Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / The Kenny Conversation - Episode #6 - SRX CEO Don Hawk

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The Kenny Conversation - Episode #6 - SRX CEO Don Hawk · Kenny Wallace Media

0:00
Welcome back everyone to the Kenny Wallace show brought to
0:03
you by Jegs the leader and high performance aftermarket car
0:08
parts. As I always say, go to jegs.com,
0:13
they have it all for your car or truck.
0:17
Well today's the big day for me because I've been friends with
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this man this legend for years and years and I've seen him work
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for some of the greatest people in.
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In Motor Sports history, Diane Hawk, Don, welcome to the show.
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My friend can, it's a pleasure to be here.
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It's more than kind of you. If you notice, we put an S RX
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Jegs colored car behind us, you look good.
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You really do. So, I'm excited about SRX.
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But as though we always say that, this is a conversation,
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Don, I want you to be relaxed. And but before we get started,
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man, I just we just can't start talking about SRX.
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Until we tell everybody, you know, you work for the great
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Dale, Earnhardt senior, you work for the great Bruton Smith and
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remind everybody Bruton Smith. He owned SMI which, you know,
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owned, Bristol Motor Speedway. Charlotte Motor Speedway so on
1:19
and so forth. So You've done a lot in the
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Motorsports industry. It's been I got to tell you can
1:27
admin so blessed, like who would think you could?
1:31
Literally, at one point in my career, I worked for the
1:33
ironheart family, one point my career work for the France
1:36
family and I work for the Smith family like because after Dale
1:41
died, I went to work for NASCAR, so like that.
1:44
Yeah. So it's like Is that am I not
1:47
The Odd Couple or what right? How many people actually work
1:50
for the France, family in the Smith family?
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Let alone the Earnhardt, the France, and the Smith family.
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I've been blessed. Kenny, it's just unbelievable,
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what is it? First of all, when you work for
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those people, I look at it as they want you you must bring
2:08
something to the game in and I know we don't like to tell
2:14
people what what we do. You know, sometimes it can sound
2:17
like we're bragging, but that's okay if it's fact.
2:20
What do you think? You brought to them?
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Why did why did all those great organizations?
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Why did they want you? But hopefully, as I'm passionate
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about car racing, hopefully I have some business Acumen,
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right? I'm not opposed to making money.
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So like there's a deal to be had I like doing it right but it's
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easy to sell if you believe in it, right?
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And for me, when I went to jail and Teresa Earnhardt, I flew
2:49
around on the from month before they hired me and believe it or
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not, we're flying in this. King are you know gone all over
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the place and Theresa looks at me and she goes, what are you
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going to do different for us than anybody else has done for
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us in the past? I said we're going to be in the
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market, Dale, Earnhardt, as an athlete, not just the race car
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driver, and I think that was a differentiator, I really can't.
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I think that was the difference because in the 90s NASCAR broke
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out of a mold and the mold was literally it was a good mold by
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the way but we generated about a hundred million dollars in
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Revenue as a sport. Holy Mack then NASCAR 100
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million but when Earnhardt, Gordon Rusty, Dale, Jarrett,
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they all got mustard up together and started doing businesses
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together off the track and race really hard on the track that
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100 million. Kenny went to 1 billion dollars,
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1 billion in licensed, merchandise sales and I'm
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telling you, you know, who's running the department back,
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then George Pine who owns part of SRX.
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Mmm. You're you know, you're no
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dummy. You get the people that have
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been successful at SRX. Kenny is Around yourself.
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And you know this, you surround yourself with the best people
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you can find and it makes you better, right?
4:04
You know, one more thing before we and this is what happens with
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the Kenny conversation. It it tends to be a
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conversation. So before we move on to SRX,
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Chase Authentics, I remember Chase Authentics, you were part
4:20
of and when I was in I was 29 years old, maybe living in
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Charlotte and all of a sudden Chase Authentics, it was it was
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bigger than big and it was all the souvenir industry and I know
4:35
that you were part of that. Tell me about that moment, you
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know, the diecast days and the t-shirts and the big souvenir
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trailers, you know, makes it I get a smile on my face, right?
