The Earnhardt Legacy: Racing, Relationships, and Resilience with Kelley Earnhardt Miller

Summary

Episode Summary: "The Earnhardt Legacy: Racing, Relationships, and Resilience with Kelley Earnhardt Miller"

Hosted by Kenny Wallace under the Dirty Mo Media banner on SiriusXM, this episode of "Herm & Schrader" delves deep into the illustrious legacy of the Earnhardt family in NASCAR. Featuring Kelly Earnhardt Miller, the conversation navigates through her racing beginnings, business acumen, family dynamics, mental health advocacy, and insights into NASCAR's charter system.

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1. Introduction

Kenny Wallace warmly welcomes listeners to the episode, introducing the esteemed guest, Kelly Earnhardt Miller. Kelly is not only the CEO and co-owner of Junior Mo Sports but also the daughter of the legendary Dale Earnhardt Sr. Their longstanding friendship and mutual respect set the stage for an engaging and heartfelt dialogue.

Notable Quote:

• Kenny Wallace [01:02]: "You are what you are, and you do what you do."

2. Early Life and Racing Career

Kelly recounts her early years, highlighting the influence of her father, Dale Earnhardt Sr., and the initial foray into racing. Despite her father's reservations about traditional female roles, Kelly's passion for racing was undeniable. She shares humorous and poignant stories from her early racing days, including memorable incidents where she interacted directly with her father on the track.

Notable Quotes:

• Kelly Earnhardt Miller [14:20]: "I wanted to race cars, hunt deer, ride motorcycles. My dad was always like, 'That's not for girls.'"
• Kelly Earnhardt Miller [18:51]: "Starting in front of Dale and then he barrels into me and crushes his radiator. See you, Dale."

3. Transition to Business

After excelling academically, Kelly made a strategic move back home to support her family's racing endeavors. Her transition from racer to business leader was marked by dedication and resilience, especially following her father's untimely passing in 2001. Kelly discusses the challenges she faced in stepping into a leadership role and the decisions that shaped her career trajectory.

Notable Quotes:

• Kelly Earnhardt Miller [22:40]: "I took a 50% pay cut and went to start managing his business because I knew I needed to come work for him."
• Kenny Wallace [11:27]: "Being voted one of the most influential people in business in NASCAR was badass."

4. Family and Personal Life

The conversation shifts to the intricate dynamics within the Earnhardt family. Kelly emphasizes the strong bond she shares with her brother, Dale Earnhardt Jr., while also candidly addressing past conflicts and the journey toward mutual understanding. Their discussion underscores the importance of communication and appreciation in maintaining familial relationships.

Notable Quotes:

• Kelly Earnhardt Miller [42:34]: "We have a great relationship, but it's not like we ever spend a lot of time in each other's minds."
• Kenny Wallace [44:47]: "Your husband, Kim, grew up in the city. She’ll bust your ass. You know, it's like, honey, I love you."

5. Mental Health Advocacy

Kelly opens up about her personal struggles with mental health and the broader implications within the NASCAR community. She highlights the increased awareness and the importance of addressing mental health issues, especially in high-pressure environments like racing. Her advocacy is rooted in her experiences and a desire to foster a supportive culture.

Notable Quotes:

• Kelly Earnhardt Miller [38:23]: "I try real hard at work. I know all of my employees' names, I know their kids. I know what they're doing..."
• Kenny Wallace [36:27]: "Do you think mental health has always been around, and why has it just now struck a chord?"

6. NASCAR Charters Discussion

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to dissecting NASCAR's charter system. Kelly critically examines the financial viability and valuation of charters, drawing parallels to other major sports leagues. She argues that the current model lacks transparency and poses substantial financial risks, especially with the impending expiration of contracts.

Notable Quotes:

• Kelly Earnhardt Miller [73:08]: "It's not about the value of the charter. I don't want to pay $30 million for something that I have no clue how to measure what it's worth."
• Kenny Wallace [76:03]: "The charter system is only worth what teams are willing to pay. It's not like the Dodgers; they're worth $40 billion."

7. Children's Involvement in Racing

Kelly proudly introduces her children—Wyatt, Carson, and Kennedy—and their budding careers in racing. Wyatt's rapid ascent in outlaw cart racing, Carson's brief yet intense stint in midget racing, and Kennedy's interests outside the racing sphere exemplify the next generation's diverse talents and passions.

Notable Quotes:

• Kelly Earnhardt Miller [48:03]: "Wyatt started outlaw cart racing, won the nationals in his first year at eight years old."
• Kelly Earnhardt Miller [57:37]: "Kennedy just graduated and wants to be a cosmetologist. She loves makeup and wants to own her own salon."
• Kenny Wallace [51:43]: "How talented he is. Do you think as a child he just absorbed it like Chase Elliott did?"

8. Business Strategies and Mentorship

Kelly discusses the strategic partnerships and mentorship within the racing industry, particularly her collaboration with Hendrick Motorsports. She elaborates on how these alliances facilitate resource sharing, talent development, and operational efficiencies, thereby strengthening Junior Mo Sports' competitive edge.

Notable Quotes:

• Kelly Earnhardt Miller [64:36]: "Hendrick Motorsports supplies our chassis and engines. We work closely together on people and support each other where we can."
• Kenny Wallace [66:51]: "When you talk to Mr. Hendrick, he listens and gives you the right answers."

9. Conclusion

As the episode winds down, Kelly and Kenny reflect on the enduring passion that fuels NASCAR. They emphasize the importance of resilience, strategic planning, and heartfelt relationships in sustaining the sport's legacy. Their mutual admiration and shared commitment to the Earnhardt legacy encapsulate the essence of the conversation.

Notable Quotes:

• Kelly Earnhardt Miller [90:00]: "NASCAR equals passion, period. Every single person that touches this sport is passionate about it."
• Kenny Wallace [90:12]: "NASCAR rocks. Passion drives all our decisions in life."

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers a comprehensive look into Kelly Earnhardt Miller's multifaceted life, intertwining personal anecdotes with professional insights. Listeners gain a deeper appreciation for the complexities of managing a racing legacy, the significance of mental health, and the evolving landscape of NASCAR's business models. Kelly's candidness and thoughtful reflections make this episode a compelling listen for both racing enthusiasts and those interested in leadership and resilience.

Notable Quote to Leave With:

• Kelly Earnhardt Miller [90:00]: "NASCAR equals passion, period. Every single person that touches this sport is passionate about it."

Transcript

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[Kenny Wallace]

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Kenny Conversation, brought to you by jegs, the leader in high performance aftermarket car parts. Remember to go to JEGS.com for everything you need to fix your vehicles up. And they tell me right now they're all about Jeep parts and truck parts and boy, oh boy, does this next lady understand sponsorship. My dear friend, and she truly is, I've known her for years, the great Kelly Earnhardt Miller. How you doing, Kelly?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yay. I'm doing great. I'm so glad that you asked me this. And yeah, we go back a long ways, right?

[Kenny Wallace]

I think so. I. I don't. I. Yeah, I. I think that's something we can talk about too. But let's, let's introduce you properly. Kelly is the business leader and CEO and co owner of Junior Mo Sports and the daughter of the great Dale Earnhardt Senior. So, you know, there's a lot of people, Kelly, that don't know our past because like brother Rusty says, there's a. There's a generation gap.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Now, I noticed that's been a theme with you lately, this generation gap.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah. Well, I'm glad you hear that. I. I get on tangents and I tend to use them because it pisses me off a little bit when people don't know, you know, say, Bill Elliot or Dale Senior or Cale Yarborough. You know, like those pictures in the background there. What is that Buddy Baker up there?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yep. Buddy Baker, the ghost car. Yep. We've got a little good wrench one of dad's helmets here. So my papa's trophies over here.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah, I love That I want to start out fun. I want. I want to brag on you. You're very mature. You're very influential. And you said something to me that I. I teach my best friends, and I probably told 10 people. The. The people that I'm closest to could be Doug Schoenfeld from Schoenfeld headers. I said, let me tell you what Kelly Earnhardt told me one day.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Oh, gosh.

[Kenny Wallace]

She said, kenny Wallace, I love you because you're a no maintenance friend. So. Yeah. And you might not remember maintenance people. Well, when. When you're famous like you are and people want to claw to you, they want to cling to you. You know, you might have forgot about that. Do you remember that and talk about.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

No, you know, I. I do think I remember that. And I mean, I mean that in, like, the kindest way for people, you know, because I. You. You know, it's not just me. Everybody's business busy in this world. It's not just me. Mamas are busy, business owners are busy, students are busy, racers are busy. Like, we're all. Life is busy. This little device right here, the fact that we're doing what we're doing has just made everything so accessible. Right? And, you know, it's. It's disheartening that you can't keep up with everybody that you want to keep up with. And I think, gosh, for Facebook and social media and people that are real like you on there that, you know, you can. You can keep up with life. And so then when you do get that opportunity to see you in person or text with you about something, you know, I'm kind of caught up from Facebook, so I might can ask you about something or say you. You just got back from vacation, you.

