Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Meet World Wide Technology Raceway GM Chris Blair!

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Meet World Wide Technology Raceway GM Chris Blair! · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:00
  Hello everyone and welcome back to Kenny.
• 0:02
  Conversation brought to you by Jags, the leader in high
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  performance aftermarket car parts.
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  Remember to go to jags.com for everything you need and they are
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  making the biggest deal out of They have Jeep parts, they have
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  truck parts. I know Herman, where are you at?
• 0:22
  This is a way different. Look, my dear friend Chris Blair
• 0:26
  and Chris, you know, and everybody knows that the biggest
• 0:30
  racing week in Saint Louis is June 2nd.
• 0:34
  That is a Sunday, but it's a NASCAR weekend, so we thought
• 0:39
  come see the promoter, the promoter, Chris Blair.
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  Chris, thank you for having me here.
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  Well, we kicked around the idea of us going to a bar like we
• 0:48
  usually do when we meet, but I thought after probably about two
• 0:51
  or three, we'd be all out of control and I'd probably be out
• 0:54
  of a job after the this thing. We're playing it safe.
• 0:57
  We're just keep it here early in the morning on Tuesday just to
• 1:01
  be safe. That you said something that
• 1:04
  made me think Kale Yarborough once taught me there's always
• 1:09
  somebody bigger than you. So here at Worldwide Technology
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  Raceway, I'm thinking the owner, Curtis Francois, he's the only
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  one. Is that who you answer?
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  To that's who I answer to. I answer to Curtis and very
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  fortunate that I've got a boss who's in the room next door.
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  So if I need to hear a no, I walk next door.
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  I get a no or I get a yes. We but we get to have some great
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  conversations. So we work together daily.
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  We're always working together and I think Curtis is one of the
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  very first Kenny conversations that you had.
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  So it's. He really is.
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  Yeah, I'll tell you what kind of guy he is.
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  Just so you know when people come in here next week and
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  you'll see all the weeds have been mowed and everything's
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  looking good around here. Out here.
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  This past Saturday, I'm out driving around checking on
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  things and I see a skid steer with a brush hog attachment on
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  the front of it going back and forth and I drive over and it's
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  Curtis. He was out here chopping down
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  the weeds that he that kind of attention to detail you don't
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  see anywhere else. So that's he's hands on and you
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  don't see a lot of that. These days, and I find, and I'm
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  sure you all find that those Bobcats or anything like that,
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  if anybody has one, they're very therapeutic.
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  You know, remember back in the Dale Earnhardt senior days,
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  Where's Earnhardt? Always out on his farm.
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  What's he doing? He's knocking down trees.
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  And by the way, coming in to the racetrack, they had a bobcat,
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  they had a brush, their manicure, and everything looks
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  really good around here. Yeah, Department of
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  Transportation is out there getting everything all cleaned
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  up for. Us getting it ready for you all
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  going to be easy and great access.
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  Let's, let's go to you for a little bit.
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  One of the reasons that I wanted to have a conversation with you
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  is I find you very unique. You know, there, there's,
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  there's promoters that you know, they're in NASCAR and that's
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  where they've come in and, and they came up the ladder.
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  But when I studied you and I told you this for the last five
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  years, I'm like, my gosh, you're, you're at a dirt track,
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  you're at an asphalt track. So you came out of Kentucky as a
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  dirt racer. Tell me about the early start of
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  your career. Cuz everybody, everybody's like,
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  how do I get to be a promoter? So Kentucky and dirt racing.
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  It it started out that I realized early on I was never
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  going to going to get to race because my old man would have
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  killed me had tried to buy a race car.
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  And so I started helping out with the my neighbor Barney
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  back. I was helping him out with his
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  race car and I soon found out I wasn't much of A mechanic.
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  So I let her his car would do all kinds of things.
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  And eventually opportunity came along with my local newspaper,
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  the Mountain Eagle. They wanted to cover the races
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  because they, that was one of the main things they requested.
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  I found out I get $10 a story and I get into the races for
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  free. And for me that was like the
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  greatest thing ever. And so that was when I was still
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  in high school. I was a senior in high school
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  started doing that and you know, opportunities just started
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  presenting themselves and the local track of the opportunity
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  came along to do some promotion. And as I did more riding, other
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  opportunities started to go. So I just hopped on for the ride
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  to see where it would end up. Had no idea that we'd be where
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  we are now. You know, people will say to me
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  all the time, how the hell do you get to where you got to?
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  And I'm like, my God, it was a journey.
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  And when I look at everything you've been through, I think of
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  turning points. It's like, it was this moment
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  that got me here. And then it was still kind of
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  rough. But when I look at your story,
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  the great Dick Bergren, Dick is from the Northeast.
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  He made himself famous by being on Fox.
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  You know, he had the the gentleman's cap and but he's a
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  Northeastern and now he runs the museum up there with everything
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  in the Northeast. But I guess you did some writing
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  for him that kind of Is that what got your foot in the door?
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  That really got my foot in the door more than anything else.
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  And it all happened because David Allio, who was a
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  photographer, that he he was traveling the country doing
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  probably 200 races a year. He he came to a mountain Motor
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  Speedway and I some Kentucky one night when I was up there
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  announcing and I was telling him about some of the riding that I
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  was doing. And you know, he was doing all
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  this work for Stock Car Magazine.
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  Every time you would open up Stock Car Magazine, you'd see
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  David Allio's pictures in there. And David came to me.
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  He said, listen, he said there's an opportunity for a story.
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  And he said, I think you'd be good for, he said because it's a
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  technical story. And he said it's about a driver
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  that, you know, and you followed from the beginning and that it's
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  a driver that trusts you. And that's Scott Bloomquist.
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  And so I've been following Scott since he moved back to Kingsport
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  back in 1985. So I go to Scott and I said,
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  listen, Dick Bergen's want to do this story about you for Stock
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  Car Magazine. And David Allio is going to
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  shoot the pictures. And I said, are you good with me
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  riding it? And I said, you're going to have
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  to let me see everything behind the scenes.
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  We're going to have to really work together on the store.
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  And he says, yeah, let's do it. He said, I trust you, let's do
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  this. And so I'd load up and I
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  probably lost money on the story when I was said and done because
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  I drove down to Scott's shop two or three times to sit down with
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  him. We go over every little detail
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  and we work together on on this piece.
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  And you know, the very first time ever submit anything to
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  Dick Berger and it ends up on the cover of the, I think it was
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  the August 1991 issue of Stock Car Racing magazine.
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  And it was funny, I go to college, back to college that
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  year to take a journalism class. And the professor said, hey, can
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  you bring in samples of what you've done with other places?
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  Well, I bring in a magazine that's been on the newsstand.
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  So that helped me with my classes.
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  But you know what that did, though, is everybody then if I
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  gave him a phone call, whether it was Freddie Smith or Bob
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  Pierce or any of these guys. These are big names.
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  If they were big names and they recognize that you were the guy
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  who wrote that Scott Bloomfield story and that helped.
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  And then later on, as I was doing some more work for Dick,
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  there was one year right after I got out of college, he was
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  wanting to do a Mopar issue. And I just hopped in my car that
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  summer and started going places. I went and talked to Bob
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  Keselowski. He was racing up at Killcare
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  Speedway, did a story about his. Car Brad's dad Brad Keslowski's
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  dad. Yeah, Brad wasn't even old
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  enough to get in the pit area at the time.
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  And they, you know, talked to Bob, got a great story on him.
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  Neon Dion Decent, who had a Mopar running dirt Late Models
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  got him in that same episode issue, I did a story about a guy
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  who had built a car he was running at New River Valley
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  Speedway and we got it all set up for him to take his car to go
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  to Richard Petty shop. And on that issue, Richard Petty
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  and him were on the cover of that magazine.
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  So. You had success.
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  I had a lot of success in that space.
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  I realized though, you didn't make a lot of money in
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  journalism. But what happened is I had this,
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  this one issue, that magazine, this was in 93.
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  And I'm going around then trying to find promotional jobs.
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  And I could lay that magazine down, that issue of Stock Car
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  magazine, and people would look through it and they'd say, well,
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  you must know what you're talking about here.
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  And that that one issue of Stock Car Magazine landed me my first
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  professional promoting job. So what I like about this is,
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  you know, I've kind of done a little bit of everything too.
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  Race car driver, TV, radio in in TV business, they say, send me a
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  tape. You had articles?
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  I had articles. I want to go back to I know the
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  dirt racers will like it because everybody has their opinion of
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  what they think about Scott Bloomquist.
