Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Catching Up With Former NASCAR Reporter Krista Voda | Lights Out With John Roberts

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Catching Up With Former NASCAR Reporter Krista Voda | Lights Out With John Roberts · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:04
  And it is time to go lights out with Krista Voda.
• 0:08
  Krista, I miss you. It's been so long since we've
• 0:11
  talked. How are you doing?
• 0:13
  What's going on in your world? Hi.
• 0:16
  Well, it's Krista Kelly now. I mean, you knew me as Krista
• 0:19
  Kelly, but yeah, Krista Voda was on here.
• 0:22
  Well, got married. I mean, it's been 15 years.
• 0:24
  PK and I have been married and I kept my name on camera, but now
• 0:29
  that I'm not on camera, I'm like, oh, I live a normal life.
• 0:32
  And so yeah, it's. But yeah, I will still answer to
• 0:36
  Krista Vodka for you, of course. But.
• 0:38
  Which now we will get into the background of that in just a
• 0:43
  moment. But first of all, Krista, let's
• 0:44
  go way back into the Wayback Machine, OK?
• 0:47
  You were hired to anchor totally NASCAR and the first day you
• 0:52
  came into town, they didn't want to throw you to the wolves.
• 0:55
  So they said, Johnny, will you go in and host the show?
• 0:58
  This New Girl, Krista's coming in and she'll just observe,
• 1:02
  which I, I don't think it's a good thing to observe me.
• 1:04
  That's probably a bad thing to for your first day.
• 1:07
  And then I was supposed to hang around the next day when you did
• 1:10
  the show. And if you remember properly, I
• 1:13
  said after you anchored the show, I said, you better
• 1:16
  Remember Me when you're big time.
• 1:18
  I do remember that I'm still waiting for big time.
• 1:22
  So it's. But yeah, we had so much fun,
• 1:24
  didn't we? I mean, I was so blessed to get
• 1:26
  to work with you and Steve Burns and just that whole group.
• 1:30
  Gosh, back then, you know, Wheeler TV, Patty Wheeler, all
• 1:33
  the gang there, Speed Channel and then through the years, Fox
• 1:36
  and NBC. It was quite a ride.
• 1:38
  And it was it was a wonderful time.
• 1:42
  I mean, that's where I met my husband.
• 1:43
  We had our daughter, we took her on the road.
• 1:45
  And but, you know, as TV goes, I mean, ask, you know, Dick
• 1:49
  Bergeron's and Mike Masaros of the world, it doesn't always
• 1:51
  work out. And my contract was not renewed
• 1:53
  at the end of 2020. And I thought, oh, my goodness,
• 1:56
  I have to get a real job. I have to become a grown up.
• 1:59
  So I think that's what I did. I'm still waiting to grow up a
• 2:01
  little bit. I'm the same way.
• 2:04
  I'm still waiting to grow up. Well, I remember Krista, my
• 2:07
  phone call I got, it was like a 32nd phone call after 18 years
• 2:12
  with Fox. They said, hey, we just don't
• 2:15
  need you anymore. And you know, I thought for a
• 2:17
  second I was kind of hurt, kind of mad a little bit.
• 2:20
  But then I think you and me see this the same way, Krista, that
• 2:24
  these guys let us live our dream.
• 2:27
  We got paid to talk about race car drivers have fun working
• 2:32
  together and it's really hard to have any sour grapes or be
• 2:36
  better. Well, and that's the thing.
• 2:38
  I mean, I was a broadcast journalism major.
• 2:40
  My goal was to work in sports to to talk about sports.
• 2:43
  I didn't want to be at the the fire at 11:00 PM or the City
• 2:46
  Council meeting. But if that's what it would have
• 2:48
  been, I mean, if I was able to write and tell stories, I would
• 2:51
  have done it. But I was really blessed to be a
• 2:55
  weekend sports anchor in a couple different markets and
• 2:57
  then cover NASCAR. So yeah.
• 2:59
  How do you have, you know, bitterness about that?
