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Get To Know NASCAR Executive Ben Kennedy! · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:00
  Hello everyone and welcome back to Kenny Conversation, brought
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  to you by Jags, the leader in high performance aftermarket car
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  parts. Remember to go to jags.com for
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  everything you need to fix your vehicle or your hot rod up.
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  Deep breath, I set it on, XI said.
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  This is a big one for me. I've been a big fan of this man
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  as a race car driver. Ben Kennedy.
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  Ben, how are you doing? I'm doing good.
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  Kenny, how are you doing? Thanks for having me on today.
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  Well, it's it's sunny here in Saint Louis.
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  Are you in Daytona or Charlotte? I am in beautiful Daytona Beach,
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  FL. It is sunny and about 75° right
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  now. It's it's a perfect day for for
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  a race. Daytona 500 is over, but it's
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  it's nice here. Yes, and that's what Ken Squire
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  used to say. Or no, maybe.
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  Maybe with somebody else. It's a beautiful day for a motor
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  race. Well, well, Ben, I want to start
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  out like this. Who is Ben Kennedy?
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  And I want to say a couple things about you.
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  And if I get them wrong, I want you to interrupt me.
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  But a lot of people don't know everything about you.
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  You're very young, so let's start like this.
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  Ben Kennedy, 32 years old. Correct.
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  We're off to a good start. Yeah.
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  Hey, hey. I'm one for one, baby.
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  One for one. Yeah.
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  You can start. Right there if you want.
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  Yeah, See you later, everybody. Ben Kennedy, NASCAR Senior Vice
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  President of Racing Development and Strategy, You started
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  working at NASCAR March 10th, 2022, Is that right?
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  I started working about six years ago, so late January of
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  2018. Maybe that would, maybe that was
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  your position. You that might be.
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  That might be my most recent position that I have on the
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  Racing Development Strategy team.
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  Yeah, that that's a that's a big some big shoes to fill.
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  And we're going to talk about all this a little later, a
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  little bit more about who you are.
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  We all know you. It seems silly that maybe I'm
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  introducing you, but I find you very interesting and I want to
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  thank you for letting me talk to you.
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  So Bill France Senior was your great grandfather and he started
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  NASCAR. So you're as close.
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  I mean, you are, you are NASCAR am am I accurate in this?
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  Yes. So my, my great grandfather to
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  your point exactly, Bill France senior started NASCAR in 1948.
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  It was incorporated 76 years ago and one month now.
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  So he founded it and then my grandfather Bill France junior
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  obviously was involved in LED it for a number of years and then
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  Brian, Lisa and and Jim as well and Lisa and Jim obviously
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  involved till this day. So a second generation, a third
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  generation and I guess myself as a fourth generation all still
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  being involved in the in the business.
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  I got to tell you, I hardly know your Mama, but I love your
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  mother. And I'm going to tell you why,
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  because I was. I was in a suite at Iowa
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  Speedway and you were racing and your mom came up there and now
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  I'm a little nervous because you know your your mom is the boss,
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  right? You know, your great
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  grandfather's gone, your your grandpa's gone.
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  It's your mom and and and Jim France.
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  So your mom comes up in the suite and I just got my eyes
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  glued to her and just like a proud mother, she was watching
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  you race that day. And I thought to myself, she's a
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  racer. So is your mom a racer?
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  She is. She absolutely is.
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  I I never had the opportunity to actually see her watching me,
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  obviously because I was in the car.
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  But I've heard many accounts of people being in, you know, the
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  grandstands or suites or whatever it might be and
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  watching her, you know, watch me compete on the racetrack.
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  And you know, they said that she was always so nervous.
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  She always told me she was so nervous.
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  I never, obviously never got to see any videos or pictures of
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  that or anything, but I think she got better with it as I got
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  into the, you know, the the truck and Xfinity Series and the
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  the latter part of my racing career, she started to get a
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  little more comfortable with it. But you know, she was definitely
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  nervous, like I imagine a lot of, you know, parents who put
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  their kids behind the wheel. And then so funny story, when I
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  started racing, I used to run and it's a little pro truck
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  division down here at New Smyrna Speedway for a number of years.
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  And and she was smack talking me for quite a while saying she
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  could do it and she could do it faster than me and all that
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  stuff. So I said OK, came on, we'll
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  we'll put you behind the wheel of a car for a couple laps and
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  see how you do. So she got a fire suit, she put
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  a helmet on, we got her in a Hans, we got her set up with a
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  radio and she went out for a few laps and she did everything the
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  exact opposite of what you're supposed to do, right.
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  So typically fast run the straight away and you slow for
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  the corners. Well, she would actually gun it
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  in the corners and then she would come off the throttle on
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  the straightaway. So she was like, she was faster
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  than me as soon as he got to the corner.
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  But I would beat her down the straightaway every single time.
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  And then she looped it around on her last run and we said, OK,
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  that's it, you're done. We're going to back it up and go
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  home after this. Well I I guess you could say I'm
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  intimidated by her because she holds such a high position and
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  and same as you, I'm a little intimidated by you.
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  But I like you because you're a racer.
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  And let me let me tell you that I I did sleep OK last night but
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  I was struggling with how I wanted in order to do this.
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  It was like should I talk to Ben about the great TV numbers?
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  Should I talk to Ben about NASCAR gaining so much right now
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  in every way? Should I talk to him What, what
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  made NASCAR lose its grip in 2006?
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  We'll talk about those subjects in a little bit.
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  And I would encourage everybody to listen in because I I will.
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  I will talk to Ben one time about what happened to our sport
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  when it fell from grace just a little bit.
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  But I find you more intriguing. Let's start like this.
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  I want to talk about you as a race car driver.
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  So I looked at your stats. You're a race car driver, you
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  raced in 17 NASCAR Xfinity races, 72 NASCAR Craftsman Truck
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  Series, and you won Bristol in 2016.
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  That is no joke. I want to highlight that Bristol
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  is where racers become racers. So you are a real race car
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  driver and you're a good one. Not because you own NASCAR.
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  You're simply a really good race car driver.
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  Now. I'm not done. 26 top 10s in the
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  NASCAR Truck Series, one pole in the Truck Series, 2014 Truck
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  Series, Rook of the year. And listen, I know I could go on
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  and on when I tell you that stuff.
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  What goes through your mind right now when I tell you that
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  you were a really good race car driver?
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  What goes through my mind is I should have won more races.
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  Winning at Bristol, winning at Bristol was so special.
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  I mean if if you could win any track outside of Daytona, for me
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  Bristol was was up there on my list.
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  So to be able to win there was incredibly special and meant a
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  lot to our team and you know, our family and and friends and
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  everyone who who all really helped get me to that place that
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  I was in 2016. And you know, I I think for me
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  the, the challenging part about it is, you know, I raced through
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  2017 which was my last year competing part time the NASCAR
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  Xfinity Series. I commuted kind of part of the
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  time with DMS and then the other part of the time with RCR.
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  And I would say those last two or three years of racing was
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  when I finally felt like I got my feet underneath of me as a
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  driver. You know, my confidence started
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  to get up. I felt more comfortable going to
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  a lot of the tracks that I had already competed at a few times
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  At that point. I understood the cars a lot
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  more. You know, it took me a while to
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  really understand how the trucks race, just being so air
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  dependent with the amount of downforce and side force that
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  they had. I really love driving the the
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  Xfinity cars 'cause they didn't have a a lot of downforce and
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  you know, you could really wheel them.
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  So yeah, I'd say my last two or three years I felt like I was
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  finally getting my feet underneath me.
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  And then I decided to hang up the fire suit for the business
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  suit and come over to the NASCAR side of the world.
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  The business side of the world, I should say.
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  But you know, as a great career, I, I learned so much being a
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  driver. I made so many great
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  relationships. And I think what's really neat
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  to see today is being on the company side of it.
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  You know all the folks I worked with, whether they were my crew
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  chief, my car chief, mechanics, engineers, spotters to see where
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  they're at. A lot of them are sitting on pit
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  boxes of some of the best cup drivers that we have today.
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  They were in Austin, TX this past weekend.
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  I think it's so neat to see some of the people that I got to work
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  with and and you know see them continue throughout their career
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  and and be in one of our national series today.
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  So it was it was a great experience and I would go back
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  and and do it over again every single day.
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  We call this Kenny conversation because of, you know, there's a
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  thought that if you interview people, you're a professional
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  and you, you ask them the question as shorter as you can.
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  Well, first of all, I'm not a professional.
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  I'm a race car driver and I'm going to ask the questions the
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  way I want to ask them, even if they're long.
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  So let me start like this when I ask you this question.
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  My wife and myself are watching the Netflix special right now,
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  The Crown. So it's about over there in
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  Buckingham Palace and you know, King Edward said, I don't want
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  nothing to do with this. I fell in love with a girl.
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  I'm leaving you. You all have at it.
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  Kind of like, you know, Harry and Meghan Markle doing right
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  now. So King George said, how dare
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  you give me this burden because nobody wants to be the king of
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  England. It it's a burden.
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  You can't live your life. I started thinking about you
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  while I was watching this last night and I thought to myself,
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  did Ben really want to stay a race car driver or is he giving
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  this burden that he has to start his stint at running NASCAR?
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  Because it is. NASCAR is family owned now.
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  I pretty much know you're going to lie to me, but that's OK.
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  Are you ready for the lie? Yes.
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  What's the lie? Or you want the truth?
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  I, you know, you know, I'm having fun with you.
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  So no 100%. Is it?
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  Is it a burden? Are you OK with it?
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  Did you struggle having to quit being a race car driver and and
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  get ready because we know your succession your you will be the
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  boss after you get done with all this stuff you're doing right
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  now. Give me your give me your
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  thoughts when you said OK, I'm going to quit racing.
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  So I haven't seen the crown. It's good and I don't envy being
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  in in those shoes at all. I'll have to check it out.