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  When I think of Bloomquist, I think of weird, extremely
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  talented, different. What was your experience without
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  Scott Bloomquist? Well, the first time I met him
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  and first time I started watching him, I'm like, this guy
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  is just he's different and. That's what my mom would say.
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  He's different, Ken. He's not weird.
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  But it was even in the way he drove a race car because at that
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  time you're talking 19851988, real Scott really started
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  turning it on around 8788, right before he won the World 100.
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  And you'd watch everybody else, they go into the turn and
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  they're throwing that thing in ass in first, you know, right
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  into the turns and Scott's out there and he's driving straight
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  and you look at him and you're like, he's not fast, but he's.
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  I don't like interrupting, but I got to here because I'm a dirt
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  racer. Do you think that Scott
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  Bloomquist and maybe Billy Moore, that they that they were
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  the first ones that brought asphalt style into dirt racing?
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  Because it's always said the the money is won when the tracks
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  dry. Yeah, I believe that.
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  And you take a look at who Scott was racing against at that time.
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  It was the best battles of that time were Scott Bloomquist,
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  Billy Moyer, Jack Boggs. I remember watching races for
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  Jack and Scott would go side by side for lap after lap after lap
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  and it was just the approach they took to driving and it was
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  funny, you know, you know how the racers are.
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  It's like this is the hot set up.
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  So Scott was driving those master built cars, buddy.
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  Everybody was dumping everybody else and they were going to
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  those master belts. Well, what was happening?
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  And Keith and Tater masters would tell you when Scott comes
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  in here to get his race car, he leaves with a whole lot of extra
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  metal. We don't know what he does with
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  it because he won't even show us.
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  And so then you knew it wasn't just the driver, it was the
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  setup and the approach. And Scott was just so meticulous
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  about everything. And that was like going into his
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  shop. Scott couldn't work on a motor
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  to save his life. He didn't he doesn't even
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  couldn't even touch a carburetor or anything like that.
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  But Scott had figured something out.
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  I think it was from his old man with the airplanes and, and all
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  that stuff that he was looking at, but he, he found something
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  different and he thought about it different.
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  And his approach from set up to his first lap on the racetrack
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  was always just a little bit different.
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  And he, I think he revolutionized the sport with
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  just that approach. So we're we're building this
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  base. You know, how did Chris Blair
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  get to where he's at right now? So you're you're in Kentucky.
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  You're a dirt racer. You're getting free pit passes
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  because you're writing articles now.
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  We know you're a dirt racer, OK, And so somewhere in their
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  college and you know, we can go for two hours, but we do got to
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  leave time for this racetrack. You go to college and somehow
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  you end up getting out on the West Coast.
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  Let's skip over a little bit there.
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  Get me to the West Coast. How did you get there?
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  Well, another interesting story. Having promoted race race tracks
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  in Kentucky, I started finding out that there's, there's one
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  consistent thing about working in the dirt racing industry is
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  that somebody's always trying to screw you.
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  Oh yeah. And so I was working for some
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  folks. I got scars on my back.
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  So I was working at this racetrack, Thunder Ridge, and it
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  was in Prestonsburg, Kentucky. It was a horse track and they
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  built a stock car track in the middle.
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  Actually, I helped them build the stock car track that ran in
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  the middle and every Saturday night and we're talking mid 90s,
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  we were putting 20, five, $30,000 in the bank for the
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  stock car track. Making money.
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  Making money. We were killing it because we
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  were the only dirt track in the whole state that actually had a
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  bar, so that helped even even more.
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  Audible. Audible.
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  Do you think you were making money because it was before the
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  cell phone, before this new era? Yeah, well, back there there was
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  really nothing else to do. I can tell.
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  You. I mean once.
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  Once high school sports ended, what else do you do in Kentucky?
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  You go to the, the local track to watch racer.
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  You go fishing. That's about all you can do.
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  So we were running that track and we were killing it.
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  We were getting gas from southern, southern Ohio like
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  Delmas Conley, Charlie Swartz was a regular.
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  Every week we were getting 30-40 late models and it was something
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  people don't realize. I I'd have people say, well,
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  what do you do during the week because you only race on the
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  weekends. What, what's your job during the
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  week? Well, I was working the phones.
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  I was calling those drivers, getting them there, but kind of
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  getting back to it. We were making 2530 thousand
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  dollars every Saturday night with the stock cards.
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  The horses ran five nights a week and each time they ran they
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  lost $5000. But it was all about that off
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  track betting and the gaming and all this.
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  And I'm watching this whole cycle go on and I'm like, well,
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  this isn't sustainable. Like I could see that and you
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  know, it was to the point where everybody's kind of easing in.
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  I can see that most likely at some point what I was earning
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  was getting reduced because I was having to offset the horses
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  and all that. And just one day I get a phone
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  call from Stewart Doty, who ran the RPM, the promoters
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  workshops. He said there's a guy up there
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  you need to go meet and his name is Rico Hawks.
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  So you need to go meet Rico and and talk to him.
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  He said I think you'd be great with that organization.
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  So I call up Rico, they fly me up to Chicago.
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  If, you know, they had a limo waiting on me at the airport.
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  I thought I was big time. I find out they do that for
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  everybody that comes in. So I go into Rico's office and I
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  had no idea who Rico was. I thought he was just this guy
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  who worked in monster trucks and supercross.
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  And I walk in his office and he had all these pictures on the
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  wall from Ascot. He had Dean Thompson, you know,
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  he had had Ron Schumann's picture up on the I walk in and
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  I'm like, hey, that's Dean Thompson.
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  Hey, that's, that's Ron Schumann.
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  He had picture of Richard Griffin, the gas man on the wall
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  and I identified it. Rico's like, you know about
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  Ascot. I said, yeah.
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  I said I know about Ascot. He said I ran Ascot.
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  I said no, Akajanian ran Ascot. He said I worked for Akajanian.
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  He said. So my whole job interview with
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  him, he didn't even ask me if I was worth anything at what job I
• 14:06
  do dirt racing. He said, come on, we're going
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  down the hall. So he takes me down the hall and
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  into the office of Charlie Mancuso.
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  And Charlie is the greatest promoter in all of motor sports
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  entertainment, and he is the man.
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  He's the best. What made him the best?
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  Because Charlie could sell anything.
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  Charlie would come up these ideas, he'd be looking at what
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  we going to take to the Seattle Kingdom.
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  He'd say how about 10 trucks for 10 bucks and he put tickets on
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  sale, 10 trucks for 10 bucks, 60,000 people in the in the
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  Kingdom. You know, that's the kind of
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  stuff. And Charlie was just a master of
• 14:36
  selling products that, you know, a lot of people might not have
• 14:38
  wanted where he was. And he was also having to go
• 14:41
  into stadiums and arenas. And most of the time he could
• 14:43
  only get those venues in the winter time.
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  Is this where the promoting started?
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  In your this is. Where it really cranked up and
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  so it was funny. I go in for my interview with
• 14:51
  Charlie, and Charlie was just this, you know, intimidating
• 14:54
  character if there ever was I. Call him gnarly.
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  He walks in and I walk in there and I sit down and like
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  immediately he's like, it's not just hi, how you doing?
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  Why do you think you should work here?
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  Oh boy, he's just drilling me, you know, and then he he gets
• 15:09
  down to it and he says, what do you think we sell here?
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  I'm like, what you mean he said, what do we sell?
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  How do we pay for this? How do we pay these salaries out
• 15:19
  here? And I said, you sell tickets.
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  All right, that's good enough for me.
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  I'm like what put? People in the seats.
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  Yeah, like what he says most people will come in here and he
• 15:30
  said they start some BS about you're selling a fan experience
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  or you're selling these memories.
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  And he said it all boils down to the ticket.
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  He said every ticket pays the bills and that's what we're here
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  to do, sell tickets. OK, let's do the audible.
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  You know, Kenny, conversation is not perfect.
• 15:47
  Is it still very big to you to put people in the grandstands?
• 15:50
  Oh, yeah, I mean that that's for me personally.
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  That's how I judge success. You know, I don't really care
• 15:57
  about TV ratings like some people do.
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  I mean, it's important. I said it.
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  It's good, it's good. So we still got I wanted to de
• 16:04
  bullshit that because, you know, there's this theory now that oh,
• 16:07
  we don't need people because, you know.
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  But what's the first thing most fans complain about?
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  There's nobody in the grandstands.
