Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Celebrating Harry Gant & Kurt Busch | Mark Martin Archive #1

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Celebrating Harry Gant & Kurt Busch | Mark Martin Archive #1 · Kenny Wallace Media

0:00
All right, everybody, Hello Charlie Marlowe.
0:02
Here it is, episode 1 of the Mark Martin Archive Podcast.
0:07
We got the stars here, Mark Martin, Matthew Martin, and
0:11
first of all, Happy New Year to all the viewers, all the
0:14
listeners. Happy New Year to you guys.
0:15
Did you guys have a good new year out there in California or
0:18
what? Definitely.
0:21
It's a it's a beautiful day out here for sure.
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Yeah, it's a lot warmer here than it is in Arkansas right
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now, so I'm enjoying it. All right, we want to start off
0:31
this show our our first show talking NASCAR Hall of Fame and
0:36
this year's class. You have Ray Hendrick, you have
0:39
of course, Harry Gant, you have Kurt Busch.
0:43
So I'll throw it to you guys just to kind of tell stories
0:46
because I know you have tons of stories.
0:48
So go ahead, Matt, take it away. Well, I wanted to ask Dad today
0:53
on this episode about Harry Gant and Kurt Busch, two of my
0:57
favorite drivers. You know, we're not going to
1:00
talk about Ray Hendrick today because Dad didn't know Ray
1:04
Hendrick. Ray passed away in 1990.
1:06
But of course, we'd like to congratulate his family on on
1:10
Ray making it into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
1:12
But anyways, I've got my notes here and we'll start with Harry
1:17
Gant. Harry Gant in my opinion is one
1:23
of the coolest guys that's ever driven a NASCAR and he also
1:27
drove one of the coolest cars ever, that Skull Bandit 33
1:30
Oldsmobile. So Harry is an 18 time Cup
1:35
series winner. He won 2 Southern 5 hundreds and
1:39
the 1991 Winston 500, which I know there's some people out
1:43
there that will argue that the Winston 500 is not a crown
1:47
jewel, but I'm throwing it in there.
1:49
Harry is 1 of the 8 drivers in the modern era to win 4
1:54
consecutive Cup races. And think about this.
1:58
In 1979, his rookie season, he was 39 years old, like about
2:05
that. So he is the oldest driver to
2:09
win a Cup race and he won eight of his eighteen wins in his 50s.
2:16
That's a pretty wild stat. So my first question is whoever
2:22
said a green car was bad luck? I don't know who said that.
2:27
Yeah, I mean, that's what I always heard in racing that, you
2:29
know, green race car is bad luck, so.
2:32
And that's what Harry drove his whole time.
2:34
Yeah, well, you know, at least with the Skull Bandit in the Cup
2:38
Series. So.
2:40
But Dad, what is your earliest memory of Harry?
2:43
Is there anything particular in your early career, your early
2:47
stint in NASCAR in 19811982, that stands out about him?
2:52
So I didn't really have a lot of interaction with Harry in 828182
3:01
when I was dipping my toe in, in 83 and in the limited time that
3:09
I ran with him, I don't, I didn't talk to him a whole lot.
3:13
But when I came back to NASCAR in 88 with Jack, that's when,
3:22
you know, I had been running the Bush Series the year before full
3:26
time. And Harry ran quite often in the
3:30
Bush Series back then. And so we were starting to cross
3:35
paths and speak and talk a lot. And so really the first memory
3:42
that's etched into my brain is 1989.
3:46
We were so incredibly fast everywhere, every race.
3:55
It was incredible. But we couldn't win a race.
3:59
It's every time we ran awesome, somebody else ran better.
4:02
And the next race after the Pocono race, we're standing that
4:10
usually I talk to Harry at the driver's intros when we were
4:14
waiting to get introduced. And Harry, he looks at me and
4:18
you know, Harry's, he's short sentences.
4:21
He never talked a lot and his sentences were short.
4:25
And he was, he was, he spoke kind of what I'd say country a
4:31
little bit. Taylorsville.
4:33
Yeah. Taylorsville.
4:34
He he spoke Taylorsville. And so we're standing there and
4:40
he looks at me, we make eye contact.
4:43
He goes, I've seen you up here spinning your wheels like a
4:45
rookie. And yeah, I just thought, you
4:51
know, I guess I wasn't, you know, Harry was a master at, you
4:55
know, saving his equipment and saving his tires.
4:58
And he was right. Yeah.
5:01
I was up there at poker, you know.
5:03
You just trying real hard. I was trying real hard and yeah,
5:08
yeah, he was. I was up there in front of him.
5:10
Of course I was sliding the hell out of my race car trying to get
5:13
get something. And of course, he eased up there
5:18
and passed me a little bit like Bob Seneker did an ASA.
5:22
So that's probably that. My first really etched in
5:25
memory. I seen you up there spinning
5:28
your wheels like a rookie. Now that that kind of leads me
5:30
into my next question. What was it?
5:32
Because y'all ran the Bush Series A lot together and he he
5:36
won quite a bit as well in the Bush series 21 times I think.
5:41
What would he say to you after he had won a Bush race on
5:47
Saturday but before the when you saw him before the Cup race on
5:51
Sunday, when you would go up to him and compliment him on his
5:54
win? What would he say to you it.
5:56
Was always driver's intros. That's where we cross paths and
6:00
that's where we talk, you know, and I'd say, you know, good run
6:05
yesterday. Old clutch was slipping you
6:10
know, or Dang Harry, good run yesterday.
6:15
Things on 7 cylinders, you know. That's why.
6:18
It always happened it. Always said, you know, Oh, yeah.
6:22
Oh, no, no, He'd say. That thing was skipping.
6:26
You know, It's skipping, yeah. Yeah, even though he won't beat
6:29
everybody. Beat everybody Something.
6:30
Wrong with the. Car some always something wrong
6:32
with the car. He drove that in Ed Whitaker's
6:35
car, which was, you know, rocket ship.
