Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Dale Earnhardt Jr. Discusses Nashville Fairgrounds CARS Tour Race | Matt Weaver Reports

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Dale Earnhardt Jr. Discusses Nashville Fairgrounds CARS Tour Race | Matt Weaver Reports · Kenny Wallace Media

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  Still some boxes to check. You know, you just never know.
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  There's, you know, everybody's got to get out of here safe and
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  get home safe. And so we're not, we're not
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  finished. But just because the race is
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  over, the staff's got a lot, a lot of the things going on with
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  a lot of the things to do. And but I'm, I'm thrilled.
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  I'm really happy. So didn't know, you know, what
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  to expect. We'd had a really, really rough
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  race at Wake and man, I'm telling you, we did a lot of, we
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  had a lot of conversations internally as a series and we,
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  you know, we addressed a lot of things that we, we need to
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  improve. And and, you know, I, I think
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  our series is still so our series is in such a way that,
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  you know, we're going to have a bad race every now and then, but
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  we need to we should be getting to the corner where we turn and
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  don't have any more. We should just let at this
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  stage, you know it and, and how we've sort of worked on this.
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  We should we should start having, you know, less of those
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  nights like we had awake and we had we talked to the races a
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  little bit. And I mean, this is a completely
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  different race track. Or is that some things really
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  working in our favor to keep our race from turning into a, you
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  know, a rough one? Like we had awake the arrow was
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  was difficult tonight. So if you got behind somebody,
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  you got pretty tight and this worn out surface on a really big
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  race track, it's hard to really get to guys and do anything with
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  them. And so I was real proud of all
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  the racers. Nobody made any big mistakes, no
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  mischiefs, things like that. And we had a great crowd.
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  So big success. Every racer that I've talked to,
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  I went up and tried to thank as many as I could for coming.
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  Everyone I've talked to says they're excited about it and
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  want to come back. And I know these often don't
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  make the make the make the article, but big thanks to
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  tootsies because when we go to Cordeal, we go to a Nashville,
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  we need to hurt help the back of the purse a little bit.
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  We need to we're budgeted. We got everything's working and
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  and geared and, and in such a way to go run all these race
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  tracks that we've always ran. And so to come to a Nashville,
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  we, we've got to find somebody to help us on the back of the
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  purse and give our teams a little bit more tow money.
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  And so Tootsie stepped up through Justin Marks and that
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  relationship. And they even had us out at the
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  at the bar on Thursday night to be able to interview some
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  drivers and just kind of put our little fingerprint on the town.
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  And Nashville as a whole was, was awesome.
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  And I think our teams enjoyed, you know, being able to get out
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  on Thursday or Friday night after our test and see a little
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  bit of town. They'll probably a lot of them
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  stay tonight go out. So that's fun for everybody that
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  a lot of the race tracks you don't necessarily offer.
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  So I think it's great. You know, I hope, I hope the we
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  come back here as you know, as long as our competitors are
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  happy, you know. How much did you help this place
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  tonight with a that's? Hard to measure, man.
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  Hello, Josh Berry said. It best.
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  Ain't much I could do unless I ran for mayor, and I don't even
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  know if I'd win that one. But I, I love the track and it's
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  tough and it's tougher than I remember maybe a year.
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  He's had me some really good race cars.
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  I came out here in my late model car and we ran great some nights
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  and really, really bad some nights.
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  And it was a long drive to come out here and race.
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  But we loved it. We kept coming back and yeah,
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  we'd, we'd love to do it again. So Bob seems like he's doing a
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  great job, got some great relationships with local
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  government and so forth. So, you know, I'm hoping Marcus
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  can work something out for for for Bristol to be able to come
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  in here and really get the upgrades that this place needs
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  to be able to help the local community and the burden on the
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  local community, the noise is a burden, but we can fix that.
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  We can make that better and continue to race here.
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  And so that's that's up to Marcus, Bob and all those folks.
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  And, and we love coming here. When he if we get the
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  opportunity, we'll be back. There we have a lot of drivers
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  who usually race here with the fairgrounds come out.
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  In between Dylan Achto winning. The poll, a lot of guys in the
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  poll like model, race. What?
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  What do you hope tonight? Did or maybe do for for those
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  guys? Well, the, I guess the thing I
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  worry about I when they, you know, when I, when I see a guy
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  that comes up to me after race that doesn't race with us, you
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  know, I want him to be glad he did.
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  They go run on, you know, weekly shows either here or they go run
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  what they say or whatever they do, you know, and, and there's
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  different protocols in every series and weekly racing's
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  completely different culture than this.