• 3:02
  It's uh, but I still feel like now I feel like I have a skill
• 3:05
  set that doesn't get used, but at the same time it was used for
• 3:09
  20 plus years. So that's, that's not a bad day
• 3:12
  at the office. So, but I feel the same way.
• 3:14
  When I got the phone call it was umm, oh, OK, I'm not going to
• 3:17
  not going to do NASCAR you don't have a spot for.
• 3:19
  Me. Is that really?
• 3:20
  And I thought, well, OK, I'll do.
• 3:22
  I mean, I just got done doing figure skating for the Olympics
• 3:25
  and track and field or whatever it would be, you know,
• 3:27
  basketball. And it was like, no, no.
• 3:29
  And I thought, oh, my goodness, like this, you know, it was.
• 3:32
  But again, it was, you know, not.
• 3:35
  I don't miss the travel at all. The travel is, you know, so
• 3:38
  hard, so difficult. But you know, I miss
• 3:41
  storytelling, and I miss you, Johnny.
• 3:45
  And Cliffs, I miss you too. We have a whole we.
• 3:49
  Have a whole history of stories, don't we?
• 3:51
  Oh, a big history of stories and and not enough time on the
• 3:55
  Internet to tell it. But Krista, when you were when
• 3:58
  you first came in that your nickname, Krista Vodka did not
• 4:02
  come from your preference of beverage.
• 4:04
  It did not come from there. You just so happened to replace
• 4:08
  a girl whose name was Beers and Rum.
• 4:10
  And when I just heard it was Krista Vodka, automatically you
• 4:13
  were Krista Vodka. But didn't you say that you saw,
• 4:17
  didn't you find a brand of vodka?
• 4:20
  Yes. Wasn't there a story where you
• 4:21
  found something right? After years and years of calling
• 4:25
  you Krista Vodka, me and Mark Hamster were in California and
• 4:31
  probably at a bar. I don't know how that maybe that
• 4:35
  happened every once in a while, but we found that the bottle of
• 4:38
  vodka behind the bar was Krista Vodka.
• 4:42
  Spelled the proper way too with AK.
• 4:45
  With AK, that's who you. Yeah.
• 4:46
  I don't drink vodka. I kind of wish I did, but I'm a
• 4:50
  beer. I'm I'm a beer and wine girl.
• 4:52
  That's yeah, I'll take an IPA over over vodka any day.
• 4:56
  But yeah, you would always. I mean, if anyone was around us
• 4:59
  in the garage or at the TV studio, it would be like Johnny
• 5:02
  TVI always called you Johnny TV. Or do you remember my other
• 5:05
  nickname for you? The Golden Eagle.
• 5:08
  The golden eagle has landed, Yes, but I do not remember do is
• 5:13
  there? Why was that?
• 5:13
  Why did we start? There's a story behind that.
• 5:16
  There's a story behind that. We're working together on
• 5:17
  totally NASCAR. And you know, you kind of sit
• 5:19
  around the office for a while. I was reading an article about
• 5:23
  an eccentric billionaire that had all his employees.
• 5:28
  He insisted on him, his employees calling him the Golden
• 5:31
  Eagle. And he also had them at one
• 5:34
  point bring in a bunch of tree limbs and make him a nest.
• 5:39
  And so the guy was absolutely nuts and he wanted to be called
• 5:42
  the Golden Eagle. And so therefore, Christy, you
• 5:45
  just started calling me the Golden Eagle.
• 5:46
  I did. That was what it was.
• 5:47
  I knew there was a story, I just couldn't remember.
• 5:49
  But I always would say the Golden Eagle has landed.
• 5:52
  Yep, exactly. So that's where we got all that.
• 5:54
  Christy, you were and I, I really wanted to get to this
• 5:57
  point because I think there's a lot of talk these days about
• 6:01
  women in broadcasting and and women in NASCAR.
• 6:04
  And I just never thought of you as that way.