6:38
I think that Chris was the crew chief and everything Chris ever
6:45
worked on was was really fast. And Harry go over there and
6:49
drive that thing and whoop us. And then the next day he'd tell
6:52
us what the car was, you know, old clutch was slipping or
6:56
something. So what was Is there any driver
7:00
that you could compare Harry to as far as his driving style?
7:03
What was Harry's driving style like?
7:06
Well, I think Harry was, you know, the first guy I think of
7:12
which was the total extreme of this was, was Bob Seneker.
7:18
You know, Harry was smooth, he was smart, he was calculated and
7:26
he focused on, you know, my driving style, you know, wound
7:31
up being a lot similar to his. He focused on that last after
7:36
the last pit stop. That's when he really drop the
7:40
hammer. That's what I noticed a lot in
7:43
preparing for this show is that all of his wins seem like either
7:47
he just totally dominated the race or he he saved his
7:53
equipment and then he stayed in striking distance and then he
7:56
pounced at the end and took the lead.
7:59
And that that's the way I remember him was, was that way.
8:02
And I'm sure he had had dominant races as well.
8:06
I just, you know, probably wasn't, you know, I wasn't
8:09
admiring that as much as, you know, being a Bob Sinacre type
8:16
where, you know, it just put every the whole race all
8:20
afternoon was all, you know, headed toward that last, that
8:26
last run after the last pit stop.
8:30
So in September of 1991, at 51 years old, Harry won four times
8:37
in a row. What do you remember?
8:42
Anything at all about that September?
8:46
Well, the biggest thing that I remember about that was that he
8:52
was on his way to five in a row. Yeah, well, you know, he totally
8:58
dominated that fifth race, you know, at North Wilkesboro and I
9:04
think he he wins if his brakes doesn't go, you know, didn't go
9:07
out. I think there's no way that he
9:10
doesn't win that race. That's how all.
9:12
All of us felt, you know, that's how we felt at the racetrack was
9:16
he had a a mechanical problem that that that took that away.
9:21
But the other thing that I remember is right front Fender
9:26
all curled up on that thing at Martinsville.
9:30
But he was just on a roll. I mean, and sometimes you would
9:33
see that, but it was cool. Harry was such a cool dude.
9:38
He was short with his words or he always was with me.
9:43
He never. Very.
9:44
Almost like dry humor. Oh yeah, he was definitely
9:48
humorous, but it was dry. But most of the things he'd say,
9:52
a lot of things he'd say would be funny.
9:54
And he was just a, he was a man's man, you know, not
9:59
interested in the spotlight, not interest.
10:02
He was interested in winning races and going home and working
10:05
with his hands. I mean, he was, he was a man's
10:09
man. Well, what's so interesting
10:11
about that too, is he does, he has that kind of, you know, blue
10:14
collar, you know, country type persona.
10:18
But at the same time he drew for Hal Needham and he's been in
10:23
more, you know, movies than any other NASCAR, NASCAR driver.
10:27
I mean, it's pretty wild to think about.
10:29
Yeah, it is. And, you know, I don't know if
10:33
he was in, in, in real life, but in racing he seemed to be an
10:38
introvert. So here he is in all these
10:40
movies and, and he's really an introvert.
10:43
So, but you know, it's just a really fun guy to talk to, great
10:48
competitor. And you know, like someone that
10:53
I, that I tried to pattern my racing after, you know, as as a
11:00
young guy, especially in the late 80s.
11:03
You know, before we move on to Kurt Busch, there's two things I
11:07
wanted to bring up that I thought was cool and that that
11:10
famous Martinsville race that he won to make it four in a row.
11:13
There's a man, a fan, holding the sign that says life begins
11:18
at 51, and that guy happens to have on your shirt.
11:22
So I thought that was cool. Only you would.
11:25
Spot that. Yeah.
11:26
Well, we and Harris Lew have done a design based on that
11:29
shirt, too, so that was cool. And then the last Cup race that
11:34
he ran, you won, at least according to what I read, the
11:38
1994 Hooters 500. So you won his last race.
11:43
If what I've read is correct, that was his last Cup race.
11:46
Interesting. So, well, let's move on to Kurt
11:50
Busch. So if you're somebody that wants
11:55
personality and NASCAR, look no further.
11:59
Kurt Busch is the 2004 Cup Series champion.
12:03
He has 34 Cup wins, including a Daytona 500 win and a Coke 600
12:10
win. Now, Kurt, like Harry Gant, is
12:14
one of my personal favorite drivers and Dad and Kurt have a
12:19
lot of history together. So Dad, what is your earliest
12:24
memory of Kurt? What was your impression of him
12:26
as a as a young man, a young driver?
12:29
Because he he got hooked up with Roush very young.
12:33
Yeah, he was. He was really young and you
12:37
know, he, I didn't see him coming.
12:40
You know, I didn't know about Kurt Busch until I started
12:44
hearing, you know, around our our guys that, you know, this
12:49
probably around Steve meal that this young guy was, you know,
12:55
that Jack was hiring him to run a truck, which was cool and
12:59
everything. You know, I didn't pay that much
13:01
attention until until he started driving that truck.
13:05
And of course he was he was fast and and was able to ride out of
13:11
the gate. He was able to make big speed
13:15
and sort of add to a team's performance, you know, bring
13:22
them up, step their their performance up.
13:26
So, you know, I started taking notice, you know, right away
13:30
while he was while he was in that.
13:32
Truck. So Kurt has always shown you a
13:37
lot of respect, even when he was a young driver with a little bit
13:41
of a temper. A little bit.
13:44
Yeah, yeah. So what do you think made the
13:49
difference in y'all's relationship?
13:53
I'm not really sure, but I think because I, I gave him respect
13:57
first. I mean, I, I, you know, I
14:01
respected his talent and I had always been a fan of the young
14:08
guys coming up all through my career, even in ASA when I was a
14:13
young guy, I was always champion, you know, the, the,
14:17
the kids that were coming up or the younger guys.
14:20
So Kurt had blinding speed and went, once he stepped into that
14:29
cup car, I mean, it was unreal. It was absolutely shocking how
14:39
freaking fast he could go. And I respected that.