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  I I thought we're actually going to talk about full speed, but
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  this is this is a good curveball.
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  So, no, I mean, you know, at the end of the day, I, I, I had a
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  great racing career for 11 years.
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  I got to go to so many cool places.
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  I got to travel a lot of tracks. I got to see the sport through a
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  different lens, a really unique lens of being a competitor every
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  single week. And you know, I just, I I took
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  probably two, 2 1/2 months in that offseason.
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  And I looked at myself in the mirror and I said, you know, I'm
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  25 years old, I'm young, I'm hungry.
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  I want to do more. I want to be productive.
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  I want to have a positive impact on this sport.
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  I care about the future of this sport and and I think I can do
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  that in in a small way. And I think one of those ways is
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  taking the leap of faith out of being a race car driver and and
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  coming to the business world. So, you know, I spent the better
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  part of two months talking to Steve O'Donnell, Brent Dewar,
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  Steve Phelps, a number of folks and you know, really came up
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  with this position. You know, that kind of naturally
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  made sense. I raced in the Truck Series for
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  the better part of a little over three years.
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  And you know I had the opportunity to come to NASCAR
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  and and work on the Truck Series in particular Brad Moran and you
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  know help kind of start, you know, gaining my my leadership
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  abilities in in this world and you know talk to friends and
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  family. It was a difficult decision and
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  you know it was a little bit spur of the moment that you know
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  I gave. I think it was Steve O'Donnell,
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  a call on a day in the middle of January and I said hey, I'm, I'm
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  coming. I'm committing to this.
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  I'm going to hang up my my fire suit full time for now and I'm.
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  I'm coming to NASCAR. And I was 90% there.
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  I don't know if I was 100% but after that call it made it so
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  much more real for me. And then you know, after my
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  first week being on the business side of the sport, I've just
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  never looked back. So you know, people ask me all
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  the time, you know, how much does it hurt coming to the track
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  and and not being behind the wheel of a race car.
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  And I think you could probably say this, and I know there's a
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  lot of drivers that have competed for a long time and you
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  know they retire or they hang their their helmet up and you
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  know they're coming to the track as a spectator or fan and you
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  know you've been in those shoes. It's not easy at all.
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  It is difficult to do, especially at tracks that you
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  love to race and cars that you love to compete in.
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  And it was difficult for a while.
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  But you know now this is the new norm for me.
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  I I haven't race competitively since homestead of 2017.
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  I jumped in a late model last year which was fun.
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  But I'll, I'll have to. I'll have to find a couple races
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  sometimes once things come down here to to to do it again.
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  Man, that is absolutely fantastic.
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  I like where you said you were 90% that.
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  That shows you're a real race. I I want to brag on you for a
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  minute. I know people just like you, the
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  great Rodger Penske, the captain, he was a great race car
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  driver and and you know, he got those dealerships going and he
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  said, hey, I got to go into my business, the great Rick
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  Hendrick, you know, same, same thing there are there are people
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  just like you where it's like OK, you know, I can drive the
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  race car till I'm seems like nowadays they're going to a 42,
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  whatever you want to do. But, you know, when you're 42
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  years old, you go, OK, what's next?
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  So congratulations because I feel like you put yourself right
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  there, like a Rodger Penske, a Rick Hendrick, Chip Ganassi.
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  These were great race car drivers and they had to take
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  care of the business. And so congratulations, Ben.
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  Appreciate you telling me your your story.
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  Yeah, good stuff. Well, OK.
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  You know, for some of the fans, you know, there's 30% of the
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  fans that want me to rough you up and then there's 70% that
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  don't want me to rough you up and.
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  Bring it on. Yeah, right.
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  Well, you know, we're not going to do that.
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  And we're going to talk about some of these things.
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  Like, you know, there there's an old song, it's becoming older
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  and and the song slows down and it says let's get to the good
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  part. So we're going to get to the
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  good part right now. You talked about full speed at
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  Netflix just now. I threw you a curveball with the
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  crown, which reminded me of of, you know, the France family.
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  So I had to throw that in there. So we're looking at, we're five
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  races in, we see attendance up, we see TV ratings up.
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  Now I just looked at Mike Joy on X, who is the voice of NASCAR on
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  FOX, and Mike Joy said up is up. So right now NASCAR is up and
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  it's doing really, really good right now.
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  So for me, I love NASCAR, your family and NASCAR provided an
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  incredible life for me, one that I'm forever grateful for.
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  We went through some tough times, but now we're going way
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  up quick. So as a good engineer, a good
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  competitor, why are we doing so good this year?
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  Yeah, I would say it's it's a plethora of things and you know
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  a lot of it I think is a momentum that's been built over
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  the past couple of years, whether that is the next Gen.
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  car, you know some of the things we're doing from scheduled
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  perspective, some of the things we're doing from marketing
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  standpoint. But I think if you, if you look
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  at the last couple of months you mentioned Netflix full speed or
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  NASCAR full speed on Netflix. You know 88% of the people that
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  turned tuned into that first week of Netflix or NASCAR full
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  speed on Netflix didn't tune into the championship race in
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  Phoenix last season. So if you think about both, you
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  know creating content and trying to build our drivers names and
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  brands and their personalities and being able to display that,
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  Netflix is a great non traditional platform for us,
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  right. You have fans 12% that tuned
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  into the championship race that happened to also watch the
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  Netflix show. But then you had a lot of people
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  that that didn't tune into that show as well.
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  And I think you know we're starting to see some of the
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  results of that and a lot of people that tune into that first
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  episode are watching all the way through.
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  So I think that's been a a good opportunity for us.
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  I think the racing product has been fantastic this year.
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  You know, if you go back to the Atlanta race from start to
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  finish, probably one of the more exciting races that we've seen
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  in a really long time, one of the closest finishes in NASCAR
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  history. I mean I don't know about you, I
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  I don't know the last time I've seen a three wide finish like
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  that other than you know maybe Talladega when they came across
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  the line. But Talladega wasn't even that
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  close. So you know a lot of storylines
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  and narratives that came out of that Bristol a couple weeks ago,
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  some great traditional short track racing that reminded me of
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  my racing days of being at Pensacola Speedway and
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  Greenville Pickens. And you had to go into tire
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  management mode and you had some of the drivers that that were
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  competing that you know went out there and they they blew their
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  tires off and they saw the repercussions of that.
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  And then you had some of the veterans that have seen you know
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  what tire management means and they save their tires and they
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  were there at the end of the race.
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  So you know I think it's it's a combination of things at the end
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  of the day, you know I think Netflix certainly a part of that
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  I would say the racing product and then just the strong
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  momentum that we have in this early part of the season of you
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  know all the narratives and and storylines that we usually have
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  at this point of the year. So it's it's been good on the
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  ratings and viewership front. Hopefully we can keep that trend
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  and you know see it through as we we get into this portion of
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  the season. My Big Brother, Rusty Wallace is
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  in your NASCAR Hall of Fame. He he's one of the best.
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  He's intense. People say to me, how do you get
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  along with your brother Rusty so much?
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  And well, first of all, I love him.
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  If it weren't for Rusty, I wouldn't be where I'm at.
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  You know, sometimes people are hard to understand, but I
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  understand my brother. And he said this to me.
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  He said Herman, which is my nickname.
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  He says it's sad to say, but you have to remind people because
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  people remember what they want to.
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  So you were pretty much a baby. And respectfully when Fox said,
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  you know, we're going to go against ESPN, we're going to
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  start FS1. So there, there was a period of
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  time when you were young. You know, we had Fox, we had
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  NBCCBS, and now they all wanted to start their own sports
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  company and you know, they wanted to go against ESPN.
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  So Brian, your uncle and one other executive, they came to me
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  at Texas and they said, Kenny, would you do NASCAR 360?
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  And I said, I said tell me about NASCAR 360.
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  I. Remember that, OK, NASCAR 360 is
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  exactly what full speed is right now.
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  NASCAR NASCAR 360 took me from here to here and I said why are
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  we doing this? And they said we want everybody
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  to know what these individuals are about.
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  So my point is this, we're just repeating our history somewhere
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  in there we got lost and when when full speed come up, I'm
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  like, well this we did this did did we lose our way a little bit
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  and and then and then have to go back and grab full speed from
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  Netflix. Yeah, it's it's a good question.
• 22:03
  And you know I I remember watching as a kid, I think it
• 22:07
  was on Speed Channel back in the day.
• 22:08
  It. Was all it was.
• 22:10
  It saved my career. It saved my career.
• 22:13
  It was amazing. And it's, I mean, to your point,
• 22:15
  it's exactly what Netflix Full Speed is.
• 22:18
  It's a different production company.
• 22:20
  It's different people, it's different drivers, it's a
• 22:22
  different distribution channel. But it is, it's very similar to
• 22:26
  what we did a little over a decade ago.
• 22:29
  And you know it is a huge opportunity for us to to tell
• 22:33
  the stories and share the personalities of a lot of the up
• 22:36
  and coming drivers that we have today.
• 22:38
  And you know, I think if you, if you think back, you know, let's
• 22:42
  say a decade ago, 20/14/2015, you know, right, you had, you
• 22:48
  had a lot of big names in the sport that we're still
• 22:50
  competing. Jimmie Johnson, Danica Patrick,
• 22:52
  Dale Earnhardt Junior, Jeff Gordon, and over the course of,
• 22:56
  you know, four or five years, all those drivers are tired.
• 23:00
  They had huge, huge following. Some of them were on NASCAR 360
• 23:03
  back in the day. Some of them just naturally
• 23:05
  built their names and their brands.
• 23:08
  And you know, I think a little bit of that was probably a
• 23:11
  result of, you know the 2002, 2005, 2006 kind of peak that we
• 23:16
  saw as a sport. And I think since you know those
• 23:19
  drivers have retired, we have a crop of new drivers that have a
• 23:23
  ton of talent, they have a ton of energy, they have a lot of
• 23:25
  passion and they have, they have some personality as well.