• 6:07
  I just thought of you as a Co worker and the most qualified
• 6:11
  person to be doing the job that you were doing.
• 6:15
  But at the same time, though, I think you do have to recognize
• 6:19
  that that you were really one of the first Chris, you one of the
• 6:22
  first females in that NASCAR world of TV and in the garage
• 6:27
  area to really breakthrough. But at the same time, not, not
• 6:30
  just as a female though, but as as someone who belonged there.
• 6:34
  And I always thought just did a great job.
• 6:36
  Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that.
• 6:38
  I think it's twofold. You know, you, I think as a
• 6:40
  female, you don't want to receive the job or have the job
• 6:44
  because of that. But you also it's an aesthetic
• 6:47
  medium. You know, there's, there's a
• 6:49
  reason that I have a perspective as a female that you wouldn't
• 6:52
  have. And maybe I bring that to my
• 6:53
  storytelling. So I don't think it's a knock to
• 6:56
  be set to say, you know, you're a female in the sport.
• 6:58
  What I do think is as a female, and I would say this to young
• 7:02
  girls all the time, you know, I would speak to college classes,
• 7:05
  you know, help with sports journalism classes.
• 7:07
  And I would always say, OK, if you if you the door, if the door
• 7:11
  was open for you because of that, make sure that you don't
• 7:16
  just leave it open, you kick it down.
• 7:17
  You know, don't be the person that shows up at the garage and
• 7:20
  doesn't do your research. Don't be the person who just
• 7:23
  shows up and says, well, I'm the girl, you know, that's let it be
• 7:26
  the reason that the door opened. But then it's your job to make
• 7:29
  sure it stays open. And if it's going to stay open,
• 7:31
  go ahead and kick it down while you're there.
• 7:34
  And Christy, you were part and, and I was part of the, we, we're
• 7:37
  part of a good time in NASCAR TV that we used to open up those
• 7:42
  cameras and, and just go. There were no teleprompters.
• 7:45
  There was hardly a time limit on what we were doing.
• 7:49
  And I think a it, it required a certain type of person.
• 7:52
  You had to be very thick skinned.
• 7:55
  You had to be ready to go at any time and you had to really roll
• 7:59
  with the punches. But man, for for me, and I
• 8:02
  believe you 2 I, I, I thought there was no better way to go
• 8:05
  about it. I think that lended towards the
• 8:07
  thing we did at Speed Channel and Speed TV, however many
• 8:11
  different names there were for it at the time, but that lended
• 8:15
  it to what the viewers liked. Absolutely.
• 8:19
  And I think it it shows a little bit of the trend in television,
• 8:23
  you know, when like Robin Roberts, you know, was an
• 8:26
  athlete, sportscaster. I'm Nate Burleson now on CBS
• 8:29
  MORNINGS. Michael Strahan.
• 8:32
  You know, if if you've covered sports and you've done your job
• 8:35
  in sports, you have to ad Lib. You have to be able to take a
• 8:39
  look at the field or the basketball court and say this is
• 8:42
  what's happening. I'm I have no script.
• 8:44
  I'm just telling people at home what I'm observing, you know,
• 8:47
  And I think that's why, you know, you kind of see
• 8:50
  sportscasters find their themselves in different
• 8:53
  positions now. I think if you can tell a story,
• 8:55
  if you can write and you can ad Lib and you can just talk and
• 8:59
  talk with punch, you know, don't just ramble, but find a way.
• 9:02
  What's the hook when I say this now?
• 9:04
  So I, I will probably get to this, but I'm a producer now.
• 9:07
  I'm behind the scenes in Pittsburgh for lifestyle shows.
• 9:11
  And I'm always telling reporters, it's crazy because I
• 9:14
  don't know if they really, I don't know, first of all, if
• 9:15
  they know my former life like what I did.
• 9:18
  So I sometimes I think they're like, oh, yeah, she what is she
• 9:20
  telling me how to report? But it's find the hook.