• 16:12
  Nobody in the grandstands, but you look at the the TV numbers
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  and the consumption numbers across the board, it's probably
• 16:18
  bigger than it's ever been because we were, we were talking
• 16:20
  before you got here how everybody's watching on their
• 16:23
  phones. You know, you're seeing those
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  highlights as they're happening. Well, everybody's talking about
• 16:27
  what we saw the other night, so. They're consuming it.
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  They're. Consuming it and they're getting
• 16:30
  it and they're probably as engaged as they ever was.
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  It's just not everybody's sitting down at the same time,
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  turning on the TV and watching it at the same time.
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  But you when you look at overall how everybody's consuming the
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  sport, I think it's in a very, very good spot right now.
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  OK, I have but. For me personally, it's about I
• 16:46
  want to see butts in the seats because that's how I get judged
• 16:49
  and for me that's my level of satisfaction.
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  OK, so I'm sorry about that. I just had because, you know,
• 16:55
  you just kind of served it up on a platter there.
• 16:58
  So let's go back. OK, so he says to you, what do
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  we sell in here? You say tickets, We're selling
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  tickets. All right, take.
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  It I was the only guy who hadn't bullshitted him, basically.
• 17:07
  So you can't bullshit the bullshit.
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  Already exactly so so from there, you know Charlie, he
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  quickly advanced me. I was in just a short time I
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  became the director of operations for the motor sports
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  division. There later became Feld
• 17:21
  Entertainment. At the time it was SRO and then
• 17:24
  became Pace, now Feld Big Entertainment Group.
• 17:28
  And then I was, I had a lot of I really enjoyed creating events
• 17:32
  and he created a position just for me.
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  I was the the director of business development and so I
• 17:38
  was able to produce events at Charlotte Motor Speedway, US
• 17:41
  Truck Fest. We took a show to Charlotte, got
• 17:42
  to work with Humpy. So for me, that was a big
• 17:45
  moment. Yeah.
• 17:45
  Humpy Wheeler. So that was a big moment in my
• 17:47
  life for that. Got to meet, you know, lifetime
• 17:50
  friends. Rodger Slack was working as an
• 17:52
  intern at Charlotte at the time. He became a good friend of mine
• 17:55
  through that. But you had to meet so many
• 17:57
  people. Jerry Gappens and all those
• 17:58
  folks. Ed Clark had all those people
• 18:01
  that help help me with that. You can tell I want to throw
• 18:03
  another audible. OK, so you meet the great
• 18:06
  promoters of all time. Yeah.
• 18:08
  Humpy Wheeler, you're talking about, you know, PRI show the
• 18:12
  whole deal here. Yeah, myself, Jeff Gordon, Bobby
• 18:17
  Labonte, when we came in as rookies in, you know, 93, they
• 18:23
  had us at Barnum Bailey and they had us on elephants and I
• 18:29
  thought, OK, this getting a little circus.
• 18:32
  So it is. Is that the way it was back
• 18:36
  then? Was it a shock factor?
• 18:37
  You know, look here, we're going to put Dale Earnhardt on a
• 18:40
  horse. Or are are you still that person
• 18:45
  or, or is that era gone with the shock fact?
• 18:48
  I mean, we just lost Eddie Gossage and Eddie had had a goat
• 18:53
  with a #3 on it, the goat greatest of all time, and he had
• 18:56
  a real goat. I mean, have we changed?
• 18:59
  Are we still there? I think a lot of it is the era
• 19:03
  that we're in right now. I almost feel like to some
• 19:06
  degree there's a restrictor played on promotion in that we
• 19:09
  want to go pretty wild on some things.
• 19:11
  And a good example is like last year when we had this whole
• 19:14
  thing with the Ross Chastain. The watermelon.
• 19:18
  And I came up with this one ad. We produced the ad and I
• 19:23
  actually shared it with you. You shared it with Dale Junior.
• 19:25
  Dale Junior gave us feedback on this ad and Dale Junior loved
• 19:28
  it. And then I kind of sent it out,
• 19:31
  you know, get some feedback on it.
• 19:32
  It's like, oh, we better ease up a little bit.
• 19:35
  And about the same time everybody was trying to get Ross
• 19:37
  to ease up, we had to ease up. And it was one of those, OK, is
• 19:41
  this the hill that you down, you know, to try to be outrageous?
• 19:45
  And so we made-up for it by having Ross smashing watermelons
• 19:49
  with you out here on the stage. But you know, there's there's a
• 19:52
  lot of that you got to realize, OK, what is the the reward
• 19:55
  really worth the risk on some of this that you do because you
• 19:58
  could there's a lot of sensitive.
• 20:00
  Factors at play in the industry. And sometimes you get a like,
• 20:04
  OK, let's look at this from multiple angles.
• 20:06
  And I have a lot of people that I take advice from where I'm
• 20:09
  thinking this is going to be the greatest thing ever.
• 20:12
  But I always like to try to get a little bit of of view from the
• 20:15
  outside because, you know, you could step on some toes.
• 20:18
  OK, so we're in the same genre. OK, Right now we got to talking
• 20:22
  about you meeting the great promoters in your career.
• 20:26
  We're still on path here. And I say, are we?
• 20:29
  We're, we, are we too circus. We had a great conversation
• 20:33
  where you wanted last year, this race, Kyle Busch wins it.
• 20:36
  But you wanted to capitalize on Ross Chastain wrecking
• 20:41
  everybody. And you told me, my God, it's
• 20:43
  great we're selling tickets, but the industry backs you down.
• 20:48
  They said we'll back down. Yeah.
• 20:51
  Tell me about that time. Well, it's more taking the
• 20:54
  temperature of everybody in the room and no one really came
• 20:57
  right out and said, woah, slam on the brakes.
• 21:00
  And other people I get advice from.
• 21:02
  I've got one over here saying, hell yeah, I pour it on and I've
• 21:04
  got another one over here saying, let's ease up just a
• 21:07
  little bit. And then, you know, then I had
• 21:08
  to take a look at it and say, well, what can we do?
• 21:11
  Is it really going to sell any more tickets?
• 21:13
  What can we do here that's going to create something that's going
• 21:15
  to be a little more memorable? And so that then that way I
• 21:19
  would rather have it for people leave the racetrack saying, did
• 21:21
  you see what they did back there?
• 21:23
  So that's when you know, I carry a watermelon out and put it on
• 21:26
  the stage and give you a hammer. Let's talk about that for a
• 21:29
  moment. This is the the great promoter
• 21:31
  that Chris is, and we're still in your we're still we're still
• 21:35
  in his career and we're going to get to this racetrack in a
• 21:38
  minute. So you dream up and now I'm
• 21:40
  thinking about when Humpy Wheeler, all these things that
• 21:43
  you've seen. So you bring me a watermelon and
• 21:46
  and and I've I've already done some scathing.
• 21:49
  Kenny Wallace shows about why Ross has to quit wrecking people
• 21:54
  because his motors are given to him by Rick Hendrick.
• 21:58
  He's wrecking guys that are giving them product.
• 22:02
  I'm like, so you're like, OK, you give me a watermelon.
• 22:06
  He he gives me a sledgehammer and it don't go good here.
• 22:11
  Here comes Ross on stage. He's super good now.
• 22:13
  This is all your idea. This is his idea.
• 22:16
  I'm like, OK, bam. And my sledgehammer gets stuck
• 22:20
  in there and I just get splattered and I'm getting ready
• 22:25
  to go live on Fox. You give me a new shirt and Ross
• 22:30
  is cool with it. And and what I learned.
• 22:32
  Ross Chastain says it's not easy.
• 22:34
  That's why you slam them. Well, he also said or or you can
• 22:37
  slice them up a little bit to get you get a soft spot in it so
• 22:40
  that when you hit it at a splatter.
• 22:41
  Well, hell, we didn't know that. The funny part is Kenny needs a
• 22:44
  new shirt so I'm scrambling to get him a shirt and luckily he
• 22:48
  threw one on the head. Our sponsor Enjoy Illinois 300
• 22:51
  logo before he goes on Fox. So that worked out really,
• 22:54
  really well. You know, cuz everybody loved
• 22:56
  that shirt. But this is the genius you are.
• 22:58
  That was dumb luck. Cuz all that was really that was
• 23:01
  dumb. Luck.
• 23:01
  Well, they said the best plans are the ones you don't plan.
• 23:03
  Yeah, and but the funniest part about this and you, I don't know
• 23:06
  if I ever told you about this, it's like 3045 minutes later,
• 23:10
  I'm going by the stage and the stage manager is ready to kill
• 23:13
  me because they're still trying to clean up watermelon.
• 23:15
  And they're like, and even in one of my pre event meetings a
• 23:18
  few weeks ago, the number one question was, is there going to
• 23:21
  be a damn watermelon on the stage this year?