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When you talk I'm smiling, I'm gonna tell you this is true
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story. Now a lot of people wouldn't
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believe it but we still have the napkin in.
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Condominium 407 at Charlotte Motor.
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Speedway Ken Barbies, condominium Joe Mattis who still
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active at JRM. Myself and a guy that was a
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lawyer for Nutmeg Mills. Who is just getting into the
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sport in the 90s? They're huge apparel be F net.
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Where they own big, big, big apparel company.
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We pencil out this idea to form. Chase, Authentics, LLC.
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We tell them that we can get Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon,
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Rusty Wallace, Dale. Jarrett Bobby Labonte, Terry
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Labonte and John Force, the lawyer.
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Who's drinking a little beverage with a kind of dark with a
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floating Ice Cube. It is very little of it in his
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glass, he looks at us and he goes, you guys are nuts.
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If you think for one second you can get just the two names of
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them to agree Gordon and Earnhardt to do it business
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deal, you're crazy. So we offered to sell it to him
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that night and I'm telling you, it was for a couple hundred
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grand and change the idea on a napkin.
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He refused, everybody had a toast.
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We After we went on and Kenny, I'm not kidding you.
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The rest is history because you can go look it up, it was a
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public company, wind up selling Chase, authentic, stiff Red
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Wagon all's for like 35 million dollars plus, and it was the
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official brand of NASCAR and it started in a condominium at
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Charlotte Motor. Speedway overlooked in the
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racetrack and I believe, Joe Maddon still has that napkin
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today. I mean that's, that's a great
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story. So don I want to go to right now
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the kid. Any conversation can go on.
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And on, we can talk about your career for six hours, but now
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you're doing such great things with the SRX series.
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And one thing that I noticed is this big announcement in the
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winter time with ESPN, Tell me about how you got ESPN involved.
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And this bring back Thursday night Ken it's a great question.
6:57
So third race a last year. Tony Stewart, comes to my motor
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coach and says hey we're out of the gate pretty strong we're
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doing pretty well. Everybody's happy, CBS is happy.
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We got some little tweaks. We got to make but you want to
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make this thing even better I'm like yeah, what do you got?
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I mean I'm sent him a note pad. The table in the motor coach.
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I'm ready. He said figure out how you can
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get CBS to run us instead of Saturday night's on a weeknight.
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Hmm. And I said, what are you
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thinking? And he said, we're running short
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track races on the weekend and the people already want to go to
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the short track on the weekend. Why don't we run a weeknight
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race and give them something that's different.
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And literally, we both at the same time, just kind of came out
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with You thinking Thursday night Thunder and he said, yeah, but
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we're on CBS. And I said, let me work on that.
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See, we had a two-year contract with CBS and an option year for
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a third. We approach CBS with, can we
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switch the weeknights and they tried, they tried to see if they
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could make it work. But they have some very powerful
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show is on Wednesday and Thursday nights.
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So they gave us the latitude. After a certain amount of
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negotiating to say, look we can't give you nice, we can't
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give you a Thursday night for sure.
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Go ahead and kick the tires with another Network, so I fly to New
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York to meet George and Sandy for a big lunch.
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And there's all these TV people there and I'm out of my league.
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Kenny, I'm it you're a TV guy, I'm not right?
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I just but I like talking to him because I like doing deals with
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them because I think we have something they really want and
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Burke Magnus. Walks up.
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The steps looks over at me and were like we instantly.
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Just had that moment where I was like, Wow.
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And it was like, what are you doing here?
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And so we were standing there waiting to go.
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The lunch and I said, I get this idea.
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I just, I just want to run by you and I actually have
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permission from CBS to run it by you.
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Hmm. It's like go ahead.
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What is it? I said, how would you like to
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bring back Thursday night Thunder on ESPN?
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He goes, tell me more. I said, look, it's the place.
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I met Jeff Gordon. It's the place, I met Tony
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Stewart, it's the place I met Ryan knew I could, I could just
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go on and on Kenny but Burke, Magnus was with ESPN when they
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had it. And I don't know if you know it
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or not, Kenny, but the guy who won.