• 9:23
  Find the the reason that someone at home who has the TV on, but
• 9:27
  maybe is folding laundry or getting dinner ready or doing
• 9:30
  something with their kids, find the reason that they're going to
• 9:33
  turn to that television and listen.
• 9:36
  And if you can, if you can hook them, then you can hold them.
• 9:39
  And if you can hold them, then you get them interested.
• 9:42
  And if you have them interested, they're going to watch next
• 9:44
  week. And that's how you build
• 9:46
  viewership and and fans and and loyal followers.
• 9:49
  But you got to you got to have that hook first.
• 9:51
  But I do remember talking about the ad LED when you said that,
• 9:54
  it just made me think where were we and why were we doing?
• 9:57
  We were doing the race shop tour like we were at different race
• 9:59
  shops. If you remember standing with
• 10:00
  you at Penske and we had to do like a 30 minute show, but there
• 10:05
  was no script, no teleprompter. It was literally I looked at you
• 10:07
  and go, what do you want to talk about?
• 10:08
  What do you want to talk about? All right, Well, I'll say this.
• 10:10
  You say this. OK, go.
• 10:12
  Yeah, that was Krista. That was called preseason
• 10:15
  Thunder, I think. What was it?
• 10:17
  Was it preseason Thunder? Where we just went to different
• 10:20
  race shops, right? Yeah, we had to fill up a week's
• 10:23
  worth of programming and the first year I had to do it by
• 10:27
  myself. And then Patty Wheeler took over
• 10:30
  the the production company and I said, hey, if we're going to do
• 10:33
  this again, I cannot do it by myself.
• 10:35
  I need somebody to be with me. And she said, how about Krista?
• 10:39
  I said, yes, yes, please, because we can talk to one
• 10:43
  another. We can continue to hopefully
• 10:46
  make it at least a little bit more interesting than just me
• 10:48
  going blah blah blah by myself. So I just added the blah blah
• 10:54
  blah with you, but at least there were two of us.
• 10:56
  There were two heads going back and forth.
• 10:59
  Yeah, I remember our great boss Rick Minor saying once I really
• 11:03
  wanted to meet David Hill and from Fox, he's the president of
• 11:07
  Fox at the time. And Rick was talking to David
• 11:12
  and he said, so I walked over to Rick and asked him some stupid
• 11:16
  question to and he said, oh, you know, because Minor, remember
• 11:19
  Minor, he's talk, talk like this.
• 11:21
  And he said, he said, he said, David, meet Roberts.
• 11:25
  He's the only guy I know who could talk about absolutely
• 11:27
  nothing for two hours. But I took it as a.
• 11:30
  Compliment, compliment, huge compliment.
• 11:33
  And it goes back to I know you're kind of getting to a
• 11:35
  little bit of, you know, we came from a time where again, it
• 11:38
  wasn't scripted, it wasn't prompters, it wasn't OK say this
• 11:41
  line hit this mark. It was just conversation.
• 11:45
  And I, we had such a, I'm so glad that we were able to do
• 11:49
  NASCAR TV in the time that we did because it was just, it was
• 11:53
  a bunch of friends hanging out watching racing and telling
• 11:57
  people at home about it and taking those, those friends
• 11:59
  along for the ride. Do you watch NASCAR now, Krista?
• 12:03
  Not as much as I should. So, you know, anyone who knows
• 12:06
  my husband, PK is the mechanically inclined 1.
• 12:08
  So Phil is, you know, worked in the sport forever as well.
• 12:11
  Worked with Clint actually. I mean, that should that could
• 12:14
  be a podcast. Clint and PK stories.
• 12:16
  Oh my goodness. Hey, a future episode.
• 12:19
  That's a future episode. But you know, he's the one that
• 12:22
  would and it was always funny because if we worked together,
• 12:24
  we weren't matched up together in the pits a whole lot.
• 12:27
  But if we were together, meaning he was a videographer, I was a
• 12:30
  reporter. If you watched us, you would see
• 12:33
  how much he knew and how much I didn't compared to, you know, I
• 12:36
  would say, all right, we're going to the five, we're going
• 12:38
  to the five. And he'd say no, the two because
• 12:39
  you're trying to get stay in your leaders area.