14:43
And you know, I didn't pick on his weaknesses or shortcomings.
14:50
I, you know, I gave him respect for the massive talent that he
14:55
had. And he just always treated me
15:01
with the greatest respect. And it made it, he made it easy.
15:05
I'll say that he made it easy for me to to respect him.
15:10
So let's talk about y'all's 2001 season, because both you and
15:17
Kurt struggled in 2001 at Roush and so you guys decide to switch
15:23
teams in 2002. And then in 2002, both of you
15:28
guys had had phenomenal seasons. I mean, you contended for the
15:31
championship and Kurt won his first four Cup races ever.
15:38
Talk about that. What was that like?
15:40
And also did some, did your team get some of Kurt's cars and did
15:46
Kurt get some of your cars? Because I know your Coke 600 win
15:50
car was formerly one of Kurt's cars.
15:54
Yeah. So two, 2001 was a tough season.
15:59
We just couldn't, we just couldn't find it.
16:03
And we needed to shake. We needed to change something,
16:06
shake, shake things up. And honestly, Kurt was just
16:13
getting his arms around. Like he was so fast.
16:17
It was astonishing, you know, and but he was still getting his
16:22
arms around driving Cup cars. So these races are awful long.
16:28
And Kurt, you know, wanted to win really bad and was, you
16:35
know, I'm not going to pick on Kurt, but I'm going to tell the
16:38
truth. You know, he had one hell of a
16:41
temper. And so I.
16:44
Saw a clip from the 2001 Daytona 500 and he get he got into the
16:50
side of Dale Earnhardt, you know, senior and Dale stuck his
16:56
hand out the window and flipped him off.
16:58
Yeah, Kurt did not care. He did not.
17:00
He did not care. You know, he was fast.
17:04
He was there. He was going after it and he was
17:07
going to make this series his. And you know, I applaud that.
17:12
That's what NASCAR needs. He needs guys like him.
17:16
So anyway, back to O1. I'm looking at it saying, gosh,
17:21
dog, I wish my cars were that fast, you know, because I could,
17:25
I could finish the deal off And, and you know, Kurt needed, Kurt
17:31
needed something as well. So Jack and I sort of made the
17:39
executive call to, to, to swap teams.
17:45
You know, Jimmy and I had work together and won.
17:48
I, I think 2/3 of my cup wins came, you know, under Jimmy
17:52
Fennig. It's a huge amount, at least
17:55
half. And you know, ASA championship,
17:59
we went way back, all the way back to 1985, but things weren't
18:04
working. And sometimes you got to make a
18:07
change. It wasn't because Jimmy and I
18:09
weren't getting along, it's because Jimmy and I weren't
18:11
getting it done at this time. So it would be a great swap to
18:18
put a veteran like Jimmy with Kurt, because Kurt was with Ben
18:24
Leslie, who was pretty much a rookie crew chief, cut crew
18:28
chief himself, and most of his Kurt's team was rookie guys as
18:34
well. That's kind of what you got with
18:37
Roush when you were new. You got upstart rookie, you know
18:44
non proven guys. Well, these guys prove
18:47
themselves to me because their cars were rockets.
18:50
Well, Kurt was a big part of that, but still it was something
18:55
I was interested in being a part of a young group who had not won
19:00
before but was making big speed. So my team, you know, they just,
19:08
they changed the colors of the cars.
19:09
I got Kurt's cars, Kurt got my cars, got Jimmy and my guys, and
19:13
I got all those young guys over at the 97.
19:18
They just repainted the cars. So yeah, that's that's how that
19:22
went. So do you recall at all the
19:26
differences in how you liked your car set up compared to how
19:30
Kurt liked his setup? Do you recall any any
19:32
differences there? You know, I don't really know
19:39
vividly. I do know that that I because
19:44
Kurt was so good at New Hampshire and I was so felt like
19:50
I was so bad. I did manage to get his New
19:56
Hampshire car and take it and test it at New Hampshire and
20:01
race it at New Hampshire because I needed to, I needed to get
20:05
better and Kurt was so good. But I don't know.
20:09
And I did run better. I didn't win the race, but I did
20:12
run better when I ran his car and basically his setup tuned to
20:17
myself. But there wasn't a drastic
20:20
difference in what we did. Kurt just drove whatever fast as
20:25
hell. And you know I.
20:28
Tune my stuff to the way I wanted it.
20:31
So that's really the contrast, Kurt.
20:33
Kurt drove anything and and hauled in it.
20:36
Now what? Wasn't there something about?
20:40
You thought that his car's got better fuel mileage than your
20:44
car. Was there something about that?
20:46
There again. I've been there for 50, you
20:48
know, nearly 15 years. Kurt always got, you know, at
20:52
least 1/2 of half a mile to gallon, around a half a mile to
20:56
gallon, better fuel mileage. I historically, I ran out of gas
21:00
historically all the time or had to stop under the green when
21:05
everybody else didn't. It was just my fuel mileage was
21:10
horrendous and I swore it was a carburetor and Jack swore I was
21:16
in the gas and I said hurt Bush is in the gas.
21:20
What are you talking about? Look how fast he's going.
21:23
And I, it took me a long time bitching, but I wanted his
21:27
carburetor. And finally, you know, I mean,
21:32
I'm, I'm the guy that's been there since day one.
21:35
I pretty much I, I felt like I should get anything I asked for,
21:39
even if it was at the expense of another team there.
21:42
Well, that's not how Jack worked, but I eventually after
21:46
maybe a year it seemed like of complaining and wanting Kurt's
21:51
carburetor. I got Kurt's carburetor and it
21:53
only maybe picked me up a tenth or two.
21:56
It was a gain, but it was not I, I still didn't get Kurt's fuel
22:01
mileage. So, you know, hindsight there
22:05
was some differences. We didn't have telemetry.
22:09
Somehow or another he made speed and wasn't trying to save gas,
22:13
but didn't burn as much gas as I did.
