← Herm & Schrader
Herm & Schrader
NASCAR's Martinsville Madness
01:04:14
Rick Mast is back again to fill in for Kenny Wallace, and he and Schrader break down Chase Elliott's big Martinsville win
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- [00:00]
Kenny Schrader
Welcome to the Herman Schrader Show. I'm in the middle of America. Alan's in Charlotte. Herman's. Don't know where he's at. He's probably still coming home from Greece or wherever he went. And Rick Mass is in Rockbridge, Bath, Virginia. So here we are.
- [00:24]
Alan Cavanna
So we had Martinsville this past weekend. Denny Hamlin absolutely dominated the race, but he didn't end up winning the race. Chase Elliot gets to win. Big win for Chase. Elliott, big win for Hendrick Motorsports. So, guys, if you could talk on that. And also, how many times have we seen guys go out there and lead two thirds of a race and not end up winning? Is it a. Is it a combination of. Of track position and not keeping up with adjustments because the car so good or. Or, you know, you think about Martinsville, you're like, okay, there's no arrow issue to it. But everybody I talk to keeps saying that there is an arrow component. If somebody gets out in front of
- [01:18]
Kenny Schrader
you, it's definitely track position because there was a car in front of him. You know, when the race was over, that was. That was the problem, that one position costing. I watched the first half of the race and I need to make. We need to go see a friend down the road. So we left. I mean, we're talking. We're talking in sticks here. We took the side by side and I come back the quickest way. Didn't come back through all the woods, come back the quickest way. So I get there and catch the end. And Chase was doing a burnout. And I kind of screamed a little bit. She said, what's wrong? I said, well, I just. I thought Danny would be doing that burnout. But, you know, I was surprised to see Chase up there. And then I know how much. How much trouble they give Alan Gustafson on social media and stuff, and looks like he pulled it off for him yesterday.
- [02:20]
Rick Mast
Well, I watched the last half of the race, Kenny. Well, actually, I lost. I watched all of it. Two deals. The deal with Alan Guston, he was. He. Well, I'll say he won the race. He made that call. They were going to run the last. What was it, Allen, 100 laps or whatever. And he was going to. Everybody's going to do it on one stop. But Gustin, he. The crew chief of the nine, he decided, pit early and we'll do two stops, right? And I was sitting there trying to calculate in my head the lapse and the times and all that, and I couldn't figure it out. Although Chase said later that he thought it was going to work out. But anyhow, the caution fell, right. And that put Chase up front. That's the one thing that I took from Heck of a. It was a gamble call, man, and he won it. The second thing is when they. The last, what, 40, 50 laps, whatever it was, when Chase was leading, he had the dominant car. I mean, the 11 car could not. He couldn't even try to get under the pass. He couldn't even get close to hitting him. If y' all remember, he hit him one time, was it turn three a few years ago, and they had that come to Jesus meeting. But anyhow, you know, that was the two things. The 9 car was flat, getting it at the end. I mean, he was fast. The 11 car couldn't really do anything with him. So two things went on there for the 9 car to win that race, I think.
- [03:38]
Alan Cavanna
Yeah. And, you know, another thing that I took out of it, you know, I remember Denny did that years ago at Richmond. He pitted an extra time from the rest of the leaders and ended up running them down with about five laps to go and win in the race, which I just didn't think there was any way possible he was going to be able to do that. But the. The disparity in speed was so, so much different. The other thing was, and we saw this Saturday, you had Denny Hamlin on Sunday, and even though Lee Pulliam's not got a lot of experience, you know, in Xfinity cars, he does have, you know, a ton of experience in H pattern gear shift. Both of them missed shifts there towards the end of the race. And. And in Denny's case, that ended up maybe costing him the race because that allowed, you know, him to. He fell back to third, and he never could get back to the lead.
- [04:41]
Kenny Schrader
No, it's. It's easy to miss a shift. Well, wait a minute, though. Those aren't H pattern. The COT car isn't an H pattern shift, is it? No, it's a sequential.
- [04:55]
Alan Cavanna
Yep. Well, and the only reason. The only reason I bring that up is because you had two experienced drivers do it. And. And Lee Pulliam, even though he didn't have a lot of. He didn't have any experience in an Xfinity car. O'Reilly car. Excuse me. He. He does with the age pattern. So it doesn't matter how much experience you got, whenever it gets down to it, you know, maybe nerves could get the better of you.
- [05:22]
Kenny Schrader
Sometimes they just mess up. You want it to be quick, you want it to be right, and you just. You Know, you rush everything a little bit and you just. You just miss it. I mean, I know I've done it. I'm sure Rick's done it somewhere along the line.
- [05:36]
Rick Mast
Thanks, Raider. Did you ever own restarts right before going to take the green? I would. A lot of times. I would go through the shift pattern. Did you ever do that? Like, you know, you're coming to take the green, you're on a back stretch or whatever. I would run through the shift pad. I would just throw it neutral and kind of run through it to make sure I had my stuff right. And I think that would happen every time I'd miss a shift. I would. I would go back and do that for a few races. Did you ever do that?
- [06:02]
Kenny Schrader
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Said, I know how to do this. Let's just do it real quick. Going down that back straightaway, going slow. You just go to second, third, make sure it's okay. I think that second to third was the bigger one than third to fourth, but yes, sir, I've done that same thing, Rick. I guarantee you we're not the only two.
- [06:24]
Rick Mast
No, no, no. But it. It shows. This ugly head man with pulling deal, right? I mean, kudos to that guy, too, right? What is he, 37 or whatever he is. Is that right out? 37. Golly, that guy was good. Step in that car and do what he did.
- [06:38]
Alan Cavanna
Whoa. Pretty cool.
- [06:40]
Kenny Schrader
They got so much experience that it's. It's easier for him to do. I mean, the. The cars, I mean, they're different, but from them late model stocks, you know, they're not all that much different.
- [06:55]
Alan Cavanna
That's what I've always heard was the gap between, say, a late model stock and an Xfinity car was closer than maybe a super late model or something like that. I do, I want to come back to that. But continuing here on the cup series a little bit, what's the verdict right now on the new package with the extra horsepower? We didn't see a lot of cautions at Darlington, which, you know, has nothing to do with the horsepower. I didn't. I don't understand. I don't know why. And again, it may go back to the aero part of it, but it seems like at Martinsville, the racing is great every year from about second to 30th, but. But the guy who gets out front really kind of stinks to race up, so it's hard for me to really tell how good or bad the race was based, you know, just on the new package.