• 23:28
  And we have to find a way to somehow, you know, tell those
• 23:31
  stories of those up and coming drivers in a way that is both on
• 23:36
  the track but off the track. And I think one of the unique
• 23:40
  things about our sport that you could argue is a little bit of a
• 23:43
  competitive disadvantage to other sports is we're very
• 23:47
  unique in the sense of, you know, you don't have that
• 23:50
  hometown pride necessarily. You know, I think of being here
• 23:53
  in Daytona Beach, FL, people cheer for the Jacksonville
• 23:56
  Jaguars and they cheer for the Gators and they cheer cheer for
• 23:59
  UCF. And it's a little more difficult
• 24:02
  for a non fan to associate themselves with.
• 24:06
  Hey, I'm going to cheer for this guy on on Sunday and TuneIn and
• 24:09
  watch every single week. So what do we have?
• 24:11
  We have their personalities, we have their names, we have their
• 24:14
  brands. And you know, I think creating
• 24:17
  something like we did with full speed gives us the opportunity
• 24:21
  and platform for the drivers to, you know, get in front of
• 24:24
  millions of people and show themselves a little bit, show
• 24:27
  who they are, show what they represent.
• 24:30
  And you know that that hopefully will give people a hook to be
• 24:33
  able to say that, you know, I like this driver.
• 24:36
  I'm going to be a Christopher Bell fan.
• 24:37
  I'm going to be a Bubba Wallace fan.
• 24:39
  I'm going to be, you know, a Joey Logano fan because, you
• 24:43
  know, I I like them, I associate with them.
• 24:45
  I have things that we have in common with each other.
• 24:48
  And you know, that really creates fandom at the end of the
• 24:51
  day. It's something that that we talk
• 24:53
  a lot about internally at NASCAR and I think star power and
• 24:57
  creating big names and and names that people can associate
• 25:02
  themselves with is a huge opportunity for us as you think
• 25:05
  about the future for sure. Yeah, well said.
• 25:08
  And basically you just said we have to create these superstars
• 25:12
  all over again. Listen, I don't want your job
• 25:16
  because when you really put it that way accidentally, you know
• 25:21
  Bill Elliott would say Herman, it's all about timing and
• 25:25
  circumstances and here all of a sudden your most popular, your
• 25:30
  greatest drivers within a couple years of each other, they
• 25:33
  retired. That would be hard on any sport.
• 25:36
  You look at Michael Jordan or your Tiger Woods.
• 25:39
  When they quit their sport, it it's hard on those sports.
• 25:43
  So I don't want your job, however I I want to help.
• 25:48
  So I really like this William Byron kid.
• 25:52
  He wins the Daytona 500, he wins Texas.
• 25:56
  I have him on Kenny conversation about 3 weeks ago and my
• 26:01
  analytics myself and Charlie Marlo were like, you know,
• 26:06
  nobody's paying attention to William.
• 26:08
  And it really bothered me. I'm like, you know, I was
• 26:11
  getting way more views on like an Elliot Sadler.
• 26:15
  So then all of a sudden I was real happy to see that you all
• 26:18
  are building this new building, I believe in, in Concord, NC.
• 26:24
  So is, is this part of the process at NASCAR for you to get
• 26:27
  these drivers out in America? You know, for people to know who
• 26:32
  they are, 'cause they are really good drivers.
• 26:36
  Yeah, they're, I mean, to your point, Kenny, they're they're
• 26:38
  great drivers. They're probably some of the
• 26:40
  best drivers that that we may have had in the history of our
• 26:43
  sport and and we've got to find a way to to tell those stories.
• 26:47
  So as you mentioned we're we're we've finished building a
• 26:50
  building that's right next to our R&D center up in Concord NC,
• 26:55
  our NASCAR productions building. We probably need to come up with
• 26:58
  a a more creative name than that something something a little
• 27:01
  more fun but we call it our NASCAR productions building up
• 27:05
  there. But you know, it has a handful
• 27:07
  of studios, it has podcast rooms in it, a bunch of control rooms.
• 27:13
  And you know that's going to be the hub for every bit of content
• 27:16
  that is coming out on social and digital platforms and be doing a
• 27:20
  little bit of live production from there.
• 27:22
  Not a ton. But you know, having it there in
• 27:25
  Concord, North North Carolina was strategically placed to be
• 27:28
  close to a lot of the teams and drivers, right?
• 27:31
  You know, if there's a driver, whether it's a cup driver,
• 27:34
  Xfinity driver or truck driver, an ARCA driver that wants to
• 27:37
  come down and and shoot content with us, unveil a new paint
• 27:40
  scheme, announce a new partner, you know, we wanted to create
• 27:44
  this as a hub to be able to both, you know, create content
• 27:48
  but then also distribute, distribute content and and
• 27:52
  produce it too. So we're really excited about
• 27:54
  the building. I mean we're only skinning the
• 27:56
  surface for what it can really do and what the capabilities
• 27:59
  are, bringing on some new people to help lead a lot of the
• 28:03
  content creation as well. And you know, we really think
• 28:06
  it's, it's a feature, right? People are consuming content
• 28:10
  more than they ever have. They're consuming it in very
• 28:13
  different ways than they did 20 years ago.
• 28:16
  And we've got to be on the forefront of that, right?
• 28:18
  You know whether it's live content and people tuning in you
• 28:21
  know this weekend to Fox Sports 1 for a live race or on
• 28:25
  Instagram, on X on Facebook, Tiktok.
• 28:28
  We've got to meet all of our fans and non fans where they're
• 28:32
  at today and and we got to do that through content.
• 28:35
  So it's a it's a huge opportunity for us.
• 28:38
  It's a huge green space. I'm I'm really excited about
• 28:40
  that building and what's going to do and and like I said we are
• 28:44
  just learning some of the capabilities of it.
• 28:46
  I think it's only going to scale up from here.
• 28:49
  I AM 60 years old and I worked, you know, I was a race car
• 28:54
  driver. I ran 905 NASCAR races and I
• 28:58
  would get out of the NASCAR Cup car.
• 29:00
  You know, I'm driving for Furniture Row, helping them get
• 29:03
  their new team started and I would get out of the the race at
• 29:06
  Dover 500 lap race and I would immediately be in my fire suit
• 29:11
  and jump on the speed TV set or FS1 set.
• 29:15
  So when social media first started, I'll tell you my story
• 29:21
  later. It's a really, really good story
• 29:24
  on why I was the first to social media.
• 29:28
  It helped me acquire sponsorship to run the NASCAR Xfinity race.
• 29:32
  But I knew this before anybody and and I had people making fun
• 29:36
  of me because I was on X and I was on Facebook and I'm like,
• 29:40
  keep laughing buddy now. Now it's come my way.
• 29:44
  So last week in Bristol, I took a picture of the person in
• 29:51
  charge of social media at Fox and Bob Potgrass and I.
• 29:57
  And the caption was they made fun of us back then.
• 30:00
  Not anymore. So you know I'm always honest on
• 30:03
  here. So Craddock, Steve Craddock, my
• 30:06
  boss says remind me who made fun of you?
• 30:09
  And I want to say you did Steve, but in in your defense.
• 30:15
  Now follow my timeline, all all the famous drivers retire and
• 30:20
  and we have this, this unbelievable rippling effect of
• 30:24
  this new digital era. How to how to go about this?
• 30:29
  I mean, you had this perfect storm those times, you know, how
• 30:35
  do I deal with social media? Because all they do is argue on
• 30:39
  social media. You had to figure out how to
• 30:41
  turn that into a positive. And I did, and I see you all
• 30:45
  doing it now. This was a lot for you to
• 30:48
  handle. Yeah, it was for sure.
• 30:51
  And I mean, you know, to your point you were a pioneer of
• 30:55
  social media in the NASCAR world as it started to come, come on
• 30:58
  you know, a little over 10 years ago or so and that's now paying
• 31:02
  dividends. And you know we've got to do it,
• 31:04
  certainly you know, as a sanctioning body and and as a
• 31:08
  sport. But you know, it's also the
• 31:10
  responsibility of of teams and drivers and the rest of the
• 31:13
  industry to to get on social media, engage with fans.
• 31:16
  Because you know, I think it's a great platform to have one to
• 31:20
  one relationships with people and and really be able to to
• 31:24
  tell their story, answer questions, do Q&A S, put videos
• 31:28
  like this podcast on it and do all sorts of things.
• 31:31
  So you know it's it's something we've obviously focused on a lot
• 31:36
  in Charlotte. It's something we're going to
• 31:37
  focus on a lot with the production center and and
• 31:40
  something that you know, we talked about this Driver
• 31:42
  Ambassador program as another example of it.
• 31:45
  You know, how do we, how do we find ways to get drivers really
• 31:48
  excited about not only, you know, going on and doing late
• 31:51
  night shows and, you know, TV hits and radio interviews, but
• 31:54
  also, you know, social and and digital content and and engaging
• 31:59
  with a lot of the fans through that.
• 32:01
  So I just remembered who was behind me the whole time.
• 32:06
  I had one person call me and said man this is incredible what
• 32:11
  you're doing. You're sharing videos inside
• 32:13
  your shop and it was Paul Brooks at NASCAR at that time.
• 32:17
  I don't yeah, Paul was brilliant at that time.
• 32:19
  So and I don't know what he's up to now.
• 32:22
  I I see him on Instagram over in Italy with his kids and I and I
• 32:26
  like that. Have you thought of an alumni?
• 32:30
  I go down here to Busch Stadium and and I and I see you know
• 32:35
  everybody loves your past. Everybody loves, you know, Rusty
• 32:40
  Wallace or Bill Elliott or Jimmie Johnson.