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Won the last race when they signed off the air in 2002 was
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Tony Stewart. The guide is going to be in the
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first one. When we go back, I got Goose
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Bumps man. Yeah.
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It's gonna be in the first race when we go back.
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To third is Tony Stewart, who do you think wants to win Stafford?
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The most you know, it t--'s through does that's it.
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But since a great story can you see get what you said though?
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It's collectively. All of us.
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A smarter than any single one of us.
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I didn't just think of it. Sandy George didn't Tony didn't
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Tony's, you know it Tony did though in fishing, they called
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set the hook. Yeah.
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Tony set the hook and the rest of us had to go sell.
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Yeah. And you want to New York, you
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went up to the big city. Was it in New York?
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Oh yeah. The Big Apple.
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It was grin like intimidating as itself.
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Now, you know, I love that mean. Come on.
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When we used to go to the Waldorf for the NASCAR banquet.
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Yeah, I'd go over to the NASCAR, New York office because I wanted
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to sell. So I go in there and meet Brett,
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Your Mark and those guys, you know, for they work for George
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Pine. Again, this world is small if
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it's cyclical. Kenny, the things that we did 30
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years ago. They're starting to come back
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again today. I worked for George Pine at
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NASCAR over. 25 years ago now I work for him at SRX.
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How crazy is that? So that's you led me right to my
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next question. We just watched what happened up
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at North Wilkesboro? Yeah, we've watched what's been
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going on at Darlington for the last 34 years.
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It seems like a vintage is cool. Again I know when I took history
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class they said history repeats itself.
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In your, in your mind. What do you think about the
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success of everybody? Everybody coming back and
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wanting to repeat Thursday night Thunder.
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Wanting to go back to Wilkesboro, they're talking
11:08
about Nashville. What's this all about in your
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mind? Kenny, I think it's good because
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we, I got to tell you something. I think we lost our way a little
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bit, right? So, we agree.
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You know, we, the poet says, is two roads, diverged in a wood
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and I I took The Road Less Traveled by.
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Hmm. I think sometimes we took the
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road that we shouldn't have traveled by right.
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And so I'm telling you sometimes we chase the money and we didn't
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stay with the fan. Like people would get mad at me
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for saying that but follow me, you can't.
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Chase the money and lose the fan.
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Doesn't matter how rich you are, if nobody sitting in the
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grandstands, it's no good, right?
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So you got a guy like Marcus Smith, who's the king of retro,
11:50
like Marcus Smith wants to save the rich history of this sport
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because he's the son of Bruton Smith who like literally built
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Charlotte Motor Speedway, right? And so Marcus has that in his
12:03
blood. He's got a little bit of dad
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that like we can do this. What do you mean?
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It's decrepit? What do you mean?
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Old, what I mean is close. Let's reopen it.
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Why do you think he's looking to Nashville Fairgrounds Kenny,
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you're so on to it. I think that they're wise enough
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to see, let's not forget our roots and that's what makes SRX
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accessible. We're a short tracks in America
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and we race asphalt pavement tracks and we go to dirt tracks.
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You can't leave anybody out in this deal.
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We can't, we have to, we have to involve everybody.
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I really feel like you were on to it years ago because As you
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know for me it's like what's the difference between the the IROC
12:45
Series in SRX? I said, oh, that's easy.
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That's our X is going to your race track.
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Yeah. Going to Stafford.
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August 17th. I'm racing up there in Wheatland
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Missouri at Lucas Oil speed. Well, by the way, that's a dirt
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track. So It's kind of like you all
13:02
started it, where you went to their local Racetrack and you
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know you're just selling these places out it it's a new Dynamic
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but not Kenny. Here's what it is.
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That's our X racing a appeals to my street.
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Your street Wall Street, and Main Street.
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Oh, I like about it SRX racing appeals.
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My street, your street Main Street and Wall Street.
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Yeah, you know, you can go from Eight.
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We went to the Big Apple to do this deal, right?
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We were we're near Wall Street. But guess what?
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I got to go to Stanford Connecticut, where there's going
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to be a packed crowd and make the root family.