[Kenny Wallace]

Know, and I did.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Right. And I love that instead of, well, God, it's been forever since you talked to me. It's been forever since you called me. You don't ever call me anymore. You know, that's high maintenance to me because in this life, we are spread thin. And, you know, I. I'm a people lover. I don't know if I'm. I'm not saying I'm a people pleaser. I like to make people happy, so I like to connect with people. I like relationships with people. And so, yeah, I mean, that's why I said that. Like, I love it when you can just pick right up. You know, you and I do go way back. I mean, you were on Jimmy Ellis team, my ex husband, you know, just obviously growing up in the Sport, I looked up to your family because you were a family. A racing family, a family of brothers. My dad and Rusty's connection. You know, there's just so many touch points. And the greatest thing about your family is your mama, Judy.

[Kenny Wallace]

She. She's next on my list. Why? And I. And there's a lot. A lot to be said about this. Number one. Yeah. Why do you like my mom so much? And I want to let you know, my mom would say to me, you don't ever call me. And I'm like, mama, it goes both. It goes both ways.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

You.

[Kenny Wallace]

You call me, and I'm going to answer because you're number one. If I'm on the phone, I'm gonna go, hey, hold on. My mom's on the other line.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Well, I got to. I got to be. I was the account manager for Rusty at Action Performance, so he was one of Miller Lite, and he were one of my clients, you know, so to speak. And I got the opportunity to go to Graceland with them, and when. When they had the Graceland Elvis car. And I'm pretty certain that's when I was introduced to your mom. And I don't know. I mean, she just. Like, once I met your mom, she made the connection to me for all. For the three of you. And, I mean, she just is just a genuine fun again, like I said, you. You run into her. I just saw her somewhere, and I'm trying to remember where. And I ran.

[Kenny Wallace]

Grocery store, probably.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

The grocery store. No, her and one of your daughters were somewhere with me and one of the grandkids. We were in.

[Kenny Wallace]

Britney. Britney and Lila.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

We were in the same space for some reason, and I ran over to her, and I was like, oh, my God, it's so good to see you. She's just always one of my favorite people. She doesn't. You know, she doesn't take any stuff. I watch her on Facebook and the things she posted just. I just love her.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Just love her. So, anyway, yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

You know, and we got a lot to talk about, everybody. We're gonna get to the charters. We're gonna rough her up about that. But calm down about the charters. Everyone. Let's. Let's lower that a little bit right now. Let me. Let me talk to Kelly. Let me talk about Kelly for a little bit in that same space. Kelly, you know, I don't always want to go back to your father. I mean, my. My. My brother's rusty, so I understand, but it do. Do you. Strong arm so you can keep your life organized. I mean, you know, in other words, sometimes do you catch yourself being too famous? What is an Earnhardt? Like, I always told people, your, your father would hurt my feelings at time because, you know, he was so good to me. And then he would walk by me like he didn't know me. Is that an Earn, Is that an Earnhardt?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah, that's not me.

[Kenny Wallace]

Tell me about being Earnhardt and being famous.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah, I mean, it's just not me. And you know, Kenny, I think it's not me because I lived in that shadow too. You know, I, I lived in the shadow of my dad being famous. And, and the same thing, you know, I talk about in my book that I wrote, Drive My dad and I had. My dad is by far the most awesome person in the universe as far as I'm concerned, the most awesome race car driver, just all of these great things. But we, our daughter, our dad daughter relationship was tough. And it was the same thing where, where was the time for Kelly? Where was Kelly valued by her dad? Where was Kelly's worth in her dad's life? And I struggled with all of that. And so I believe that that childhood piece of me I take into the future, for better or worse, in just the way I treat people. And I want people to know that they're appreciated and that they're valued and that they're important, good people, not bad people. I want the good people to know they're all those things. And so I try real hard at work. I know all of my employees names, I know, I know their kids. I know what they're doing. Just like I mentioned you on vacation, I, that connection is important to me that I follow up with people if they've told me that they had somebody sick, you know, I follow up with an employee here, hey, how such and such doing what's going on? To me, those, those you just, you can't do that enough for people. Especially in this day and age when, when life is tough and mental illness is there and all of these things that are there. You just, you just can't be a kind enough person. Which to me just means being just appreciating people.

[Kenny Wallace]

So a couple things. Matthew Dillner, he, he, I said something to him direct messaging on X that I was going to talk to.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

And he said she's the best boss I ever worked for. Oh. So now here I'm going to connect the dots. So like you, I love my brother Rusty dearly, but he's mean. And, and because I watch him be mean to people because like your father, they were so focused, and. And there was this story I heard that most successful people are mean. Got an edge to him. And because I watched Rusty be like that, I'm like, oh, my God, I can't be like that.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

So.

[Kenny Wallace]

So you and I. I just want to comment on that. Matthew says you're the best boss he's ever worked for. And I want you to know that I tried to be overly nice because Rusty was so harsh making it to the big time. So. Okay. Yeah, I love you for that. And you're. And I know that your employees do, too, because they. They say nice things behind your back.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Well, that's wonderful. That's all. Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

Okay, let's move here. So many years ago, I saw something that made me smile, like I'm smiling right now, said Kelly Earnhardt Miller voted one of the influential and business people in nascar. That was a big deal.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

It was a big deal.

[Kenny Wallace]

Tell me about that time.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

You know, it was that. That was during the time of us deciding to. To move away from Delano Incorporated. And, you know, I think a lot of that most influential was obviously around my brother because I was his manager and still am today. And the decisions that we had to make, both professionally and personally to make the decision to leave Dellen Hart Incorporated, and everything that we knew had been built for the benefit of Dell and I, and. And knowing that that that's what our dad wanted for us and that we were letting a piece of that down, even though he wasn't here to, like, talk with us about it. But we knew in our hearts that a letdown, because we knew. But then we knew that, you know, Teresa here, you know, didn't want that for us. And so that. I think that whole time and then going out and talking and negotiating with Gibbs and Richard and Mr. Hendrick and netting out where we netted and, you know, all the hoopla on the sponsorship that we were able to achieve with Mountain Dew and National Guard at the time in 2008, and just really set the path. You know, I took my brother's career at that time and charged forward with it. Like I. Like only I knew how to do. I had learned from the best in terms of my dad and business. Working at Action Performance Licensing was so huge. Then I got the right people in place. I hired Joe Mattis. You know, I. I just got the right people in place, attorney wise and things like that, and just said, this is the business we're going to build, and this is what we're going to do. So you know, I give a lot of credit to that scenario of us making that decision to that award right there.

[Kenny Wallace]

That's badass. So I, I, I want to compact this question. I, I know you this. How far back we go. I'm not bragging on that. Everybody, don't, don't, don't comment. Oh, you all about Kelly Earn our Miller. I. We got, as they say in AM debate radio. I got to paint the picture.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

And the picture that I remember is that you were a really good race car driver.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And they said I was the best.

[Kenny Wallace]

No, you were. You really were. So here's my question. At what point did you go from race car driver to business? Business person? When it's like, hey, I'm a race car driver. Oh, yeah. I'm gonna become, you know, I'm. Me and my brother are so tight, we're gonna go business. When was that?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah. So great question, you know, I guess, you know, I'll just tell you how it happened. I mean, I was a good student. My dad had high expectations of Dell and I to make straight A's. If you didn't make straight A's, you're on the list.

[Kenny Wallace]

Listen, kids. Listen to that.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Listen, kids, I made straight A's. You know, I didn't cause any problems for my dad. And from that perspective. And my dad wanted me to go to college. So you gotta paint the picture. It's just me and Dale in our home. My brother Carrie lived outside of our home, so I'm the first kid that's going to go to college. And my dad really wanted me to go to college, so I did. I went to UNC Wilmington. And I always. I was a tomboy growing up. I wanted to race cars. I wanted a deer hunt. I wanted to ride motorcycles. I wanted to do all these things. And my dad was always like, that's not for girls. You're gonna skin up your legs. I'll never forget when he told me that about motorcycle riding. You're going to skin up your legs, and you don't want your legs all skin up and scarred and da, da, da, da. You know, you're a girl, and. And that was the time then, you know, don't get me wrong. So. So I go to college and I'm. I'm in Wilmington for three years, and I get a set of flowers from my dad. And it said, no, I don't cry. It said, it's been so long since I've seen you.

[Kenny Wallace]

I love you.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I forgot what you look like.

[Kenny Wallace]

I love you.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I Never came home. I got to college and I was like, whoo, I'm out of here. You know, I'm in Wilmington. I'm at the beach. I got a full time job at the mall. And, you know, you work 365 days at the mall. And so I got that, I got that, that, that flowers. And I was like, oh, God, it's just been forever since I've been home. So I, I, I guess that made me decide to move home. And I moved home and I finished my college career at uncc. And so I moved home my junior year. And it took me four and a half years to finish up because I did that. And I said to my dad when I moved home, I said, I will only move if I can do two things. Race cars and have my own apartment. I did not want to go back and live with them. So. Yep. So I, when I came home in, that was the, let's see, 93. The, the summer of 93. Guess what trace car I got. I got my dad, my brother's orange Chevy street stock. It was scratched everywhere but the roof. You needed technique. You need multiple tetanus shots to drive this race car. Yeah, I, I took this car out to Concord, loaded it on the open trailer, drove to Concord every weekend, ran this street stock. My cousin Tony Jr. Was running. Kevin Pennell 2 beer, who works at SHR now, was run, and Hank Parker Jr. Was running, and we had a ball. And I mean, this, this street stock car was nasty to drive. And funny story, I got knocked out in the payout line at Concord because I beat this girl's boyfriend.

