Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Why Was "NASCAR Raceday" Shut Down? And Who Wants To Race More, The Parents Or The Children? | Coffee With Kenny

Transcript

Why Was "NASCAR Raceday" Shut Down? And Who Wants To Race More, The Parents Or The Children? | Coffee With Kenny · Kenny Wallace Media

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  Happy Tuesday morning everybody. Well, we have two subjects
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  today. One is history and the other one
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  is happening right now. Let's go with history first.
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  Yesterday on Monday on X, somebody posted about a one
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  minute video of A the pre race show that we used to have in
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  NASCAR on SPEED TV. Do you all remember the
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  legendary Speed TV? One of the most famous racing
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  channels in all of Motorsports, actually probably the most
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  famous racing channel of all time.
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  It was called SPEED, and SPEED had racing on all the time.
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  But the show that I was involved in had the second highest
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  ratings of all of Motorsports. The only thing bigger was the
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  NASCAR Cup race itself. Our ratings on that show were
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  higher than the Xfinity Series, higher than IndyCar, higher than
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  Formula One, and the name of the show was NASCAR Race Day fueled
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  by Sunoco. And man, it was stratosphere.
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  It means it was in, it was, it was so big.
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  It was so big. And so yesterday on Monday, on
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  January 6th, that man posted the video, probably one of the
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  greatest videos of all time. If you were going to advertise
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  that show, it was at Daytona before the Daytona 500 and the
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  crowd was at least 5000 people. So after this video got posted,
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  handful of people started saying what happened to that show.
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  What happened to that show? Well, there are a lot of you
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  that know what happened to the show.
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  But as brother Rusty says, Herman, you have to remind
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  people they remember what they want to.
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  So all I'm doing on coffee with Kenny's reminding everybody what
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  happened. What happened to NASCAR race day
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  fueled by Snokel? If it was making so much money
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  and and it was so big and the ratings were so big, what
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  happened to it? I'm going to tell you exactly
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  what happened to it and it's not even my opinion.
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  The president of Fox Sports walked up to me at Daytona, Eric
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  Shanks. So you know the Herman ID
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  bullshit, everything. This is the truth.
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  What happened to that pre race show NASCAR Race Day fueled by
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  Sunoco? Eric Shanks, the president
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  walked right up to me and he was very sad and he said Kenny with
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  his head down and very serious tone.
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  He said I'm sorry, I did not want to get rid of NASCAR Race
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  Day, but we had to because we're starting the new FS1.
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  So I said, I understand, you know it.
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  Listen, I'm a race car driver and I always went around the TV
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  compound. Everybody would say, gosh,
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  you're so good on TV, Kenny. And, and I didn't want to be
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  good on TVI did not want to be good on TVI wanted to be known
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  as a race car driver because I love racing.
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  I love racing cars. So it bothered me when people
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  told me how good I was on TV. I wanted to be talked about as a
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  race car driver. So it didn't bother me that
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  much. So the reason NASCAR race day
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  fueled by Sunoco was shut down, Well, another reason was this.
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  It cost $800,000 per show to operate it.
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  So it you say why did it cost that much money?
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  Well, satellite time is not expensive.
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  Back in those days, we had big stages, we had big, big screen
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  TV set up outside a lot of employees, and when you put it
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  all together, it just costs a lot of money.
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  They had a bus right next there and hell, I would fly in on late
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  set. I was running the Xfinity
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  Series. I'd be in Kentucky and I'd fly
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  with Kevin Harvick. Kevin Harvick, Delana, myself,
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  We'd fly from Kentucky on a Saturday night Xfinity race, and
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  we go through the tunnel at 2:00 in the morning.
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  But I would sleep in that Speed TV bus.
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  I'd get up Sunday mornings, look out, and all the fans would be
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  out there at 6:00 in the morning.
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  So that's what happened to the show during that time.
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  Everybody had to have a sports channel.
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  So Fox, the network, they wanted to have a sports channel.
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  I thought they did. I thought Speed was good enough.
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  But they what they wanted, they wanted an all sports channel.
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  Speed was just racing. So Speed TV was just racing.
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  So they wanted to they wanted to battle CBSNBC and all those TV
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  channels. They ended up with their own
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  sports networks, you know, So, so anyway, that's what happened
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  and that's right from the horse's mouth, Eric Shanks said.
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  Kenny, I'm so sorry, you know, and because there's no doubt,
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  it's like, God, how do you kill the biggest free race show?
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  And that's how they did it. They killed it because they
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  wanted to start a new network, Fox Sports 1.
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  All right, everybody, I hope that gives you a lot of the
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  details. Let's take a drink of coffee and
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  then bring up the other subject. OK, so you know, we just got
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  back from the Tulsa shootout. Well, I did not get back from
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  the Tulsa shootout, but the Tulsa shootout is over.
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  And I had some people tell me that there were mothers and
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  fathers down there. Just heartbroke that their child
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  was not getting any attention. I understand this.
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  I understand this. There was 1800 roughly plus or
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  minus about 1800 carts. Let's just say there was
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  thousands of mom and dads. That's, that's an accurate
