where we're at a lot.
18:14
I think, I mean, we can go down the list and we can go, OK,
18:18
what's that driver's record? You know, what, what has he
18:21
done? And, and I really feel like if
18:24
some of these drivers had to fix the wrecked race car, OK, you
18:30
remember when Jack Rouse got really tired of Ricky Stenhouse
18:33
wrecking all this stuff? And so we know Jack Rouse, you
18:37
know the point. So Jack Rouse publicly said
18:43
Ricky Stenhouse is not going to drive the car for a month.
18:45
He's going to work in The Body Shop.
18:48
Which is amazing. Clean them up.
18:50
Right away, yeah, unbelievable way to approach that.
18:55
And, and I think again, Kenny, it came from trackside.
18:58
And I'm telling people you need to watch the trackside show
19:00
'cause you could hear stuff like this, but you're going to hear
19:02
it again here. Ty Dillon told us, look, if his
19:05
last name wasn't Dillon, he may not have had some of the
19:08
opportunities he had. And I think a lot of people have
19:12
to get their break one way or another.
19:14
I don't think I'd be at would ever been on TV if my last name
19:17
wasn't Roberts. But once you get that gig right,
19:21
you got to drive your your last name being Wallace.
19:24
It might have gotten you an opportunity here or there, but
19:28
you had to wheel the race car after that.
19:31
And if anybody thinks it's easy, go drive a school car, go try to
19:35
do it. Doesn't matter what your last
19:36
name is, doesn't matter how much money you have, you still have
19:38
to wheel the car. Well, also, I had to get the
19:43
money, so I learned that this was the most important thing I
19:47
had. I had to sell product, you know.
19:51
I mean, you look at some of these sponsors I got, you know,
19:53
right, right here. Crow Equipment, you know,
19:57
Sunoco, I mean, I sell their pot.
20:00
These people get ahold of me, Johnny.
20:02
So #1 I had to learn to build my own race cars.
20:06
I had to learn to fix my own race cars.
20:08
Hell, to this day, right now, I'm the only one.
20:10
I do all my own work on my dirt car.
20:12
So I know if I wreck it, I got to fix it.
20:14
So you have to earn it. And the big story in the garage
20:17
area right now is some of these drivers are like, you know, Kyle
20:22
Larson, he don't work on his he he Kyle Larson probably don't
20:25
know how to work a nine sixteenths wrench, but but he
20:29
drives like he worked on his race cars his whole life, you
20:33
know, and you looked at Jeff Gordon, same thing.
20:35
Jeff, you know, I've talked to Ray Abraham about that.
20:40
Jeff Gordon has no mechanical skills, but it's just those
20:44
different type of drivers, right?
20:46
And unfortunately, you look at some of those drivers that are
20:49
driving for RCR, Richard Childress Racing or some of the
20:53
drivers that drive for, you know, Dale Junior, a lot of
20:57
them, they're good drivers, but they're bringing money.
21:00
And that's what keeps those teams going.
21:03
I just listened to Dale Junior a couple days ago and he said,
21:05
listen, I'm not going to sit Sammy Smith out.
21:09
I'm not going to fire him. And we know that's because
21:13
Sammy's bringing all the money. But Dale Junior said, now Dale
21:17
Junior didn't say that, but Dale Junior did, came back and said,
21:20
listen, I'm not going to sit him out, but I got to figure out how
21:23
am I going to approach Sammy? How am I going to talk to him?
21:27
And I think that is what we're missing.
21:31
You know, I don't I mean, I just find it hard to believe that you
21:36
can drive for Dale Junior. I mean, he ought to be able to
21:38
shame his drivers. He should be able to shame Sammy
21:41
Smith and calm Sammy and Sam Sammy, you could move people.
21:45
You can move him. You get down that corner, you
21:48
know, bumping or just kind of move them up the track.
21:51
But what you did was one for the ages going to be one of the
21:54
greatest highlight reels and, you know, the expanding series
21:57
history. You know, tomorrow, Johnny, you
21:59
know, they're, they're supposed to have a big meeting, the new
22:02
NASCAR series director and he he's supposed to have a talk
22:05
with all the drivers. Well, they ought, they ought to
22:07
include Dale Junior or, you know, Mark Martin.
22:11
Somebody's got those drivers are going to listen to.
22:14
Yeah, 'cause they got the clout. Can you?
22:15
You guys have been there, you guys have been behind the wheel
22:18
and, and seen these different things.
22:20
And I guess, you know, when you look at what Sammy Smith, I
22:22
think there's guys that are doing time for doing less than
22:25
what Sammy Smith did running through somebody.
22:29
But man, things change. Don't take any.
22:31
Times change and eras change. And when we look at it, it's
22:36
still NASCAR racing. And you and me have both talked
22:39
about this because of the France family, because of Mike Hilton,
22:44
because of everybody. But before them and after them,
22:48
we have pretty cool jobs. We're pretty lucky to work in
22:50
this industry. I absolutely love NASCAR.
22:54
It has, it has made a great life for me and my wife and I'll take
23:01
one from Darrell Waltrip, he said.
23:02
Just because we talk about the sport doesn't mean we hate it.
23:06
We love, we love NASCAR, We talk about it.
23:10
It's an everyday thing. It's like baseball, you know, I
23:15
love my Cardinal baseball. And every single hour on the
23:19
hour, they complain and complain and, and the same thing with
23:23
with football or whatever sport is sports is about, you know,
23:28
if, if I'd have been up to bat, if I'd have been in that race
23:32
car. And I think that's where the
23:34
talk shows, you know, come from. And we love our sports so much.
23:38
We just talk about it, Johnny. Absolutely, Ken.
23:41
And that's what we do, right? We, we like to talk.
23:43
So, so Kenna, I love to have my brother Kenny with me here
23:47
because we are announcing this, our big announcement.
23:51
This is now the Paint X Studio for Lights Out with Johnny
23:54
Roberts. And Kenny, you were here for the
23:57
big announcement, brother. Hey, congratulations, Johnny.
24:00
You're going to do them really good.
24:02
I, I and I also know what a great woodworker you are.
24:05
Your skills are through the roof.
24:07
You, you, I mean, you could, you know, when I started hanging out
24:10
with you, I'm like, man, he can play the drums.
24:13
And then when I started looking at your woodwork, I'm like, this
24:16
guy could do it all. And then and then people say to
24:19
me all the time, Kenny Wallace, why you laugh so much?
24:22
I said. That's because I hang out with
24:23
John Roberts. Well, Kenny, I, I love you man.
24:30
Thank you for coming on. I love you too, Johnny.
24:33
Congratulations on your new show and let's get this baby kicked
24:37
off and rock. And I know you've been doing it
24:39
for a little bit, but congratulations on new
24:41
sponsorship. Thanks brother.