• 32:45
  Have you thought of maybe giving these guys a polo shirt with
• 32:49
  their name on it? Alumni.
• 32:51
  A a different type of hard cards where this this alumni can come
• 32:56
  to the racetrack hang out and and the fans go, oh look,
• 33:01
  there's Bill Elliott. Have you thought about an
• 33:03
  alumni? We have, we're actually, we're
• 33:06
  working on a, a alumni program right now actually.
• 33:10
  Yeah, the timing is impeccable here, but we've been working on
• 33:14
  it for the past several months. And I mean, you know, I know a
• 33:19
  handful of drivers that that were competing in the Cup Series
• 33:22
  and retired and you know they kind of left the sport or
• 33:25
  distance themselves a little bit.
• 33:27
  And you know, I think part of that was just, hey, what is my
• 33:30
  role and how can I be helpful and and why should I come to a
• 33:32
  racetrack? You know, I'll, I'll say myself,
• 33:35
  it's difficult to come to a racetrack when you don't have
• 33:37
  anything to do, when you're a fan there and you're watching
• 33:40
  the race. I enjoy it.
• 33:41
  I love it. But if I'm coming in a, you
• 33:44
  know, in a professional role, I actually want to be productive
• 33:47
  and and and to be valuable at the end of the day.
• 33:50
  And I think that's that's where a lot of drivers heads are at.
• 33:53
  So we're working on an alumni program.
• 33:54
  I don't have all the details around it.
• 33:56
  We're still fine tuning it, but I think it'll be a neat program
• 34:00
  not only to get you know a lot of our alumni drivers out to the
• 34:04
  racetrack and you'll have them come and bring their their
• 34:07
  friends and family and enjoy a weekend.
• 34:09
  But then also you know opportunities for our fans to to
• 34:12
  go and see them you know put them on a stage for for pre race
• 34:16
  or out in the midway or fan zone.
• 34:18
  So you know we're we're kind of crafting what exactly that's
• 34:22
  going to look like. But you know I think to your
• 34:24
  point exactly like we've got to focus on you know, building the
• 34:28
  names that we have today, but then also finding a way to
• 34:30
  celebrate our history and our roots and and what really got us
• 34:34
  to where we're at. And a lot of that are the
• 34:36
  drivers that competed for a number of years.
• 34:38
  So I'm, I'm excited about it. I'm excited about us kind of
• 34:42
  putting a fine, a fine tooth comb to it and and share more on
• 34:45
  it. But it's it's going to be a neat
• 34:46
  program from what I've seen. Might I add that some of these
• 34:50
  great drivers, they get embarrassed, but they do have
• 34:53
  egos. I I think you should put their
• 34:55
  name on a polo shirt with NASCAR on the other side.
• 34:59
  NASCAR here Bill Elliott's name here I.
• 35:02
  Like that. OK.
• 35:04
  And and ask them, say, would you please wear your championship
• 35:07
  ring? And here's why I say this, Ben,
• 35:10
  it's a generation gap. You know, some of these people
• 35:14
  like me, I decided to let my hair go Gray.
• 35:16
  You know, I was dying it for TV, but sometimes, you know, a kids
• 35:20
  25 years old, he's like, who's that?
• 35:22
  But he sees the name. Oh my God, look, that's that's
• 35:26
  Rusty Wallace when I was born. I heard of him, but I didn't
• 35:30
  know really what he looked like. So I think it would be cool if,
• 35:34
  you know, you made some polos for these great drivers.
• 35:37
  NASCAR logo here. Their name over here.
• 35:41
  Love it. OK, let's change.
• 35:43
  Let's change. I think that'd be great.
• 35:45
  Yeah, so do I I think it's awesome.
• 35:47
  We'll put it in the opera for sure.
• 35:49
  That's a good one. Yeah, well you listen, it's it's
• 35:51
  like I said I'm not kissing your ass.
• 35:53
  I love NASCAR. You you guys, you know, I made a
• 35:57
  lot of money in NASCAR and and you guys, you know, I I love
• 36:01
  this sport. I can only talk bad about it so
• 36:04
  much, you know, and it's it's not fun you know to talk about a
• 36:09
  tough situation in the end. I love, love NASCAR.
• 36:14
  I remember seeing, listen, I'm I'm at the age where and I I
• 36:20
  hate to say this, but I got to say this.
• 36:22
  I remember seeing Big Bill on the back straight away in his
• 36:27
  dying days in a wheelchair with eating, eating a hot dog with a
• 36:31
  little bit of mustard right here.
• 36:34
  That's how much I love NASCAR. And I remember the man, your
• 36:38
  great grandfather started it. So, so for the people that want
• 36:41
  me to talk crap about NASCAR, they can go swat flies.
• 36:45
  I will when it's a situation. Sure.
• 36:49
  Yeah. All right.
• 36:51
  So we all need to do that every now and then, right?
• 36:53
  I mean, we're, we're all humans. At the end of the day.
• 36:56
  NASCAR as a sport or as an LLC isn't going to be perfect.
• 37:00
  We're we're going to make decisions that are going to move
• 37:03
  the sport in a good direction. We're going to make decisions
• 37:05
  that sometimes may not make sense and we're going to mess
• 37:07
  up. And that's that's the part of us
• 37:09
  all being human and and learning from it.
• 37:12
  But we we gotta we gotta make the best decisions we can.
• 37:15
  I've, I've actually been rereading the book on on Bill
• 37:19
  Senior. It's called Big Bill and it it
• 37:22
  retells a lot of those stories of him growing up you know
• 37:26
  through the 40s, fifties, sixties, 70s and 80s.
• 37:28
  And there's some of the the coolest stories that you'd ever
• 37:33
  hear from, you know, starting, you know, building a track at
• 37:36
  Daytona National Speedway or Talladega, you know, up into the
• 37:41
  80s and 90s when Bill Junior got involved, but Bill Senior was
• 37:44
  still around. I imagine around the time that
• 37:46
  you probably saw him at the racetrack and I would have loved
• 37:50
  to see him and Annie B and and just, you know, them being
• 37:53
  involved or even just walking through the garage area back in
• 37:56
  the day. I I can imagine it's so special.
• 37:58
  And I OK, now I got to go one more before before we go, I got
• 38:02
  some stuff here. But so your grandpa, you know,
• 38:08
  Bill France Junior, I guess I'm right.
• 38:11
  I, I mess up sometimes. But anyway, we're at a softball
• 38:16
  tournament, I think in Watkins Glen and, you know, he'd smoke
• 38:20
  and he'd have a beer and he was such a badass and get up here in
• 38:23
  our trailer and he'd chew your butt out.
• 38:25
  And, you know, it was a different way of governing back
• 38:27
  then. But we're at a softball game.
• 38:30
  And he looked at me and I'm like, I'm looking at like, I'm
• 38:32
  looking at you right now. I'm like, Oh my gosh, you know,
• 38:35
  get over here and I sit at the picnic table with him and he's
• 38:38
  smoking, takes a drink of beer, you know, you know your mom's
• 38:44
  dad, right? So I will never forget that at
• 38:48
  60. I'm excited to tell you these
• 38:51
  stories because you're only 32 years old.
• 38:53
  So anyway, just, you know, my love for NASCAR and like I said,
• 38:57
  I can only rough it up so much. So, all right, here we go.
• 39:03
  You know, I'm all over social media when I'm when I'm not
• 39:06
  doing anything, but I'm very busy.
• 39:08
  So I was on X yesterday or two days ago and I I asked this.
• 39:14
  I took I like X because you can take polls and it's quick
• 39:17
  communication. Facebook has its place, you
• 39:22
  know, Tiktok has its place. I like Snapchat.
• 39:25
  But anyway, I took this poll and it got 5292 votes in one day.
• 39:32
  That's a lot of people. That's strong.
• 39:35
  Think about 5200 people at Bowman Gray.
• 39:37
  That's a lot of people. OK.
• 39:40
  And my question was this, does NASCAR race too much?
• 39:45
  73% of the people said no, they don't race too much. 27% of the
• 39:51
  people said, yes, they race too much.
• 39:55
  OK, now hold on right behind it. I ask a another crazy question
• 40:02
  that that that was a good question, the one I asked.
• 40:04
  But I said this has talking bad about NASCAR become a sport?
• 40:11
  And then I said in other words, is it what people do for fun?
• 40:16
  Are we in a society where talking bad on social media?
• 40:19
  Is it a sport? Is it fun?
• 40:22
  69% of people said yes, it's a sport.
• 40:26
  People get enjoyment out of talking bad.
• 40:28
  Even though they're watching the whole race, 31% of the people
• 40:33
  said no. What I have learned, Ben, is
• 40:36
  that 70% of the people, no matter what, love NASCAR.
• 40:42
  This is my figures, 30% of the people just there to create
• 40:47
  negativity. True what?
• 40:51
  What? What are your thoughts on all
• 40:52
  that do? You know what I well, I haven't
• 40:58
  seen that pull, so I'll have to because.
• 40:59
  NASCAR, know that. Have you ever talked about
• 41:02
  dealing with the people that are?
• 41:03
  That's just there, 'cause it's a sport.
• 41:07
  No, I mean. Not necessarily.
• 41:09
  You know, and and I I appreciate and I respect criticism at the
• 41:14
  end of the day and and constructive criticism.
• 41:17
  I'm not a big believer in in people talking bad just to talk
• 41:21
  bad or or you know try to create conspiracy theories or whatever
• 41:25
  it might be you know. But at the end of the day if if
• 41:29
  you have feedback I've I've always said give us and me
• 41:33
  myself if it's on X or whatever it might be give us honest
• 41:36
  feedback and I get a lot of that and some of it is is really
• 41:39
  helpful and really constructive. So that's always been, you know,
• 41:43
  kind of my personal opinion on it at the end of the day.