• 12:42
  I'd say he'd say the two. I was like, no, no.
• 12:44
  And so we would split up. I'd go to the five, he'd go to
• 12:46
  the two and I'd have to come back with like my tail between
• 12:49
  my legs. He was right because he was
• 12:51
  watching the cars. I'm listening to the scanners
• 12:53
  I'm listening to. I'm getting the emotion, which
• 12:56
  which is what I liked to talk about.
• 12:57
  I never felt like it wouldn't be authentic for me to try to
• 13:00
  pretend to be a mechanic or to try to talk about the pieces of
• 13:03
  the car. I always kind of leaned into
• 13:06
  this is what I'm observing. You know, this, this tire
• 13:08
  changer is mad. He is throwing stuff down here.
• 13:10
  You know, I'm, I'm giving the observation of what I see based
• 13:12
  on emotion. But PK knows when a car's in Yaw
• 13:16
  or you know, the camber. He's he's looking at all the
• 13:19
  things that that were over my head.
• 13:21
  It was also probably whenever we go in the garage, you know, you
• 13:24
  go in there and they've got the hood up on the car and they get
• 13:26
  nervous. If you know your your eyes are,
• 13:28
  then they're peeking around. So obviously he couldn't come in
• 13:31
  with a camera, but they also didn't want his eyes to see it
• 13:33
  because they knew he knew what he was looking at.
• 13:36
  I could come in there and I'd be like, yeah, it's Krista.
• 13:38
  She's fine. She's good.
• 13:39
  Yeah, that's what we always try to.
• 13:40
  Do just enough to be dangerous. That's what I always tried to
• 13:43
  do. Krista right, was just like, get
• 13:44
  one word like camber, you know, and you could like throw it out
• 13:48
  a bunch of times. You sound like you know what
• 13:49
  you're talking about. Right.
• 13:52
  Absolutely. Look at this before you have to
• 13:54
  hit the gong. I forgot I had this.
• 13:55
  I got PK this for Christmas. See that little gong?
• 13:57
  So there's a there's a paper mache E that's for Emerson.
• 14:00
  She did that. And then there's a little gong
• 14:02
  in front of there. I bought him a little because he
• 14:03
  wanted a gong to just kind of announce things and we haven't
• 14:07
  used it and I forgot that was there.
• 14:08
  So that's nice. I like that.
• 14:10
  Maybe we could implement that into the Skipper Wiles PK Kelly.
• 14:15
  I like it episode that we're doing.
• 14:17
  Hey, So Krist, if I call today and I'm the president of a
• 14:20
  network and I want Krista to come back and be a pit reporter,
• 14:24
  would you do it? OK, Oh, it's the travel would be
• 14:28
  so hard. Emmy is in so many activities
• 14:29
  now. I, I what I would do is I would
• 14:31
  negotiate some kind of, you know, maybe not partial, but
• 14:36
  let's let's dabble. I want to be there.
• 14:38
  I want to be with the stories, but I'm not doing the the the
• 14:42
  grind. But I don't know necessarily now
• 14:44
  without, you know, the practice sessions and the qualifying the
• 14:46
  way it is. Maybe it's not the grind that
• 14:49
  that you and I knew. So I I mean, never say never.
• 14:53
  Obviously it's so much easier if P KS on the road.
• 14:57
  Emmy's on the road too. So that's kind of the dream, I
• 14:59
  guess. So I miss storytelling.
• 15:01
  I don't miss the travel. It's the travel was hard.
• 15:04
  I I know exactly what you're talking about.
• 15:07
  Yeah, I think I'd. I think I'd go back to those
• 15:09
  days in a second. Yeah, just because I don't do
• 15:13
  anything else. There's no life here.
• 15:16
  But I, I know exactly what you're saying, Krista, when you
• 15:19
  talk about sometimes you have to move on from something.