- [07:59]
Kenny Schrader
I. I don't know It. Martinsville is very unique. There's a lot to be said how well Denny runs there, though, and his record there, though. I mean, he's. He's obviously you talk about the team and this and that. Well, one of the. One of the first car in the first run, one of them that got lapped was his teammate Briscoe got lapped. And then the other car with Gibbs in it was running third or fourth, you know, so Denny's got something figured out there. I don't know why the first place car usually gets away there, but it doesn't get away that much. I mean, I'm so tired hearing about clean air, but damned if there ain't something to it.
- [09:02]
Rick Mast
Yeah, you know, we want to talk about clean air at Martinsville. Man, that don't make sense. I know, it just doesn't to me. But evidently I had a deal. I had a Chrysler engineer tell me one time years ago when I had that old kit car and we raced in Hickory. We had to report in every Sunday or every Monday after the race. We had to report in about what we did that week. We had to call the Chrysler engineers and tell them, right, this is back in the late model days, and we'd run a race at Hickory, and I had to call in my report and it was time talking to Larry Rathgab. He was the chief engineer of Chrysler that designed these things and did it. And anyhow, I was telling him about my setup and what the car did, and he said, well, what angle did you have on your spoiler? And I said, spoiler? He said, yeah. I said, I don't have it. I didn't have a spoiler. He said, what do you mean? I said, it's hickory, a little short track. I didn't have a spoiler. He says, oh, you don't think it makes a difference? Well, no, it's a short track. He said, all right, Rick, here's what you do. Are you able to take a 4 by 8 piece of plywood and put it above your head and carry it? I said, well, not above my head, but I can carry it up. He said, we'll do that. Walk down the street one day when it's real calm and carry that. Carry that four bait sheet of plywood. Wait then. Wait till you get like a little five or ten mile an hour breeze. Miles an hour breeze of wind. Carry that. See if you can carry that board like that again and see what it does to you. And I'm like, oh, okay. So you look at it that way. Schrader, it's like, it kind of comes into focus a little bit about. About air. Right. So the Martinsville deal. Yeah, so. All right. I always go back to that four by eight piece of plywood. I see you're thinking real hard. So what do you think of that?
- [10:41]
Kenny Schrader
Well, I'm just thinking about Reddick's fender at Atlanta, but that's okay, Go ahead.
- [10:47]
Alan Cavanna
Yeah, I was. I was thinking about that same thing. But, you know, I mean, it does make sense, though.
- [11:00]
Kenny Schrader
He had the front. He had the front of the fender. That's the part that directs the air. That made evidence. If he wouldn't have evidence that have been different. Maybe if I. You come up some other story. Okay. Hey, let me. Let me ask you this. Was it a racing deal with. With Bubba and Josevar?
- [11:31]
Rick Mast
Yeah, it was a racing deal. All right. He just. He just. I mean, Bubba. Bubba says I misjudged. No, you didn't, Bubba. You didn't misjudge. I mean, he flat rich boy.
- [11:44]
Alan Cavanna
Well, but, but do you think that, that, that comes back to. You know, some of these guys are just. Are just sick of our. They're sick of getting bumped by him. They're sick of getting put three wide by him. They're sick of people talking about how great he is. Half of the folks are talking about how great he is, another half are talking about how out of control he is. And at some point, these guys just get fed up with it.
- [12:12]
Kenny Schrader
I don't. I don't think he's out of control. I don't think he's out of control. He's got real good control. He's just. He just been real aggressive, but he got good control. So I don't know. It looked. I looked at forwarded. You know, getting in him is one thing, then getting in him another time. And then when he pushed him around, well, host of ours already slowed down. I mean, slowed down because he's spinning out, so it's hard to slow down enough to stay off them. And you got people pushing you. I was just wondering if there's any way that it could have been not intentional. And then I'm thinking about Bubba hooking Larson at Vegas a couple years ago because he instantly got aggravated because of something that just happened and he just hooked him right there. I'm thinking maybe that was it. I don't know. I just want to know what you guys thought.
- [13:15]
Alan Cavanna
But. But to give. To give Bubba the benefit of the doubt. And Rick, you tell me if I'm wrong. If you go back and you look at those replays, they're packed in there like sardines down there on the bottom, and there's 10 cars bumping. And I thought, you know, when I looked at it from the overhead camera, I'm like, oh, he totally dumped him and then held it to him. But if you look at it and listen to the onboard, he is not on the gas. Whenever he pushes the car around.
- [13:47]
Rick Mast
Here's the deal. And we've been in this situation many times. At Martinsville, you get jumped, but you get jumbled up like that a lot of times. So here. So let's break it down. He hits him, he comes. You know, he takes with three wide. He pulls in front of him off of two, they go into three. Bubba, you know, everybody's slowing down. Bubba gets into him, all right. He gets off of him. They get to the center. Everybody's jumbled up, right? You know, as a driver, they're jumbled up, right? You're off the gas. Now the deal is, do I stay off the brake and compound and add to this action that's getting ready to happen, or do I slow down 10 miles an hour slower than I normally run to keep from wrecking people? Right? That's what the deal. Yeah, I know he's out of the gas, but I've done. I've been in that position a hundred times, or not 100, but a lot of times at Martinsville, when you get jumbled up, man, you get center of the corner. You've got to get on the break, you've got to stay off the guy in front of you. It just jumbles up. It's an accordion effect. And, you know, Bubba just happened to be the last one at the back end of that accordion that didn't stay off the break. That, you know, turned him around now, you know. Yeah. Is there a chance he didn't do it? It's almost like. It's almost like, you know, it's not a deal where you do it on purpose. It's like, you know, I'm three quarters of the way through this race. I'm not running good. I'm mad. I want to get out here. I've had all I can take today. You know, I ain't pushing the break that hard. Just go and hit him. I'm going to hit him, right. It's probably more one of those deals than a retaliation, but I held. I don't know. It may have been a retaliation. If you look at Bubbles, Bubba's track record. Yeah, maybe so. Maybe it Was, as Kenny pointed out. But, you know, you. It's. It's. Look, I guess the best way to put it for me would be on Bubba's part right there, a lack of discipline at that moment. People in that race. Right. Just, you know, and I. And we've all been there. We've all been there. Yeah. Yeah.