[Kenny Wallace]

Oh, he was, wow, that's real.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

She was standing behind me in the payout line and, you know, to get our $30 right for a street stock race. And I turned around, and when I turned around, she was swinging, and she said that I passed her boyfriend and she didn't like the way I passed her boyfriend and I beat her boyfriend. And there's that.

[Kenny Wallace]

God, this is so good.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I know, right? So, so one time, too, A funny story with Dale. My mom was in town from Virginia, and so one of my dad's employees had a street stock car also that he ran. So he wasn't going to run that weekend. So Dell and I loaded up both cars, he loaded up Todd's car, and I got my car and we drove to Concord, took our mom because we wanted to see a race, you know, So, I mean, I got pictures of me out there putting air in my tires. I did it. I did it all by myself and. And Dale. We're starting the race and I'm starting in front of Dale and Dale barrels into me and crushes his radiator. See you, Dale.

[Kenny Wallace]

You knocked him out and didn't even try from behind. You wrecked him from behind.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

So from there my dad put the late model stock car together. Okay. So. So I'm in school. I'm working full time for a hospitality company that did the GM good wrench and AC Delco stuff. I'm working part time for them and I'm racing the street. Socks on the side. Well, my dad put the late model program together for Dale, Carry and myself. That's when I ran the 38 late model car. I was seeing if Dale doesn't have my.

[Kenny Wallace]

Was it Sizzler steakhouse?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Sizzling. Yeah. So it was mom and pops ham, Western sizzling, Western steer. Western steer and Bennett steakhouse, which was a barbecue place. And so that was a three year deal. I raced late models all around, you know, Tri County. We went to Nashville, North Wilkesboro, Hickory, Myrtle beach, you know, and. And raced and had a lot of fun.

[Kenny Wallace]

And say this.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yep.

[Kenny Wallace]

Just listening to you. I don't like to interrupt, but I just want to say this. You have already. Everything you just said, you've gone to college, you've raced.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

You're. You're already ready.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I mean, you're grounded, right? Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

Okay, so go ahead.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah. So. So then I. My dad bought Sports Image, who did all the licensing. Hank Jones Co. That did all my dad's product. And I went to work there and I got in there working full time. I would leave on Fridays at 2:00 to go racing. And I just started doing well. I started getting promoted. That was when I was Rusty's account manager at Sports Image when we merged with action performance in 1997. So I graduate college in 95. I'm still racing in 96. The late model program kind of fell together because you. I mean, I'm working. You know what my brother's got to do? Work in the race shop. Work in the race shop.

[Kenny Wallace]

I remember your dad trying to get him out of bed by 11 or noon. Yeah, this was. That was that era. Dale Jr. Won't get out of bed.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And so I'll just fast forward this story. My dad, I know, was extremely proud of me. He sent me to Sports Image to work. He sent me to Action Performance to work. It was. I kind of always arm's length business, you know, from. From the Delano Incorporated. Everybody's like, why didn't you ever work there? And so this is 97. I'm doing really well. I'm getting promoted. I'm moving up the ladder. I'm over purchasing. I'm going to Phoenix with Fred Wagon alls and doing business. I mean, I'm doing all these great things. Right. I'm making a six figure salary at 27. And dad dies, 2001.

[Kenny Wallace]

I'm so sorry.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And. But you know what? I got set up for success because of that. I. All of those things that happened in. So I'm still working for action performance. And you know what life was like then. We were going through the autopsy picture debacle. Obviously, when you make merchandise for someone, everybody's feeding for it after the death. Right?

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And so I got caught up at work in the middle of family problems because Teresa was focused on the autopsy. She was. She just lost her husband, for God's sakes. Right. I don't say that negatively, that I got caught up, but I'm sitting in meetings going, we need these approvals. We need to make more diecasts. We need to make more this. And I was like, man, this is just too much for me. Like, I can't do this right. This is. My dad is my family. I can't be put in this position. So I called Dale in and Dale always told me he can never afford for me to come work for him. So I called Dale in August of 2001 and I was like, look, I'm going to take a pay cut. I'm told the story. It's in my book, everything. I'm going to take a pay cut. I got to come work for you.

[Kenny Wallace]

I got to get. This will make people go after your book.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Driven.

[Kenny Wallace]

Right?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Drive. Yep.

[Kenny Wallace]

Drive. Drive.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yep. And I said, I gotta. I gotta come work for you. You need me and I need you, and I'll come work for whatever. So I took a 50% pay cut and went to start managing his business. Because here's what I knew. I knew that Teresa would not look after Dell junior Like my dad looked after Dell junior. Dale junior and I were close growing up. Our parents divorced when we were four. I mothered the hell out of that kid. You know, I was. I mean, I gave him the lunch money every day. I did everything for him. I financed his first computer.

[Kenny Wallace]

Finance.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Finance. Best Buy.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I was just talking about layaway the other day. Isn't that so funny? All these things. Cosign and finance. Yeah, that was a good thing. Right? And so. And so it all worked out because I Didn't know my dad was going to die. And I. I was so racing, not working out. You know, I stopped racing just because that fell apart. And I was doing so good in business that we just, you know, we just didn't try to make it any different. And now I. Then I understood why. Right. We always don't know the planet. That was the plan. And I wholeheartedly believe that was the plan. So I started working for Dale and. And here I am, 23 years later.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah. And I wanna. I want to let everybody know and that my friends, like Paul Harvey says, that's the rest of the story. And that's why she was voted one of the most top influential people in business in nascar. Because you went to college, even though maybe you didn't feel your dad's love and it was rough on you. Like, I. Sometimes I don't feel Rusty's love. He's busy chewing my ass out. But. But I mean, I knew I was loved.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I just wanted to love differently. I knew I was loved.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yes. And. And now you become so smart because you go to college, you learn how to dot the eyes, cross the TE's, you know, where the. Where the commas at and quote all that stuff. And. Wow, that's a really good story. So we gotta, you know, your. Your book, I want to make sure everybody knows about that. That's pretty incredible.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

My book, I wrote in Covid. God bless. I wrote it before COVID but it released April 7th of 2020, which was three weeks after Covid started. So it was not as fun and successful as that could have been. But it's still out there in the market. Look it up. It's called Drive 9 Ways to Win in business and life. Written by me. And, and it's a good book. Everybody likes it. That reads.

[Indiana Jones Promo]

Uncover one of history's greatest mysteries in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, a first person single player adventure video game set between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Last Crusade. The year is 1937. Sinister forces are scouring the globe for the secret to an ancient power connected to the Great circle. And only one person can stop them. Indiana Jones Adventure calls Indiana Jones and the Great Circle releases on December 9th on Xbox Series X&S Game Pass and PC. Pre Order Indiana Jones and the Great circle now rated T14. Copyright and trademark 2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved.

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[Ryan Reynolds]

Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous two year contracts, they said, what the are you talking about? You insane Hollywood. So to recap, we're cutting the price of mint unlimited from 30amonth to just 15amonth. Give it a [e-mail] Switch 45 upfront.

[Indiana Jones Promo]

Payment equivalent to 15 per month. New customers on first 3 month plan only. Taxes and fees, extra Speed slower above 40 gigabytes.

[Kenny Wallace]

Details, Kelly. I believe in re releases. Lots of story, lots of stories out there. Yeah, things, things get lost. Movies that get re released and you know, so yeah, maybe we need to re release that just because of the story you just told is pretty fantastic. And people have these images, Kelly, that your Dale Earnhardt, you know, daughter and he laid it all out there for you, but you worked for it and you went to work for other people. So do you think the reason you didn't work at DI is because that would have been family working for family. Do you think that was strategy on his part?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I think a little bit, but I think it had more to do with Teresa than anything, to be quite honest. But. And so he could put me in arms length businesses that made sense. And he did. And you know, I worked at the dealership. I was a receptionist at the, at my dad's dealership when I was in the summer. And I, I sold shoes at Peggy Shoes in Mooresville. And oh girl, I worked at Winn Dixie. That was my favorite job. But I got grounded and had to quit.

[Kenny Wallace]

What'd you get grounded for?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I was at a boy's house I wasn't supposed to be. Oh yeah. So I'm, I was a senior in high school.

[Kenny Wallace]

Your dad grounded you? What did he say to you?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

My dad was tough buddy. And so girl, this is what happened. We were at the farm on Highway 3.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And we lived across town on the lake. And I told my dad that I had to go to CVS to pick up some school stuff for a project.

[Kenny Wallace]

Were you lying?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I'm a senior. Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

Were you lying?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And so I wanted to go see my boyfriend and my dad didn't really allow me to have boyfriends. And in that day, like Dating and boyfriends were a little different anyway. Right. Like, you. Like. It was just different. So I. To get to his house, there's a. You, like, on Highway 3. You can take Highway 3 to 150 and go to my lake house. Two turns to get to this guy's house was a little back neighborhood that you cut through to cut down by the church, to cut down by the high school, to cut down by here. What my dad did to take that route that day, I will never understand. I guess just to catch me.

[Kenny Wallace]

No.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah. So he. He takes this route, which is not the route he takes every day. And my car is parked out in front of these people's house. It's like just, you know, an older town area with just house by house by house. And my boyfriend's mom says, kelly, your dad's about to knock on our door.