22:16
Cool, that's all the questions that I had for for dad so.
22:19
Well, I got, I just like to say, you know, Kurt was so
22:25
incredible, incredibly fast, and it was so good to me.
22:31
He was a little bit of entertainment.
22:34
I didn't pay close attention to his antics because I was hyper
22:39
focused on my stuff. But of course I was around his
22:42
guys and team guys some and I I, you know, I've heard them talk
22:49
about episode of beating the dash with the steering wheel and
22:55
beating up the inside of the the lounge in the trailer and that
23:01
kind of thing. The guy just had so much fire.
23:04
He wanted it. He wanted to win so bad and he
23:09
was so good. And it just, you know, it took a
23:13
little time. I feel like Jimmy Finning was
23:17
magic for Kurt, you know, because Kurt knew his history
23:23
and saw him as a elderly figure that knew how to guide him to
23:29
win races and harness his talent.
23:33
And boy, they did that. And I'm proud.
23:36
I'm proud that they won a championship because Jimmy never
23:39
did manage to to do that with me.
23:43
And so I was really proud that I felt like I had a hand, you
23:49
know, in in that by, you know, suggesting, you know, the swap
23:55
and and having Jimmy get that ring.
23:58
It was really cool to see. It seemed like they worked
24:01
really well with each other. I mean, it really was exactly
24:05
what they both needed. You know, I think Kurt having a
24:08
veteran crew chief and then, you know, Jimmy having just a young
24:13
guy that just drove the wheels off it, it was just really a
24:16
good match. Yeah, and I mean, I had the
24:18
blast driving with with Ben Leslie and those guys too.
24:21
It was just what I needed to. We did only win the Coke 600 and
24:28
$1,000,000 that I got to share my half of my portion with all
24:34
those guys, but we hauled and we were in position to win that
24:39
championship. We were one broken motor short
24:44
of of a of a championship, so it worked well for for me and and
24:50
for Kurt both so. Well, it was cool for you and
24:54
Ben as well, because Ben had been, you know, a pit crew
24:57
member on your team in 1997. Yeah, so it is pretty neat too.
25:03
Yeah, it was Ben had been around and, you know, been probably
25:07
been car chief on some of my cars, you know, and and he Ben
25:13
was awesome. Still a good friend of the day
25:15
this day. But Ben really believed in me
25:19
and you know, I was able to guide him in any direction.
25:26
He never, he never resisted. He just fought every day for
25:30
what it was that I wanted and what I needed.
25:34
Yeah, he told me, you know, he sent me a couple messages and
25:37
and told me that you're can be quite entertaining on the radio
25:40
sometimes. Yeah.
25:44
So yeah. Yeah, I loved it.
25:46
I loved hearing those stories. Yeah, there were some, Yeah.
25:52
I got frustrated a lot by the by 2002, I was extremely frustrated
25:58
by not winning a championship and being so close so many
26:04
times. It was.
26:06
And I knew my time was running out.
26:09
You know, I was 43 in 2002. I knew my time was was running
26:14
out to do it. So I got frustrated pretty
26:18
easily. Ben loved it.
26:21
You know, he, he kind of compared you to Nikki Lauda, you
26:24
know, and from the movie Rush, you know, all his lines and
26:27
stuff. He's like your dad was just like
26:29
that. I tell you what, I tell you what
26:31
I loved about Ben, You know, I loved his way of encouraging me
26:36
to, you know, I'd be running, hauling, you know, doing good.
26:40
And he come on the radio and say concentrate, I loved it.
26:47
Yeah, he would come on. Yeah, I'd be running hard and
26:49
making some good lap times and needing to catch somebody in
26:52
front. And he'd just, he'd just come
26:54
on, concentrate. That's awesome.
26:58
So I've, I have a follow up on that though, and I should know
27:00
the answer to this, but do you like the fact that now you can
27:04
hear the radio of the drivers and they use it on the
27:08
broadcast? And, and when did that start?
27:10
Because I'm guessing back in the day you guys used a lot of
27:13
colorful language. You probably said some things
27:15
about other drivers, but then they didn't hear it and now we
27:20
hear all that stuff. Yeah, I, you know, it really
27:25
started in the early 2000s, early to mid 2000s when they,
27:33
you know, started renting, selling scanners and renting
27:37
scanners. You could go to the race and
27:39
just rent a scanner for the day and pick you who you wanted to
27:43
listen to or multiple people drivers that you want to listen
27:46
to or teams. And so we started really having
27:50
to work on cleaning our stuff up and it, we still didn't get it
27:54
cleaned up, but we got a lot of it cleaned up.
27:57
But you know, you still, it was a double edged sword.
28:01
It was good for the fans, but it was horrible for a driver who
28:07
had been around in using radio since the 70s because that was
28:12
your vent. That's how you vented.
28:15
And, you know, you could vent and you could talk trash about
28:21
other drivers and you could do all this stuff.
28:23
And you just started having to tailor that.
28:27
In the 90s, teams started scanning other teams.
28:33
And I have some funny stories about that as well.
28:37
But yeah. And then, you know, then that
28:40
progressed to fans being able to scan.
28:44
Well, I don't think personally that fans should be able to
28:47
listen to team radios. I just don't think that that's
28:51
right. I mean, these guys, the drivers
28:55
and the crew chiefs and everybody, they're in the heat
28:57
of battle and what, you know, when emotions are that high and
29:01
you know, competition like that, I mean, you're going to say some
29:05
things that you wouldn't say otherwise.
29:08
And, you know, people read all kind of things into that.
29:12
And I just, I don't think that's appropriate.
29:15
And, you know, because these guys have a lot of pressure on
29:18
themselves anyways. Well, now they're out there
29:22
driving the car, they're trying or they're crew chief trying to
29:24
figure out what the driver needs.
29:27
That's enough pressure. Now they got to worry about, oh,
29:30
what am I? You know, I got to watch what I
29:31
say or I'm going to get in trouble.
29:33
And I just don't think that's right.