- [15:41]
Kenny Schrader
You can get there real quick. It takes, you know, different people handle it different. But. Yeah, boy, it's easy to get. It's easy to short circuit real quick in that car.
- [15:52]
Rick Mast
It is.
- [15:55]
Kenny Schrader
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You don't short circuit as quick. Atlanta or Charlotte or something like that. But Martinsville is like. It's easy.
- [16:07]
Alan Cavanna
I don't know, maybe Atlanta now, the way Atlanta is. I don't know about that now.
- [16:14]
Kenny Schrader
Yeah, yeah. But still, it's going to get messy. It's going to be messy.
- [16:19]
Alan Cavanna
Yeah.
- [16:20]
Kenny Schrader
I saw a little clip. Saw a little clip the other day that was going around. There was a bunch of us in turn four at Martinsville, and Senior got turned around. Maybe Kyle got into him or something. Turned Senior around. He did.
- [16:36]
Alan Cavanna
That was. That was Herman, that 28 car that was in. In 93. And he. He got into the. He was driving to 28 after Davey Allison passed away. And if I remember correct, Herm ran really good in that race and had a top five finish. I'm gonna look. But that was. That was him that got in. Earnhardt.
- [16:57]
Kenny Schrader
Well, at that particular point, he was going faster than Dale was.
- [17:03]
Rick Mast
Yeah, I saw that, and I didn't realize that was. That was Kenny also. I didn't. I was thinking it was Ernie, man. Poor, poor, poor Ernie. I was blaming Ernie for that. I have to apologize to Ernie when I seen.
- [17:13]
Kenny Schrader
No, nobody. Nobody checked up. Everybody just fast as they could get through it, you know, maybe there won't be a yellow. Let's get through this quick.
- [17:23]
Alan Cavanna
Look here, real quick, just so we can. Where we could see where Herm ended up finishing it. But the. The thing is, you guys were saying that stands out about that is Earnhardt puts his foot in the gas, does a 360 and keeps going. And Dale ended up winning that race, I believe. Again, I'm going to double check that right now.
- [17:44]
Rick Mast
This. Gracious. That figures. That figures it. Take Earnhardt to do that. You know, most of the time you get spun at Martinsville, things just. It's. It's the beginning of a bad day. Right. But not for our buddy Dale.
- [17:57]
Kenny Schrader
Well, there's no way Dale would have got aggravated and retaliated against somebody.
- [18:07]
Rick Mast
No, it's Not.
- [18:10]
Alan Cavanna
Yes, actually, that was 1994. So that was after. That was after Ernie had his wreck at Atlanta at 193. It was 94. Ernie had finished second in the spring race to Rusty Wallace. And then in 94, in the fall race, Rusty won it. Earnhardt was second. And let's see where Herm ended up at here. Herm ended up
- [18:40]
Kenny Schrader
fourth.
- [18:41]
Alan Cavanna
Finish fourth.
- [18:41]
Rick Mast
Okay, good for Herb. Good for Herb.
- [18:49]
Kenny Schrader
Hey, this is Dylan Hart Jr. And for the latest Herman Schrader gear, you need to go to shop.dirtymomedia.com We've got plenty of options for everybody, and we're
- [18:59]
Alan Cavanna
adding new stuff all the time. So go to shop.dirtymomedia.com.
- [19:07]
Kenny Schrader
Good.
- [19:07]
Alan Cavanna
Okay, so that. That totally sidetracked us for about 10 minutes there. So let's. Let's move on here. Oh, I do know what I wanted to mention to make sure that we get it taken care of, because we do it every week. So the top 10, Chase Elliott wins the race. Danny Hamlin finished the second. Joey Logano was third, which he needed because they were horrible at Darlington. Todd Gibbs finished fourth, William Byron fifth, Ryan Blaney in sixth. She could have, you know, finished in the top three had he and Hamlin not got together. Ross Chestn was seventh. Brad Keselowski, 8. Martin True. Martin Truex Jr. I don't know where they're getting these results from. I'm not. Better double check that, because I don't think Martin Truex Jr. Finished ninth.
- [20:03]
Kenny Schrader
No, I thought it was.
- [20:05]
Rick Mast
Yeah, yeah, Martin's good at Martinsville.
- [20:08]
Alan Cavanna
He was. Yeah. But he wasn't so good that he could, you know, run up front when he's retired,
- [20:17]
Kenny Schrader
so.
- [20:18]
Rick Mast
Oh, my goodness, me.
- [20:19]
Kenny Schrader
What about the points?
- [20:21]
Alan Cavanna
The points are as follows. And I got to make sure Martin Truex Jr. And in the point standings, either Tyler Reddick is the points leader over Ryan Blaney. Denny Hamlin's third. This moves Chase Elliott the fourth. William Byron's fifth. Ty gives six. Christopher Bell save is Brad Keselowski eighth, Kyle Larson ninth. Christopher Buescher in tenth. And to go back to, you know, what you guys were saying, the last couple of weeks have not been good for Bubba Wallace. He's failed from second in the points to 2:11 now. And you know, what happened to him at Darlington, that was. He absolutely was a victim of circumstance in that situation. I just. I wonder if he's just getting a little bit frustrated right now, and that's part of the problem that we're seeing for him.
- [21:16]
Rick Mast
Well, the problem that's part of our sport. Alan. In cup racing, man, you've got all the pressures. You've got everything happening. I mean, he's, you know, in Bubba's case, it's doubled up a little bit just because, you know, of the success that Reddick's had all year, right, Winning the races and Bubba has it. I mean, that's not a reflection on anything. It's just as a driver, man, you get. You get frustrated like that, and you get these pressures and things that go on, and then, you know, you're not doing what you think you ought to be doing, and it's not performing. Your outcome's not good, and all these things start multiplying. They start getting on you a little bit, right? And you get in the race and your chip level is a lot lower. In other words, you know, it takes a lot less misfortune for you to go off or not keep your cool and keep your calm. But that's part of. That's part of being a Cup driver, is learning that because that you deal with that every week. And unless you're ready, you deal with that every week as a driver. And you have to learn how to partner lies that and handle it and get along and race good and keep your goals intact and get on down the road. Does that sound like something that we could all do pretty easily, Kenny? That's something that's not that easy to do, but you learn how to do it correct.