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Happy with a, with a great race on SRX.
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We're going to go. Yeah, I mean that's what's
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exciting about this. So, one thing that I really like
13:50
is that, when you did put the deal together for Thursday
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night, you know, Thursday night Thunder on ESPN.
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Now, you can get all the drivers Purrs because you know they're
14:03
not racing saying go. I see I see you have a
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world-class drivers you know Marco Andretti and Kyle Busch
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and you know you name it, they're all, they're all running
14:14
with you now because they want to and it's exciting.
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How hard is it to call those drivers?
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Get a hold of them in. Just give me a look inside your
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phone calls. You call these drivers up and
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how's it go? Yeah, it's pretty cool.
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Kenny, like last year when I first got here right there.
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No drivers. They know track sign no drivers,
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right? So, I got to do that, but I'm
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really blessed to have a Rolodex, and people actually
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will return my call a return, my texts, right now that you got a
14:47
Rolodex. Yeah.
14:48
So, I Reached out and like, hey are you interested in doing
14:52
Essa? First question I have is, are
14:54
you doing it again? You know what, what racetracks
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you gone through and all that. So I signed a six racetracks
15:01
boat loaded drivers went on. But here's the exciting thing
15:04
about my second year this year, Kenny went from eight or ten
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tracks that were interested in having SRX races, tell 43 tracks
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and while Tony Stewart, and I are on the phone, narrowing it
15:16
down to six or seven in Case, one of the six needed a fallback
15:21
position while I was on with Tony of 44th race track called
15:25
while we were on a conference call together and I was like,
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wow, that's really big but here's what's exciting.
15:32
I started texting and calling drivers between December 25th
15:38
and New Year's in that window of time to see who could I get to
15:42
drive, right? And I am Telling You Denny,
15:45
Hamlin definitely interested. Kyle Busch, definitely in a
15:48
breasted Me more, Kevin Harvick definitely interested.
15:51
Tell me more Clint Bowyer definitely interested, tell me
15:54
more Josef. Newgarden definitely interested,
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tell me more. Kenny, it was like, are you
15:59
kidding me? I felt like I hit Powerball
16:02
because the only reason they're all available from Joseph
16:05
newgarden to Ron Capps to Kyle Busch is because we're on
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Thursday night. We're not interfering with
16:12
anybody's race weekend. The neat thing about it is when
16:15
I talk to Roger Penske and walls are Nikki talk to Jim Francis,
16:18
Ants and Steve Phelps. It was guys, we're off your
16:21
weekend, we're not interference. We're just going to go to a
16:24
short track and have fun and Roger penske's.
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Guys, looked at me and said, look, a high tide lifts All
16:30
Ships. Every time you mention a past
16:33
IndyCar driver, a current IndyCar driver.
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We get, we get a free announcement and he said, thank
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you so much. And Roger gave us Ernie.
16:42
Francis Junior. Okay.
16:43
Adam Josef newgarden okay, Adam last year Blaney?
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Okay. Adam, like he Use that this is a
16:50
good thing. A high tide does indeed lift All
16:53
Ships and we're not interfering with anybody running on Thursday
16:56
night. So when I look at the driver
16:59
line-up, yes we've got, you've got all the superstars but this
17:04
Paul Tracy really stands out as the villain of the fans.
17:09
Love it. I mean they eat it up.
17:11
They booing, he loves it. He's playing the character.
17:15
But you know, I follow Paul Tracy on Instagram.
17:19
You know, it's like Rusty. Wallace says, yeah, it's sad to
17:22
say you have to remind people because they remember what they
17:27
want to Paul Tracy. He's another guy that I use this
17:32
phrase now has done it all he's He's really good and tell me
17:37
about Paul Tracy. The dynamic of him running every
17:41
race. So Paul's he's not afraid to use
17:44
up his car. Oh boy.
17:46
Is that afraid to use up the bumper in front of them?
17:48
Right? Yeah.
17:49
So like and him and I had to sit down two or three times last
17:52
year, and that's the neat part about my job is not only get to
17:56
do this. I'm doing something I love, but,
17:58
you know, School in session with Paul Tracy a little bit.