29:35
So I got a couple of story ideas also from, from X and, and thank
29:39
you to both you guys. You're you're very active on
29:42
social media and you're commenting on a lot of these
29:44
great stories and, and older videos and whatnot.
29:47
So we'll start with this one, and it was from the NASCAR
29:50
Classics X account, and it just says most NASCAR Cup Series
29:55
points accumulated from 1990 to 1999.
30:00
And there's Mark Martin right at the top, 43,791 points.
30:06
You had Dale Earnhardt in second about what, 740 or so points
30:11
back? I'll just read them real quick.
30:12
You got then Rusty Wallace, Dale Jarrett, Terry Labonte, Ricky
30:17
Rudd, Kenny Schrader, Bill Elliott, Sterling Marlin and
30:21
Jeff Bodine. And I saw Mark that you quote
30:24
tweeted it and you said interesting.
30:26
We didn't get a trophy for that though, but that's pretty cool
30:31
to lead in points for an entire decade.
30:34
And look, I mean yourself, Dale senior, Rusty, all race for that
30:38
entire decade. It wasn't like some of those
30:40
guys only race for five or six years.
30:44
Yeah, it's amazing, amazing that we didn't win a championship.
30:51
But you know, we just, you know, we just didn't did we didn't
30:58
score enough points. Well, was, I think it's kind of
31:02
interesting about that stat that probably doesn't include that
31:05
those missing 46 points either. So that number for you would be
31:09
even higher. When you look at when you look
31:12
at great race drivers, many of them great race car drivers,
31:17
many of them 11, you know, Rusty Wallace, Bill Elliott, you know
31:24
they'll so many, you know, just, you know so many, they got one
31:30
because they had one season that was outstanding.
31:34
Over all I had outstanding. I had some outstanding seasons
31:42
like 1998. My my point score would have won
31:46
the championship and, and I think any prior year, but Jeff
31:52
Gordon killed us by 400 points, you know.
31:56
Yeah, I mean, that's the best season ever in modern, in the
32:01
modern era. I mean, there's no other season.
32:03
I mean, what I think so impressive about, you know,
32:07
Jeff's season in 1998 is that you had a championship season.
32:13
I mean, you could have won the championship in any like
32:17
previous twenty seasons, you know, roughly.
32:21
And he had a season that dwarfed that.
32:25
I mean, when you really think about that, it's it's, it's mind
32:29
boggling. OK, another story that I saw
32:32
here from from Rodney Childers, he, he quote tweeted, Mark your
32:37
2012 Michigan crash. And this is from NASCAR
32:40
pictures, it says Mark Martin's 2012 Michigan crash is still one
32:44
of the scariest wrecks I've seen.
32:46
I, I had not seen this yet where you're coming down and you
32:49
basically T-bone the wall there. And Rodney Childers says, still
32:54
hard to believe we went from leading to a wall all the way
32:57
across the rear clip, through the oil tank drive shaft and all
33:02
the way over to the Rs rear clip.
33:04
Thankful Mark Martin was OK and everyone in the pits that got
33:08
hit with 270° oil and, and the way you hit that wall, I mean,
33:14
that was lucky right there. Because if it hits, I mean, I
33:17
don't even want to think of what happens if it if it hits you
33:19
right on the door. Yeah, I was, you know, trying so
33:25
desperately to save the car. We had everybody covered every
33:30
single time we got on the track, all weekend, every practice,
33:33
every qualifying, 3/10 a lap. It was just insane.
33:40
And you know, so if I could save the car, we could still win.
33:45
And but when once I saw that we I was going to hit the wall, I
33:51
really, it looked like it was going to hit in the door.
33:55
If it hit the door bars, I it may not have been survivable.
34:01
It was going to be such a joke, you know, so hard and you know
34:08
that I just don't know. But lucky for me, it went right
34:14
behind the door bars, right behind the rear hoop and just
34:18
absorbed, you know, it went all the way through there.
34:22
But if it would hit the door bars, it would have stopped the
34:24
car so fast that I think the whip would have been really bad.
34:29
I don't know how I don't know about the crush on the door
34:33
bars. I would be more, I was more
34:35
concerned about the whip that was going to happen.
34:38
So everybody was really freaked out when they saw that.
34:44
And you know, for me it was, I was just pissed because we had,
34:50
we couldn't lose that race. I mean, it was, it was
34:53
ridiculous how bad we had everybody beat.
34:56
And of course I wanted to win at 53 years old, you know, I
35:02
wanted. Yeah, that you would have, you
35:04
know, taken the, you know, Harry Gant was 52, so you would have
35:07
been the oldest driver if you'd wanted 53.
35:10
Yeah, I really wanted it bad. So I wasn't, you know, once,
35:15
once the hit happened and it didn't even hurt.
35:19
I was not even sore. And then I was just angry
35:25
because it was a senseless, it was senseless.
35:30
It was lab cars that caused it, you know so.
35:35
What was it like working with Rodney Childers back then?
35:38
Rodney Childers now going to work with Junior Motorsports?
35:40
He was at Spire. Of course people know he won a
35:42
championship with with Kevin Harvick, but this was what this
35:45
was about 12-13 years ago. So I didn't know Rodney
35:50
personally. And so when we made the deal,
35:54
made the deal with Michael and I started doing a little bit of
36:00
research about my new crew chief, I figured out that this
36:05
car multiple times that pissed me off because they out
36:09
qualified me with equipment that wasn't on my level, our level.
36:15
He was crew chief on or, or a car chief.
36:20
So you know, like cars like the 50, you know, I don't know, 7755
36:25
a bunch of these cars, you know, Rodney had worked on were rocket
36:29
ships and I didn't I didn't recognize it.
36:32
So as soon as I got to know Rodney, I mean, the first time
36:37
we sit down, I was like, man, this is really this really
36:41
awesome to work with a driver who understood how to couple
36:47
technology with dirty hands because he had done his own work
36:55
and and you know, chose to give up driving because he had to
36:59
have a career to support his family.
37:04
It was a dream. I'm going to tell you something.