- [22:36]
Kenny Schrader
You learn how to deal with it better, you learn how to tolerate it. But. So I don't remember if it was Hendrik 100 or 200 wins. We had a big party. Damn. I don't know this. It was probably 200. And all the drivers that won had. For Hendrik had stand up and talk. And it was someplace downtown Charlotte. It was a fun, fun atmosphere. And we were talking about, you know, you talk about the success of other. Your teammates. And I was my turn talk. And I. I told Jeff, you know, about how much I looked up to him and his three championships and stuff, but, you know, Jimmy's got five now, and he's been here less years than you have, and went on and on and said, now you know how Darrell and I felt when you showed up. You know, it just your. Your teammate, you. You want your team to do good. You just want to be the best.
- [24:05]
Alan Cavanna
I want to. I want to make sure that I got this right now. Six through ten, it was Ryan Blaine, Chris Christopher Bale, Austin Cindrick was. Was eighth. Kyle Larson night. Josh Berry finished in 10th to tie up Martinsville. It does remind me of something, and I actually wanted to move on. But tell me about Martinsville. Would you and Ricky Rudd, when y' all were teammates?
- [24:35]
Kenny Schrader
Hell of a wreck.
- [24:39]
Alan Cavanna
Y' all were leading, Ricky was leading,
- [24:41]
Kenny Schrader
and I think we were passing him, which was like us passing for the lead at Martinsville. This, this. This is like unheard of. And we run into each other off, too. Now, I could watch that again. I haven't watched it in a while. I don't think Ricky thought I wrecked him, and I didn't think Ricky wrecked me. You know, nobody was fuming mad at each other. Papa Joe laying on the couch in her hauler holding his chest. That wasn't very funny, especially at the time. We, we. We killed both cars. We had a hell of a meeting Monday in Rick's office. And it was like, you know, I don't think Ricky wrecked me. He didn't think I wrecked him. It turned out, said, well, just be more damn careful when you're around each other. But, yeah, we broke the inside wall in the back straightaway. Cracked the wall. It was. It looked like, like you wrecked those cars at Talladega and they drug them in at Martinsville, just parked them.
- [26:05]
Alan Cavanna
So, yeah, I remember. I mean, when you guys hit coming out of turn two, it looked like they got faster when they went to the inside wall.
- [26:15]
Kenny Schrader
So I did get hit.
- [26:18]
Rick Mast
I.
- [26:18]
Alan Cavanna
Somebody hit somebody. I can't remember which one hit who, but I remember it took both of you out.
- [26:27]
Kenny Schrader
We were. We were both full throttle and we. We caught each other somehow. It just. It just happened and. But it was a. Was a hell of a wreck. It wasn't a good teammate day. You know, you talk about guys getting figured out. So it started, the race. Denny takes off, and then wherever it was, wasn't long into the race. And the 24 car got around him in traffic. And then here come Denny again, and he got like to him once, and then 24 car moved up and let him go. That's some race savvy there and some experience and some. Just the experience to know what's going to happen. He said, I got nothing for him right now. It's early. I gotta get the hell out of the way, make laps. We'll adjust on our car, try to get better. But I need to let him go. Which Harry Gant taught a lot of us that you're not racing each other right then. You're racing the leader. And it's early in the race and it's just not Time to go yet?
- [27:40]
Rick Mast
Yeah, he explained it. You're right, Kenny. He explained it like, you're not racing that car right now. What you're really racing is this is the checkered flag. You're racing to get to the checkered flag before anybody else. And what do we do? What did we do at lap 50? That helps that, right? Well, you drop, you pull over, you let the guy that's faster than you go on, because you lose less time if you're sitting there holding back, you'll slow down. It's just the way it works. And then if they get under you to get side beside you, really slow. So you're losing time to get through that checkered flag first. Right. Kind of one way. One of the drivers put it to me. All right, now, Harriet, and he told me this one time, I let them boys go. I get behind them, and I watch that car, right? And I see what the car is doing to try to figure out why it's better than mine. That's. And I. You know, I would do that. A lot of times. I'd look at a car, and he was quicker. You know, he let him go just because that's what you need to do to try to finish better at the end of the race. But then I would try to watch the car, try to figure out why he's better, usually turning better into gas, harder, kicking, better change these apex, whatever. And you try to learn from that. And. But, yeah, you're right, Kenny. That's a. That's a better move. I remember that move to, you know, no use holding him back. You know, we'll let him pass and get to the checkered quicker.
- [28:56]
Kenny Schrader
We used to know when we started Martinsville if we could be running at the end, you were gonna be top 20 because of engines, rear ends, brakes, everything that was gonna break, and you weren't gonna finish all the other cars. So I go to Martinsville, my first race,
- [29:31]
Rick Mast
and
- [29:33]
Kenny Schrader
10th place was four laps down. You know, it's just. They run so hard now, and nobody. Nobody breaks anything that you got. You got to run your butt off the whole race. It's amazing that the equipment survives.
- [29:54]
Rick Mast
Yeah.
- [29:55]
Kenny Schrader
30 30th place paid $1100, Rick.
- [30:02]
Rick Mast
Well, I bought your tires. It didn't buy a steak at Clearance's Steakhouse, but it did buy a set of tires.
- [30:10]
Kenny Schrader
Did it buy a set of tires then? They were about 800 then, I think.
- [30:14]
Rick Mast
Yeah. What year was that? 65.
- [30:18]
Kenny Schrader
19.
- [30:20]
Rick Mast
Okay. All right.
- [30:21]
Kenny Schrader
Five full time.
- [30:23]
Rick Mast
Okay. Yeah.
- [30:26]
Kenny Schrader
Yeah.
- [30:27]
Rick Mast
Your tires weren't that much then or they are now. What do they cost today, by the way? How much the tires today do we know?
- [30:35]
Kenny Schrader
A lot.
- [30:37]
Rick Mast
Yeah, that's what I thought.
- [30:39]
Kenny Schrader
So what about, what about Jeff Gluck?