18:02
And if you look, Paul Tracy, was driving a number three, I knew a
18:05
guy that drove a number 39. Ooh we got it was kind of rough
18:08
and a number three and believe it or not, we talked about that
18:12
but you can sell Roughness you can sell Persona, if it performs
18:19
and that's the thing. I kept telling Paul Tracy, you
18:22
gotta finish the deal, you got to finish the race, you can't
18:25
just wad somebody up and then you have a broken car and your
18:28
lame. The rest of the night, the art
18:29
of this thing is move them out of the way and you keep moving,
18:33
right? So Paul and I get along really
18:35
great. Here's an interesting sort.
18:36
He's so psyched for this Thursday night Thunder, the man
18:39
has worked out in the mornings. He's lost 40 pounds for this
18:44
year. He lives Good.
18:45
I'm not going to be falling out of the sea.
18:47
You know what y'all, she forgot on that list of drivers, by the
18:50
way, I forgot to tell you Kenny, who's coming this year we got
18:54
Kenny Wallace coming to Lucas Oil Speedway.
18:57
He's gone to Missouri and we invited his whole family because
19:02
like I click when I went through my Rolodex, how do I Miss You?
19:05
Kenny, how do I miss you? I can.
19:08
Well, I'm incredibly honored and like, I told you, we're like The
19:11
Beverly Hillbillies here in Missouri.
19:12
Were we're excited. My wife.
19:15
My whole family and my clients are coming again.
19:18
Everybody's coming. Even my extent.
19:20
You know, you know, what's crazy about this SRX series is a, I
19:24
have family extended family, and they texted me, they didn't ask
19:29
for tickets because they said, we got our tickets, we bought
19:33
them online. I'm like and I'm telling my
19:35
wife, I said, I never realized how much our family really did
19:40
love racing but yeah, this whole SRX deal, really?
19:44
Really lit. A fire underneath my family.
19:46
Thank you so much for inviting me but I do want to go back to
19:51
something. You said that I really like the
19:54
great Dale. Earnhardt senior, you said, if
19:58
you move somebody basically if you hit them and you move them
20:02
and your move you keep moving forward.
20:05
Yeah, that's the way to do it in.
20:09
You know your man? I mean, you work for Dale
20:12
Earnhardt, senior. Now that I think about it, when
20:15
he had somebody he finished it off with a win nine times out of
20:18
ten and see, you know, you and I talked offline but we'll talk
20:24
awful online for a second. Ross, Chastain, he's got the
20:29
Persona. He now needs to finish it off
20:31
with the performance. I agree.
20:33
He's got a couple of wins, he doesn't have a championship yet,
20:36
stack up the winds and the It gets a little more amicable,
20:41
right? Because they know that when you
20:43
use it, you're on your way to the front, but it doesn't do any
20:46
good if you use it and you're out too, right?
20:49
You don't want to do that, right?
20:51
Doesn't matter if you're racing at peevly or Daytona.
20:55
If you take somebody out and you don't finish shame on you.
20:59
The orange. Well hey, let me tell you
21:02
something, you have a brother, his name is Rusty and crusty and
21:06
Dale, you know, they they put the horn.
21:09
To each other, a lot of times. But if you notice, usually the
21:14
one who did it kept going, they don't take each other out.
21:17
Like right, wasn't it to 42? And that's not critical of Ross,
21:21
I mean that if I had a one-on-one with her off, so I
21:23
would say, finish the deal. If you tap them, just movement
21:28
off to keep going, just keep this, move them over and keep
21:31
going. So I like when I do that, nests
21:34
are acts by the way, because it puts the fans on there, they're
21:37
just jumping out of the grandstands, right?
21:38
And we're already Eddie sold out.
21:40
But on TV, you can see the ratings Spike when the
21:42
excitement happens. Yeah, that is awesome.
21:45
So, I do this when we get towards the end of every Kenny
21:50
conversation and you are embedded in the sport of NASCAR,
21:57
you know, everything and everybody.
22:00
So this is the point where I want to know your opinion about
22:04
NASCAR and I'll want to start like this.