37:05
I had more fun driving that 55 car then I probably had.
37:10
I did have a lot of fun in 2009, don't get me wrong, but there
37:15
was so little pressure and so much fun and the cars were
37:20
rockets at MWR in 2012. And having Martin, Truex, Junior
37:26
and and Clint for teammates. We were all just great
37:30
teammates. There were 15 engineers at MWR
37:35
in 2012. It was and I had worked with so
37:39
many people in the fab shop and and so many people that work
37:42
there and they were excited to have me come drive their car,
37:47
even though I was old as heck. And it was just fun and
37:52
exciting. You know, they had it was they
37:54
had a great shop there in the the old movie theater that they
37:58
turned into a race shop. It was a dream.
38:01
I mean, it was so much fun working with those guys.
38:05
And Rodney was incredible. I mean, his car a movie had some
38:13
weird setup that we had that we had developed.
38:16
That was absolutely phenomenal with this huge rear bar and I
38:22
think of £100 right rear spring and and coal bind in the left
38:26
rear and the thing was so touchy that the rear bar was so touchy.
38:33
I'd have them, you know, just tweak that rear bar just a half
38:38
a round or 1/4 round to get the balance just right because it
38:42
was super sensitive on that rear bar.
38:44
And I mean we were, we hauled man, all those figures, Michigan
38:48
was one of them with that set up and Pocono and a bunch of others
38:52
that rear, rear spring set up with that Big O bar.
38:56
And here we are. We're recording on on January
38:59
5th and I'm. Curious.
39:01
Back in your driver days, how would you view the offseason?
39:05
Today we're about what, 4 weeks or so from from Bowman Gray and
39:09
then two weeks after that is Daytona.
39:11
So how did you view the offseason?
39:13
Was it kind of like once Christmas and New Year's are
39:16
over, I'm in driver mode? Did you wait a couple weeks?
39:19
How does that work? A lot of years we would be
39:23
testing, you know, and then and then that went away.
39:26
But, you know, the grind of being successful in that era, a
39:33
cup successful cup driver was, was real.
39:39
You know, between the promotions, the sponsor, the
39:44
appearances, you know, the photo shoot started in December,
39:50
January, you know, you started testing.
39:54
So it was a relief, you know, really to to get into the
39:58
offseason. Which was totally opposite of of
40:03
the way it was when I did my ASA car and work, you know, me and
40:09
myself and one or two or three guys work.
40:12
You know, you built a new car and the offseason was miserable
40:18
because you couldn't get part, you know, but nobody worked.
40:22
People wouldn't answer their phone.
40:23
And you're trying to build a car and you need these parts and
40:26
pieces. And it drove me crazy.
40:29
So it was, it was kind of the opposite going into the the
40:35
latter years when there was no testing, you know, still
40:39
January, you did your promotional stuff with sponsors,
40:44
but by the time that Daytona rolled around, you were you were
40:49
ready to go for sure. You'd had enough break and
40:52
you're ready to to tackle the the World Center of speed, or
40:58
what I call the World center of pain.
41:02
All right, we, we asked on Facebook, on X and YouTube for
41:06
some questions and we got a bunch.
41:07
So heck, we can use these questions over the next four or
41:10
five weeks. We got so many, but I basically
41:12
took a couple of them here. So let's start with we have Troy
41:17
Voyles from Facebook and he asks how and when did you notice the
41:22
talents of Matt Kenseth and bring that to the attention of
41:25
Jack Roush? So the story goes that, you
41:29
know, I still paid attention to what happened in Wisconsin with
41:33
Late models because as everyone knows, that's, that's my heart.
41:37
That's that's the soft spot in my heart.
41:40
And I keep seeing this Matt Kenseth kid winning races.
41:45
And I noticed he's winning races in different cars.
41:50
So that means that to me, that told me that he knew how to make
41:55
cars go fast because he, you know, Howie Leto was like the
42:00
fastest crew chief up there. If you drove Howie Leto's car,
42:04
you're going to win a race. But he was driving different
42:08
cars for different people, winning all over the place.
42:12
And so I knew what, how hard that was and I knew he knew
42:16
about cars and I had a soft spot in my heart for guys that knew
42:20
about cars. And so we're at Talladega for
42:24
the Bush race and he and Robbie Reiser are there for, for the
42:29
Bush race at Talladega. And after the drivers meeting,
42:34
you know, I, I go up and introduce myself and we sit down
42:38
on the on the bleachers there and had a long talk, probably 30
42:42
minutes. And I left there and went
42:45
straight to Jack. And I said, Jack, you've got to
42:48
sign this guy, Matt Kenseth. I know you don't have a spot for
42:52
him, but you have to sign him. You, you've got to.
42:56
And Jack didn't always, I'll put it this way.
43:01
He didn't always do what I told him to do.
43:06
And he didn't always listen to what I was trying to tell him.
43:08
But this time he did. And I was man, I was, I was not
43:15
wrong. Matt Kenseth made me made me
43:18
proud. And Matt brought Jack Roush his
43:23
his first Cup Series championship.
43:27
I was proud of that and was also co-owner of the car.
43:30
I was, you know, so that was, that was kind of cool.
43:34
We have a couple more questions about Jack Roush and your your
43:38
time at Roush. This is from Willie Rides 57
43:41
from YouTube and he asked what was Jack spending annually to
43:46
run your car in 19871988? 1988 I went up there to meet
43:52
Jack and it's about driving the car and he, you know, he showed
43:59
me all the Dino rooms and all the engine stuff.
44:01
We sit down, he talked about his plan and he said he had
44:05
$2,000,000 set aside and it was going to run.
44:12
You know, we run the Super speed with the 21 Wood Brothers
44:15
schedule, you know, the big track stuff, limited schedule.
44:19
And he had all the money to do it, which was, you know, he had
44:24
$2,000,000, which isn't very much really.
44:27
But, and I asked him, are you going to what about the testing?
44:33
How much testing? And are you going to buy enough
44:35
tires? You know, because you know,
44:39
those were things I was worried about.