- [30:43]
Alan Cavanna
Oh, okay. Let's see what Jeff Gluck has to say about again, this is the poll to see what the fans thought of how the race was. And let's see. Wow, 5,000 votes. Was Martinsville a good race? Yes, 50%. No 50%.
- [31:06]
Kenny Schrader
Okay, I could, I can see that.
- [31:11]
Rick Mast
Yeah.
- [31:13]
Alan Cavanna
And I think that's the lowest we've seen all year.
- [31:16]
Rick Mast
It is.
- [31:18]
Kenny Schrader
But you're not going to get those big numbers unless at that short track, unless they're beaten and banging. It's just there's not going to be as many passes. You know, it just doesn't happen on those tracks as much. So. But I'd still take it, I'll take 50% for that race when we had a dominant car for two thirds of
- [31:43]
Alan Cavanna
it
- [31:47]
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- [32:04]
Alan Cavanna
Let me ask you guys something. Moving to the O'Reilly series race. So Justin Allgar wins again. Speaking about Lee Pulliam, who we had talked about a little bit earlier. And Rick, you, you remember this. There was a time back in the day at Martinsville, Richmond, North Wilkesboro, Nashville, those kinds of tracks that you could have a local late model guy come in and run in what was the Bush Series back then, Jay Fogelman, Curtis Markham, Stacy Compton, I mean, you can go through the list, all the great guys that, that you know, were able to get one or, you know, two, three off chances to run in those short track races. Plus you still had South Boston and Orange county and Hickory and all that stuff on the schedule. You don't see that much anymore. And to folks that know Lee Pulliam and have seen Lee Pulliam race, not a surprise that he ran as well as he did, especially in one of those Junior Motorsports cars.
- [33:19]
Rick Mast
Yeah. Well, back in the day, guys, we would this goes way back right before the Busch Series was formulated or formed. We had the late, it's called like Model Sportsman. Then you know, you're talking all through the 70s up to the early 80s when BGM was started. But you had the groups, you had like South Boston, you had the groups like at south but would run South Boston and maybe south side. Then you had Manassas, Beltsville, you had Hickory and Asheville group. Right. You had these groups of drivers, Birmingham, all over the southeast, that dominated these local short tracks. They formed the Busch series, and most of the guys that dominated on these short tracks joined the bush series. There are some that didn't do it either didn't want to do it or financially couldn't do it. So they didn't run the bush series. But when you went to Hickory, you had to beat John Settle Meyer, right? Or when you went, whatever track you went to, you had to beat the guy that had raced there for 20 years, but wasn't racing with you every week up and down the east coast. The bush series and that. That happened at every short track we went through, right? You'd have your regular guys, your Busch guys, Ellison Ord and Jock Ingham. Those guys you had to outrun. But it always be a little mix of the local Pulliams, right, at south Boston, that when you showed up, I got to beat outrun Jack and I got to outrun Houston, but I got to outrun Pulliam this week. This is a local hot shoe, right? And that went on for a number of years at these short tracks, right? And that's the way it worked through the Busch series, all through the 80s and then into the 90s. Then they formed the late model stock series, the super late models and all that. And you got the. The same thing going on now, right? It's exact same thing. And I guess the guys on the cars tour and all that they got going on the run, all the races, you still got to show up that. That weekly track, and you're going to have that hot shoe that you would have to outrun if. If you follow what I'm saying here.
- [35:14]
Alan Cavanna
But let me ask you guys this. And Kenny, that actually sets us up for two more questions here.
- [35:23]
Rick Mast
So.
- [35:23]
Alan Cavanna
So there was a big controversy last week on the Dale Jr. Download about hall of famers. And Travis said he didn't think Justin allgaier was. And Dale Jr. Said he did. I'll take it a step further. Lee Pulliam is a NASCAR hall of famer. He's won four regional championships in your neck of the woods. Kenny Larry Phillips is a guy that should be in the NASCAR hall of fame. Again, it's not the NASCAR cup series hall of fame. It is the NASCAR hall of fame. And I can think of 100 drivers that I've watched just in the Carolinas. Had they gotten the right opportunities, they could have raced in the cup series. But they didn't have those opportunities.
- [36:11]
Kenny Schrader
Oh, yeah, most definitely. But also back in the day, you didn't necessarily want to be in the Cup Series. You didn't. I mean, I'm gonna go and Rick will know this a lot better than I do, but Harry Gantt was better off running, towing his Shark track car up and down the road financially. Right, Rick? I mean, from what I've heard Harry saying stuff. Don't remember all the details, but the goal wasn't always the Cup Series for everybody then because the, the financial rewards weren't. Weren't there, but 100%. Right. Larry Phillips should be in big time. Five. I think it's five national championships or almost five or six. But it's. I mean. Oh, he, he did a lot for the NASCAR regional championship, the series, but it's not just the cup hall of Fame.
- [37:18]
Alan Cavanna
And he is, as far as I know, and from anything I've ever been told, he won it five times. 1989, 91, 92, 95, 96. I don't think he had any interest in running in the Cup Series. And I know my Kitty and, and Bob Senaker running, you know, in asa, they didn't have any interest in it. And there were guys like that that ran to modifieds up in New England that had no interest in running the Cup Series.
- [37:47]
Kenny Schrader
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a, that's a whole nother debate. I don't know how they. Who or how. I mean, I could real simple find out who, but how they. They make those decisions, but they're making, you know, they're making the decision they think needs to be made, and they've made a lot of real good ones. But if you're only going to put five people in a year. Is it five? I think they do two drivers and then the other categories. It's going to take a while to get everybody that deserves to be in there.
- [38:24]
Rick Mast
Yeah. I wonder why. What Miles, we've always done. This is the way we've done it since we started. Look at the guys that are in there, right? They're not all cup guys. Why the hell this all. Why did this all come up all of a sudden? We got a debate about it, man. This, this is old news. You should have been debating this years ago. Right? It is nascar. NASCAR hall of Fame. It's not cup hall of Fame. And I mean, if you just look at the winners, we know what it is. I'm not sure why they're even debating it now. Going back to what you said, Alan, I've always contended that we missed the mark the first year or first two years of the hall of Fame. I always felt like the first year of the first two years, we should have put a gob of guys in, maybe 20 guys each year or something to cover all the guys that we still argue about today that should be in the hall of Fame, right? You know, your Ray Foxes, right? Your Smokey Unix, all those guys, the pioneers of the sport. That's the only criticism that I've really ever had of, of the hall of Fame. I just think we missed the mark not putting those guys because then we got to keep trying to add them in as it goes. And they made a new. Made of a new category for them, right? The legacy pioneers. Yeah, the pioneers and all that. But somebody like Phillips, I never raced against the guy, never met him. But all my buddies have told me over the years, Kenny Schrader and Kenny Wallace and Rusty Wall, even Kwiki. I remember talking about conversation one time about that dude years and years ago, right? And I'm like, damn, who the hell is this Larry Phillips guy? All these, all my buddies here talk about how good he is, right? So yeah, if they say, if all these guys say that, then yeah, he should be in.