• 23:23
  Because the, I can't remember the stage manager's name was,
• 23:26
  but he was still pissed off about that, That watermelon
• 23:29
  juice, be it all over all of his equipment.
• 23:31
  I like this journey we're going on.
• 23:34
  OK, so we stopped at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
• 23:37
  You see what Humpy Wheeler's doing.
• 23:40
  They're very theatrical. We got animals involved,
• 23:42
  circuses. So the watermelon last year
• 23:45
  right here, it was a little bit of a little bit of that.
• 23:47
  All right, So I want to know how you get out to Oregon, how you
• 23:51
  get out to Vegas? That way, yeah.
• 23:53
  So doing all this stuff in Chicago and we and we learned
• 23:56
  some very creative emotional stuff there with Charlie.
• 23:59
  For me, it was it was really tough at the time because I was
• 24:03
  just worn out. I was doing 16 weeks on the road
• 24:06
  where I would leave Chicago, fly some warm, somewhere warm and
• 24:10
  beautiful, come back, had enough time to do my laundry work on
• 24:13
  the next show, boom, and back out on the road again.
• 24:16
  I was getting kind of burnt out on that.
• 24:18
  And at the time, going into the 1997 season, the the one guy
• 24:26
  that I seem to work with the most was a guy, my name is Glenn
• 24:28
  Cromwell. Glenn is now the president of
• 24:30
  NHRA. So now we're connecting dots.
• 24:33
  Yeah, we're connecting dots. So we're going into this and I
• 24:36
  was mainly the operations guy, Glenn was the marketing guy and
• 24:40
  we were going to do shows together.
• 24:41
  We work together every weekend. It's like we we would team up
• 24:44
  and that was, you know, I was Glenn's OPS guy, he was my
• 24:46
  marketing guy. We had a streak of five weeks in
• 24:49
  a row where we sold 50,000 tickets.
• 24:51
  We were sold. We sold out the Georgia Dome, we
• 24:54
  sold out consecutive nights and Landover.
• 24:56
  Maryland and what kind of events?
• 24:57
  Are these these were a little bit everything is Monster Jam
• 24:59
  shows. It was thrill shows at the
• 25:01
  Pontiac Silverdome. It was supercross events at the
• 25:05
  at the Georgia Dome. I mean, we were doing it all and
• 25:08
  I had an off weekend and I leave and I come back in on Monday and
• 25:14
  actually it was Tuesday. It was the weekend of the Final
• 25:15
  Four. I went and watched, you can tell
• 25:16
  you Wildcats play up in Indianapolis.
• 25:18
  I come into the office on Monday and one of my Co workers said
• 25:22
  did you hear about Glenn? And I said no, what happened?
• 25:25
  They said he went to work for NHRA.
• 25:28
  Oh, OK. So I call him and like what the
• 25:30
  hell man? I said you went to work for
• 25:31
  NHRA. He said yeah.
• 25:32
  He said I found out you put in an application with them too.
• 25:36
  I said well yeah I did cuz there been an opening there.
• 25:38
  He says they're going to be giving you a call.
• 25:39
  He said I'm taking over division seven in California.
• 25:43
  He said there's an opening coming up in Seattle.
• 25:45
  He said. I've already put your name in
• 25:47
  for. It Here we go.
• 25:48
  Now here's where we get to the Northeast.
• 25:51
  Three months later I actually did my first job interview with
• 25:54
  NHRA. First time I'm ever at an NHRA
• 25:56
  drag race was right here at it was Gateway International 1997,
• 26:00
  the first ever NHRA event they had.
• 26:02
  It was here I drove down from Chicago to have my interview and
• 26:06
  I interviewed with the guy who hired me, Jean Bergstrom, but I
• 26:09
  had to get do an interview with Dallas Gardner who's the
• 26:13
  president of NHRA. Got to meet Wally Parks who was
• 26:16
  the founder of NHRA and, and I passed the test Graham Light
• 26:20
  who's the VP of operations and competition.
• 26:23
  They all they signed me off 3 weeks later I'm in a moving
• 26:27
  truck driving to Seattle. Never been to Seattle before and
• 26:30
  I'm I'm driving in with everything I have in the back of
• 26:33
  a moving truck and. Let's stop right there for a
• 26:38
  minute. When you come into Worldwide
• 26:40
  Technology Raceway, one big billboard that you have up
• 26:44
  there, you and Curtis, that really strikes me really
• 26:47
  awesome. Worldwide Technology Raceway,
• 26:50
  from what I understand, is the only racetrack in America that
• 26:54
  has NASCAR, NHRARNHRA and IndyCar.
• 27:00
  That's correct. And I believe some of these
• 27:02
  stories that you're telling me right now have a lot to do with
• 27:05
  that. So, OK, now you're now you're
• 27:07
  there and you're in NHRA. Yeah, NHRA, it was fantastic
• 27:12
  because I'm a person who never worked with in drag racing at
• 27:15
  all. I mean, it was going into you
• 27:17
  talk about going in blind, I went in blind, but I had a great
• 27:20
  support group of there's some great promoters up there, great
• 27:22
  trap track operators in that area.
• 27:25
  There was some great crew of people.
• 27:27
  I mean, even the guy that I kind of beat out for that job, he, he
• 27:31
  was my starter and he stood by me and I made sure that when I
• 27:36
  left, he was the guy I put and got him in that that position up
• 27:39
  there. But I got to meet so many people
• 27:41
  and that job, more than anything, taught me the the
• 27:45
  relationships of how important it is for officials, race
• 27:49
  officials, promoters, everybody to have good relationships.
• 27:52
  How business? Works with the participants,
• 27:54
  yeah. Because these most, you know,
• 27:55
  the majority of your customers are sportsmen, racers, guys who
• 27:57
  have, you know, successful businesses that are doing this
• 28:00
  because it's their hobby, it's their golf.
• 28:02
  You also have some other guys that mean they're struggling to
• 28:04
  get from track to track. So you had to learn how to work
• 28:07
  with all those folks. And you know, me going in there,
• 28:10
  it's like I had a target on my back because they're sending in
• 28:12
  this guy who knows nothing about drag racing.
• 28:15
  Well, I made sure that I got to meet the right people and got
• 28:18
  the education from the people that I need.
• 28:20
  This makes me laugh because this show, you know, the Kenny
• 28:24
  Wallace show, is run by Charlie Marlow with CC's ball and stick.
• 28:28
  I got to know him through, you know, Cardinals.
• 28:32
  And I said, Charlie, you don't know nothing about racing.
• 28:35
  And he says now I do. Same with you.
• 28:38
  It was the same. You didn't know anything about
• 28:39
  that. But OK, now you're building this
• 28:42
  resume, OK. And Pete, when you go to get a
• 28:45
  job, when you go to get a job, they say let me see your resume.
• 28:48
  Well, that means you got to do a lot of different things.
• 28:50
  So now you're building this resume.
• 28:53
  So now you go to Vegas. And it it was, it was totally
• 28:57
  talk about everything, all the stars and aligning all at once.
• 29:02
  So I get a phone call from my buddy Rodger Slack, and Rodger
• 29:07
  calls me up. He said there's a job opening
• 29:09
  that I think you're the only guy on the planet that is capable of
• 29:12
  doing this job. And I said, OK, what is it?
• 29:14
  He says, well, they built the drag strip at Vegas.
• 29:16
  And I said, yeah, I said it's beautiful.
• 29:18
  He said, well, they built the drag strip.
• 29:19
  There is. That four wide.
• 29:21
  It wasn't at the time, but it is now.
• 29:23
  But it was just a spectacular facility.
• 29:26
  And he said, and they've got a dirt track there and he said
• 29:28
  they're having problems with the dirt track.
• 29:30
  And he said Chris Powell from. That was bad dirt.
• 29:36
  That was that was terrible. It was we're in the middle of
• 29:39
  the desert and we're going to run dirt cars.
• 29:41
  So Chris Powell, who's still the president out there at Vegas, he
• 29:45
  calls me up and he says, hey, Roger Slack says I need to be
• 29:49
  talking to you. And I said, yeah, I said he's
• 29:51
  warned me. And he says, well, he said, you
• 29:54
  know, I need somebody knows drag race and somebody knows dirt
• 29:56
  race. And he said, I got one question
• 29:57
  for you. Do you know how to run and
• 29:59
  operate a blade? I said how?
• 30:01
  Are you becoming a? Farmer Yeah, I said I do not,
• 30:03
  but I'll learn if the price is right.