• 15:22
  But we also had that long period of time where we did that every
• 15:27
  week where there was that grind. And I think when you do look
• 15:30
  back on it, things do change that you have to have a life.
• 15:33
  And, you know, maybe if I'm president of the network, maybe
• 15:35
  I will negotiate with you. I'll, I'll, I'll give you some
• 15:38
  weekend. Here's what we need.
• 15:39
  You and I should go on the road and just do some like corporate
• 15:42
  hospital, just the deal, the the Johnny TV and vodka show and we
• 15:46
  just sort of show up. We tell old stories like this.
• 15:49
  We, you know, talk about, I think a corporate hospitality or
• 15:54
  motivational speaking tour is in our is in our future.
• 15:58
  Yeah. So Krista, you also had the
• 16:00
  opportunity on several different places to host TV shows with
• 16:04
  Kyle Petty. Kyle's like, his goal in life
• 16:08
  was to make me crack up on the air, was to make me laugh.
• 16:11
  And he came so close. There were a couple times where
• 16:14
  we're in commercial breaks and I had tears streaming down my
• 16:18
  face. And, you know, same thing with
• 16:20
  Kenny Wallace. And those guys we got to work
• 16:22
  with were great. But I think, you know, Kyle was
• 16:25
  best man in my wedding, and you spent a lot of time with him.
• 16:29
  Well, what a great dude. What a great opportunity we both
• 16:32
  had to work with one of the greatest.
• 16:34
  And PK and I say this all the time, We, he is the person we
• 16:37
  miss, You know, we, and we still talk to him a lot.
• 16:39
  We actually, they're getting ready to go on the charity ride,
• 16:41
  the Kyle Petty charity ride. We're going to try to meet up
• 16:44
  with them because they, they get pretty close to us.
• 16:47
  So we still, we went and saw they were on the scouting trip
• 16:49
  and we went to Bedford, PA and, and saw him and Morgan and the
• 16:53
  girls or the boy. I'm sorry.
• 16:54
  Emmy went and we saw the boys. So that was wild.
• 16:57
  The four of them running around. So it he's just he I've never
• 17:03
  met someone who can somehow manage to offend someone and
• 17:07
  enjoy it and and just sort of be so happy with his little jab.
• 17:13
  But also people love him like you just love him because he is
• 17:15
  just so genuine. He there is no filter.
• 17:18
  I mean, we're living in a world, a time when there is filter on
• 17:21
  everything and he somehow has managed to just be true to who
• 17:24
  he is. He does so much for the sport,
• 17:26
  so much for just fans. He is just the real deal.
• 17:30
  And yeah, we miss him a lot, but I always had fun because he
• 17:33
  would do. There's one time where I said,
• 17:35
  Oh my gosh, Kyle, I feel bad after the show.
• 17:37
  I don't know if it was a pre race or a post race.
• 17:39
  And I felt like, you know, I was peppering normally.
• 17:42
  I had pepper questions to whoever, you know, there's 22
• 17:45
  next to me and I felt like I wasn't talking to Kyle.
• 17:48
  And afterwards I said, wow, I didn't really give you a lot of
• 17:50
  the questions. He's like, no.
• 17:52
  And you know, I didn't really, I wasn't really in the mood,
• 17:54
  didn't really want to talk to you that day or didn't.
• 17:56
  So I just didn't look at you. Didn't.
• 17:57
  And I realized, yeah, like, I'm making eye contact.
• 18:00
  And that's where sometimes your question goes.
• 18:02
  But he also was he would get all my tears when we were traveling
• 18:06
  and Emmy started kindergarten and I would miss some things.
• 18:09
  I didn't miss the first day, but I missed the third day.
• 18:13
  And and he goes the third day. The third day is not no PK my
• 18:18
  husband said the third day is not a thing.
• 18:20
  The third day is not a thing. It is to me.
• 18:22
  It is to me. And so I I shared that with
• 18:25
  Kyle. And so he would like that whole
• 18:27
  weekend go. So it's the third one.