- [40:00]
Kenny Schrader
Well, I was going back this minute being as we change subjects a lot. My mind was still going about all the late mile stock guys and all that when he had to go work and you know, beings Rick and I are a little bit different era. Not. I wasn't around all that to see all that then, but I only remember the Bush Series. I don't remember what. When, when you guys were towing them cars up and down the road all the time to like Manassas. What was the name of that track?
- [40:33]
Alan Cavanna
Right, yeah, Old Dominion.
- [40:34]
Kenny Schrader
Yeah. Yeah. But I do remember like when we go like the Hickory and stuff, I guess it was just the cost then that, you know, there was more cars around that maybe only ran seven or eight races a year, so it was easier to get a ride in one of those cars. And just the cost now it just prohibits those really good guys getting the opportunity to come race.
- [41:04]
Alan Cavanna
Well, I'll give you going back to what Rick was saying about hall of Fame and stuff. To me, the NPA hall of Fame that they got at Darlington, where they've been putting people in it since like 1965 or whatever. All of those guys should have got grandfathered in to the NASCAR hall of Fame because they got put in by their contemporaries at that time. And, and that's one thing. The second thing is, is in trader, you know, this, you know, speaking about guys now and wanting to get to the cup series or not. Jonathan Davenport don't care anything about getting to the cup series. You know, Donnie Schottz didn't care anything about getting to the cup series for dirt track racers and why dirt racing is working so good right now. The world of outlaws, Lucas Oil hunt front high limit, that's the pinnacle for those guys. It's not the cup series.
- [41:59]
Kenny Schrader
Yeah, yeah. Well, that is, that is their. That is their biggest deal. I don't know. There's just so much to debate and that debate and thing. The problem with that, it's. It's just everybody. It's just everyone's opinions, you know. So all I know right now is the sport of racing in general. There's a hell of a lot of really good races that you can watch now no matter where you want to go and you want to watch open wheel cars on dirt, our pavement, stock cars on dirt, our pavement. Between the truck and the Xfinity. Saturday night had a huge crowd at Hickory for arker east race and a phenomenal race with an excellent finish. So sports, pretty healthy other, you know, if we don't price ourselves out of it.
- [43:05]
Alan Cavanna
Well, that, that's what I wanted to bring up is you talk about that ARCA race at Hickory and, and the cars tour race that was at Wake County. What do you guys think about these kids driving through one another? I mean, had they. Can you imagine Max Reeves doing that to Jack Ingram at Hickory and what would have happened to him?
- [43:33]
Rick Mast
Hey, did you see that? He got punched. I did an X post on that or Twitter post. Did you? And I said, man, well. And I posted that interview and I said, well, the good news in all this, it brings back fond memories of the Ricky Bobby interview, right? The classic interview. I sit there and watch that and that's what I was watching. That's what I thought about. But yeah, that wouldn't have worked with Jack and some of those guys. It just flat would not have worked well for that guy. And Kenny's right. I mean, I witnessed some of that stuff way back with some of these, some of our heroes, right? And I'm sure in ASA you had the same deal, man, you had this pecking order and a way of taking care of things. And the way you take care of things is you take care of things, you take care of business. As Buddy Parrot used to say, take care of business. And that, that wouldn't have worked in those days.
- [44:25]
Kenny Schrader
You know, first off, I was never a fan of the bump and run. You know, they didn't used to have that.
- [44:37]
Rick Mast
Ran a couple times.
- [44:40]
Kenny Schrader
We need to edit that out too. I don't never remember, I don't never remember bumping you, Rick Mast.
- [44:48]
Rick Mast
You did, you didn't. Yeah, I'm sorry.
- [44:52]
Kenny Schrader
But you know, our hero, our hero, our sport, our seven time champion, the one everyone loved and everybody loved the King Jimmy. But Dale, man, bump and run, you know, that's about, I would say he was one of the first. Wouldn't you, Rick? First, but now it's, you know, you hear them kids talking about it, well, bump and run, it's knock the heck out of somebody and then pass them. But hope you get the hell out of the way. But I don't know, it's just everything's changed. But that's not just our sport. The world's changed. So there's not the respect in the world, so.
- [45:40]
Alan Cavanna
But again, to go back to Dale Earnhardt, he was working at a mill 20 minutes from where I am right now here in Charlotte, and he could barely afford to eat and his dad was making him work on that race car. And so when he was bumping and running, it was like, well, I'll get extra $500 that I need to pay my mortgage. These kids, you know, I told my wife the other day, we were, we were at a basketball tournament this past weekend for my son and, and I said, half of these kids are like half of these race car drivers. And she said, what are you talking about? I said, all they want to do is they want to lean up against the race car with their shades and their pretty girlfriend and that they've made it. Then as far as they're concerned, that's the problem.
- [46:33]
Rick Mast
I tell you what it sets up. Here's what it sets up. It sets up not having that hunger, right? We talk, you talk. Keep talking about Dale Earnhardt. Well, he was one of the hungriest dudes that ever sat in one of these race cars. Just, he was just friggin tenacious. It come from a hunger and he learned that trying to survive early, but he never lost that. He never lost that Rick, that tenacity Rick.
- [47:00]
Alan Cavanna
He was hungry, he was hungry, he was hungry.
- [47:04]
Rick Mast
And these guys. And that's, it's a little sad when you think about it. You're talking about these younger guys and they're going to come through and do this deal, but they don't, a lot of them are not going to have and don't have that hunger that so many of the guys that I raced against had. You know, just, just have that hunger to live right.