44:40
I want to test and don't never put used tires on my car because
44:45
I experienced that in 1983, you know, in the two car and and I
44:53
wound up, you know, getting fired for for lack of
44:57
performance or maturity or whatever.
45:01
And you know, they couldn't afford new tires all the time.
45:06
So I don't know how I'm supposed to perform.
45:10
You know, I don't know how I'm supposed to be KL Yarborough
45:13
when he's got new tires and I got old tires.
45:17
Yeah. So in 8788, if you guys are
45:20
spending 2 million to run a limited schedule, what are the
45:23
top teams spending those days approximately?
45:27
I can't say, but you have to remember he had to build.
45:31
He had to, you know, buy a trailer, build out a trailer,
45:35
buy cars, you know, so that probably wasn't a racing budget.
45:42
But I will say that Rusty Wallace bragged to me that he
45:48
got this huge sponsor Kodiak and it was 1,000,000 bucks and that
45:54
was I think that was 1988, his first year with Kodiak.
45:58
So he had he got $1,000,000 sponsor.
46:01
So race teams were probably racing on budgets of, you know,
46:06
those top race teams were probably at that time racing on
46:09
a million, $1,000,000 and purse money that you would throw in
46:15
there. But Jack had to build a team
46:17
from scratch with that $2,000,000.
46:19
And then of course, when Stroh's light came on board, that bump
46:28
from a limited schedule to full schedule, so.
46:31
I wonder when he decided that it was going to be a full schedule
46:36
for a because, you know, you guys found out in January,
46:40
obviously much later than he did.
46:43
Yeah, we found out in January. We did the press conference at
46:47
the shop in January to announce the Stroh's deal.
46:54
And Robin was in the trunk of the Rockingham car.
47:00
And when he heard Jack say, we're going to run the full
47:02
schedule, Robin raised his head up and hit his head on the on
47:08
the trunk and realized that he was working on the Richmond car,
47:13
not the Rockingham car. Yeah.
47:16
So I don't know when he, when, when he knew, but we found out.
47:20
At the press conference. At the press conference in
47:22
January. All right, one more on Roush
47:25
Andrew Bugle from YouTube. He says.
47:28
Mark, in your honest opinion, do you feel as if it was a sort of
47:32
liability to at one point have been teammates with so many
47:35
different drivers at the same time as Roush expanded in the
47:39
mid to late 90s? I always felt while it was great
47:42
to have good teammates, maybe the focus across all the teams
47:46
was such that it may have hindered certain aspects of you
47:49
guys winning a championship. Just always wondered how you
47:52
felt about that Mark. I was crushed when they when
47:57
Jack added the first, the second team, the 16 car.
48:01
In 92. In 92, I was, I was actually
48:03
crushed. We didn't have the
48:09
infrastructure, we didn't add quality people and didn't do
48:16
Wally Dallenbach justice. I mean, he got the same cars as
48:22
I got, but there was just not the depth and team that second
48:28
team needed to be rival the 6th car in in personnel, especially
48:37
with Wally being, you know, a rookie, sort of a rookie.
48:41
So Wally didn't get a fair shake on that.
48:45
And the 16 car never really, neither did neither, neither did
48:51
Ted Musgrave. You know, Ted came, Ted got
48:54
hired for the 16 car because he was so freaking fast in the 55
48:59
car and he came to the 16 car and the 16 car wasn't in my
49:05
opinion wasn't much any better than the 55 car.
49:09
So Ted didn't get a a complete fair shake either.
49:15
However, when the 99 came into existence, that stepped the game
49:21
up for the Six. It was a total different deal
49:26
that stepped the game up for the Six and really actually improved
49:31
our performance. But yeah, for the first several
49:34
years I felt like it was a drain.
49:36
There was never anything that came.
49:39
No, that's not fair. There wasn't enough from the 16
49:42
coming up to the Six. It was mostly flowing down and
49:47
the idea of having two cars was to make the two cars better.
49:55
But basically all it did was you can run a second car for half as
50:00
much as it takes to run a full car.
50:03
So you can get more money in there.
50:06
And so we had more budget to spend, but it didn't look to me
50:12
like we were spending it, you know, spending at all or not
50:15
enough, certainly not enough on the 16 car to make it, you know,
50:21
in the early years, make it an advantage to the six.
50:24
It was more draining. Yeah.
50:28
I mean, you know, performance wise it, you know, it doesn't,
50:32
it really doesn't make sense when you look at it, you know,
50:35
early on because you guys struggled in 91 and then you
50:40
start another team and you know, I mean, business wise,
50:45
financially, obviously it had to have made sense.
50:48
But if you're looking at from a performance standpoint, I mean,
50:52
in my opinion, it, it didn't make much sense at all.
50:54
And it is like dad said, I think it did a disservice for Wally
50:59
and and Ted, you know, and then when you think about it, it's
51:02
like Roush was a multi car team from 92 on and no one else, No
51:11
other driver wins for Roush until Jeff Burton in 97.
51:15
And Roush has been a multi car team since 1992.
51:18
That's crazy if you think about it.
51:22
Yeah. Jeff Burton and his team changed
51:25
it everything and was the greatest teammate I could have
51:30
ever had. He helped me.
51:33
He tried to help me, He tried to bring speed to me.
51:37
Anything he learned that improved his car, he wanted to
51:41
share with me. And so that made him a great
51:46
teammate. I felt the same way.
51:47
I was happy to share with him anything that I knew or learned.
51:52
The way they did the 1919 was completely different.
51:56
They hired some good, really successful people.
52:01
Buddy Parrot, you know, and that was that was a different
52:07
approach. And Jeff Burton was the
52:09
architect of that entire car. He he chose who hung the bodies.
52:15
People don't realize it. He knew the springs, the setups.
52:20
He was the total architect of that 99 car in the early years.