• 18:30
  You want to do this to question. It's the third.
• 18:31
  He got split plan. It just it was enough humor that
• 18:35
  it kind of got me out of my own head.
• 18:37
  So he was he was more than a than a broadcast partner.
• 18:41
  He was. He's a dear friend.
• 18:43
  No doubt You'd always say, all right, here's the deal.
• 18:45
  All right, here's the deal. Hey, here's the deal.
• 18:48
  Here's the thing. You know what I'm saying?
• 18:49
  That's a kind of what I want to say.
• 18:52
  Well, Krista, we miss you terribly.
• 18:55
  We need to make sure it's not 10 or 12 years in between times
• 18:59
  that we've talked again. Are we done?
• 19:00
  Is that it? I have more.
• 19:02
  Oh, you got more. We'll keep going I.
• 19:04
  Don't know. No, I wanted, I wanted to ask
• 19:05
  Clint how my hair looks. Does Clint told you the story?
• 19:07
  And so if Clint and I were together, he would always make
• 19:10
  fun of my hair. Great, you did that.
• 19:13
  Now. Now Clint is producer
• 19:15
  photographer extraordinaire of Lights Out.
• 19:19
  Would you make fun of Krista's hair?
• 19:21
  Yes. Yes.
• 19:22
  Answer is yes. What was wrong with your hair?
• 19:26
  We would get ready to do a stand up and I would sit there and
• 19:28
  like fix my hair and then I would get right in front of the
• 19:30
  camera and right before I was about to talk he would say
• 19:32
  thought you were going to fix your hair.
• 19:37
  I can hear that. You're gonna go, you're gonna go
• 19:38
  on camera like that. But here's the thing.
• 19:40
  I mean, my husband's the same. So the two of them together,
• 19:42
  which they traveled together does bad news.
• 19:46
  Exactly. Hey, so great.
• 19:48
  I just thought of another Kyle Petty.
• 19:51
  Christie, you were with us at the very famous and and and not
• 19:56
  so glamorous Dale Earnhardt tribute concert at.
• 20:00
  Do you remember, Oh my gosh, that was what was that?
• 20:04
  2002 I think. I think it was O2.
• 20:07
  Wow, was it just? The year after.
• 20:09
  OK, yeah, we're we're in the Hollywood Hotel.
• 20:11
  It was the July 1 year afterwards, we're in the
• 20:14
  Hollywood Hotel. And if you remember this, you
• 20:18
  you have a great memory because I do.
• 20:20
  But I have nothing else in my head but trivial things like
• 20:23
  this. But Kyle Petty looks at Darius
• 20:25
  Rucker, right? Darius Rucker's sitting in like
• 20:28
  10 minutes, 10 seconds before he goes, Hey, Darius.
• 20:31
  Yeah, let me tell you something. Wagon Wheel, it doesn't rock.
• 20:36
  It rolls. If your Wagon wheel's rocket is
• 20:38
  going to fall off and he's just dead serious, he's telling
• 20:41
  Darius that his wagon wheel rocked me like a wagon wheel.
• 20:46
  No, no, it doesn't work that way.
• 20:48
  Doesn't work that way. I can remember that event and
• 20:50
  yeah, we we were, you and I were in the Hollywood Hotel for a
• 20:53
  while. I feel like we had like a big
• 20:54
  pre kind of. Yeah, we are stuck in there.
• 20:57
  And then what's because of rain? OK.
• 21:01
  And Michael Waltrip came in. Yes, we all remember Michael was
• 21:06
  late and he crawled underneath the cameras and he got up and he
• 21:12
  sat on the set with us while there was video going on.
• 21:16
  And all of a sudden Michael appeared and he had a red Solo
• 21:21
  cup with him. He did.
• 21:22
  And somebody said, hey, Michael, can you put the cup down?
• 21:27
  To which Michael answered a lot better.