- [47:21]
Alan Cavanna
And again, part of the problem that pavements racing's got, short track racing's got that that dirt does not have. Again, because you go watch a world outlaws race or you can go watch a Lucas Oil race and you're seeing the best. And they've been there for 20 years. And they've been the best for 20 years. The problem that we've seen now for about the last 20 years with pavement stock car racing is the kid starts racing when he's four years old and then he's driving a legends car and then he's 10 years old and he's driving a late model and then he's driving a ARCA car when he's 15. And my numbers are actually a little bit skewed because they don't stay in these cars no more than about a year at that basketball tournament. My kid, they divided up, you know, sixth graders are playing sixth graders, seventh graders playing seventh graders, eighth graders are playing eighth graders. But you got coaches and families that will sit there. And we're missing a player this week and they bring some 15 year old kid that six two to go out there and play. My kid who's four foot eight, you know, it is the same difference in. And I told him and I would be the same way with racing if he was on a team that a coach did that for. If he got to play that game and I didn't pull him before that game, that would be the last game he'd ever play for that coach. So it starts from the top.
- [49:01]
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- [49:34]
Kenny Schrader
Okay, I got something. Beans. We've had. We've jumped around so much, you know, but I don't know anything about much about other sports. But we were talking with some people over here yesterday. Just stopped in because we had a door open. Whenever you open the door and shop, you know that means you can stop. We were talking about participation trophies, but that the basketball thing that's going on now, that's the, the final. We're not in the final four yet. We're just in the playoffs. Right. What team was it decided to final four?
- [50:19]
Alan Cavanna
Yes.
- [50:20]
Kenny Schrader
Have they?
- [50:21]
Alan Cavanna
Yeah. Yes.
- [50:22]
Kenny Schrader
Okay. So what team was it though that made that, you know, like right at the end, like a half court shot or whatever?
- [50:30]
Alan Cavanna
Yeah, Yukon. Because Duke didn't sit there and let him foul them. And they passed it around. That was really dumb. But this isn't a basketball show. But yeah, yeah,
- [50:43]
Kenny Schrader
that was pretty neat. We talked about everything else. I just messed my whole basketball history.
- [50:51]
Alan Cavanna
Yeah, yeah.
- [50:52]
Rick Mast
Boozer should never, he should never threw the ball, Allen. He should have just dribbled it out, man. And Duke goes on to the final Four.
- [50:58]
Alan Cavanna
I, yeah, that was, that was crazy. And listen, all of this goes back to why. The why we love sports is because I don't care how old you are, how many races you've been to, how many football games you, there's a chance that you're going to see something that you've never seen before. You know, and that's like when I went to Darlington last week when, when they go to Rockingham and I want to talk about Rockingham real quick, there's a chance that you're going to see something that you've never seen before. And that anticipation to me is, is part of why we go to these things.
- [51:41]
Kenny Schrader
I went to a US MTS modified race and they had mods, B mods, street stock, not street stock, stock cars they call them. And we had 176 race cars in three classes. And we got done at 11 o' clock at Lucas Oil Speedway, which is beautiful track in Wheatland, Missouri. And it made you feel, I mean it was like 58 stock cars, 66 mods, 61B mod, something like that. People all over in the pits, not a lot of spectators because it was cold. But boy, you talk about a series that made everybody play by the rules. Inspection was tough. It wasn't tough. It was just this is the way it's supposed to be, you know,
- [52:44]
Alan Cavanna
that reminded me of something. Speaking of inspection, what, what happened this weekend?
- [52:51]
Kenny Schrader
We were wrong. We had, we had, we. We had something wrong in the car and it was pointed out to us and we fixed it the next day and raced with them again. So I love it. It was great. It was wrong. Other people that had stuff wrong got the same thing that still was. I'm sure there was stuff that snuck through. I got no problem with that. Let's. Let's inspect the hell out and make sure everybody's right. So that was it. But it just made you feel good about the sport. There was a lot of stuff made happy this week. I mean we saw Lucas Oil, Late Models, World Outlaw, Late models world outlaw sprint cars. I don't remember where High Limits ran this week, but damn, there's so much racing. We're just. Things are good.
- [53:54]
Rick Mast
Yeah. To add to that, man, Kenny, you're one of your favorite Virginia tracks. Our track right here down the street, Natural Ridge Speedway. Right. Same kind of deal, man. Just starting a year out, getting good. They did it last year, man. Good car count. A lot of people, a lot of fans showing up. It's just, you know, now the promoter, the new promoter we have to racetrack is doing an excellent job, which all promoters need to do that, right. But it's just the overall feeling of, man, you know, things are good. Things are good. On the short track scene. Yeah, it still costs you an arm and a leg. You got to mortgage a house to race, but hell, it's always been that way. Right. Just the numbers, the sports, zero. So. But yeah, it's great.
- [54:32]
Kenny Schrader
I think so. Rocking him.
- [54:35]
Alan Cavanna
Yeah. Rockingham. So go there this weekend. Truck race is Friday afternoon and the Raleigh series race this Saturday. I went to the truck race last year. Couldn't go to the Xfinity at the time. Series race on Saturday because I had to announce a race. And as soon as I walked in there, it felt like the year 2000. It felt exactly the same. And you look at the racetrack and the sight lines at Rockingham were always great, especially for track built back in the 60s. The sight lines were way better than Darlington and places like that. And then the racing was just as good. How important is this weekend at Rockingham to future success? We know what happened last year, but I think this is a very important weekend for Rockingham.
- [55:40]
Kenny Schrader
Well, yes, it has. It has to be an important weekend to see what could possibly happen there now, you know, a little bit up in the air with the new ownership, Rockingham, the IHRA group, you hear of, you know, a lot of pros and cons to what's going on with them, but we'll just have to. We'll just have to see. I think the. Hopefully they get the weather that they. They deserve and they have a good weekend. You know, Arca will also be there Saturday along with the O'Reilly's race. I don't know if it's ARCA east or ARCA National. I think it probably east, but big weekend and it could see how it works. Could. Could have a lot to do with the. The future of that racetrack and NASCAR
- [56:38]
Alan Cavanna
and Rick, I just touch on, you know, for years Rockingham was the second or third cup race. So you had Seen Daytona for two weeks, and they were drafting and all this and totally different kind of racing. And I remember, you know, coming from back towards Hamlet to the racetrack, and you'd take that. That left on. On US one and they're on the campground. You'd smell the wood burning, and it was cold, and it looked like a Civil War encampment out there. I mean, it was great.