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  So I want them to go, Dang, I'm glad we, we did this.
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  You know, this, it's a it's an extra expense to run on the
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  tour. It's more expensive to run on
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  the tour than it is at a weekly show somewhere.
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  That's that's without a fact. I mean, you're buying hotel
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  rooms for a couple nights for your whole guys and multiple
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  sets of tires and all that stuff.
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  You know, it's, it's a big ask for other teams that don't run
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  with us regularly. And I will say that the ones
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  that do, the guys that do run with us when we go to their
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  local tracks, they're kind of a secret sauce because they often
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  show us how to get around those places.
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  And they might not win the races, sometimes they do, but
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  often we we learn quite a bit about how to get around the
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  racetrack just watching some of the those, some of the weekly
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  regulars. And I even think that happened
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  this weekend, obviously with some of the guys run here
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  regularly with the pros. So it's a lot of fun.
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  We love it. Now I just want the weekend to
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  go away. I want us to have a great race
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  is a series so that the competitors, the the the team
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  owners, they feel like that their their investment was
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  worth. It how much of A role did you
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  play a good you put on a good show for the.
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  Crowd. I think, I mean you starting
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  25th was tough, so picking off there.
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  I think I needed to, you know, my car probably had a 20 in it.
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  So I should have, you know, at best started around 15th, 17th
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  and maybe we could have ran for the top ten in the race for sure
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  from there. I didn't love the car.
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  The 1st 60 laps we swapped, you know, we swapped the left side
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  tires at the brake and put fuel in it.
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  And I went from really kind of too loose to too tight on the
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  entry. We never really had the car
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  perfect, but I had a great time practicing Thursday and Friday,
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  really thought the balance of the car was where I needed it.
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  And we did run great laps all night, I mean competitive laps
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  all night. So if somebody could qualify the
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  car for me, maybe I could get up there and race for a win because
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  I think at my age, man, I've lost a step at least in
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  qualifying, that's for sure. So I don't do this every week.
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  I don't drive the cars all the time.
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  I'm I haven't been in a car and I don't know how long and hop in
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  here and try to match these guys.
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  I think it says a lot about the talent in the series.
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  I think it says a lot about how good these guys are, how great
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  the, you know, how, how smart these kids is.
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  I know too much. You know, I go down in the
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  corner and I'm, I'm thinking about all the things that could
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  go wrong or that I need to do right or whatever.
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  And these kids, they just send it and they're, it's fun to
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  watch. And I think when I first came
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  back and started racing, I, I was expecting, you know, to kind
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  of be able to match them a lot. But I think as I, as I run more
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  and more and get older and older, it's, it's obvious that
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  if I'm wanting to be as good as them, I need to do this every
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  single week. And I can't, I can't, I even if
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  I really, really wanted to, I just can't do it.
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  So it's what you got. You got to realize that you got
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  to be OK running good qualifying 20th or qualifying mid pack.
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  Heck, I qualified worse than that.
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  So at times, but I always race well, I always seem to race OK
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  and eh, that's what I'm here for.
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  Just have some fun. I said something at some point,
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  maybe a tweet I put out yesterday.
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  It's the the my result, my my race is literally at the bottom
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  of the list on priority for me. I want to have a good time.
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  I want to be glad I'm racing and having fun and want to come back
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  and do it again. But the, you know, us avoiding
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  another weight, us trying to have a great time, all of our
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  competitors being happy we're here, all our competitors
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  feeling like everything went well.
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  There's a ton of stuff that's way it's in front of what I what
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  I do as a competitor. After Wilkesboro Cordeal and now
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  here, it seems like Cars Tour always has like a project race.
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  What is the next big project race for you guys?
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  I think if we if we come back here, this is it.
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  You know, I don't think I would ask, I don't think we'd come
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  back here and then ask our guys to get to another New Smyrna.
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  We've talked to New Smyrna about being part of the World Series.
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  We are interested in that, but we would not come here.
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  I I can't I don't think I can I don't know I mean we would all I
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  probably you know, we had we got all the owners most of them in
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  the break room at junior Motorsports.
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  It's offseason sat down and said hey, what do y'all want to do?
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  They were like well, you know, we don't want any telemetry on
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  the cars on on Friday. If we're you know, telemetry
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  Thursday, no telemetry Friday, no problem done.
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  We want we we, we want this. We want that.
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  And for the most part, you know, we we need to get together in a
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  room like that more often and we need to ask them, hey, everybody
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  have a good time. Nashville want to go back?
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  Yeah, Hey, we got an opportunity to go do this.
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  Y'all care about doing that? Y'all want to do it, don't want
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  to do it. I don't know.