• 21:31
  It's Merlot. So that's why for many years we
• 21:35
  said it's Merlot. I just thought of another Kyle
• 21:39
  story too. So oh, good Phoenix rain delay.
• 21:43
  And so this is the point where, OK, you know, you're not getting
• 21:47
  home either. I think the race was still going
• 21:48
  on. But with this is where you know
• 21:49
  you do that scramble where you're trying to get a new
• 21:51
  flight, change your hotel, do your flight.
• 21:53
  You know it well. So I call and he's just a
• 21:57
  toddler and I call home and she's crying.
• 22:00
  We're up in the booth. I think up in the in the oh, in
• 22:02
  the old booth, the old Phoenix. Remember rickety stairs.
• 22:06
  Got to run all the stairs. To get to the no elevator.
• 22:10
  No elevator and she starts crying.
• 22:12
  You know, honey, mommy's not going to be home tonight.
• 22:14
  I'll be home tomorrow. She's crying and Kyle had walked
• 22:17
  out, probably go to the bathroom, comes back in.
• 22:19
  All he hears is a toddler baby crying.
• 22:22
  He's like, have we? We've been here long enough.
• 22:25
  Someone went and had a baby. We've been here nine months.
• 22:27
  Someone went and. Had a baby?
• 22:29
  And it was, I mean, everyone's just cracking up because it was
• 22:33
  just those lines. Yeah, I'm like, how does he come
• 22:35
  up with that stuff so fast like that?
• 22:36
  I don't know. It's Kyle, and there's only one.
• 22:40
  There's a lot going on in that mind and you never know quite
• 22:44
  what's going to come out. But that's, you know, really,
• 22:47
  Chris, when we think about that, probably the last show you did
• 22:51
  on NBC was with Kyle. And then one of the first shows
• 22:56
  we did at Fox was the tribute concert with Kyle.
• 23:02
  Yeah, isn't that crazy? It's about 20 years, right?
• 23:05
  Like 19 years. It's 20 years.
• 23:07
  It's a good run. I mean, it just was.
• 23:10
  And like I said, that's how I look at like all the friendships
• 23:12
  we made. And I mean, yeah, Phil, I don't
• 23:15
  watch racing the way I probably should.
• 23:17
  I think it's just when you're out of it, you know, I'm.
• 23:19
  I mean, I was a college basketball girl at heart.
• 23:22
  And but NASCAR gets in your, you know, gets in your bones a
• 23:25
  little bit, you know, and you start to care about the people.
• 23:28
  There's just so I mean, the PR reps that's I miss, you know,
• 23:31
  it's been such a tough year with, you know, the things that
• 23:34
  have happened with with who we've lost.
• 23:36
  And I think it's like you, you hear that and will Phil will
• 23:39
  read something or I'll read something.
• 23:41
  And so, but I mean, for people who are listening, I don't have
• 23:44
  two husbands. It's PK and Phil are the same
• 23:46
  person. Many personalities, OK, we want
• 23:49
  to clear that up. Many personalities when actually
• 23:52
  he wears, he wears mechanic shirts.
• 23:54
  Today he was Sean because he likes to go out to like flea
• 23:56
  markets and get those old mechanic shirts because he's
• 23:58
  working on his tractors all the time.
• 24:00
  Today I think he was Sean. He'll he'll be Ed tomorrow.
• 24:03
  But yeah, it's just, but I you miss the people behind the
• 24:06
  scenes, all those friendships because you'd be in the garage
• 24:08
  for so many hours. It's not the drivers that you
• 24:11
  would have the time with necessarily.
• 24:13
  It was, you know, the the PR reps and just all the people,
• 24:17
  the other writers. There's just, it's just such a
• 24:19
  great group of people, so many talented people and no one more
• 24:23
  talented than you. Johnny TV.
• 24:25
  Aw, Krista, that's so nice. That's music to my ears.
• 24:29
  Well, Krista Vodka, I am so happy to talk to you.
• 24:34
  I've missed you terribly. And let's do it again sometime
• 24:37
  very soon. I look forward to it.