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NASCAR Drivers Can Get Screwed in Contract Disputes · Kenny Wallace Media

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  One of the worst days of my life in racing, one of the worst in
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  racing. Robert Yates calls me and I love
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  Robert Yates. Robert and Doug Yates to me are
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  some of the finest human beings there are.
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  Robert calls and says, look, I need you to come meet me this
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  morning at the shop. So I drive to the shop and come
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  in and says, look, I'm going to have to stay on my race team.
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  I'm thinking about selling it to Jack Roush wants to buy it.
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  You know, Dale Jarrett was leaving, taking UPS, going to
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  Michael Walters with the Toyota deal, which is a great deal for
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  Dale Jarrett. But that left us with one team
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  with just me. M&M's was a sponsor and that was
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  a tough meeting to have. But when he said he's going to
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  sell it to Jack Roush, Jack and I did not get along at that time
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  and I hate to bag up on and get really long winded with this
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  story because it's it's it's it's going to show kind of how
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  it all happened you're. Fine, be be long winded, OK?
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  Robert said. Look, I know your situation with
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  Robert Smith and Jack Roush. I will let you go look and do
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  something else so you don't have to stay here.
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  If I do sell it. Jack Rouse just do me a favor.
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  Do not take my sponsor. Please don't take M and Ms.
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  because UPS leaving if if you take M and Ms. with you, I'm not
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  going to have anything. I'm going to have to shut down.
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  I said Robert, I'll. I'll give you my word.
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  I'll give you my promise. I will go meet with M and Ms.
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  and tell them not to go with me wherever I go.
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  So the reason I didn't do the I didn't want to go be a part of
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  the rouse deal. When I drove for The Wood
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  Brothers and I love Eddie and Lynn to death, the Ralph's
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  actually did their contracts. My contract wasn't done with
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  Eddie and Lynn, it was done with Jeff Smith at at Ralph.
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  She was the head guy. So sign a contract where they
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  came to me and say look, we need you to sign another four year
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  deal. If you don't sign, Motorcraft is
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  not going to sign. We had Ford Motorcraft at the
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  time, my car with the red and white 21, he said.
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  Eddie, I can't sign a four year deal.
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  I something was coming. I kind of knew it was coming
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  down the pipeline. I was going to get another
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  opportunity and Eddie said listen please sign.
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  If if you sign, if something comes up and you want to leave,
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  I will let you leave. No problem, I said.
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  But we need you to sign to keep the sponsor.
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  So I said Eddie, yes Sir, I will.
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  So anyway, I signed the deal in the middle of 2002.
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  Robert Yates and M&M's come calling.
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  We want you to drive the 28 car, which they changed the number to
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  the 38. So I went to Eddie Wood.
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  Say, Eddie, listen, I'm sorry, but look, look at this.
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  This is a great opportunity. But he goes, I understand me and
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  you have a deal. No problem.
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  Well, he when he went to Rouse to Get Me Out of my car, they
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  wouldn't let me out of the contract.
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  Man, they were bad at that. Roush was mean back then, mean.
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  So they were mean as hell. And I'm like, Eddie, we had a
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  deal and they were like with the contracts with us and we're
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  scared you're taking DeWalt from Matt Kenseth and going there.
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  I'm not taking DeWalt. I'll sign a contract that says
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  I'm not taking DeWalt. But I couldn't tell them who I
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  was taking because Eminem's was was on a different car at the
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  time. So anyway, I had to forfeit my
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  winnings for the rest of the year.
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  In 2002 it was over $1,000,000 to get them to let you know how
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  racing is. There's a small window, sponsors
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  team. Kenny, you know you only got a
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  month. We can't wait around.
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  We're going to move to the next guy.
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  So I had to do all this stuff, pretty much forfeit my winnings
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  for the rest of the year to have an opportunity to go drive a 38
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  car. So that was my beef with
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  rappers. So when Robert brought me in and
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  we had the conversation that him probably having to sell his team
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  and what was going on, he knew I did not want to go back and get
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  in the middle of what I was just in the middle of.
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  So that's when I ended up at the the 19 car for Ray Evernham.
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  He and Jeremy had had some stuff going on or what have you and I
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  don't know a lot about that, but I got in the 19 car, I went and
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  met with Eminem's and told him, look, love y'all to death.
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  I love me and the Candyman and the Eminem's guy, but if y'all
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  go with me then Robert will have to shut down.
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  They were upset with me and I have a great relationship with
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  them. Different day one.
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  Victoria and Pamela Mars are two of the nicest people in the
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  world. But entertainment, please don't
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  come with me. Stay.
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  And they ended up, you know, sponsoring David Guetta land.
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  And I think they actually added a second car that M&M's paid
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  for, but it kept Robert Yates going.
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  They gave him something to sail to Roush and and keep the doors
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  open to keep those guys employed.
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  And then ultimately, they found Kyle Busch.
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  Championships later, wins later. It all worked out great.
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  We're still good friends at this point.
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  But Kenny, when I ended up in that 19 car, I had no idea what
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  I was getting in the middle of. I didn't realize what was going
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  on with Ray and his personal life.
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  And then he was selling his team to the Gillette's.
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  And Gillette's never paid anybody.
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  And it was just it was a mess all the time and that one year I
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  was running used cars, show cars, used parts.