• 30:05
  And Chris said well come on down here, let's talk.
• 30:06
  So I fly down and I talk to Chris and you know, I really
• 30:10
  loved Seattle. I mean, I love the Northwest.
• 30:13
  I had all the Western Canada. It was like every event that I
• 30:15
  went to, it's like going on vacation because it's just so
• 30:17
  beautiful and the people were so nice.
• 30:20
  So I go down there for the interview and I'm like, hey,
• 30:21
  Chris, I don't know. I said, you know, let me think
• 30:23
  about it. Well, I go home and as I'm
• 30:26
  thinking about it, I'm at my office one day and I'll start
• 30:30
  feeling the ground shake. This is big.
• 30:33
  And it was the earth, the earthquake.
• 30:35
  A real earthquake. It was not a tremble.
• 30:38
  And I've even been thinking about this and having
• 30:39
  conversations with my mom and dad and all the family and, and
• 30:43
  stuff. I said, you know, I'm not sure
• 30:47
  if it's what I need to do. And then that earthquake came
• 30:49
  along and shook the hell out of me.
• 30:52
  And it was about the same time that happened.
• 30:54
  And then Chris calls me up and he says, well, did that, did
• 30:57
  that earthquake shake any sense into you?
• 30:59
  And I said, well, it may be worth us, us having another
• 31:01
  conversation. So we talked some more.
• 31:03
  And a few months later, as much as I didn't want to leave the
• 31:06
  Northwest, as much as I didn't want to leave NHRA because I,
• 31:09
  you know, I had so many good relationships.
• 31:11
  It was the right thing for me to do at the time.
• 31:13
  I do find it, and this is speaking all of you out there, I
• 31:17
  do find people that are like, oh, we, you know, we see
• 31:19
  baseball players. I'm a big baseball guy and
• 31:22
  they're like, where do you want to play?
• 31:23
  You're great. And they're like, well, I don't
• 31:25
  really like this area. So many sometimes regions, I
• 31:29
  mean, sometimes we don't have a choice.
• 31:31
  So that scared us, that scared. You.
• 31:33
  Yeah, it really did that area. Even though it's beautiful,
• 31:36
  well, I just. I'm a firm believer in, you
• 31:38
  know, kind of like the Blues Brothers.
• 31:39
  It's a sign from God. I mean, that was a sign from
• 31:42
  God, man. And it but it and it was one of
• 31:45
  those things too. Had I stayed there at that time,
• 31:49
  had I gotten more attached to that community, I probably never
• 31:52
  would have left and I probably wouldn't be in racing now
• 31:54
  because there just weren't a lot of opportunities for racing if
• 31:57
  you live in the Northwest. You couldn't grow there.
• 32:00
  I couldn't grow very secluded. And the one thing about this too
• 32:03
  is I, I had a really good conversation with with Tom
• 32:09
  Compton, who's the president of NHRA at the time.
• 32:11
  I called him up and said, Tom, I hate to do this, but here's this
• 32:14
  opportunity that I've got. And Tom said, listen, he said
• 32:18
  it's important for us for Vegas to be a successful racetrack.
• 32:21
  And he said if you can help us get your replacement in here, if
• 32:26
  you can help us with some of the events that are coming up, he
• 32:29
  said, we fully support you because we know you'll probably
• 32:32
  come back someday. That's big, yeah.
• 32:34
  And so and Tom and I remained friends for many, many years.
• 32:38
  Never burn a bridge. Listen, never burn a bridge.
• 32:42
  So, you know, I get down there to Vegas and you know, it was
• 32:44
  the busiest drag strip. I made it the busiest drag strip
• 32:47
  in the country at the time. And, and that's one thing, Vegas
• 32:51
  being Vegas, you know, we got to, it was we created some
• 32:55
  fantastic events and it eventually got two NHRA national
• 32:58
  events. We were doing all kinds of
• 33:00
  testing, all kinds of other events taking place there.
• 33:02
  That's how I started getting a lot of good relationships with
• 33:04
  the professional drivers as far as that dirt track that the dirt
• 33:07
  was so bad on. You know, I was bringing in
• 33:09
  Randy Grove from Hagerstown, MD, to help us get the dirt ready.
• 33:12
  I had Bob Sergeant come in, help me out a couple of times because
• 33:15
  you were in the middle of the desert and the wind was always
• 33:17
  blowing. It was a challenge, but we had
• 33:19
  an event out there called the Duel in the Desert.
• 33:21
  Oh yeah, and when very successful.
• 33:23
  That first year we had 40 cars in that that race.
• 33:27
  My last year there we were at 270 and 270 modified someone
• 33:31
  race. So that was one that took a lot
• 33:33
  of pride in and as time progressed there, it went from
• 33:36
  just being the drag strip and the dirt track to also the
• 33:40
  Bullring, which is the asphalt track there, so.
• 33:42
  Where the the Bush brothers curtain.
• 33:45
  They grew up with the Bullring that that really is a little
• 33:47
  Metropolis Cup track drag trip dirt track Bullring Rd. course.
• 33:53
  Road courses, multiple Rd. courses, go Kart tracks, off
• 33:56
  road tracks. 6-7, yes. So that's seven opportunities.
• 34:00
  And they've added more even since then.
• 34:02
  So there was just a lot to lot that we could do and it could
• 34:05
  take advantage of and stay busy. Let me let me throw an audible
• 34:08
  here. What do you remember them doing?
• 34:12
  Because I mean, they're still running the dirt track.
• 34:13
  How did they get that dirt? How did you all get that dirt to
• 34:17
  hold together? Do you remember anything?
• 34:19
  I mean, I'm not saying you were doing it.
• 34:22
  Well, what we ended up doing, because it was sand and dust, we
• 34:25
  there was up the road a little ways an Apex Nevada.
• 34:29
  There was a gypsum. Plant.
• 34:31
  And they the waste containment ponds from the gypsum.
• 34:34
  It was almost like a clay. That you use.
• 34:37
  And David Stetzer, who's still out there at Vegas now, somehow
• 34:40
  he stumbled upon finding this clay, and they were looking to
• 34:43
  get rid of it. They were cleaning out those
• 34:45
  ponds. We started bringing that down
• 34:47
  and put that on the racing surface and it revolutionized
• 34:50
  it. It went from being just a
• 34:52
  terrible surface to making it a good surface.
• 34:54
  The only problem is that gypsum would only last every few years.
• 34:57
  You'd have to start all over again with it.
• 34:59
  But and to pull off a race successfully there, we were
• 35:03
  having to start prep 3-4 weeks out for that one weekend of
• 35:06
  racing. And and to really to make it
• 35:09
  work, you almost needed it to black slick over to hold
• 35:11
  together so. So I'm thinking to myself, you
• 35:16
  know, you're creating this journey and in every every step
• 35:21
  so far sings me like you're, you're doing better every level
• 35:25
  you're going, you're you're making more money, right,
• 35:29
  Because we're, you know, So what life is about the journey.
• 35:31
  You want to do better, you want to support yourself.
• 35:34
  So you're doing that. You end up somehow getting a Now
• 35:39
  you're going back to Charlotte, NC.
• 35:42
  Well, no, actually, I'm still, you know, I'm still staying in
• 35:44
  Vegas. I'm working there in Vegas doing
• 35:45
  all their stuff. But I'm making the connections
• 35:47
  with a lot of folks. You know, an opportunity in
• 35:49
  Charlotte did come about when Bruton was building the drag
• 35:52
  strip there. I went, actually went back and
• 35:54
  talked to him. And if that was at the same
• 35:55
  time, Humpy was still there. So I had conversations with
• 35:57
  Humpy about it. I had conversations with Bruton
• 35:59
  about it and went in, went back and met with Marcus one time
• 36:02
  about the drag strip there, you know, but at the time,
• 36:07
  everything was going on in the housing market in Vegas.
• 36:10
  I was way upside down on the House, just trying to unload
• 36:13
  real estate To move to another part of the country was going to
• 36:15
  be tough. And so that's one reason why we
• 36:17
  stick around there for. All right, so for the second
• 36:22
  time, I want to leave a little bit of room for this racetrack
• 36:24
  and talk about this. You end up somehow getting here.
• 36:30
  So. That let's let's skip some
• 36:33
  things, but but give me some highlights.
• 36:35
  Yeah, get me, get me to where you're at now.
• 36:38
  Well, how I got here is we were having an NHRA track.
• 36:42
  It's like the Life and Times of this is going to take days, so
• 36:46
  somehow we got to skip some things.