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  I don't know that our competitors would be that
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  excited to be a part of speed weeks in New Smyrna.
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  They might, but then they might not want to do that in this.
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  I'm telling you, we got guys that it's a 12 hours trips for
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  some of them from Virginia and so forth.
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  I don't know, I mean, ours was probably the shortest from
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  Charlotte and some other guys came from much further away,
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  Raleigh or whatever. And I hate to stress, stress us.
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  And they've told me Matt and and I'd love for you to ask them and
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  get more of a, of a of a of a heartbeat on this whole thing
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  that they don't want to do anything.
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  You know, that three to six hour range is kind of what they love.
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  And when we go to Langley, you know, we lose cars.
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  We don't get, we don't get you thinking Langley being Langley
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  is a badass racetrack. A lot of history.
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  We lose a couple guys when we go up there, so I don't know I, I
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  want to do what they I want to I, I feel like and I told our
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  competitors when we had a meeting earlier about cleaning
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  our driving up a little bit. I said I want y'all to be happy.
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  Number one, I want our competitors to be happy.
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  Whatever it is that makes y'all happy.
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  Our owners, if we got a happy competitors and happy owners,
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  the series is good because they'll be here if they're look
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  if they're enjoying themselves, they're coming back next week,
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  so. The cars looked like a handful
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  out there. It was really fun to watch.
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  How fun was it behind the wheels?
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  It was a handful. Handful is not always fun.
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  I was working a little harder than I wanted to.
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  You know, I, I, I thought the cars drove really good all week
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  in practice. And then when the race started,
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  you saw, you know, you had symptoms that weren't there.
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  You know, in practice car was tied in the corner, swinging the
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  back, swinging the back on exit. It's just a lot of things going
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  on that you knew was going to happen, but you weren't able to
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  experience it to really kind of dial or work on it in practice.
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  We're driving the shit out of the cars in practice and we
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  just, they just drove great. But once the race starts, for
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  whatever reason, we slow down and we start sliding all over
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  the place. The track got ripped up a little
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  bit down there and turned 3 and four.
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  We were all running on that patch down there tight against
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  the line, patch come apart. So you had to kind of move
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  around, find that, find how to get out of that.
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  So there's another thing too, I want to say while I got all
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  y'all here, Tom Keene put a deal together that I think it's
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  really, really neat. It's going to cost king parts
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  probably about $20,000. But he had no problem making
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  that commitment. At the end of every race.
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  We're drawing out of a hat the back five finishers of the of
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  each class pro and late model stop.
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  And so the last five finishers will draw out of a hat and their
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  next their next set of tires at the Tour that the next race they
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  go to is on the House thanks to King parts.
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  So it's kind of like a racer appreciation program that he
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  came up with and he's been pushing me and pushing me to try
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  to implement it. And so this was the very first
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  race with that. All those little things, I think
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  really kind of help grassroots racing and help our competitors
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  saddle up and get you ready for the next 1.
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  So I'm thankful we got a lot of clean cars tonight loading up in
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  these trailers and a couple teams going to get us a comp set
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  of tires next next race and hopefully we'll have a lot of
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  good cars throughout the rest of the season.
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  Kayden. Quaffle gets the win tonight
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  here in Nashville, but also Connor Zilich gets the win over
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  at Bristol. How much of A does it mean to
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  you for Junior Motorsports to be so successful tonight?
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  Yeah, I miss all that at Bristol.
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  I guess we got top four or something, but top 4IN or 3-4 in
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  the top five. Something like that is what I
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  heard walking over here. But man, I'm going to tell you
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  I, I don't, I don't count, I count with lessons and, and
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  we've had down years, We've had years where gives us kicking our
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  tail and we've had years when RCR is kicking our tail.
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  And I enjoy these wins and, and great runs.
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  And I tell our employees, you know, I appreciate how hard they
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  work because all that speed comes from the shop floor and
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  every man and woman that touches them race cars or effects them
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  race cars, they have a role in how we race and how we compete.
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  Hendrick Motors, Hendrick engines are always a a big
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  reason why we are competitive when when we're not, you know,
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  when we're not running so well on motor, it's very difficult
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  for our teams to be competitive. Hendricks worked really hard and
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  offseason found some more power and that's certainly showing out
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  this year. But like I said, I just, I enjoy
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  the times when we're winning because I know they don't last
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  forever. And, and we'll, you know,
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  somebody's working hard to, to, to get up there and take us out
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  and, and take the top. And they will one day, you know,
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  hopefully we can maintain this momentum through the rest of the
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  year and win the championship, but it ain't always going to be
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  as easy.