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  statement. There were thousands of mom and
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  dads down there at the Tulsa shootout and they were cheering
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  on their six year old child all the way up to I mean, I guess
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  when you're grown up, you're still a child, right?
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  So you could be 6 years old all the way to 25 years old.
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  But it came to my attention that Owen Larson, Braxton Bush, a lot
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  of these, these drivers, these NASCAR drivers, kids were, were
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  getting too much attention. And a lot of the mom and dads
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  were devastated. They were hurt that their child
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  was not receiving TV time. OK, now that I've laid that out,
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  I want to explain something to all your mom and dads that are
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  watching. Number one, I love you so much.
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  And I and I know what it's like to have children and want them
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  to have the have everything. I'm a girl dad.
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  I have three daughters, Brooke, Brandy and Brittany.
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  And Brandy she wanted to race until she decided she did not
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  want to race. But I'm just I'm going to tell
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  you my story. When I started racing I learned
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  2 tough lessons and I want to share these lessons with you.
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  Hopefully this will help you. Mother and fathers #1 remember
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  what Father John told me when Kim and I were getting ready to
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  get married? She's a Catholic, I'm a
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  Lutheran. We go to pre cana class.
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  This is where you know the man that's going to marry you
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  decides if you're compatible or not.
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  We just getting married no matter what.
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  But they wanted me to go. Kim's family wanted me to go.
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  Father John looked at me and he said, Kenny, what are you going
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  to do for a living? Oh, I was so excited.
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  I said, oh, Father John, I'm going to be a race car driver.
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  He looked at me and he says, Kenny, be careful, competition
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  will kill you. One of the biggest lessons I've
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  ever had in my life. So for all you mom and dads out
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  there, remember that. Remember, competition will kill
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  you. See, I'm not worried about the
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  kids. The kids are kind of too young.
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  I'm worried about the mom and dads.
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  I'm worried about the mom and dads.
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  And I love you all so much. OK, All right, the second lesson
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  that needs to be taught to the mom and dads because I love you
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  all so much. My career started getting going
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  and you know my sponsor, my sponsors, they you know, I'm, I
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  was always taking care of my sponsors.
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  You all know it's a fact. Kenny Wallace always got
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  sponsors, always went and got the money because I wanted to
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  race. I'll never forget Rodger Penske
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  saying to me, we don't race unless we got a sponsor.
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  That's where I learned that from.
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  I thought, Oh my gosh, if Rodger Penske says that, then that must
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  be true. Rodger Penske said if we don't
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  have money, we don't race. So I understood the art of
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  sponsorship. So I went to the I went to the
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  TV people all the time, even when I was not in TV, when I was
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  not in TVI found the TV executives and I went to him and
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  I said put me on TV. Put please put me on TV for my
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  sponsors, put me on TV for my sponsors.
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  So my sponsors are happy. Now this message is for all you
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  mom and dads out there that were upset that Owen Larson and Lil
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  Braxton Bush got too much TV time and your child didn't get
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  on TV. You know what that TV executive
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  said to me, Kenny Wallace, give me a reason to put you on TV.
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  So it is a sad part of competition.
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  There's only one way you get on TV.
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  You got to run up front. If you run up front, they'll put
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  you on TV. Those are two sad things that
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  will help you mother and father's out.
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  See, I truly believe that you, mom and dad's want it more than
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  the kid. You take these kids at three to
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  four years old and you tell them you want to race, don't you?
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  Hey, you want to be a race car driver, don't you?
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  And then the kid doesn't want to disappoint you, the boy or girl.
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  The girl doesn't want to disappoint you.
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  Yeah, Daddy, I'm going to be a race car driver because you're
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  telling me I'm going to be a race car driver.
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  Remember, Competition to kill you.
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  But I think it's going to kill you Mom and dads first because
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  the kids just living by what you tell them.
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  The kid is just living by what you tell them and what you
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  instill in their brain. At three and four years old now,
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  I love you all and I worry about you all.
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  And the reason I worry about y'all is I have 3 girls and I
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  know what it's, I know what it's like.
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  But I had a little bit of tutoring.
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  I was taught in an early age how to deal with this.
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  So it's two things. Remember, competition will kill
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  you. Be careful.
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  And then the other one is give me a reason to show your son or
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  your daughter on TV. Give me a reason not just that
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  they race because at the Tulsa shootout there was thousands of
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  children. And how many divisions were
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  there? 5 S just take five times
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  55101525 people, if you if you covered the top 551015202525,
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  I'll give you 5050 kids, but there's thousands when you go to
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  the Tulsa shootout, remember you're against all odds.
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  You're going up against thousands of other.
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  It's the toughest place. All right, I love you all.
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  Have a great Tuesday.