22:09
What is your opinion? And I have about three.
22:12
We're going to break it down three times.
22:14
So don't unload it all at once. What is your opinion on NASCAR
22:20
right now. I think right now they're the,
22:24
there's this narrative out there, right?
22:26
That is starting to confuse the public a little bit because
22:29
we're talking about Charters, are talking about a new car.
22:34
We're talking about a new television package.
22:37
We're talking about gone, the new venues and somebody better
22:40
sort out really quick, those four topics so that we don't
22:44
lose the race fan. Like I said before and take the
22:47
wrong road, we got to make sure that we do the deal that's right
22:51
in As it relates to the charters, get the television
22:55
deal done as soon as possible and you got to make sure that
22:57
you're taking care of the fans along the way.
22:59
And oh by the way, when you go into these new venues you better
23:02
make sure it's going to be stacked with people.
23:04
You got to go where the people are, right?
23:06
You don't just look for in my opinion, the new Hot Market for
23:10
soccer because it may not be too hot market for a car race,
23:14
right? So again, you know, you got
23:17
really good leadership down there with a ton of experience.
23:21
But you just so many loose ball. It's like in basketball, they
23:25
say, like there's a loose ball, you know, it's a jump ball.
23:28
There's a lot of jump balls right now.
23:30
We got to put some through the net.
23:31
That would be my. And and and by the way, I don't
23:34
mean that critically. Oh no, I mean that, that humbly
23:36
because I've been there with him and I don't envy the position.
23:41
But less narrative about question marks more narrative
23:46
about exclamation points would be a home run.
23:49
Boy, I couldn't Agree with you anymore.
23:52
I feel the same way that, you know, NASCAR was its best and
23:56
since vintage and we're going back and everything seems to be
23:59
better when we repeat the good days, the good days, the rule
24:04
changes. The fans never even knew about
24:07
rule changes because it was all about the race and the
24:09
superstars. And we just we don't know what
24:12
the rules are from week to week. And I do, I do agree with that.
24:16
So let's let's switch to the other one.
24:19
What is your opinion on the new next-gen car?
24:24
It's just his it's changed. The sport in a massive way.
24:27
What is your opinion on the car? So I was really blessed Kenny at
24:31
the outset of the new car, Marcus Smith had some concerns
24:35
like what is it? We're switching to.
24:37
And how's it going to impact my races?
24:41
How's it going to impact our fans?
24:43
And so he spoke with Steve O'Donnell and Jim France because
24:47
I was at that point that she Chief competition officer at
24:52
Speedway, Motorsports for Britain and Marcus, right?
24:55
So they got permission for me to attend the next gen test.
24:59
How is that 11 of the first 13 test?
25:01
So, I watched this cargo from hard to steer too hot to drive,
25:07
like all the like, back in it in gone.
25:09
Oh, that was a lot harder, hit than I thought it was going to
25:12
be. And they didn't throw me out of
25:15
the room. Like, they let me in the garage
25:16
and I watched it and I observed it.
25:18
And I really think the idea and the notion is really, really
25:24
good. We just have to have the, some
25:27
changes need to be made, right? And I'm not behind the curtain.
25:31
Like, I used to be behind a curtain.
25:33
I used to have an office in the R&D Center.
25:35
I don't have an office there anymore so I don't know what's
25:37
going on there. But I think that they are now
25:40
making some significant changes. One of them just announced for
25:44
Charlotte this week in the greenhouse area, the race car
25:47
for safety. That's a really good thing.
25:50
I think that the idea was to level the playing field but in
25:54
an effort to level the playing field.
25:56
Maybe one or two kinds of racetracks, don't really like
26:00
this car. You know that if they were if
26:02
they were dating each other, they're not getting along right
26:04
now. I agree.
26:06
Yeah. So it's no secret that.
26:09
It does not perform well on short tracks.
26:12
We go to Martinsville, it's Follow the Leader.
26:15
Wilkesboro is Follow the Leader so we assume they're going to
26:18
they're going to get that fixed. so, the last NASCAR question is
26:24
The officiating of penalties and inspection.