[Kenny Wallace]

Did your heart come out of your chest?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I mean, when you got in front of my dad, you got in trouble. You feared for your life.

[Kenny Wallace]

Oh, my God.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

He knocked on the door and he said, you tell Kelly she is to come get in her car right now and to get her ass home. And. Oh, my God, I. I probably rode with my butt clinched the whole time, right? Yeah. I got in so much trouble, but I got. I got grounded and had to quit my job at Winn Dixie.

[Kenny Wallace]

Do you think you got. I think you got ratted out. I think somebody's.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I don't know. I mean, who would have rat me?

[Kenny Wallace]

I don't.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

[Kenny Wallace]

Wow.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

This. Or maybe he just had intuition. Who knows?

[Kenny Wallace]

He knew his girls. That's. That's. That's kind of. That's funny and sweet at the same. It makes me happy that he loved you so much. He wanted to protect you.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Oh, he did? Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so first of all, thank you so much. That was a wonderful 20 minutes right there. A lot about you, and I know it's in your book, but you know me. I'm big on that generation gap, and it. This one's only been two years since COVID so we're gonna. We're gonna sell more copies. Okay. When I go to social media, I see everything you say, and you were sweet to me about a week ago. You said, how about this for a happy story? Kenny Wallace, this Dale Earnhardt, this Dale junior foundation junior Motorsports is.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

You were on a soapbox that day talking about unhappy things. Yeah, I forget what it was. There was something going on, and everything was unhappy. In the world.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah, I think. I think it's therapy for me because, like, the kid, the Kenny right here is way different than the Kenny on the couch in the morning.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Oh, yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

And then there's. Yeah, there's coffee with Kenny. Then there's a Kenny right here. Like, I don't know, coffee with Kenny. I don't know who that is.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

He's the unmedicated version of you when you wake up in the morning.

[Kenny Wallace]

And then. Then there's the. The Kenny up at the race shop where I'm, you know, getting my race car ready. Then there's the dad. I think there's four or five of me, actually. So. Okay. The Dale Junior foundation to celebrate your brother with 1 million followers on Instagram.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yep.

[Kenny Wallace]

You're. You're donating $1 million. And I did a little research last night because I knew we were going to talk today. This also Feed North Carolina. So just. Just tell me a little bit about this.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, Dale has a foundation that we started in 2007, and you, you know, you get all the requests. Will you send this for this? We send that for that. We support this. And I just told Dale, man, we need to really corral this because we have a lot of opportunity to use our celebrityism and famousness for good and. Right. So. So let's corral this, and let's focus on youth, and let's do this. So that's what we did. And so one of the projects that you were talking about, Feed and See, that's our soup kitchen for Mooresville. It's got a nice new name, but it started as the Moore's Soup Kitchen, which we've supported all of our time. And. But they want to eradicate the need for a soup kitchen. They want to eradicate homelessness. And since COVID as so many know, you don't even have to be homeless anymore to have problems. Your firefighter, teacher, family, they're not making it. They're. They're struggling. Their groceries are more expensive. All these things. Right. So Feed in C is a. An organization that just provides opportunity for people that need it to better themselves. They got a grocery store. They have culinary classes where they teach people skills to go out and get jobs. They. You can go there and eat every day. And you know what? It's. You only pay a donation. There's no charges on the menu. And all of their culinary school people cook your food and fix the food so they. You can go there and take a shower and do your laundry and all those Kinds of things. You can get counseling services. You can figure out how to go get the right kind of housing for you if you're, you know, if you can't afford housing, etc. So. So tons of stuff there. But they. To build this facility and to charge this course that they have, they had a lot of different opportunities, and they built a garden. And this garden feeds the restaurant, that feeds the culinary classes, that feeds the ability for these people to get out on their feet and, you know, make a way for themselves. So my mom was very into gardening. We lost my mom in 2019 from lung cancer.

[Kenny Wallace]

Sorry.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And this project just spoke to us, Mimi's Garden. And so it is a. About a. Maybe a two acre garden. We just added a kid sensory area so that kids can go out there and have some fun. We have these tall sunflowers out there with all of my mom's grandkids names on it. So it's Mimi's Garden. Little ladybugs. And they're just growing stuff left and right. They're. They're growing flowers for the table. They're growing, you know, all kinds of stuff. So the million dollars, Dell's foundation. Every year, we raise at least a million dollars, if not more. And this. We. We wanted to do something. We didn't want to say, oh, hey, hey, Dale's got, you know, a million followers. How great. We wanted to do good with it. And so we came up with this idea to take the top 10 states where we're followed on Instagram and in those 10 cities. Cities, sorry, not states. In those 10 cities, we identified an organization that we would support normally through our efforts of the foundation. And we are donating a hundred thousand dollars to each of those 10 organizations to make the million dollars. And just to celebrate, you know, our fan base is the reason we get to do this, right, Kenny? Everything that we touch and do. And so to celebrate our fans and their loyalty and their following and their fun, you know, that's what we did. So we put it back in their cities and. And it's. It's awesome.

[Kenny Wallace]

I. I asked you a question about this, and you. You bring up things. I. I listen to Howard Stern. I don't agree with everything, but I like how Howard Stern interviews people. So I'm listening. And now I'm going to ask you a question that I never dreamed of, but mental health. I hear more and more about this. And I grew up in nine. I was born in 1963. I'm a lot older than you, and not a lot.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Just Eight years.

[Kenny Wallace]

Well, but. But I remember in my day, fending for myself, you didn't talk about it.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

No. Yeah. You.

[Kenny Wallace]

You just. You. You know, you're. You're weak. Get it done yourself. So I want to ask you your opinion. Do you think mental health has always been around and for some reason, it just now struck a chord in this time, you know, you had the 1600s, the 1700. Yeah. All this life, hundreds of years, and now the period that you and I live in. Alan, everybody's like, man, that's.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I think mental health's always been an issue, and I guess I would frame it up like this. Like, I think mental health has become more of an issue because, you know, life has. Life is changing and growing, and we're, you know, I think about, you know, if you're talking about the 17, let's. Let's go to the 1900s, because I don't really know much about 17 or 1800s. The 1900s, where. Where mom and kids and dad worked the farm, worked the. Whatever, Worked the deal, did what they did, fed themselves. D. Right. They were. They had to depend on themselves. Right. Was it hard? But they were a unit. They did it together. D Then you move on, you know, into. And of course, that's like the early 1900s, but you go. You just. As you move through decades, we're. Our world is just changing so fast. And the. The ability to talk about mental health is there now. Right. You only had to go. I didn't have anybody to talk about my feelings when I was a kid. My dad said, you do this, you do it this way, and you do it now. And if you don't do it then.

[Kenny Wallace]

I'm gonna bust your ass.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

You don't get this, I'll bust your ass. Not saying that's not the right way to do it.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah, right.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

But. But what did. You know, what did Kelly hear? You know, if you don't do this, you're not good enough. Right. I got my old. I've been through a lot of therapy. I got my own childhood trauma, and I talked about that. My book, too.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah, me too.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

You know, and. And there's a place for it all, I guess. You know, I think there's just an outlet. Social media has made it so much worse because I didn't really know that I needed to talk to anybody. I didn't know it was any different. Now I get to look across the Internet and, you know, I get to decide whether people are prettier than me, whether they have more money than me. And I'm talking about if I was a teen. Right. Like, I mean, it's just crazy. All the, the things that, that our kids especially, and our teens and our 20 some year olds, the pressure on them to be something and they can't. And the world's too critical if you're not what they think you need to be. Right. The world's so critical.

[Kenny Wallace]

You wrote that? Just a little bit.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yes, yes.

[Kenny Wallace]

Okay. So I want to leave that up there for a little bit.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

If you don't show appreciation to those that deserve it, they'll learn to stop doing the things you appreciate.

[Kenny Wallace]

Okay, so when Kelly Earnhardt Miller, when she speaks, I, I, I listen. You don't got to name names. When I say things. There's a person that triggered me that.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Per, that I got. I was triggered. Absolutely. I was triggered by somebody in my family. And for me to process those thoughts, I needed to put that out there.

[Kenny Wallace]

Good for you.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I didn't have the ability to put that out there 30 years ago. I didn't have a, I have Instagram. You know, like, it's a way of processing. Right. Like, and, and it's a way of, of speaking. And, and you know, I think, I think talks are healthy and I think we're, but we're also scared to talk to people. We're also scared to talk to people we love. We're scared to let them down, we're scared to disappoint them. We're to be judged, you know, all of those different kinds of things. Even with our own family, let alone all the goons that live on social.

[Kenny Wallace]

Media, you know, coffee, we're the same. You, you and I are the same. Coffee with Kenny is years ago. Years ago. Everybody wrote in a diary. Yeah, that's my diary. Coffee with Kenny. This morning I woke up and I was jacked up on Mountain Dew about these, These local tracks need to be over at 9:30 at night.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

So I'm with you.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Note to self, on social media, if you see Kelly posting a lot of stuff about that, she got something going on.