52:26
Yeah. I mean, really in 1997, I would
52:29
say that that's really the beginning of the peak of Roush
52:33
Racing as an organization. I mean, it really starts with
52:36
that 99 car. And the six, you know, benefited
52:40
a lot from them. And of course, the 99 did
52:42
benefit a lot from the six too. That's why they had such good
52:45
seasons in 98 and 99. And also don't want to leave
52:49
out, you know, Frank Stoddard, who was perfect for Jeff because
52:56
he didn't resist Jeff, you know, he let Jeff lead, you know, lead
53:03
where the, the, the direction. And a lot of there was a lot of
53:08
resistance back then for teams to resist the drivers, you know,
53:15
input. They thought they knew better.
53:17
And so kudos to Frank Stoddard. They were a winning machine for
53:23
a a while. Yeah, and just as a funny side
53:26
note, I always tell Dad this, you know, there's a hilarious
53:29
alternate universe out there where Ward Burton takes the 99
53:34
car instead of Jeff, and you have the most hilarious pairing
53:38
of accents, crew chief and driver War Burton and Frankie
53:42
Stoddard. You know, Frankie being a New
53:45
Englander and Ward having the, you know, Virginia accent.
53:49
Yeah, I think that's pretty hilarious.
53:50
Ward was offered the the ride first before Jeff, so Ward
53:56
didn't take it. Yeah, the story that I heard
53:58
Jeff tells that Ward got a call from I guess Jeff Smith at at
54:04
Roush, and Ward already had his deal with Bill Davis and I guess
54:10
they were out to dinner or something like that and Ward
54:12
told Jeff about it. And Jeff, like hell, give me his
54:15
number. So that's very funny.
54:19
I'm guessing Ward probably regrets that a little bit.
54:23
I don't know. He won a Daytona 500 and A7500.
54:27
That's true, very true. All right, hard to transition to
54:31
this 1D Mcbee on YouTube asks Mark how much aggravation?
54:36
I don't know if aggravation is the right word, maybe ribbing,
54:38
but how much aggravation did you endure over the Viagra
54:41
sponsorship? Some.
54:45
It was probably not nearly as bad as Arlene and you know, we
54:55
we took a little bit, but there was a lot of focus on men's
54:59
health, a lot of money spent by Pfizer giving free health
55:05
screenings at every single race. That first year, they had a
55:08
tractor trailer set up at the racetrack and gave men health
55:12
screenings. And that was, there was a lot of
55:17
advertising that went to men getting, you know, seeing their
55:22
doctor regularly, men over 40. And, And so there were a lot of
55:27
good that made me proud of what we were doing.
55:32
But yeah, there's definitely a stigma to it.
55:36
You know, it's almost cool now, but it wasn't.
55:42
It wasn't nearly as cool in 2001 as it is nowadays.
55:48
All right, let's, let's end on this one.
55:49
We're getting close to an hour here.
55:51
We got Caleb Leach from YouTube. He asks Mark if you could bring
55:56
back any track that was either torn down or no longer raced at
56:01
to the NASCAR schedule. Which track would that be?
56:04
Let me guess before he answers Riverside.
56:07
That's a good answer. Yeah, I, I, I agree.
56:11
I wouldn't have, I would have forgot about it because it's so
56:14
distant. But yeah, Riverside, the next
56:17
one that I, you know, pops up in my mind is, is a California
56:21
Speedway. I love that racetrack and, and
56:26
it put on great racing. Unfortunately, they couldn't get
56:30
enough people to come from LA to to watch it and the property
56:36
became more valuable than the track and it's just unfortunate
56:40
it's happened a lot of places in Rockford Speedway is another
56:45
one. You know, there's a there's a
56:47
lot of race tracks that I love that have have gone away.
56:50
Wasn't that this deal with Riverside when the property it
56:53
was got too bad? And that happened way back, you
56:56
know, at the end of the 80s. And so it it was already
57:01
starting. But yeah, that's what happened.
57:05
And I guess it's a shopping center now.
57:07
Well. I'll tell you what our our first
57:09
episode in the books here. I think people really love all
57:13
these stories and in depth on Kurt Busch and and Harry Gant
57:18
and you guys were talking about that Harry Gant car.
57:20
It's funny, 33 has always been my favorite number because of
57:23
Jose Canseco, randomly the baseball player back in the day.
57:26
But you were talking about that car and I saw a video today that
57:29
33 with the green and white, that was a just a really pretty
57:34
race car. It was in the body shape that,
57:38
you know, that cut Cutlass was an awesome body shape.
57:42
I mean it was just it made a good looking race car.
57:46
Yeah. I mean, I think that's one of
57:47
the coolest NASCAR race cars of all time.
57:50
And like I said at the beginning of the shows, like whoever said
57:53
green was bad luck for race car? All right.
57:56
Any final thoughts from you guys for our first episode here
57:59
before we say goodbye? I don't think so.
58:03
I hope you guys enjoy this and I, you just kind of hang in
58:06
there with us. You know, eventually, you know,
58:08
maybe 3-4 months from now, we should have our studio done and
58:12
so it'll be a little bit more professional just be me and dad
58:15
on this tiny little couch in the motorhome.
58:17
But anyways, we we really hope you guys enjoyed this.
58:21
Yeah, just we're going to have a lot of fun with this.
58:25
You know, Matt puts a lot of thought in into it.
58:28
He knows, you know where to lead me to tell the stories.
58:32
And, you know, we just hope that people enjoy, you know, sharing
58:37
the the memories. Love it.
58:39
And just to remind everybody one more time, so full video shows,
58:44
Kenny Wallace YouTube channel, full audio Kenny Wallace media
58:48
podcast. And then you're building up the
58:51
Mark Martin Archive YouTube channel with the clips And
58:54
people are always, they're already really loving that.
58:57
So we're going to keep building up the Mark Martin Archive
58:59
YouTube channel for the clips as well.
59:02
So thanks guys, this was a lot of fun.
59:04
Charlie Marlowe for Mark Martin for Matt Martin's episode 1 of
59:09
the Mark Martin Archive. Thanks a lot guys, appreciate
59:11
it. This was fun.
59:12
Thank you guys. Thank you.