• 36:47
  So I ended up NHRA was having a track operator meeting in
• 36:51
  Newport Beach, CA. Oh, great names.
• 36:54
  I go to Newport. Beach Yes.
• 36:56
  I'm at this track operator meeting and I end up at a table
• 36:58
  with a guy named Curtis Francois, some sports car racing
• 37:01
  guy from Saint Louis and I'm like, So what?
• 37:04
  What's he doing? Well, he's going to be the guy
• 37:06
  who's taking over the track at Gateway.
• 37:08
  And I, So I end up at the table with Curtis and we just start
• 37:10
  shooting the breeze and he's asking me a few questions and
• 37:14
  I'm telling him about, you know, how my first Drag Race was there
• 37:17
  and all that. And we just hit it off and some
• 37:20
  conversations. And it was funny.
• 37:22
  A guy who had worked for me at Vegas and had moved around some
• 37:26
  had applied for a job here as just being just the drag strip
• 37:30
  manager. And they called me.
• 37:33
  Curtis had one of the guys that worked for him called me and
• 37:36
  they were asking me about the individual that worked for me.
• 37:39
  And then Curtis chimes in. He says, well, what are you
• 37:43
  doing to you, to me? And he said, would you would you
• 37:47
  want to come back here and, and talk to us about running this
• 37:49
  racetrack? And I'm like, sure.
• 37:50
  He said, OK, I'll send you a ticket.
• 37:52
  Can you come back tomorrow? I said, can I have an extra day
• 37:55
  or two? And so we come back and we sit
• 37:57
  down and Curtis drives me around and shows me everything that he
• 38:00
  has planned and the visions and all that.
• 38:02
  And at the time, I said, if this guy can pull off 50% of what he
• 38:06
  says he's going to do, it's going to be successful.
• 38:09
  And, and for me personally, there was a couple of things
• 38:12
  that were going on at the time. My parents still lived in
• 38:15
  Kentucky and they were getting older.
• 38:16
  My. Now you can get closer to mom
• 38:19
  and dad. Yeah, my dad was having health
• 38:21
  issues. My wife at the time, she lived
• 38:23
  in her family, was from Northern Illinois.
• 38:26
  Her dad had some health issues, and we found out that her mom
• 38:30
  was having a cancer battle. So there was just a lot of
• 38:33
  things that aligned. So she was five hours away from
• 38:36
  or 4 1/2 hours away from her parents at a time they needed
• 38:39
  her. I'm six hours away from my
• 38:41
  parents at the time they needed me and that's why the move was
• 38:44
  made to come here. I look at your life as like,
• 38:48
  like a race track. You start in Kentucky, you know,
• 38:52
  Indy, IRP somewhat, you know, I'm just thinking like that.
• 38:56
  And then you, you go out there, you know, now you're at turn 3
• 39:00
  up there in Oregon. You come down to Turn 4 into
• 39:02
  Vegas and now you're coming. Your life has been a really good
• 39:08
  evolution. You know, now you're you're back
• 39:11
  here. OK, So you're here.
• 39:14
  We've laid your career out. We've give you all some hope.
• 39:18
  It's part of the journey. Look at his journey starts in
• 39:20
  Kentucky. No.
• 39:22
  Scott Bloomquist, now you created all these ties.
• 39:26
  You, you, you're a dirt racer, you're a drag racer.
• 39:30
  And, and now that you're a promoter, you can relate with
• 39:33
  John Force, you can relate with Scott Bloomquist or some of the
• 39:37
  new kids. You know, now you're here and
• 39:41
  here we are to this day, NASCAR week, the Cup race, June 2nd.
• 39:47
  We got the truck race on that Saturday.
• 39:51
  This, this track is beautiful now.
• 39:54
  I mean, it's absolutely beautiful.
• 39:58
  Tell me about race weekend here. What, what, What can we expect
• 40:02
  here at the racetrack? What we're always trying to do,
• 40:07
  I just gave a speech yesterday to a lot of our new employees
• 40:10
  and our interns about we're only as good as our next race.
• 40:14
  So and people have come to accept that.
• 40:17
  Here you take a look at what we pulled off that first year.
• 40:20
  There was a big wow factor, you know, last year, along with you
• 40:24
  smashing watermelons. We had big concerts.
• 40:27
  We had all the other stuff, lots of improvements.
• 40:30
  I I got to stop you right here. Remind me the name my ADD
• 40:35
  confluence? Music.
• 40:36
  The Confluence Music. Festival, this this music
• 40:39
  festival here. And I asked you, I said, how do
• 40:42
  you get such big names? Remind everybody, remind us this
• 40:46
  is an event, you know, racing, the Cup Series, the Truck
• 40:49
  Series, music, some of the past and who we got coming.
• 40:53
  Well, the way it all started out, we wanted, you know, it's
• 40:57
  about every NASCAR race anymore. You have some national artist
• 41:01
  who's performing and as we were working on this and you know
• 41:05
  Curtis, and he's like Curtis, you know, Curtis makes the list.
• 41:08
  Let's see if we can go find these guys and in a conversation
• 41:12
  he was having with David Stewart, who was the founder of
• 41:15
  Worldwide Technology. They are our sponsor, Curtis
• 41:18
  Senior. We want to try some.
• 41:20
  You know, you'll find some good music acts and David is all he's
• 41:23
  very involved with the art scene here in Saint Louis with
• 41:27
  sponsorship of the Muni. He sponsors the.
• 41:30
  Good man, he's involved in everything.
• 41:32
  He's. Running very, very proud of of
• 41:34
  the Saint Louis area. And he says, well, I want to be
• 41:37
  involved with this music piece. We're like, oh, OK, so he's
• 41:39
  going to help sponsor it. Well, the next thing I know, we
• 41:41
  we have a meeting and he's bringing in, he's got like five
• 41:45
  staff members from worldwide. He's got the Kofi Coleman who
• 41:48
  runs the Muni. He's got him on there.
• 41:50
  He's brings in Michael Van He who promotes concerts here in
• 41:54
  the area. He's got them on the board.
• 41:56
  And next thing I know they're they're shooting for the moon.
• 41:58
  They're like, well, who would you want?
• 42:00
  And I'm like, well, depends who has to pay for this?
• 42:02
  How are we going to make this work?
• 42:04
  And you know, that first year we, we had Old Dominion here
• 42:07
  playing and As for our, for our post race concert and you know,
• 42:11
  they started out, they had 30 bands, 5 stages. 30 bands, 5
• 42:15
  stages down here in terms one and two.
• 42:17
  Yeah, and I said, hey, we want to have a very memorable
• 42:21
  national anthem. And Dave says, well, if we're
• 42:23
  doing the national anthem, we got to bring in the Saint Louis
• 42:25
  Symphony Orchestra. So we're like, OK, that's
• 42:29
  there's sixty people for this orchestra, you know, so he
• 42:31
  brings that in. So then the next year he's like,
• 42:33
  well, we got to go bigger. So, you know, last year it's
• 42:36
  Dierks Bentley and you know, we it was one thing.
• 42:39
  After these are, these are regional acts, Yeah, this fans,
• 42:43
  these are worldwide people. And you know, again, 30 bands, 5
• 42:47
  stages, it's a production all in itself.
• 42:49
  Now this year, here we are again and you know, we got ludicrous.
• 42:53
  We've got T pain, we've got big and rich, we've got Raleigh
• 42:55
  green and it's because of the great support of Dave Stewart,
• 42:58
  Stewart Family Foundation, those folks.
• 43:00
  We're basically taking a great NASCAR race weekend and all the
• 43:04
  things that's so great about NASCAR.
• 43:06
  And we're bringing all these music festival elements and
• 43:08
  putting them all together for just to show that that way it
• 43:12
  offers something for everybody. And that way if you get that one
• 43:15
  person in your, your group who, well, we like going to concerts,
• 43:18
  don't really care about racing. Somebody who likes racing and
• 43:20
  doesn't care about concerts that brings them all together with 1
• 43:23
  ticket to get some. Everything they need to see for.
• 43:26
  That I want to, I want to talk about that for a moment because
• 43:30
  I find it fascinating. To me, it's always the McDonald
• 43:32
  thing. You know, when McDonald's
• 43:34
  started, you go through the drive through and it, you know,
• 43:37
  it took about this. Nowadays, if you, if you have to
• 43:40
  wait 30 seconds for anything, people are losing their mind.
• 43:44
  The people at Facebook told me that there was this 49 second
• 43:50
  thing, you know, years ago and socially 49 seconds, people
• 43:53
  start blinking. So that's the analogy I use.
• 43:58
  But now it's this whole new world where we got to have more.