[Kenny Wallace]

Well, that's what we got to. I love it completely. Okay, so I do this with everybody. See here. Yeah, I, I work hard. I don't want to embarrass myself. So this one here I wrote and I'm going to go ahead and ask it. Can you tell your brother, Dale Jr. Can you tell him what to do? And do you get in knockdown, drag out arguments? Have you ever thrown stuff at each other? How, oh God, how sister and brother.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Are you all right? So until probably until 10 years ago, 10, 12, 13 years ago, I could pretty much tell him whatever to do, right. It was just him. You know, I, you know, if I said that such and such need to be done for this cause or whatever it was, business wise or whatever. I mean, he, you know, he was busy being a race car driver and, And I did the business and that was what we were doing. And we, you know, it's funny, we never. I was always just kind of the mother figure. We, we. We have a great relationship, but it's not like we ever spend a lot of time in each other's minds, if that makes sense.

[Kenny Wallace]

Oh, yeah.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

You know, when my dad died, we didn't even hardly talk about my dad's death. He did his things with his friends. I grieved in my way. You know, we didn't sit down and talk about things. We do that a lot more often now, which I love.

[Kenny Wallace]

No maintenance. Brother.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And my brother's wife, Amy, has really brought him, you know, into this world. Right. Like, what's it like to answer to people and to know people and have relationships with people? Because in Dale's world, he was always used to being told what to do. Sponsorship, driving, business. That was what drove it. Right.

[Kenny Wallace]

Never thought about it that way.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And, and so, you know, he just went to the next. I mean, dad told. It started with dad. Kenny, dad always told us what to do. When you went to dinner with my dad, you stood around the table to wait for him to tell you where to sit.

[Kenny Wallace]

I believe that.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah. You didn't just sit down. Yeah. So it started back then.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

So we were always used to being told what to do.

[Kenny Wallace]

It's funny because he did the same thing with all of us. Like we were on. He. Yeah, I get it.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Just waited to hear what he said.

[Kenny Wallace]

We would do, you know, photo sessions, and he would tell everybody. All right, this is the last one.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

He told everybody it didn't matter. It did not matter. And so. And so, yeah, like, we probably had more situations where we've disagreed in the last 10 or 15 years than we ever did. And it's only. It's. It's not. It's just simply because it's just not me and him anymore. Right. And it's just not about business. He's got a wife, he's got kids. He's, you know, there's just so many more things that he's aware of and all. And our business, since he quit driving, he's very much more involved in Our business. And I'll be like, well, I've always done it that way, and you just didn't know. I really upset him not too long ago because I said. And I didn't mean it in the way that he took it, but I said the words, I've ran this business for 25 years. I don't really need you. And I didn't mean that I didn't need him because he's the reason that I got to run the business.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah, I get it.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

But what I meant was, I've been making all these decisions, and he was racing. Yeah. If you. You know, if you want to be part of the decision or if you want to be part of the situation, let's do it together. And if you don't, just stay home. Right. Well, I'll still get stuff done. And I. You know, it really hurt his feelings, and. But we had a good talk about it. That's the good thing is we can talk about that kind of stuff now. And. And there was one other time I got mad at work, which he and I have talked about this, too, so I don't mind sharing it, but I got really frustrated with them at work about. I don't know, it's probably like 2015. And going down to my office, I had all of my dad's uniforms lined up in these cases that people had given me. I'm lucky to have a Tasmanian devil uniform that a friend gave to me. I'm lucky to have a different uniform that I think Tony Stewart gave to me. So I have these couple of. Of. Of dad things. Three. Three suit. Three suits lined up. And I got so mad I was gonna quit, and I took all them suits out of there, and I put Dell junior Suits in them.

[Kenny Wallace]

You were pissed.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Oh, I took all my stuff out of my office and took it all home in a box. And, well, he didn't know because he didn't come in the office that much.

[Kenny Wallace]

You couldn't get him. Damn it.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And so I got over it. And, you know, I got over it within about a week, but I never put my suits back up. And it took him forever to realize that my dad's suits were missing. And so one day we were talking about it, and I told him, I was like, I got really mad with you, and I almost quit. You didn't know I quit, but I did quit. But you didn't know it.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah. Yeah, you got him down.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And it's all in my house in a tub now.

[Kenny Wallace]

And she's like, go, I'm Thinking physically, you had to be enraged because you had to do the work to. To get all. Everything out of there.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And I was enraged. I was en.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah, well, we all do happens, right?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah. Love will do that to you. Listen.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Love will do that to you. I love that. I'm.

[Kenny Wallace]

Love will do that to you. Yeah, crazy love. I. Kim and I will get in an argument, and later on, I'm like, listen, sit down. You know?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

She's hardcore. Kim grew up in the city. She'll bust your ass. You know, it's like, honey, I love you.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And that's the thing about me. I need to calm down when I get mad. I need. And. And if people continue to push me and push my buttons and push for more information and try to get me to say why that don't go well. I need to get away from it. I need to calm down because I will do or say things that might not be the best things to do or say at the time.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah, I. I call that in Missouri. I call that going postal. Because the postal workers, years ago, you know, they just dealt with everybody came in the post office, had an issue, mad, mad. And finally the post office worker goes postal.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

And that was a bad time in life. And we won't go there, but they went postal. All right, let's have fun. And then we'll get to these charters because that's what's, you know, on the docket, everybody's mind.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Right.

[Kenny Wallace]

Right. But I want to talk about Wyatt, your son, lw, Your. Your husband, and you. You have. You have three children. Wyatt is with lw. He's a great racer. Of course, you have Carson and Kennedy, but let's go with lw. I really liked one of your social media posts. It made me you were so real. You were on the road racing, but you said sheltering in place at the pilot, bad storms shed a little light on Wyatt, what you're. What you're trying to do with him. And tell me about when you go racing with him.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah. Yeah. So Wyatt started outlaw cart racing. And in 2020, right after, you know, like August of 2020 was his first race or July, and 8 years old, and my husband said until he asked to race, he's not going to race. He's going to kill his first deer before he races. And so they were actually out in Illinois putting up deer stands in July for the coming season. And our friend had an extra outlaw cart, and he's like, you know what? You're coming this weekend. Let Wyatt try this card. Out. My son's doing it. Da da da. Well, guess what? We raced on Friday, we raced on Saturday. I get a call from my husband who says, hey, if we can work this out in three weeks, we can run the nationals at English Creek.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yes.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

In 2020, which is a big deal, you know, in Knoxville, Iowa near the Knoxville Raceway to go to English Creek and run the nationals for outlaw carting. And I'm like, oh my God, where did this come from? Our boy wasn't going to race and now all of a sudden we've ran one race and we're just going to do this. And he went out there and won the nationals in about after he raced for like, I don't know, five or six times in the beginner box stock outlaw cart at eight years old. So from there we're running outlaw carts micros. Our racing Life today is 600 micro sprints. We run Millbridge every other week when they run. But we started traveling due to the outlaw cart. Traveling. We started traveling to the Midwest and, and that's where we do a lot of racing. We come to Missouri and when I say we come to all these places, we have a super C camper and we have a 26 foot trailer. Now we do, we do race for Chad Boat and so they carry our car most of the time. But when we were outlaw car racing, we carried everything. But we jump in our camper on a Thursday after school. Wyatt goes to a three day in school and two day out of school program. We jump in the camper Thursday afternoon. We drive five to six hours wherever we're headed. We get up Friday morning, we drive the other four, five, six hours, whatever it is. We haul up to the dirt track, we set up camp and we race Friday night and we race Saturday night and we get back in the camper and we drive another hour or two at night and then Sunday we finish the drive home. We race in this weekend we're going to Coles County Speedway in Mattoon, Illinois. But we've come out to, I mean we've, we've driven to Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and we've raced in Nebraska.

[Kenny Wallace]

I mean.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah, we've ran into you on the road before in St. Louis.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah, you're. You're around me a lot and I leave you alone a lot of times. You're a lot.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I don't even know you're there.

[Kenny Wallace]

I know you know, but, but no, I mean there are times you're an hour from my house.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

That's what I mean by that?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yes.

[Kenny Wallace]

Okay. So is he going to be. Is, is Wyatt. I see how talented he is.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Wyatt loves racing. He loves it.

[Kenny Wallace]

Did you, do you think as a child he just absorbed it kind of like Chase elliott did? Dale Jr. Did. Why is he so good?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I think he did. So. You know, my husband is a racer. Obviously. He moved down to North Carolina from Pennsylvania to race. Good race, modified champion and, and stopped racing when Wyatt was born. At my request, I will say, I just thought it was, you know, we're trying to live a life and raise kids and we were hobby racing, you know, hobby racing and modified, you know.

[Kenny Wallace]

This ain't go, this ain't going anywhere. We're just going to race is all we're gonna do.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Right.

[Kenny Wallace]

I get it.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

So, so, you know, I, I think he's paid attention, but Kenny, I just think he has natural talent.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

We go to a lot of racetracks that he's never set foot on and goes out there and runs. Well, he runs with the best of them. He races, you know, some of my proudest. This is funny too. I like going to race with competition.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yes.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I want to go race Frank Flood and all of these great micro racers with my 12 year old son. And I want competition. You know, I want to beat the best. I want to be among the best. I want to see Wyatt, you know, being 20th and work his way to 10th for whatever reason. I don't want Wyatt to go out there in a field of five cars and win every week. That's not good for him. And, and so that's what we do. We, we go up to Indiana, we go all over the place. I, I have a joke. I, I've spent the night in more Walmart parking lots that I've shopped.