• 41:46
  And you know, I I think we have an opportunity to go and and
• 41:50
  kind of, you know, sometimes tell our our version of the
• 41:53
  story or why we're making certain decisions.
• 41:55
  And you know there are a lot of things that I would love to sit
• 41:58
  here on on your podcast, Kenny, and tell you, hey, this is the
• 42:02
  reason why we did X, this is the reason why we did Y and this is
• 42:05
  the reason why we did Z. And sometimes we, we just
• 42:08
  naturally can't. Sometimes we can though And I
• 42:11
  think using platforms like this and platforms like X and others
• 42:15
  to be able to explain kind of the rationale behind some of our
• 42:19
  decisions, you know, is helpful in some scenarios.
• 42:22
  Sometimes we make a decision. Everyone's like I like that
• 42:25
  that's a big W mark AW, next to it.
• 42:28
  There are a lot of decisions that that people may not agree
• 42:30
  with you know, but that's that's all part of our human nature at
• 42:33
  the end of the day, right. We all have different
• 42:35
  backgrounds. We have different perspectives.
• 42:37
  We have different thoughts on on how things should be run or how
• 42:40
  the sport you know what the the the direction of the sport
• 42:43
  should go in. And you know I think, I think
• 42:46
  that's the beauty of it at the end of the day.
• 42:47
  And I I love hearing people's opinions and you know whether
• 42:51
  it's positive or negative and I've always said that if you're
• 42:54
  you're going to have an opinion put a little bit of thought to
• 42:56
  it and and please be constructive as you you bring it
• 42:59
  to us and we'll we'll definitely take it into consideration.
• 43:02
  Yes, 100%. I agree with that.
• 43:04
  But don't don't go. I hate MASCAR.
• 43:07
  That's that's my one of my characters I play, you know I
• 43:10
  hate MASCAR that but they watched the race.
• 43:13
  So anyway, that is that is not mature to, you know, create a
• 43:20
  conversation with you about that because you know, we hear him,
• 43:23
  we see him. But OK, this is a question.
• 43:28
  Now look, I stressed over talking to you.
• 43:30
  You. You have a lot of notes there.
• 43:33
  That's impressive. Well, I do this, you know, this
• 43:37
  is Kenny conversation. This is the real me.
• 43:41
  That's great. Kenny Wallace Show is where I
• 43:43
  give my opinion and and I animate a little bit there, you
• 43:46
  know? So there.
• 43:48
  There are you know there's coffee with Kenny which which is
• 43:52
  me getting out of bed and that found its place and.
• 43:55
  And I've watched a few of those along the way.
• 43:57
  Those are great. Well I had to grow up a little
• 44:00
  bit too you know so but but you know and and then there's you
• 44:05
  know like I said the Kenny Wallace Show is my opinion.
• 44:08
  Kenny conversation, is this right here.
• 44:10
  I would say this is more me. You know, I I couldn't have won
• 44:13
  nine Xfinity races acting like a nut.
• 44:16
  So we all have to settle down at times.
• 44:20
  So this is where I want to go with this one.
• 44:22
  I really feel like this is the only time I'm roughing you up
• 44:27
  and it's not even roughing you up.
• 44:30
  So I believe 2006 was the height of NASCAR.
• 44:38
  That was like the granddaddy of a mall.
• 44:40
  Like, you know, 2006 was when, you know we're 400,000 people in
• 44:45
  the grandstands at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
• 44:49
  You know, we're 200,000 people at the Daytona 500.
• 44:53
  Now one would have thought that NASCAR would have went downhill
• 44:57
  after the death of our beloved and great Dale Senior, who was
• 45:02
  so good to me, just had to add that in there.
• 45:05
  That senior was good to me. He he let me drive his car to
• 45:08
  get get started in NASCAR. So here's the tough question for
• 45:13
  me. But somebody on X ask it and and
• 45:18
  but I already had it wrote down. In your opinion and I have my
• 45:23
  opinion. What caused the societal
• 45:27
  downward shift in NASCAR? What What caused?
• 45:32
  Now that we look back at it, it's been a long time.
• 45:36
  Sure. What?
• 45:37
  What caused that? You know, for things that just
• 45:41
  go bad. Yeah, I remember it, you know,
• 45:45
  2005, 2006, it it was a peak of NASCAR as a sport and hopefully
• 45:50
  we'll get back to those days again.
• 45:52
  We will. You know, I remember the two
• 45:54
  year wait list on some of the race tracks.
• 45:56
  I mean over 100,000 people that would come to a race every
• 46:00
  single week no matter where we race.
• 46:02
  It was unbelievable. You know I I think there are a
• 46:05
  handful of things that that contributed to to to kind of the
• 46:08
  the downward slope that we had. I I would say probably O seven O
• 46:13
  8 really until 2018 I would say is, is where we kind of hit our
• 46:20
  floor. And then I think we started to
• 46:22
  see some flattening and some growth in the past couple of
• 46:24
  years, which is great. But I'll distribute it to a
• 46:27
  couple of different things. You know one is the financial
• 46:30
  crisis of of O8, right. If you think about a lot of our
• 46:34
  fans, a lot of our fans travel to the racetrack on the weekend.
• 46:39
  They'd bring their friends and their family.
• 46:41
  They would fly. Sometimes some of them would
• 46:43
  camp in an RV. You know, it's not just the cost
• 46:46
  of buying the ticket, it's the cost of actually traveling and
• 46:49
  going to a race. And you know it, it wasn't
• 46:52
  inexpensive for a lot of people, you know, back in the day.
• 46:55
  So I would say that along with a lot of our fans being true blue
• 46:59
  collar workers and Jim you know has said this before, if you
• 47:03
  think about our core fan base, you know it it it is and has
• 47:07
  been and and probably will continue to be a lot of our blue
• 47:10
  collar fans and but I think they were hit particularly hard
• 47:14
  during the financial crisis of OA and we started kind of this,
• 47:19
  this slow downward decline after that and we talked about some of
• 47:23
  these other things. You had a lot of big name
• 47:24
  drivers that retired year after year and you saw ratings and
• 47:29
  viewership like clear metrics, fan attendance, relevance.
• 47:34
  You know everything that we're looking at was continuing to
• 47:37
  decline and you could attribute it to a deal Junior not being in
• 47:40
  the car for that weekend or Jeff Gordon not being in the car for
• 47:43
  that weekend. So I think that was a part of
• 47:45
  it. And then I would say the other
• 47:46
  component is just and and this kind of goes back to what we
• 47:50
  were talking about earlier around the productions building
• 47:52
  and content is in 2006 our biggest competitors were other
• 47:57
  sports leagues, right. It was the NFL and NBA and NHL
• 48:01
  and in a lot of ways they, they still are all of our competitors
• 48:04
  today. But our competitors are also
• 48:07
  just frankly anyone that is making content, you know, people
• 48:11
  watching YouTube videos, people watching Netflix, people
• 48:13
  watching, you know, videos or or pictures on Instagram or X, you
• 48:19
  know, content is everywhere today.
• 48:21
  And you know we're we're competing against that for our
• 48:25
  fans attention, for people's attention, for potential
• 48:27
  partners attention and it's a completely different world from
• 48:31
  where we were almost two decades ago.
• 48:33
  So I think there's a handful of things those are the three
• 48:36
  biggest that that come to my mind you know but it you know
• 48:41
  it's definitely a bit of a downward you know kind of spiral
• 48:44
  that we had for a little bit. And I I think ever since 2018
• 48:47
  and 2019 and a lot of the changes that that we've had in
• 48:51
  the sport, it's now finally you know starting to come back and
• 48:54
  and getting a good spot. You know it's what we talked
• 48:57
  about from a ratings and viewership perspective.
• 48:59
  So we've got to get continue that momentum and and somehow
• 49:02
  get it back to the days that that you were talking about of
• 49:05
  you know walking into a Bristol or Dover or Kansas or Richmond
• 49:10
  and and you know being sold out you know with hundreds of
• 49:14
  thousands of people and we're we're slowly chipping away at it
• 49:16
  and getting there. So I'm, I'm bullish on the
• 49:19
  future of the sport. Certainly it's there's a lot of
• 49:22
  learnings that we've had over the past 20 years or so.
• 49:25
  I want to say that I remember 2008 clearly.
• 49:31
  I took my NASCAR money that people make fun of me, but I
• 49:34
  saved a lot of money and I specifically bought a lot of
• 49:38
  real estate and you know, I did good with it and here I am.
• 49:44
  But I remember 2008, where the banks loan.
• 49:48
  I'm saying this, 'cause I want to remind everybody watching,
• 49:51
  it's not your job do this. But in 2008, the downward spiral
• 49:56
  in the economy was the banks loaned everybody money and they
• 49:59
  loaned anybody money and they had too much money lent out and
• 50:05
  they had to, they had to call those loans back in.
• 50:08
  So they wanted them to just pay the whole damn loan back off.
• 50:11
  And America went spiring down, South America, our country went
• 50:16
  crash landing and we were all along for the ride.
• 50:21
  Google it if you're watching this right now.
• 50:23
  So yes, that was an extremely tough time.
• 50:28
  Yes, I'm glad you brought that up.
• 50:31
  So let's have a little fun. Now you've answered other tough
• 50:34
  questions. And I want to thank you,
• 50:37
  obviously, like all Larry McReynolds says, I can beat, I
• 50:42
  can beat this like a dead horse. I can rough you up till the till
• 50:45
  the cows come in. But let's have some fun now
• 50:48
  because you've answered the tough stuff in a good way.
• 50:54
  Who is your best friend at NASCAR?
• 50:57
  You're you're a young man, but you're smart.
• 51:00
  You're mature. You, you know, kids age so
• 51:03
  quickly now because I always tease that it's a steroids and
• 51:07
  the chicken Nuggets. It seems like somebody like you.