• 44:03
  We got and we go to the, we go to the Blues game and they're in
• 44:07
  the hockey. There's a band down here speak
• 44:11
  to that about just we got to have more.
• 44:15
  I think in no matter what you do anymore in racing it's or or any
• 44:20
  form of entertainment. Even anything baseball, the full
• 44:23
  play don't matter. Even going to the movie theater,
• 44:25
  it's about the experience. It's less about the event
• 44:28
  itself. Yeah, now we're having dinner
• 44:30
  and beer and movies. Yeah, it's, it's about the
• 44:33
  atmosphere, it's about the experience, it's about, you
• 44:36
  know, the comfort level. Those are the factors that seem
• 44:39
  to weigh in anymore. I mean, you take a look at it,
• 44:42
  which race tracks, which dirt tracks are successful, which
• 44:45
  short tracks are successful. These days it's the ones who
• 44:47
  give you something that you you leave talking about.
• 44:50
  Fairbury, IL for all you dirt races, Fairbury is making more
• 44:54
  money on their concerts right now.
• 44:57
  I mean all the races are big, but you know, they're using it
• 45:01
  as music menu. Oh, we're going to have a race
• 45:03
  so. I like it, but you think about
• 45:05
  when you go though to the Prairie Dirt Classic up there at
• 45:07
  Fairbury or when you go to Oktoberfest at lacrosse.
• 45:10
  He knows all the names. Those are the events I go to
• 45:12
  because, you know, you never know what you might pick up and
• 45:15
  what you might see. I'll use Prairie Dirt Classic,
• 45:17
  for example. I remember a few years ago, I go
• 45:20
  up there and they've got the guitar player from Guns and
• 45:22
  Roses or something that wasn't Slash.
• 45:24
  It was like some local guy who'd been filling in for for them
• 45:28
  with with Axel, but they had this guy doing the national
• 45:31
  anthem and he's on a scissor lift out in the middle of the
• 45:34
  infield. And as he's playing the raising
• 45:35
  him up. I said that's pretty damn cool
• 45:37
  at a dirt race. But you look at the overall
• 45:39
  atmosphere of everything else they do with the camping
• 45:41
  experience. It's it's, you know, just going
• 45:44
  to a race anymore to walk through the gates, sit down and
• 45:47
  watch cars go around in circles and then leave.
• 45:50
  I don't think that cuts it anymore.
• 45:51
  And I think that's why you everywhere you go, everybody's
• 45:54
  got to be stepping up their game to make it worth.
• 45:56
  It's memorable from the time you get out of your car in the
• 45:59
  parking lot until the time you leave and you're driving out the
• 46:02
  gate. So you got to have infield fan
• 46:04
  experiences. You got to have a gateway garage
• 46:06
  where fans can get up close to the the teams.
• 46:08
  You know, you think about it. And I shared video with you a
• 46:11
  few weeks ago from Talladega. In Talladega, you got big bills
• 46:15
  in the infield and that place was packed.
• 46:18
  And while the race is going on? Race is going on.
• 46:20
  You've got people sitting in, you know, lounge chairs looking
• 46:23
  at a video screen while the race is behind them.
• 46:25
  You've got people inside, big bills, watching everything on
• 46:28
  the video screen, but they're all gathered around together and
• 46:30
  you notice the way they're watching the race.
• 46:33
  They're sitting at a table looking at the race almost like
• 46:35
  this, while they're still talking with one another, where
• 46:38
  if they're sitting in the grandstands looking straight
• 46:40
  ahead, they're not getting that interaction with everybody.
• 46:43
  Respond right here. I'm going to ask him this
• 46:45
  question. This has been burning a hole in
• 46:47
  my brain for three years. Respond right here.
• 46:50
  I'm going to ask him. OK, I go to the Saint Louis
• 46:55
  Blues hockey game. I have to go to the bathroom.
• 46:58
  I get up and I'm going to the bathroom.
• 47:00
  Half the crowd is in a bar area. We got what we call a Jack
• 47:05
  Daniels area. It's packed.
• 47:08
  They're drinking, watching the TV while they're at the event,
• 47:11
  at the event. What is that phenomenon?
• 47:13
  I'm still trying to figure out myself, but I think a lot of it
• 47:16
  is people are looking for ways to socialize and get out and do
• 47:20
  things together. Because when you're sitting
• 47:21
  here, you can't. Because if you're side by side,
• 47:23
  you don't. You're having to lean around to
• 47:24
  talk to the next guy and the person behind you you might not
• 47:27
  know is hearing your conversation.
• 47:29
  I think a lot of people just want to do things in the group,
• 47:32
  in a group setting, and this is a way for them to interact.
• 47:36
  Even when you go to a Cardinals game now, like if the Cardinals
• 47:39
  outside of you know it's right field, that Upper Budweiser
• 47:42
  deck, you know you'll go up there and baseball.
• 47:45
  Wiser Terrace. Yeah, Budweiser Terrace and you
• 47:47
  got people up there playing cornhole.
• 47:49
  While the games. While the games going on.
• 47:51
  But it's fine right here. Why?
• 47:52
  Why do you all do that? I want to learn.
• 47:54
  You go to the game, you go to the race.
• 47:58
  You hear it, but you're over here.
• 48:00
  The thing I'll look at when you see that, especially at races,
• 48:05
  we'll use Talladega as an example.
• 48:08
  The family, mom and dad, they're sitting around, they're sitting
• 48:10
  at a picnic table watching the race. 30 feet away is a
• 48:13
  playground, and the kids are. Bouncing around it.
• 48:17
  Gets worse. So the kids are playing and
• 48:18
  they're having a good time. Now, if mom and dad and the kids
• 48:20
  are sitting up in the grandstands and you have to keep
• 48:23
  Little Junior entertained for a full race, it could be
• 48:27
  challenging. So I, I think that's
• 48:30
  contributing to a lot of this, to this way the whole family can
• 48:32
  go do something, The kids can stay entertained, the parents
• 48:35
  can still look at their time together and it it's just part
• 48:38
  of that overall feel. We're still here at this
• 48:41
  racetrack in this conversation. So, you know, I go to the
• 48:46
  cardinal game. You know, we we go to these race
• 48:48
  tracks now and you all are spending millions of dollars on
• 48:52
  Wi-Fi because we don't assume the fans come to the
• 48:55
  grandstands, but they want to get on their phones.
• 48:57
  Exactly what is that phenomenon? Everybody has to have that up
• 49:01
  up-to-the-minute info. You know, you got to grab that
• 49:03
  phone and look at it. Now, here's the thing I look at
• 49:06
  is if I'm watching the race every year, I go to Phoenix and
• 49:11
  I sit in the grandstands with my girlfriend, her kid and her
• 49:15
  family. We sit there in the stands, we
• 49:19
  get the headphones on, listen to the MRN, but I always keep my
• 49:22
  phone going because I want to see what Bob Pocker has to.
• 49:24
  Say, and the crew chiefs or the. PR people, what the PR people
• 49:27
  want to say, I want to see what's, what does Jeff Gluck
• 49:29
  think about what just happened? What does Bob Pocker think about
• 49:32
  what happened? You know, So I'm scrolling
• 49:35
  through there trying to stay on top of that.
• 49:36
  Plus by going to my phone, I'm getting all the live timing.
• 49:39
  I've got all that, you know. It's at your fingertips.
• 49:41
  This makes them the phone, OK? The phone makes the most sense
• 49:45
  to me because, as you said, you're at Phoenix and you know
• 49:51
  Joey Logano has issues and you can't.
• 49:54
  You don't know why he's got issues, but you can grab your
• 49:56
  phone and Joey Logano's PR people are immediately.
• 50:00
  That one I buy. Well, there are a lot of things
• 50:03
  too. If it's if your favorite driver
• 50:04
  is running middle of the pack and you're wondering why is he
• 50:06
  just not getting it today and he's not up there far enough
• 50:09
  that MRN is really giving you those details and you want to
• 50:12
  know right now, you know, why is Christopher's car smoking or why
• 50:15
  is Alex's car doing this? You can go in and you can start
• 50:18
  looking for what those, you know, you're getting those other
• 50:20
  updates. And, and you, one of the things
• 50:23
  I see too now is even when you go to the dirt races, I think
• 50:27
  one of the greatest things that ever happened in dirt races was
• 50:29
  my laps because I was going to all these race tracks where I
• 50:32
  only knew one or two guys in the field.