[Kenny Wallace]

I did that with Schrader a lot.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And I shop at Walmart a lot too.

[Kenny Wallace]

And some of the, some of the Walmarts won't let you.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

They won't. You, there's a, there's a website. You got to go on and look. Yeah, yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

I want to say that it makes me really happy that I thought I was the only one that, you know, I told your brother, I said, listen, when my NASCAR career is over, I'm going to go dirt racing. Your brother Dale Jr. Said I'm gonna go stock race. But I never. What makes me so happy is that you and I were these big NASCAR people. I've been on national TV. I run 905 races. But your lingo, your lingo fits right in with all the dirt Daubers, you know, English Creek and Coles County. And I also saw on social media where you liked somebody coming along in USAC Nation. You really got it going on, don't you, with dirt racing? You're, you're done.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I love it. I mean, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's easy and not complicated. Right. You, you roll in there and, you know, there's some tracks that are just great and have awesome facilities, and there's other places where they're just little holes. You know, you're making the best out of it, right? Yeah. And I'm sitting in the grandstands getting dirt thrown all over me. I got my, my dirt crap shoes and I mean, I don't, I don't look like a million bucks when I get there. I'm in my jeans and tees and muddy clothes and ready, ready, ready to go. You know, I'm, I'm making food, I'm doing the logistics. I'm. Whatever, you know.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah. And this, you know, when we talk sometimes I like to give my own commentary. I want the, I want this to be a lesson to some of the people out there listening to Kelly because just because, you know, we all were NASCAR and, and we had to shave because we had to be presentable for our sponsors. We're racers at heart, aren't we, Kelly?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Absolutely. Absolutely.

[Kenny Wallace]

And it's actually very relaxing to just put on jeans and T shirts and be normal. Okay.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And I appreciate people at the racetracks when you run into me just to treat me normal, like I just want to be treated normal. You know, I get up in those stands and I'll get recognized. We were at Coles County a couple weeks ago and had this gentleman start talking to me. And I mean, of course he's like, I love what you guys do and da, da, da, da. But we were just able to have a normal conversation, you know, like, I, I just, I just like for it. I'm, I'm there for the same reasons that everybody else is there to enjoy themselves and have a good time. I'm not there to be Kelly Earnhardt.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

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[Kenny Wallace]

Right. Okay, let's go to the girls. Kennedy. Kennedy is 17. She's absolutely a model.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Thank you. She just graduated high school last week.

[Kenny Wallace]

I see that crazy. Tell me about Kennedy. How are you gonna.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

Contain that beautiful girl? I'm sure all the guys are all over her, so.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

It's funny too, because I. I want to brag on all of my kids about racing carson at age 9.

[Kenny Wallace]

And I'm getting to Carson. But yeah, just graduated.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Kennedy started racing at age 5. All of my kids have raced at Milbridge and won at Milbridge. They all love racing. And Kennedy just graduated. She wants to be a cosmetologist. So you have a daughter that does that? Yep.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yes. Brandy.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And she wants to do hair and lashes and. And, you know, extensions and. Oh, extensions. Extensions.

[Kenny Wallace]

I know the logo.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

She loves makeup, so she. That's what she wants to do. She wants to own her own salon.

[Kenny Wallace]

Well, that's awesome.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah. That's really cool because. Yeah, my middle daughter Brandy, she was up there at Burkedale and had a nice little place for a while. I. My daughter Brandy got to be friends with the boats, the Blaneys. I kind of thought she was an open wheel girl because all. All the daughters would go there and Brandy had all the. She knew everything. I said, tell me what's up.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Get. Get me. Hey. And you can get some good gossip. At the hair salon.

[Kenny Wallace]

Oh, from the girls. Yeah. Okay. So Carson, I want to pose this to you. I thought she was extremely talented racer. I thought she did. Thought she was incredible. Tell me about Carson and why I don't see her just racing all the time.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

So Carson loves racing. She started at nine with Jimmy and the outlaw carts and. And ran and ran and ran. And here's Carson. Carson's very headstrong. Carson wasn't as sure that her parents knew what was best for her. When Carson thought she knew what was best for her and she wanted to go midget racing, she ran micros for a little bit or maybe Power Eye with Chad for half a season and she wanted to go midget racing. And so, so I said. And she was. This was her first year of college. So when she, she was in her last part of senior high school and first part of college this year, that year, and I said, okay, well, you know, if that's what you want to do, you, you. Carson is just a kid that you can't tell. No, she's going to figure it out and she's going to go around you to figure it out. So you might as well jump in the boat and she's a rebel. Help her do it the best way. Right. Jumped in the boat with her and we got sponsorship and we went racing, midget racing and we. And you know, I think she'll admit too, she was a really good midget racer. But. But she probably could have stood a little bit more time behind the wheel in various, at various places. Right. So during that year she had probably about four wrecks that were pretty, pretty bad wrecks. You know, she tumbled out of shoot somewhere there and you know, they raced in weeks, whatever their Tuesday to Saturday is or whatever.

[Kenny Wallace]

Illinois.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

Illinois week. Yeah. Indiana.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Those weeks that she ran. I forget where she was at, but she, I think it was Oklahoma. She tumbled out of the, you know, over the side and tumble means violent wreck. Yeah. Violently flipped out of the racetrack.

[Kenny Wallace]

Schrader says. I tipped. I'm like, schrader, you look like a dog. You look like a dog that got a hold of a cat. You wrecked violently. Oh, yeah, that's just tipping. I'm like, y'all are crazy.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And she had another. I think somewhere in Arizona towards the end of the season, the same thing happened. She had some concussions, had to go to the er, all that good stuff. So, so we just really. I think she decided in her heart of hearts like, you know, man, I'm, I've, I've Flipped around. I'm like, man, you know, mama, this is enough. Like, this is a lot. And so that just kind of dissipated. And she works for the car store now, so she. The late Marvel car store.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah. Keely.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

She runs social and digital and marketing for the car store, so she's having a lot of fun. She's here in my office, which is great. She finally. Kenny, I've always heard this, and you raised three daughters that you lose your girl somewhere around? I think it used to be, like, 15 to 19, but it might be more like 13 to 19 now. And that they come back to you. And that's what happened with her, man. I could not tell her. I could not tell her what to do and how to do anything. She would not follow my advice. And now it's, mama, I wish I'd listened to you, Mama, you know?

[Kenny Wallace]

Yes, they come around because my daughters are. What are they, 30, 30, 34, 36. It's insane. They love their mother. They're. They're here at the house when they can be here. I want to share this with you because I think it's funny. And Carson will hear about this because her friends will rat around. I. I'm on Snapchat because it's underground, and I can mother everybody. And I. And I love it. And I don't want nobody to see it, though. That's why it's on Snapchat while Carson lives on there with me.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Oh, yes.

[Kenny Wallace]

And my mom was on Snapchat. And like, what? Like, no, mom, you can't be on Snapchat. And I think Chrissy Wallace must have got her on there. My mom was so mad at me, she goes, kenneth, you cannot say the F word like that. I said, mom, it's just fun. It's Snapchat. I say it on purpose to get. Everybody thinks it's funny. She was so mad at me, I said, okay, mom, look, I'm gonna block you.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

So I blocked on Snapchat, too.

[Kenny Wallace]

So I don't do Snapchat.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I only got Snapchat so I could sort of follow the girls. I don't know how to use Snapchat. My girls think it's hilarious because I'll take my phone up, and I'm like, how do I do this? How do I get that? Even on Instagram, I'm still learning things to do. But Carson just said to me the other day, somebody. We were talking, me, her, and Kennedy maybe, and. And Katie was like, yeah, it was. She put it on Snapchat. And Carson goes, I Probably should unblock you from Snapchat now.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah, well, yeah, it will. Carson. I. I said something, you know, I wasn't bragging. I said, yeah, I had to block my mom. Carson piped up, and she goes, yeah, I had to block my mom, too.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And I don't want to know what I'm not seeing. Okay. Sometimes.

[Kenny Wallace]

Well, she. She's having a good time. And I love all your children equally. I don't. I don't. You know, I mean, they're. They really are. You're doing a great job. Okay, so I have one question here. I. I do, and I don't want to answer it. Ask it, but I'm just going to go ahead. It says to me, I wrote this down last night laying in bed.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I said, I did my best thinking. Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

I grabbed my phone and then I printed off. You know, how does Junior Motorsports work? How does Hendrick Motorsports help you all? What do they supply?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah, so, you know, they. Mr. Hendricks, obviously an owner here. Whenever we went to go drive for him, they had an Xfinity team. So we merged the two teams underneath our roof here, because we had one and they had one. And in today's world, Hendrick Motorsports supplies our chassis, they supply our engines, and we just work really closely together on people. Right? So obviously, we have the Chevy tech piece of it that they're involved in, but not specifically for our Xfinity series. Now they're running their own Xfinity car. So we work together with Greg Ives, who. Who runs that program. But, you know, so there's. There's transactions that occur, like financial transactions that occur with engines and chassis and all those kinds of things as a customer. But, you know, really just supporting. We. We've traded a lot of people back, right? Greg. Greg Ives came over here and crew chief, Kevin Meandering, crew chief, then went back over there. We've. We've had engineers. We've got two engineers now. Adam Wall is one of them, the number eight crew chief who came over here sort of on loan from Hendrick, you know, to hopefully advance his career back over there one day. So, you know, we do a lot of those kinds of things together and, you know, just help support each other where we can. Mr. Hendrick, for me, personally, is one of my greatest mentors. I call him about all kinds of things and say, hey, you know, what are you hearing on this subject? What. You know, what do you think about this? Should we look at this? You know, Mr. Hendrick, my grandfather, Robert G. The G man. The G man worked for Mr. Hendrick. They were both from South Hill, Virginia. They came to North. You know, they moved to North Carolina, did the racing thing. My granddaddy was an employee over there until he passed in 94. And so my Mr. Hendrick has always held a very high regard for my grandfather. And when my grandfather had a stroke, that's kind of where I met Mr. Hendrick. I was in the hospital, cut my granddaddy's toenails as a college student.