- [57:14]
Rick Mast
Yeah. You know what? I remember going to that racetrack every day, every morning. That's the first place I saw those signs, those mobile signs they put on side of the road. You know, it flash up like they do today. Road work ahead. Click it or ticket. Click it. Or ticket. I didn't know what it meant there for a couple years. Was it clicking the. Or the click in the beer? Is that the click in the beer?
- [57:35]
Alan Cavanna
No. Yeah, it was the seat belt. Clicking the seatbelt.
- [57:40]
Rick Mast
We figured that out before. Finally figured that out, man. But let me tell you, simple enough with Rockingham, and I think it's very simple to me, Rockingham always produced great TV races, man. When Rockingham was covered by the tv, they were some of the best races of any racetrack on the circuit. And when we got rid of Rockingham, we got rid of one of our best TV races, right? Even though the market, you know, we're trying to get out to different markets and all that. So, you know, I look at it like, that's the way I look at Rockingham. It was just always, always good TV material. So. And that's what we got to have these days. That's one of the things we got to have. So it's. It's simple for me from that standpoint.
- [58:26]
Kenny Schrader
Let me. Let me add one thing. We, you know, just for our general audience, if we have one, you know, we. We didn't. All these racetracks, Wilkesboro, Rockingham, whatever, ones that we don't go to anymore, we didn't get rid of them, and NASCAR didn't get rid of them. The families that owned the facility, owned the business, owned the. Decided it was a better time for them to get out. And what happened to that date, happened to that date, then, you know, we didn't get rid of them. I mean, that's what happened. Just because it makes a difference. If. If the. A newer fan thinks, well, why in the hell they leave here before it wasn't good enough and they went someplace else was. It's not. That wasn't the deal. The family that owned the business decided to sell.
- [59:31]
Alan Cavanna
And the crowds you can look at, everybody knew that that race that One race, one cup race that they had at Rockingham in 2004 was, was probably the last one and the crowd still wanting there. And that's why I hope that these crowds stick with it. It wouldn't, it wouldn't be that big a deal to me if it was just some cookie cutter racetrack. But it's like Darlington. It's a. It's a D shaped racetrack that, that is High Bank. Then I say that it's like Darlington in the sense that it's a unique shape that puts on great races. You can race from the top to the bottom there and no one way is better than the other if you get the car set up right.
- [60:19]
Rick Mast
Yeah, that. I love that racetrack, man. I love that racetrack. I don't know why. Some tracks you love, some tracks you don't. Right? That's just one of those I like. I'll tell you the other thing. You talk about the campground coming into that track and the smell. That was a track that always looked around and there's an old school bus and it was painted the skull colors, had number one on it. And they got word to me one time to stop. So one day, one time on a Friday after afternoon, after we're done at the racetrack, I stopped by that place while going this bus. And it's not really. It's. I don't know how to put it. A third of the bus is stacked with cases of beer, right. I guess a third maybe had junk and stuff, then maybe a little fourth had these cots laying in there and all these guys were piled up in there sleeping. Well, when we leave, when I leave that school bus that night or whenever it was somebody else was driving. And a lot of that beer that was in that bus is now gone or the cans are outside. It was, it was one of those unrestricted good afternoons with some of the Rick Mass, great Rick Mass fans, right? So, yeah, I remember about rocking it
- [61:33]
Kenny Schrader
and good job, Tiger.
- [61:37]
Rick Mast
I digress, I digress.
- [61:41]
Alan Cavanna
I remember. I remember being there and it was, it was 95 and it was the race that Ward Burton won his first cup race. And NASCAR threw caution because Earnhardt came in and the officials said they didn't get all the lug nuts on. And they made him come back in and they threw the caution. And that made me mad because the same year the same thing happened to Ricky Rudd at North Wilkesboro. Said he didn't have the lug nuts on. They brought him back in, he had the lug nuts on. Well, he didn't throw a caution for Ricky Rudd and it made me mad. But anyway, I remember my mom, all of my family was bigger heart fans. Me, you know, I pulled for Bill Elliot and we are out there after the race is over with. My mom's wanted to get a T shirt. We're over there. Earnhardt souvenir trailer. And you know the drag strips over there on the other side of the racetrack and a lot of the drivers used it as a. The take off and land their airplanes and stuff. So we're standing there and this guy goes into the souvenir trailer real quick. Pets on the back, all this kind of stuff. Shakes their hand, comes out, I mean just beelines it and we're all looking at each other and nobody's around him. But it was Earnhardt and he was just so fast and so subtle about everything he did that nobody could surround him. I mean he just, he came and went. It was like crap. That was Dale Earnhardt.
- [63:14]
Rick Mast
Yeah, that's what he was on the racetrack. Subtle. You didn't know he was around.
- [63:17]
Kenny Schrader
Yeah, yeah, sometimes. You knew when he was around?
- [63:24]
Alan Cavanna
Yeah. Bobby Hamilton, right?
- [63:26]
Rick Mast
Yeah.
- [63:27]
Alan Cavanna
At rocking him. He knew he was around.
- [63:29]
Rick Mast
Yeah.
- [63:29]
Alan Cavanna
Okay, jokes. Here we go. Why can't pigs play soccer? They hog the ball. Okay, last one. Why shouldn't you play tennis in the jungle? Too many cheetahs. Cheetahs. Cheaters. Cheetahs.
- [63:50]
Rick Mast
It's something about. It's something about your delivery. Alright.
- [63:57]
Alan Cavanna
I think people have left at my delivery for a long time about a lot of things.
- [64:03]
Rick Mast
Oh, man.
- [64:06]
Alan Cavanna
All right, Trader, you want to get us out of here and hopefully we can scrounge together 30, 45 minutes of what we've done today to make a show.
- [64:20]
Kenny Schrader
We've been an hour and 15 minutes, but I'm not sure they're going to come up with a half hour's worth to make a show. But good, good luck. So until the next time we see you on the Herm and Schrader and Allen and Mask show. Have a good weekend. Enjoy Easter. Be safe. Talk to you later. Check out dirty mo media on twitter, facebook, tick tock and instagram.