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  A lot of the Doug Yates has the patience of job.
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  We would never could pay our motor bill.
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  So we wouldn't know on Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays
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  whether we were racing that weekend because we hadn't paid
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  our motor bill yet. They were actually they were
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  actually blocking us in the the trucks in until we paid our
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  motor bill for us to leave. That's how we had to try to
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  race. Well, that was that was tough
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  for us to kind of go through that those, that couple of years
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  and I felt like Kenny, I was standing on the edge of a Cliff
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  waiting for somebody to push me over the side.
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  I mean it. It was absolutely miserable.
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  And the reason you brought that story up is because what you're
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  saying is when you were listening to Jamie McMurray,
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  yeah, it was like, you know what?
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  What ended your career? What really happened there?
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  And Jamie tells the story here. Jamie McMurray, Daytona 500
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  winner. I know you almost won the
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  Daytona 500, He's won the Brickyard, he won Charlotte.
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  And here Chip Ganassi says, hey, sorry, next guy on the other
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  line here, his name is Kurt Busch.
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  He's bringing Monster Energy drinks.
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  So I think later in life what you're saying is that we're
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  giving? The fans.
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  A look at the way it really is. Yeah.
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  I'm going to tell you, Kenny, it was, it was so miserable, so
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  bad. I remember laying in bed crying
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  half the time because you're so frustrated as a driver and you
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  want to just like you. You want to compete.
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  You want to show up knowing you have a chance and it was just a
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  bad deal. We won't get paid.
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  And we was all suing each other. And you know, Menard was my team
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  mate, Dan. Then Casey and Casey finally got
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  out to go to the Red Bull car and I'm going to tell you the
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  day that changed Elliott salary to give me a second chance at
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  race and I'm driving a 19 car. We suck.
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  I suck. I'm.
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  I'm not doing a good job either as a driver because I got all
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  this other stuff, you know, going on in your mind and your
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  head. And I'm running a show car at
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  freaking Bristol on my one of my favorite tracks but Kevin and
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  Delana Harvick giving me an opportunity to drive their truck
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  at Pocono. It was the inaugural truck race
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  at Pocono and Harvick was going to leave.
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  That's back when they used to fly to Iowa.
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  Remember they they we were at Pocono with the Cup cars, but
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  then he'd go to Iowa to run his Xfinity car.
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  Did a lot of that in the day. They did a lot of that in the
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  day. So he needed somebody to drive
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  his truck. Well, a couple weeks before at a
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  driver's intros, I said, hey, look, man, if you ever need
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  somebody to drive your truck or something or car, test it.
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  I think he was having back issues at the time.
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  Dude, I'll be glad to. I don't want any money or
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  anything like that, dude. I just, I just want to race.
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  So they let me get in that Pocono truck and I sat on the
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  pole and won the race, which puts me a part of a very elite
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  group that has a pole and a win in all three of the top series
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  in NASCAR and that win in that winning that inaugural race.
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  Pocono create a relationship when and I knew the 19 was going
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  to end bad and that was my probably my time in Cup racing
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  that Harvick let me come over there and drive his Xfinity car
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  the following year and that was to 2011.
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  So winning that truck race, which was weird.
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  That Saturday I won the inaugural truck race.
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  That Sunday, my own teammates spun me out on the long pond
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  straight away and that's when I hit the inside wall and they
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  threw my engine out. When I was driving that, I hit.
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  A traffic wreck, Catastrophic wreck, man.
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  I was bruised from. I was bruised from head to toe.
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  That was a hard hit. But that gave me life, being
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  around Kevin and and Delano and they gave me an opportunity.
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  Then that fall, a couple weeks later, they let me drive their
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  car at the Bristol night race and I sat on the pole with his
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  Xfinity car and I finished third.
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  I lost the Kyle Bush and Joey Lacano. 2 guys that can fly.
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  Not have been had. Third place, right?
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  I finished third. Reem was my sponsor.
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  It was a great night, the cup car.
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  So I sat on the pole in Xfinity car.
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  The cup car called by dead last and ran dead last the whole
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  night. That's when we had one of the
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  show cars we had pulled out of the showroom floor for me to
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  race. So you talk about being
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  miserable and just just everything could go bad and it
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  really made it where man, I didn't appreciate The Wood
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  Brothers enough or I didn't appreciate my time with you know
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  Robert Yates enough. Now I'm in this situation.
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  But then getting the opportunity to go drive for Harvick and
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  stuff the following year back in the Xfinity Series, man that was
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  a blessing at at at the right time.
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  I really feel like this is jaw-dropping.
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  Because we assume, you know, we always for, for me, you know,
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  when fans come up, sometimes they say the wrong things.
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  They're like, hey, man, I remember when you flipped it
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  poking on like, hold on, whoa, whoa.
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  You're supposed to say, I remember when you won the night
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  race at Bristol. To me, sometimes people, you
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  know, you got the positive people.
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  We're going, man. Elliott, I remember when you won
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  your first Cup race, which we're going to get to.
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  But then you got the fans that go, man, I remember when you
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  flipped the Poconos. So when we talk about, you know,
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  one's career and how was it to be big time, these are the
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  things that is is must, must listen to and sometimes it ruins
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  the good times.