[Kenny Wallace]

Oh, my gosh, look at you. So sweet.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And Mr. Hendrick came to visit, and I knew our families, you know, like after Mr. Hendrick lost his son and we lost our dad, or we, you know, actually we lost our dad first. I mean, there were just a lot of synergies. I. Mr. Hendrick was always talked about in very high regard to my family from my grandfather and then my mom and. And so that relationship existed over there, and that's why us going to race there made sense to us in our mind. And he's just a great father figure. You know, we hang up the phone with, I love you. I can call him with. With business or personal. You know, I can call and complain to him about Dale, whatever I want to do.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah, I love it. It's somebody that you feel like when you talk to, you're going to get there. You're going to get. He's going to listen and he's going to give you the right answers. So before we get. We're going to the charters next, everybody and Charlie Marlow will clip that part. And so you don't got to get to the end, but it's about Kelly. Kelly, I heard with. With Hendrick. Okay. I heard something, and I want to see if you know anything about it. Speaking of mental health and psychology and in the sport, you know, world being the best you can be. So in NASCAR, NASCAR's brutal. You know, you got to be the best. Nobody better than me. I hear at Hendrick, and I don't know if you do it at Junior Motorsports, Hendrick, they have name tags, and the name. The name tags have colors and those colors, green, whatever.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Blue and yellow.

[Kenny Wallace]

Okay. They mean when you approach that person, look at that color and approach that person with this mindset. Yeah, I think that's incredible. I want everybody to hear this. Tell me about it.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

It's called MBS Management by strengths. You can look it up on the Internet. Mr. Hendrick uses this in all of his dealerships, and then it, you know, morphed to the motorsports piece of it. So when we Again, when we merged with them in 2008. Mr. They told us about this program and we started to implement it as well. So it's. I. One would call it a personality test, but the beauty of it, it's really not that, like, I'm a red. Imagine that. And it all it is, is like if you just take the axe axis and if you're positive red, blue, yellow, green, or negative red, Blue, yellow, green. So I'm positive red and green, and I'm negative yellow and blue. And I can tell you what those mean in a second. I'm more positive red, which means I'm dominant. And then green is extrovert, which you would be. You would probably be a high green if I had to guess. And then blue is structure, and yellow is pace. And by structure means how do you want things wrapped up in a bow to come to you and be presented? Pace is do you want to do things quickly or not quickly. Right. Red. Are you dominant? Are you, you know, just, you know, gonna blast in there and tell everybody what to do or. Or not? And then green, Extrovert, introvert. And so what it does is, you know, everybody, everybody's like, oh, you're red. You're hard to get along with. I'm not. I mean, the beauty about me is I'm also a green. I'm very, you know, outgoing and D D D D. And so what you do is you match up each other. And so like, Dale is a blue, if I'm not mistaken. So that is structure. And so what you do is you put your graphs up and it tells you, hey, Kelly, if you've got a problem with Dell Jr, I don't need to go in as a red because Dell Jr. Is a blue. I need to go in this way and talk to Dell junior. This is what's going to make Dell junior listen and respond.

[Kenny Wallace]

Wow.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

It's not gonna. He's not gonna respond if I go in with my red tendencies because he's not a red. It's kind of like the love languages. Have you ever.

[Kenny Wallace]

No, but I love this. It keeps.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yes.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah, I love this.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

So with our teams, we do, we do training once a year, but, you know, these guys work on a team of eight to 10 people, right? Or Dirty Bow Media, who has 15 employees. We, we have all the charts up everybody's color. But it's great because if you're having trouble with someone work wise, you. You can lean into that to, like, really understand where they're coming from and where you need to come From I. I. The love languages. I love the five love languages. They do it for kids and all that now. But basically, we as people are motivated by these love languages. Right? Quality time.

[Kenny Wallace]

Learning. I'm learning.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Quality time. Affection. Affirmation. Affirmation. So words of affirmation time and service, like, be somebody doing something for you. Let's see. Words of affirmation. Times, gifts, if you like gifts. And the fifth one. See, I'm not the fifth one, so I don't know what it is. I am acts of service and gifts. So, like, I like people to do things for me that shows that they appreciate me. My husband. Oh, touch. Touch is the other one. Because my husband's touch and words of affirmation. My husband likes to be hugged. He likes for me to put my arm around him. He likes for me to tell him things about him that are good, you know, so. And. And that's the other. That. That's what that's about, is like, if Kenny and Kim, depending on what y'all are, Kenny needs to serve Kim the way she wants to be loved.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Kim needs to love Kenny the way he wants to be loved. And it's not the same always, right?

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah. And the reason I asked this question about these colors, because when we work together in intense competition, you know, it's the motorman's fault. It's. It's. It's the body, man. The driver can't drive. The pit crew messed up. It could be a show real quick.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

It can.

[Kenny Wallace]

And I. I like that. I think that's pretty awesome.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

It's really cool. It's very helpful. And our people would tell you that it's helpful if you used appropriately.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah. Good stuff. And a good insight for everybody out there to understand. Okay, this is it, everybody. This is what you've been waiting for. Charter. Charter. Okay. I'm gonna start like this. I've been. I've been paying attention, but I don't have a clue, like, you're the boss. You are the boss. Okay? But from what I see right now, these teams and you and Dale Jr. You guys replied, well, we're 30 million short, and that was famous. So it appears to me right now.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

That'S a lot of people.

[Kenny Wallace]

I'm gonna say this, and I'll let you go. It appears to me that teams are only. The charter system is only worth what teams are willing to pay. It's not like the dot, the Dodgers, they're worth 40.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

You can't put a value on it yet.

[Kenny Wallace]

Trillion dollar, you know? So go Ahead.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

So this is what I know about business, okay? In any business that you run, you have an earnings before taxes and ebitda, your profit, right? So if I run a business and I, and I make $10 and I spend 5 of it, my EBITDA is 5, right? And so when you go into a business, you typically buy a business based on those earnings and it's you, you apply multiple to it. So Kenny, if you have a business and it makes $5 a year, I'll give you $40 because I'm going to give you a multiple of eight and value your business. And you know, I'm going to take this business and build on. So my value, that's what you're talking about when you're talking about the value of the Red Sox or the Yankees or the football teams or whatever. Here's the problem. And, and, and I've always said something's only worth what somebody will pay for it, right? I mean everybody asks me, you know, what's this diecast worth? I don't know, what will you give me for it? What's this diecast? What will you give me for it? And, and here's the problem with charters. In my opinion, they sit on your balance sheet as an appreciating asset. Nobody knows what to pay for them because the business model to running a cup team is not a profitable business model. So I can't tell you that my cup team will make $2 million every year. And there's a value in that. There's a value. I mean what everybody wants to be in business to make money, right? And so the charter, while I love that it is an asset that can appreciate it, also has a contract, 7 year contract tied to it. They, those charters don't have to exist after that seven year contract.

[Kenny Wallace]

So that's worth nothing then.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

There's no, I mean right now they're essentially worth nothing. All because this contract's about to expire that they're working on. And, and, and it, they're proving that it's whatever you'll give for it. Gamebridge paid 40 million.

[Kenny Wallace]

Jesus.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Right? I mean spire. Right. And you're just saying that.

[Kenny Wallace]

It's true.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

It's true. The charter, the, the Stewart House charters, I don't know what they're going for, but word on the streets they're going for 25 million.

[Kenny Wallace]

That's a big gap.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah, it's a big gap. Word on the street is the last charter that sold before all that was 13 million. You know, so my problem with it Is that. It's not about the value of the charter. I don't want to pay $30 million for something that I have no clue how to measure what it's worth. None. None.

[Kenny Wallace]

Right.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And I don't want to pay $30 million for something that I also, over here in the business model, I gotta have 20 more million to run my race team and I might not make any money.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah, right, right. We're so sponsorship driven.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yes.

[Kenny Wallace]

We. You know, the fans, they're. They mean well, but the fan, the fans say, wallace, you live in that million dollar home.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

How do you say you didn't make no money?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Right.

[Kenny Wallace]

And I tell them, I said, you don't. I win the Daytona 500 and I break even.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

I made the money on sponsorship. Jigs pays me relationship. Jakes pays me money.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Right.

[Kenny Wallace]

You know, Priority Aviation pays. It's. My sponsorship is where I make. If I make anything. But as far as running fifth in an Xfinity race, that's. It's a joke. Yeah. You run fifth, you get 12 grand. You know, something silly like that. I, I think collectively it's a very difficult subject.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

It is. Can we put down 30 million? I mean, yeah, we can round up $30 million. Does it make sense to round up $30 million? That's the question. It's not really about what it costs. It's about what makes business sense and sense for the future in an asset that you're going to put. You know, would you buy. Would anybody out there buy a five hundred thousand dollar house if.