• 50:34
  Oh yeah. The announcing or the announcer
• 50:37
  might not have all the best info or it's loud and you can't hear
• 50:40
  the play by play. It's not broadcast where you can
• 50:42
  listen to it on a scanner, but I can pull out my phone and I can
• 50:45
  watch of my lapse and the timing and see the real running order,
• 50:49
  especially when they get into lap traffic.
• 50:51
  I mean, I think that helped revolutionize the live event
• 50:53
  experience on the short track level too.
• 50:55
  So it's all technology based. Chris, there's so much to say,
• 50:59
  but let's wrap it up. All right?
• 51:02
  Let June 1st and 2nd do we, do we have anything going on on
• 51:07
  Friday here? Yes, On Friday we're going to
• 51:10
  have truck practice and qualifying that'll be taking
• 51:12
  place. We open up the racetrack for the
• 51:15
  fans to come in and do a track walk, so we want the fans to
• 51:18
  come in and check everything out.
• 51:21
  On Friday at Ballpark Village, we're going to be doing our Fan
• 51:23
  fest and this year the Hauler parade, which two years ago we
• 51:26
  had a hauler parade on Thursday night.
• 51:29
  This year, make it more convenient for the teams.
• 51:31
  We're going to do a noon hauler parade so fans can go to
• 51:34
  Ballpark Village and see all the cup haulers rolling past.
• 51:37
  So you mean the NASCAR truck and trailers are going to station
• 51:41
  ourselves in the city of Saint Well?
• 51:42
  Actually, they're going to start here where they're going to get
• 51:44
  a police escort around town by Ballpark Village, so they'll be
• 51:47
  going between Ballpark Village and Cardinal Stadium.
• 51:49
  That's awesome. And you know, we did that.
• 51:51
  Did you pull that off? It's that was a big team effort
• 51:53
  that involved working with NASCAR.
• 51:56
  Most importantly at work, it's working with a Cup hauler
• 51:58
  drivers because you got to make sure they're happy and want to
• 52:00
  do this. And they had such a great
• 52:02
  experience two years ago that they want to come back and do
• 52:04
  that one again. But you know, we're going to
• 52:06
  bring them through there and another thing that's new this
• 52:08
  year that we're trying, it's completely different working
• 52:10
  with the Gordy and Gundaker and Kevin and Tammy and we're.
• 52:14
  Working by City Speedway, Granite City, IL.
• 52:17
  And we're also working with the Rigsby and the folks from Dirt
• 52:20
  on Dirt where we're going to do a kickoff party over here at the
• 52:24
  the Pavilion area outside the track on Thursday night.
• 52:27
  So some of the Dirt cars are going to come over here and be
• 52:29
  on display. Rigsby's going to be over here
• 52:31
  interviewing some of those guys. We're inviting all the Dirt
• 52:33
  fans, and so that's happening the same time we're having our
• 52:36
  camper kickoff party and the same time that we're finishing
• 52:38
  up the JJK 5K run. They're all going to be coming
• 52:42
  together in that one spot. So there's going to be a big
• 52:44
  crowd of folks right there in that area.
• 52:46
  So it's going to be a really, really special Thursday night
• 52:50
  kickoff. So all the campers, dirt fans,
• 52:53
  5K runners, everybody in one spot just kind of officially
• 52:56
  kick off race week. And that my friends, is the
• 52:59
  genius of Chris Blair. What a great promoter started in
• 53:02
  dirt genius. You're you're married.
• 53:04
  We're going to end it like this. So you you you're you're quickly
• 53:08
  becoming you are one of the greatest promoters of our air
• 53:11
  Here you are full blown man now you heard his journey, but
• 53:16
  you're you're marrying all the dirt racers.
• 53:18
  We got Tri-City Speedway, Granite City, IL, They're racing
• 53:21
  Friday night. I'll be there with my modified
• 53:24
  Friday night. Gordy Gundaker, yourself a
• 53:27
  $20,000 to win Saturday night, Sunday the big Cup race course,
• 53:33
  the truck races here Saturday. Saturday night you go over there
• 53:37
  and and you've got all your dirt friends.
• 53:39
  We're one big happy family. Well, that's one thing I want to
• 53:43
  point out. I can't let us get away without
• 53:45
  bringing this up. That's one of the things we've
• 53:47
  all felt that that's very, very important for a long time.
• 53:50
  You and I have had those conversations at the at the
• 53:53
  restaurants. Kind of one of my ideals there,
• 53:54
  I have to say. Yep, I said we got to get, we
• 53:57
  got to get our dirt friends over here because at the time they
• 53:59
  hated NASCAR. I don't like NASCAR.
• 54:02
  Well, we're going to make you like it.
• 54:04
  Well, here's the great thing about this.
• 54:05
  And then with me currently, you know, I promote NASCAR, I
• 54:09
  promote NHRA, I promote IndyCar. Right now I've got Kyle Larson
• 54:13
  who's bringing together our NASCAR friends.
• 54:17
  He's bringing together IndyCar fans, he's bringing our dirt
• 54:20
  track fans all together. So now for the first time, we've
• 54:23
  got people who the guy who sits in the stands out here at
• 54:27
  Tri-City Speedway who could care less about Indycars is now
• 54:30
  watching IndyCar. Cuz wants to see what Kyle
• 54:32
  Larson's going to do. Kyle's bringing that community.
• 54:35
  Together how? How big is Kyle Larson?
• 54:39
  Size wise or overall scope, it's huge.
• 54:42
  I had somebody ask me about that the other day.
• 54:44
  They said, what are your thoughts are?
• 54:45
  What do you think the IndyCar community thinks about Kyle
• 54:47
  Larson coming in? I said every one of those
• 54:50
  drivers is glad that he's there, even though, you know, a lot of
• 54:53
  people saying he's making it look easy now.
• 54:55
  Everybody recognizes he's a talent, OK?
• 54:59
  Every driver wants him there. Every promoter wants him at
• 55:02
  their racetrack. The fans, they're always looking
• 55:06
  for that guy. And now you take a look at
• 55:08
  what's going on also with Tony Stewart.
• 55:10
  You know, Tony now over here in Top Fuel, now telling.
• 55:13
  You or your drag strip? You're in a cat bird seat.
• 55:15
  I'll tell you. So now we've got Tony Stewart.
• 55:17
  So now first time ever NASCAR fans have a reason to be
• 55:21
  following NHRA drag racing. Same time the dirt track fans,
• 55:26
  'cause it wasn't that long ago Tony was over here racing at the
• 55:28
  local dirt tracks. Now Tony's over here on the drag
• 55:31
  racing side of things. He's also got those old IndyCar
• 55:34
  fans from when he drove IndyCar. So guys like Tony Stewart and
• 55:39
  Kyle Larson could be the greatest thing that could happen
• 55:41
  in this era of sports because they're basically bridging all
• 55:45
  the gaps. It's hard for people, for those
• 55:47
  guys who are always complaining to you about, well, we don't
• 55:50
  watch NASCAR, but then they tell you everything that happened in
• 55:53
  the race. Right.
• 55:54
  So we got to arguably two of the best ambassadors we could ever
• 55:58
  have in racing today and Tony Stewart and Kyle Larson that are
• 56:01
  bridging those gaps and bring in the whole Motorsports community
• 56:04
  together as one. And at the same time you taking
• 56:07
  you, you're looking at it, you've got now promoters that
• 56:09
  are promoting multiple disciplines of of these races.
• 56:13
  You've got the the sanctioning bodies working together.
• 56:15
  I know for a fact that Jay from IndyCar, Jay Fry from IndyCar is
• 56:20
  working closely with the folks over at NASCAR, not just on this
• 56:23
  Kyle Larson thing, but everything that they're doing.
• 56:25
  So this is probably it's a new era in racing because
• 56:28
  everybody's talking together. Everybody's working together
• 56:30
  because we all have one ultimate goal and that's for racing to be
• 56:33
  better, be bigger and better. And for me being involved with
• 56:36
  all three of those right now, it's really important.
• 56:39
  It's at the right time for what we want to try to do.
• 56:41
  You see a smile on his face. That's because I love racing.
• 56:44
  All right, everybody, remember we are in podcast form.
• 56:48
  You can listen to the great Chris Blair on your way to work.
• 56:51
  The great Wow, you're the. First, you know, every once in a
• 56:55
  while you're a man. Now you've had this journey.
• 56:59
  Listen to him in podcast form, iTunes, Spotify.
• 57:03
  It's a long one. Listen to him on the way to work
• 57:06
  on the way back home. Until then, Charlie Mall and
• 57:09
  myself, we just we got we got the best coming.
• 57:12
  See you later, everyone. Thank you.