• 51:10
  You're so mature. Who's your best friend at
• 51:14
  NASCAR? Who's, who's the one you go to
• 51:17
  go? Hey man, let's go to lunch.
• 51:20
  That's a good question. I would say a lot of the folks
• 51:22
  on my team probably are. So I've got a, I've got a great
• 51:26
  team, so I have scheduling that goes into me.
• 51:30
  So Tucson Hamilton has has helped to lead a lot of those
• 51:33
  initiatives. Joey Doneowitz has come on board
• 51:36
  and and you know he's got a lot of experience running short
• 51:39
  tracks with track enterprises was at Spire.
• 51:42
  So he has a little bit of a race team side to it too and and he's
• 51:46
  come on and run regional and then at design development in
• 51:50
  into me as well with Derek Muldowney.
• 51:51
  So I would really say it's my team.
• 51:54
  It's also a lot of the folks that I spend a good amount of
• 51:56
  time around and I spend a good amount of time around Steve
• 51:59
  Phelps and Steve O'Donnell. They've been you know, great
• 52:02
  mentors, great leaders. You know they have more
• 52:06
  experience in this building than than just about anyone else.
• 52:10
  And they've seen, they've seen NASCAR through the the really
• 52:13
  bad times that we just talked about and they've seen NASCAR
• 52:16
  through the good times. So being able to to lend a year
• 52:20
  on to them is is always invaluable.
• 52:23
  And then I would say frankly, you know, Mom, Lisa and and Jim,
• 52:27
  you know, Jim, I've seen this and you know, he grew up
• 52:32
  literally as his father, Bill France senior was building
• 52:35
  NASCAR in the 1940s and 50s. He got to see it, you know,
• 52:40
  through those days. He ran EMSA for a number of
• 52:42
  years on the sports car side and he's running it today.
• 52:45
  So he has a tremendous amount of experience.
• 52:47
  And then, you know, obviously my mom is a good sounding board as
• 52:50
  well. She's, you know, she grew up,
• 52:53
  I'd say a little more on the track side with International
• 52:55
  Speedway Corporation. So, you know, anything that
• 52:59
  we're talking about that's related to schedule or you know,
• 53:02
  entering new markets. You know she was a big part of
• 53:06
  us racing in Kansas Speedway and Chicagoland and you know
• 53:10
  Fontana, Michigan, a handful of tracks that we raced at today
• 53:13
  that are, you know, pivotal parts of our schedule.
• 53:17
  She helped, they can come together.
• 53:19
  So I think it's it's neat to be able to have a responsibility
• 53:23
  that in a lot of ways aligned with what she grew up doing and
• 53:26
  what she LED on the ISC side of the company.
• 53:29
  So you know there there are a ton of people that I I get to to
• 53:34
  to bounce ideas off of and and for me that's priceless at the
• 53:38
  end of the day. And and one more fun question in
• 53:41
  in a fun way. I'm not going to use all these
• 53:43
  important words. I think I know the answer.
• 53:47
  But who Who is the grand pupa? I mean who who is?
• 53:53
  Is it Jim? Is Jim France like the man in in
• 53:57
  a in a fun way. I'm not cornering you.
• 53:59
  Yeah. I mean, like for me, family
• 54:02
  wise, you would, it seemed like you would be, but yeah, but I
• 54:05
  don't know. Yeah, I would, I would say you
• 54:08
  know the, the grand pupa as he said it, it would probably be
• 54:13
  Jim at the end of the day, right.
• 54:14
  He's the CEO of the company. He is at the top of the totem
• 54:18
  pole and him and Lisa you know they both have very big voices
• 54:24
  in the company because you know in a lot of ways they they are
• 54:27
  the company. When I say NASCAR LLC, Steve
• 54:32
  Phelps obviously it is another big leader I would say is much
• 54:38
  more involved in a lot of the the day-to-day decisions, right.
• 54:43
  There are certain decisions that that level up to a board level
• 54:48
  for recommendation and decisions.
• 54:51
  There are a lot of day-to-day decisions that Steve Phelps and
• 54:54
  Steve O'Donnell are also making along the way.
• 54:56
  So I'd say the the Grand Poopa and the Grand Boss probably gym
• 55:00
  at the end of the day, but there are a lot of leaders in NASCAR
• 55:05
  as a company at the end of the day.
• 55:08
  I'm going to call an audible here and have fun with me.
• 55:11
  You're a businessman. Is it hard to call your mom,
• 55:14
  Lesa? Or do you Do you want to say
• 55:16
  mom? Do you want to say mom
• 55:18
  Sometimes, but you got to say Lesa?
• 55:20
  So I'm working on this, Kenny. If you have any advice, please
• 55:25
  let me know because I, I haven't figured this one out.
• 55:28
  So we, when I came on, it was probably two years or so and we,
• 55:33
  we went through this merger and integration, right?
• 55:35
  Yeah, International Speedway, the tracks, yeah, NASCAR, it all
• 55:38
  kind of came together as a part of that.
• 55:41
  We did, I I guess similar to NASCAR 360, but very different
• 55:47
  at the same time. We did what we call three 60s.
• 55:50
  So we did it for a number of different people in the company.
• 55:53
  And and one of the things that I got as feedback from, from the
• 55:57
  person that I was working with is, is trying to understand and
• 56:02
  delineate when to call your mom, mom and when to call her Lisa at
• 56:07
  the end of the day. And what I've defaulted to is if
• 56:10
  it's, you know, a story that I'm telling or a personal setting,
• 56:14
  it's always mom. If it's a business setting, I
• 56:18
  typically go to Lisa, so I haven't perfected it by any
• 56:23
  means, if anyone has any. Advice.
• 56:24
  I love it. Then in that situation let me
• 56:27
  know, but it was good advice that I had from a Co worker of
• 56:30
  mine that got back to me and and now I'm I try to be more
• 56:34
  thoughtful about it when I say it.
• 56:36
  I I think it's very heartfelt and I really appreciate you
• 56:39
  answering that and and I gotta settle up something on my part.
• 56:42
  I I only went one through 12. I did not go to you were a 2014
• 56:49
  college graduate with with the University of Florida with a
• 56:53
  degree in sports management. So you're way smarter than me.
• 56:57
  I went one through 12. So your mother's name is spelled
• 57:01
  LESA. Is that correct?
• 57:04
  LESA yes. But you call her Lisa.
• 57:07
  Lisa. Yep.
• 57:09
  So it's still it's still Lisa, even though it's LESA.
• 57:13
  Even though it's LESAA, lot of people spell it.
• 57:15
  Lisa obviously, but she's always gone by Lisa, so I guess I've
• 57:21
  always called it Lisa. Maybe.
• 57:22
  Maybe there's a better pronunciation for it that she
• 57:25
  hasn't used, but. She's a she's a bad ass.
• 57:28
  I'm still afraid of her. Yes, one day I'll.
• 57:30
  I'll walk up to her. But OK, we're getting towards
• 57:34
  the end here. People say, why do you always
• 57:37
  tell your, your guests you're getting to the end?
• 57:39
  I said because I want them to know Tony, Tony Stewart would
• 57:43
  say. And Kevin Harper, they're like,
• 57:46
  I don't want this, Dan, this is fun.
• 57:48
  This is a good time. I've enjoyed it.
• 57:50
  Yeah, yeah. This is probably the most light
• 57:54
  hearted part of my day, so we could we could just go till the
• 57:56
  end of the day if you want. We won't, We won't.
• 58:01
  But I listen very well, even though people think I don't, you
• 58:06
  know, they had me on Ritalin when I was a kid because I
• 58:08
  really was diagnosed Hyper Aggro.
• 58:10
  But I'm getting better and I'm getting to where I can listen
• 58:13
  now. So you mentioned to your mother
• 58:18
  being an integral part of, you know, scheduling.
• 58:22
  So we were at Chicagoland's. Well, we we had Joliet, then we
• 58:29
  went out to Chicagoland. So we were two Chicago tracks.
• 58:33
  And everybody forgets Joe. The, the one I I'll never
• 58:37
  forget, the one that Kyle Busch won at when he was 15 years old.
• 58:42
  Then we had to make the age. It's like, no, no, you you want
• 58:45
  to. So we went to that track, then
• 58:47
  we went to the beautiful Chicago land and now we're into the city
• 58:51
  of Chicago. What was the thought process on
• 58:56
  creating a street course in Chicago?
• 58:59
  In the city? Yeah, I think it, I think it was
• 59:04
  a a handful of things. You know we we had run
• 59:07
  Chicagoland for the better part of I I guess almost two decades
• 59:12
  at that point. We took a break during COVID and
• 59:14
  then haven't had the opportunity to go back since.
• 59:17
  But for the Chicago St. course, you know it is really an
• 59:21
  opportunity for us to do something new, unique,
• 59:25
  different, novel in a lot of ways, right.
• 59:27
  We had never had a street course in our sports 75 year history,
• 59:31
  but an opportunity to bring NASCAR racing to a lot of
• 59:35
  people, right? So if you think about a lot of
• 59:37
  the the places that we race at today, you know fans will travel
• 59:42
  great distances to make to those race tracks and a lot of them
• 59:45
  aren't necessarily in the urban or or metropolitan area.
• 59:49
  So it's a little bit different from that perspective in the
• 59:51
  sense that not only we're bringing the race literally to
• 59:54
  people, but we are bringing it to fans that may have gone to
• 59:59
  Chicagoland. From when we're racing there,
• 1:00:02
  but we also brought a lot of new fans.
• 1:00:04
  So you know more than four out of five people that walked
• 1:00:07
  through those gates on the very rainy Sunday had never been to a
• 1:00:12
  NASCAR race before and and that was their very first experience
• 1:00:15
  of of going to a NASCAR race. And a lot of those people
• 1:00:18
  continue to consume and engage with NASCAR today.
• 1:00:22
  So you know, I think there's an opportunity to do that.