26:30
I posed this question to all our all our friends on the NASCAR
26:34
side and you're on the NASCAR side.
26:36
So what is your opinion on penalties?
26:39
He's crazy 400,000 dollar, penalties for Rick Hendrick,
26:43
Hendrick Motorsports and the way the car is inspected.
26:49
For me. Remember I was part of that
26:52
process, right for a while so you have to you have to inspect
26:56
the car to get it, right? But I think when the fan leaves
27:00
the racetrack, they absolutely positively need to know who won.
27:05
That should be engaged. Hell yeah.
27:07
It's not be changed the week after - just so either the
27:13
inspection at the racetrack needs to be the end-all be-all.
27:16
I'm not saying you can't take Two or three cars, the R&D
27:19
Center, look what we found. And then, by the way, give them
27:23
that warning. That used to get years ago,
27:25
don't bring this car back. We've all gotten that one.
27:27
Can he defend against it? Yeah, you know, here's here's my
27:30
thing on NASCAR, Kenny, it's been so good to me.
27:36
I'm telling you, the Earnhardt, family was so good to me.
27:41
The France family was so good to me.
27:43
Bruton Smith was so good to me. I owe it to the sport and he I
27:49
want to leave the sport better and it found me and if I can do
27:54
it by SRX or I can do it with Ashlee and Meagan and Michael
28:00
the people here, the guys, in the shop, radially in Bronson
28:04
and Rusty, like I just want to make a difference.
28:07
Like it's been so good to me. Kenny, it's And I've been one of
28:12
the most blessed of men, like I don't take this lightly and when
28:16
you're younger and you're running around Full Throttle,
28:18
you do do, take it to sometimes. We even get arrogant and I was
28:24
sometimes we get rude. But my heart's filled with
28:27
gratitude right now because how many people get to do what they
28:31
love and they actually get paid to do it like now.
28:35
You know what I want to do? Kenny I want to do what you're
28:37
doing and you and I have talked about it in private.
28:39
I want to give back Yeah, yeah yeah.
28:41
That's where you have the candy conversation, right?
28:44
Yeah. You want to make it better.
28:45
So if you ask a question about Nascar or SRX or IndyCar you're
28:49
not being critical you're wanting to grow the pie, right?
28:52
You want to make this thing better?
28:54
Yeah. And I love our ownership group.
28:56
I love our drivers. I just want to make everything
28:59
better, that's all I wake up in the morning, wanting to do that.
29:02
You're a good man. Don Hawk, you know?
29:06
Love is cruel and we just don't love people.
29:11
We love love things, you know I love baseball, you know, but we
29:17
love NASCAR and we love racing, we love the sport so I really
29:21
appreciate you opening up your heart.
29:23
You seen a lot, you're the man. And let me tell you when I say
29:28
you're the man, I mean, you've got it going on.
29:30
This SRX series, is, is something you definitely put.
29:35
Stamp on, you've already made big changes in a good way.
29:39
Bring me back, Thursday night Thunder on ESPN down.
29:43
When it, when is the first date. Let's remind everybody wins the
29:46
first race. We had to Stafford on June 13th.
29:51
I'm sorry, June sorry, I'm thinking the last year we July
29:55
13th we had to Stafford and from there we go to Thunder Road in
29:58
Vermont from there we go. To back to Motor Mile in
30:02
Virginia. From Motor Mile, we go to
30:04
Berlin. In Berlin, Michigan, Eldora.
30:07
We finish up at Lucas Oil Speedway where you can see.
30:10
Kenny Wallace. You can see Kenny Wallace live
30:14
on August, the 20th. Well, you're a good good man.
30:17
Don, we appreciate your time so much.
30:20
And remember everybody, we are in podcast form.
30:23
Now we're on Spotify, iTunes. You can listen to this interview
30:28
on your way to work and Kenny Wallace.
30:32
The Kenny conversation as I always say, the Kenny Wallace
30:35
show's over. They're Kenny conversations over
30:37
here and it's one of my favorite soap, check us out and until
30:43
then the Kenny conversation just keeps on rollin.
30:46
Thank you all. Thank you.