• 1:00:25
  Obviously, you know, being on big NBC on that weekend was
• 1:00:27
  another big part of it in showcasing, you know, NASCAR
• 1:00:31
  racing in a different light in the city of downtown Chicago.
• 1:00:34
  And you know, there's there's a handful of other things.
• 1:00:36
  But you know, it was, it was a really bold and audacious goal
• 1:00:41
  that we had. I could tell you, yeah, the
• 1:00:45
  first times that I mentioned it in in the room, you know, I
• 1:00:49
  almost got laughed out of the room the first couple of times
• 1:00:51
  it it said you want to do what? And we're actually going to be
• 1:00:53
  able to do this. And then we did the virtual race
• 1:00:57
  and then one thing led to another.
• 1:00:58
  We were able to to actually make the real race happen last year
• 1:01:03
  and we're going to come back this year.
• 1:01:05
  And I can tell you it is not going to be raining at all this
• 1:01:09
  time, come on July 6th and 7th because we've already got the
• 1:01:12
  rain out of the way with Daytona 500, Daytona 500 in clash.
• 1:01:16
  We had our rain. So it's going to be bright,
• 1:01:18
  beautiful and sunny on July 6th and 7th this year.
• 1:01:21
  Positive mental attitude. So with that said, I just want
• 1:01:25
  to add something. My brother Mike said something
• 1:01:28
  to me. He goes up, you know what
• 1:01:31
  happens when you don't promote and there and there's silence,
• 1:01:35
  right? Do you know what happens when
• 1:01:37
  you don't promote nothing? Barnum Bailey.
• 1:01:43
  So years ago Barnum Bailey you know they had the great circus
• 1:01:46
  act to to this day I I thought a lot about you in Chicago.
• 1:01:52
  I've heard you loud and clear that was an extremely expensive
• 1:01:56
  race for you to put on. However, we all know that
• 1:02:00
  Chicago, the city of Chicago is massive amount of people.
• 1:02:04
  We know that we know that the suburbs of Illinois, they're,
• 1:02:09
  you know it's just farmland which is awesome.
• 1:02:11
  We love the farmers. But in in in the Kenny Wallace
• 1:02:15
  term I think when you went in the city, you just kind of like
• 1:02:20
  they had to pay attention to you because you was right there in
• 1:02:23
  their face. And I think of Barnum Bailey
• 1:02:27
  because you know you promoted the sport and I might add, I
• 1:02:31
  want to, I know I'm long winded. I want to say this because of
• 1:02:35
  SVG, Shane van Gisbergen, one of the greatest NASCAR races of all
• 1:02:40
  time. Him coming from the back and
• 1:02:43
  running over that puddle of water, you know where it was,
• 1:02:47
  that puddle of water was there. And I'm a race car driving like,
• 1:02:49
  oh oh, you know, it was a hell of a race it.
• 1:02:53
  Was. So everything I just said, you,
• 1:02:58
  you, you went downtown. It was a hell of a race.
• 1:03:01
  The the skyline was in the background.
• 1:03:04
  I thought it came off quite well, even though it was
• 1:03:06
  expensive. It was it it it wasn't a an
• 1:03:11
  expensive endeavor that is for sure you know.
• 1:03:14
  But but to your point, I mean you know it was a great
• 1:03:17
  opportunity to to get in front of new people that came to the
• 1:03:20
  event that tuned in on TV. And for the people that either
• 1:03:24
  came or tuned in on TV outside of.
• 1:03:27
  Granted, there are some things that we need to to work on for
• 1:03:29
  Saturday and Sunday, but they got to see an amazing race and
• 1:03:33
  they got to see SVG, which was a bit unprecedented come and and
• 1:03:38
  win that race. And it was one of the most
• 1:03:40
  talked about things that we had on social media last year was
• 1:03:44
  SVG winning that race. So it created a lot of
• 1:03:47
  narratives, a lot of storylines. It was an exciting event, a lot
• 1:03:52
  of learnings that we frankly had because we had never done
• 1:03:54
  anything like that before, right.
• 1:03:56
  You know, if you think about our, our experience operating
• 1:04:01
  tracks, it's brick and mortar, it's permanent built facilities,
• 1:04:04
  it's it's a Kansas, it's a Phoenix, it's Daytona, it's a
• 1:04:07
  Homestead Miami Speedway. This is 100% temporary.
• 1:04:11
  We were closing down roads, we were building temporary
• 1:04:13
  structures, we were pouring concrete walls inside of
• 1:04:17
  downtown Chicago. We're putting up fences, all
• 1:04:20
  sorts of things that that we don't traditionally do.
• 1:04:24
  And we had with a lot of folks involved on our side, we had a
• 1:04:27
  lot of conversations obviously with the city folks and you know
• 1:04:31
  for it to come out the way that it did last year, rain aside it
• 1:04:36
  it it was a really neat event and you know something that that
• 1:04:40
  I think that the company in the sport can be proud of.
• 1:04:43
  I mean, the industry really teams, drivers, everyone came
• 1:04:46
  around that event in a in a special way too.
• 1:04:50
  So in that same realm, like a day or two after the Netflix
• 1:04:58
  series, full speed after full speed, we saw a gain.
• 1:05:05
  A +260,000 on Instagram, 41,000 on Facebook, 20,000 on X.
• 1:05:13
  Like a day or two after the full speed.
• 1:05:18
  I feel like you're just doing a really good job of promoting the
• 1:05:23
  sport right now with full speed, with getting in people's faces
• 1:05:27
  that you normally wouldn't with Chicago.
• 1:05:30
  I just wanted to, I just wanted to say that really, really not a
• 1:05:34
  question, but your thought on that I guess.
• 1:05:36
  Yeah. No, I I think it's great you
• 1:05:39
  know and and Chicago was an investment for us and I think a
• 1:05:42
  lot of ways that paid great dividends and and full speed was
• 1:05:46
  an investment for us as well. We brought in words and pictures
• 1:05:50
  to come in and produce it and and Netflix was a great partner
• 1:05:54
  and and you know put it on their platform which was massive.
• 1:05:57
  So the numbers that you just rattled off are real numbers.
• 1:06:01
  You know part of that are is probably Daytona 500, part of
• 1:06:04
  that is some of the other storylines that we've had.
• 1:06:06
  But I would say a big part of that is, is also full speed and
• 1:06:11
  and and creating some really good content that that people
• 1:06:14
  can TuneIn and watch and hopefully gets them to either
• 1:06:18
  follow NASCAR even closer than they already do today.
• 1:06:20
  Or say hey maybe maybe we should think about you know, tuning in,
• 1:06:25
  you know, this weekend to FOX or FS1 or and maybe you should
• 1:06:28
  think about it's coming to Charlotte in a couple weeks and
• 1:06:31
  I live in the Charlotte area. I want to go see what it's all
• 1:06:33
  about. I'm going to come to the Coke
• 1:06:34
  600 and just to put that grain of thought into their head that
• 1:06:39
  they'll now consider consuming NASCAR.
• 1:06:42
  Coming out to an event is what we're all hoping for at the end
• 1:06:45
  of the day, right? We want to bring new fans into
• 1:06:48
  the fold and we want to create a really great experience and a
• 1:06:52
  really great racing product for everyone that follows us and and
• 1:06:56
  really create something that that they can all be proud of.
• 1:06:58
  So you know it's good to hear those numbers.
• 1:07:02
  Actually, I haven't heard those numbers before, but it, you
• 1:07:06
  know, we got to keep this momentum going for sure.
• 1:07:08
  Yeah, that's that David Stern guy.
• 1:07:10
  He he's he's new to the sport. I say new to the sport.
• 1:07:14
  He's not new, but he's quality and he's good for everybody.
• 1:07:19
  Just a comment at at night my wife will be on her computer
• 1:07:25
  playing games and I'll be laughing and laughing.
• 1:07:27
  I laugh so hard my wife says what are you laughing at?
• 1:07:31
  I said these reels on Instagram. I get the the, the point I'm
• 1:07:36
  trying to make is you gain NASCAR, gain 260,000 on
• 1:07:42
  Instagram. Dale Runner Junior is a dear
• 1:07:44
  friend of mine. We talk and he said to me about
• 1:07:49
  three years ago and Dale Junior he'll he'll hear about this.
• 1:07:52
  We we we talked to each other and he said man, Instagram is
• 1:07:56
  quality. That's what all our analytics
• 1:07:58
  say. There's a lot of fighting on X,
• 1:08:00
  everybody likes fight and Facebook, but that that
• 1:08:03
  Instagram and and I know Tik Tok's the big deal right now for
• 1:08:07
  the kids. I get all that, but it seems to
• 1:08:10
  me that Instagram is where quality is and I wanted to give
• 1:08:14
  you an attaboy because 260,000 to me, this is me saying this.
• 1:08:19
  Instagram is the quality site out of all social media.
• 1:08:23
  That's where the quality people are, the ones that don't throw
• 1:08:27
  trash in your face all the time. So good job on that game.
• 1:08:30
  That's a big one. And end to end this is where
• 1:08:36
  just a little bit of fun right now.
• 1:08:38
  I'm I'm going to go into character.
• 1:08:40
  I'm. I'm going to do the Kenny
• 1:08:41
  Wallace show for a minute. OK.
• 1:08:45
  Ben Kennedy better not ruin Bowman Gray.
• 1:08:49
  He better not ruin my racetrack. So that was my character.
• 1:08:56
  Because that's what they say NASCAR.
• 1:08:59
  It was your decision. I guess you're going to run
• 1:09:01
  Bowman Gray little birdie says that the city has been saying
• 1:09:05
  somebody take this over. I don't know if I'm right or
• 1:09:07
  wrong. Comment on Bowman Gray.
• 1:09:11
  Yeah. So you know, we announced
• 1:09:14
  Thursday last week that that we're going to take over the
• 1:09:17
  entity that that will have the lease of Bowman Gray and you
• 1:09:21
  know be operating it. So our first race is April 20th.
• 1:09:25
  It is less than a month away. So we have a lot of work to do.
• 1:09:27
  We brought on Austin Schufer, a great person.
• 1:09:31
  He's you know he's helped promote a number of races at
• 1:09:35
  Nashville Fairgrounds. He's been involved with
• 1:09:37
  Milwaukee and and Knoxville truck races through track
• 1:09:40
  enterprises. He's going to be a great leader
• 1:09:43
  for that track and if you spend some time with him he is a true
• 1:09:46
  short track person. He he loves short track and it
• 1:09:49
  it it's in his blood and his DNA for sure.
• 1:09:51
  So excited about that. But you know as we started
• 1:09:55
  having these conversations and getting back to who is the boss
• 1:10:01
  to the boss. One of the first things that
• 1:10:03
  that Jim tell Jim asked us to do and told us to do was make sure
• 1:10:08
  that that you keep what makes Bowman Gray.
• 1:10:11
  Bowman Gray Stadium. And you know a big part of that
• 1:10:15
  it's a racing products it's the entertainment that's on the
• 1:10:18
  track. It's frankly a little bit of
• 1:10:19
  entertainment and you know what happens off the track.
• 1:10:23
  And it's it's a way that Greg Garrison and his family have
• 1:10:26
  operated that track for decades and his family has.
• 1:10:29
  And you know, this is a partnership that goes back to,
• 1:10:34
  we talked about a little bit some of the early days of
• 1:10:36
  NASCAR. This is a partnership that that
• 1:10:38
  Jim remembers that he and his dad had with the Hawkins Hawkins
• 1:10:43
  family back in the late 1940s, as early as 1949, you know, all
• 1:10:48
  the way up to the CUB series racing in the 1950s through the
• 1:10:51
  1970s. And we're still running there
• 1:10:54
  with NASCAR weekly and modified races.
• 1:10:56
  So it's an important relationship, it's important
• 1:10:59
  partnership. We actually had someone with the
• 1:11:01
  last name of Hawkins there when we signed the papers on
• 1:11:05
  Wednesday, which was so special. But getting back to my point,
• 1:11:10
  you know, Jim told us and and you know as soon as we start
• 1:11:13
  talking about this is do not mess up this racetrack whatever
• 1:11:16
  you do. And that is our goal and our
• 1:11:19
  focus is, you know, we want to keep what the, the DNA of Bowman
• 1:11:23
  Gray is because that makes it so unique, it makes it so special.
• 1:11:27
  And we're going to keep Greg Garrison and some of the family
• 1:11:30
  members involved for the next couple years.
• 1:11:32
  They're going to be with us for probably every race this year.
• 1:11:36
  They'll be out there this year working with Austin and the
• 1:11:38
  team. So, you know, excited to take
• 1:11:40
  about a lot of those learnings and experiences that they have
• 1:11:44
  because they know every nook and cranny of that place.
• 1:11:47
  They know what makes it worked. They have a lot of relationships
• 1:11:50
  that are invaluable and we've got to, we've got to keep and
• 1:11:53
  protect that. So that is our focus on Bowman
• 1:11:57
  Gray. Obviously we got to get our feet
• 1:11:59
  underneath of us and Austin's going to be a good person.
• 1:12:01
  But we're excited to get racing. April 20th can't come soon, Soon
• 1:12:05
  enough. Local racing is it is it true?
• 1:12:09
  I was listening to Chocolate Myers on on the the the what is
• 1:12:15
  the NASCAR channel 90 on SiriusXM.
• 1:12:18
  He said that up and and this is where I'm only 60, I need to be
• 1:12:22
  about 80 to remember this I think.
• 1:12:24
  But did NASCAR run six points races a year there back in the
• 1:12:30
  day? I'd have to get it back and and
• 1:12:33
  double check I it was several. I don't know if it was exactly
• 1:12:36
  6, but it was several. Yeah.
• 1:12:38
  I want to say they started in 1956.
• 1:12:41
  We went through, I believe 71 there with the Cup Series.
• 1:12:45
  Wow. 71 points races. Or sorry 1971, I should, I don't
• 1:12:51
  know exactly how many points races we had, but we had the Cup
• 1:12:54
  Series there for a number of years and then we actually had
• 1:12:56
  the Convertible Series there. I want to say it started in 1957
• 1:13:00
  and that was there for several years.
• 1:13:02
  Convertible Series was was huge back in the day too.
• 1:13:05
  So and then if you like, if you if you're rewind the clock
• 1:13:08
  another decade, you know the first year of NASCAR racing and
• 1:13:12
  people forget this, it was a predominantly stock cars, it was
• 1:13:15
  modifieds. Our first couple of years was
• 1:13:18
  really modified racing and you know for the better part of that
• 1:13:22
  first decade at Bowman Gray, it was predominantly modifieds.
• 1:13:26
  It was modified before we actually brought the NASCAR
• 1:13:28
  Grand National Series in the late 1950s.
• 1:13:31
  I remember. Yep, yeah, exactly.
• 1:13:34
  And we actually, we handed out our a trophy, a Newsomer
• 1:13:38
  Speedway, last year for the modified race.
• 1:13:41
  It was pretty neat. So it was 75 years to the day we
• 1:13:46
  handed out the trophy at New Smyrna Speedway was 75 years
• 1:13:50
  before we handed out the very first trophy for a modified race
• 1:13:53
  on the beaches of Daytona. So it it reminds you about how
• 1:13:58
  big modified racing is, you know, from our roots and where
• 1:14:01
  we began. But if you go to Bowman Gray on
• 1:14:03
  any Saturday night, it's one of the biggest races of the night
• 1:14:06
  and and there's a reason for that.
• 1:14:08
  I sure do wish they would have never got rid of Madhouse on
• 1:14:11
  History Channel on on The History Channel.
• 1:14:14
  Madhouse. I have no what.
• 1:14:17
  I have no idea why that series ended.
• 1:14:19
  It was the greatest and and one last thing real quick.
• 1:14:23
  When I think of NASCAR, I was the keynote speaker at the
• 1:14:27
  Illinois Stock Car Hall of Fame this year Soldiers Field.
• 1:14:31
  So a lot of your NASCAR tracks listen to me talk to you.
• 1:14:36
  But some of the NASCAR tracks back in those days were like
• 1:14:40
  soldiers Field, Bowman, Grade, These were like race tracks
• 1:14:44
  around football fields. So it it it's really the way you
• 1:14:48
  all started. It is, yeah.
• 1:14:51
  And in a lot of ways it is. And you know, people have talked
• 1:14:55
  about the Coliseum for the past couple years and in in some ways
• 1:15:00
  like it's a completely different event.
• 1:15:02
  It's in a different market. It's in downtown LA, but in a
• 1:15:05
  lot of ways it's a little bit, you know, making a nod back to
• 1:15:09
  our history and where we began. Because if you overlay the
• 1:15:12
  Coliseum on top of Bowman Gray or Soldier Field for that
• 1:15:15
  matter, back in the day, they are almost identical tracks to
• 1:15:19
  each other. So stadium racing was a thing,
• 1:15:22
  you know, back in the day. And if you go back even further,
• 1:15:26
  and I I love looking at some of the old photos of the sealed,
• 1:15:30
  yeah board tracks. Scary.
• 1:15:33
  Tracks over 40° of banking it's crazy wild and we've we've raced
• 1:15:40
  all sorts of you know different track types you know throughout
• 1:15:43
  our history whether it's a NASCAR or outside of the NASCAR.
• 1:15:45
  And you know I I geek out in some of the history and you know
• 1:15:49
  I I think Bowman Gray for us in a lot of ways and and to what
• 1:15:52
  you were mentioning is a little bit of a homecoming in that
• 1:15:54
  sense. Yeah, well here we are Ben.
• 1:15:59
  Listen, you went downtown LA, smart move.
• 1:16:04
  You went downtown Chicago smart move.
• 1:16:06
  Might have been expensive, but Barnum Bailey, you know what do
• 1:16:11
  you do if you don't promote what happens?
• 1:16:14
  Nothing. I guarantee you downtown LA and
• 1:16:16
  downtown Chicago, they know they who they know who NASCAR is now.
• 1:16:19
  So I just had to say that. And listen, everybody, we are on
• 1:16:25
  podcast. Everybody says, why is this not
• 1:16:28
  in podcast form? It is.
• 1:16:30
  And you can listen to Ben Kennedy on your way to work.
• 1:16:34
  And it's so long that you can listen to him on the way back
• 1:16:38
  home. And you can do it over and over
• 1:16:40
  as many times as you want. We are in iTunes and we are on
• 1:16:43
  podcast. So Ben, listen, I know what's
• 1:16:46
  going to happen. They're going to say, why didn't
• 1:16:48
  you ask him this? Why didn't you ask him that?
• 1:16:51
  Listen, my friends, it's been an hour and 18 minutes.
• 1:16:55
  I can't tell the complete NASCAR story, but you know, subscribe
• 1:16:59
  right here, respond and we'll. Do this again sometime.
• 1:17:04
  Part 2 is coming soon, right, Ben, thank you so much.
• 1:17:08
  Thank you, Kenny. I appreciate it.
• 1:17:09
  I really enjoyed it today. Always, always appreciate the
• 1:17:12
  time and appreciate what you what you do for the sport.
• 1:17:16
  Thank you. And remember, everybody, we have
• 1:17:18
  Danica Patrick coming up, Kyle Busch.
• 1:17:21
  We have some real, real popular people coming through the
• 1:17:25
  pipeline. Maybe not as popular as Ben
• 1:17:27
  Kennedy, but they're coming down the pipeline.
• 1:17:30
  All right, everybody, until next time.
• 1:17:32
  We'll see you.