[Kenny Wallace]

And then seven years they take it from you.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah. And seven years from you.

[Kenny Wallace]

Or.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I mean, I know that the value of houses are dependent upon the market and all that, but you wouldn't knowingly buy a five hundred thousand dollar house that you can't decide how much is it for. Or it costs you more to live.

[Kenny Wallace]

There and it's a flood zone.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

You just wouldn't do it. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

Okay. Okay. So let's, let's calm down for me, me and you both with the charter. Here's what I say. I'm just simple. I say NASCAR says for as long as NASCAR's in, in, in the game, all charters are worth this. That way if you. I'm just. Okay, don't nobody listen to what I'm saying. This is inside Herman's World.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

This is coming from.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah, well, this is the business one. You know, I listen, you look at Bud Moore, Jr. Johnson, they quit. They had nothing. All they had was brick and mortar, old junkie Old buildings that had been there for a hundred years. I would have liked further to be. Okay. If you are in NASCAR and there's only 39 spots, each one is automatically worth. Let whatever number you want. Calm down, everybody. I'm just going to say a number for sake. 20 million.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

Okay. So Bud Moore, when he got old and couldn't walk anymore, and he said, listen, I can't walk anymore. My kids roughed up. Somebody want my spot. And he got $20 million.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yes. For his spot.

[Kenny Wallace]

For his spot. That to me, that's all I'm looking at.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

So, so that's what, that's what I also want to say because, I mean, here's what, here's. I mean, I. So many thoughts. First off, NASCAR as a sport rocks.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I mean, racing is, is just feeds my soul above anything else. You know, competition. Just everything that we do here. Like we. We've got a badass sport, right?

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah, yeah. We love it.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

We love it. I mean, we can't get enough of it. The fans can't get enough of it. They're showing up each and every week that, I mean, it's all great economics matter and they got to get the economics right. That's, that's the problem. That's so your NFL and your MLBs and all these people. And this is the problem that we have as nascar. We were the Junior Johnsons and the Bud Moores of the world. And we want to be. Who owns the Yankees or we want to be John.

[Kenny Wallace]

It used to be John Henry.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

The Red Sox. Right. John Henry of the Red Sox. Socks.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

But, but the. What it takes to get there is going to be painful for somebody.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Because you just can't flip the switch because we have too many constituents. We have tracks that have infrastructures and investment and constituents. We have race teams that have infrastructure, constituents and investment. We have NASCAR that has all of those things. We have drivers like to get. Somebody has to lose to get to be the John Henry of nascar. For, for us to become like other sports. And, and that's the goal. That's what Denny Hamlin's fighting for. That's what these people are fighting for. It's just that it's not going to work for all 36 teams in the sport today. Someone's gonna lose.

[Kenny Wallace]

And I agree with that because, you know, Major League B now this, what I'm going to say has to do with our sport.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

Not, not everybody's equal. And I'm. I know, I know people get upset about that, but I'M sorry. You know, that's just the way it is when I look at major league baseball. Our cardinals are 11 time world champion Cardinals. They're the second best team in all of baseball. And our value is worth way less because the city of St. Louis is small. Okay. So there's less people to pay money. Now the Yankees, Chicago Dodgers, they're worth way more than us because there's way more people in their city.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah, absolutely. Never thought of that.

[Kenny Wallace]

So we are the second greatest baseball team in history. 11. And. And we're not valued very high.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

Because we don't handle no people. So. Okay. We can go on forever.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

But, but let's have fun with this now. And, and people don't like it anymore when I say we're coming to an end. Because there are people that love listening to you, Kelly. So I'm trying to train myself to say we're coming to the end. Okay. We're not coming to the end. Okay. My notes say this, and this is something new. I'm, I'm, I'm using my notes as a side gig.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Like, I, I brought pen and paper in case you said something that made me want to talk about more. So I love it.

[Kenny Wallace]

Okay. People expect Kelly and Dale to be cup series owners. I say that's a big burden at 50 years old.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

It is.

[Kenny Wallace]

Comment on that.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah. I mean, again, you know, if you look at where, if, if you think about what it means to be a cup owner. What it means to be a cup owner today is that I need a very valuable charter to make it work. Do I put out the money for that charter today at 51 years old? And Dale's turning 50. Wait, I'm turning 52. He's turning 50.

[Kenny Wallace]

We're all of age.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

So I, I hope I. I hope I get to retire at 65. You know, I hope that I can go enjoy some life. And, and Dale's like in a whole second life of his life. Right. With marriage and kids and all that kind of stuff. So it's like you have this asset over here that can appreciate and provide value long term. But how hard you have to work to make the business model work, and do you want to work that hard for the next 10 or 15 years when you already work 25 years really hard to do what we do now and to be what we are now? We've got dirty Mo media rocking and rolling our Xfinity team. I could run 8 to 10 cars if I, if I had the facility and the ability. It's flourishing from the standpoint of being on track. Dale. Dale's doing tv. Dale's, you know, Dell's doing a lot of great things. So a lot of great stuff going on, you know. Yeah, we want to be cup owners. It just has to make sense. And there's a lot of variables for it to make sense.

[Kenny Wallace]

Here's what I'm gonna be a fan and pretend you're not listening to me right now. I'm at a bar, man. I'll tell you what them Earnhardts ought to do. One of those, like Hendrick Alda say, we're going to give you, Kelly, 5 million a year. We're going to give Junior 5 million a year to let us use the Earnhardt name. And they're each going to make 10 appearances a year. But if I was in my Earnhardt's, I wouldn't be involved in any business transaction because. Because then they'd have to work so hard. What's that sound like?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I mean, we already work hard.

[Kenny Wallace]

5 million is not enough for each.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I mean, no, I mean, you know, I guess. I mean, that would be easy. We've, we've talked to investors. We could get the money. Like I say, it's not about that. It's about we could get the money all day long. Do we? Do we? I mean, we are the kind of people that, that want to be responsible for our own success.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

We have skin in the game. People ask me, oh, so how often do you go to work? I go to work every single day. My day starts at 6am My first cup of coffee. I'm in this office at 8:30. I leave this office at 5:00 every day. Except when I'm traveling with Wyatt. Yeah, that's the kind of people we are. I mean, we just want to control our business. We want to influence our business. I want to be here for my people. I want my people to know me. I want to know they know who they work for. And that's just how we operate, you know, that's just, you know, I got an email. Funny story. Just because you were, you were pretending to be a race fan, I got an email yesterday that said I don't have to read this and I don't have to respond, but this was their idea. Their idea was to go in business with Marcus Smith. He owns X Mini Tracks. They gave me the whole schedule of the tracks that we could go run. And everybody should just leave NASCAR and go do that like they did with IndyCar.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah, well, everybody's got an opinion. And you know what? You and I know history. The last time that all the cup guys boycotted, you know, that was very messy at Talladega. They took the Xfinity series, made them run the cup series, and. Yeah, well, we. We both want good. And I gotta tell you, no good.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

In that for anybody.

[Kenny Wallace]

No.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Everybody loses in a situation like that.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah. And I. I remember Chip Ganassi roughing your brother up, saying, come on, Dale, you need to be a cup owner. It's like eight months ago.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

And I'm like, man, why would you want to be a cup owner when everything's all good? But. Okay. This is truly the fun end. You chewed my ass out. I texted you one time. I said, hey, Kelly. K, E, L, L, Y. And you said, there's an E in there. K, E, L, L, E, Y. I just thought that was funny.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah, I usually have to. You know. You know what's hilarious is, like, especially when I email people and they write me back and spell my name. Right? Wrong. My. My name's at the bottom of the email.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

You know, my name's in the email address. That really irritates me. But I've had to spell it. Did you know, let me leave you with the fun fact, because Dale just found this out. I am K E L L, E, Y. My middle name is King. My dad named me Kelly King. My grandmother Earnhardt was Martha King. My dad wanted to name me Kelly because he bought all of his race parts from Kelly Auto Parts, whose family was Winston Kelly in our sport. Winston's dad on the auto parts store in Kannapolis where my dad went in his at 20 to go buy these race parts. And he loved the name Kelly. And my mom wanted to name me Jacqueline Jack.

[Kenny Wallace]

Jack what?

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Or Jack Ellen, like with the Q. Jack or Sharon. I'm not a Sharon or a Jacqueline.

[Kenny Wallace]

Jacqueline's a good. I like the name Jacqueline, but.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And they couldn't figure out anything to go with Kelly. And they finally. My dad's like, kelly King, Kelly King, Kelly King. And so I was just telling Dale that the other day. Nobody. He didn't know. I was named after Winston Kelly's family for the auto parts store. So that's where that spelling came from. So we can blame it on them.

[Kenny Wallace]

And we're gonna keep leaving. We're keep editing. And then when I went to. I flew to Charlotte yesterday and was on the last hub, and I saw Winston. I saw Winston Kelly, you know, with Emer in and runs the hall of fame, Kelly, it really Is amazing how many people we just look at. We go, they working, but they really are. This is NASCAR is their life.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Yeah.

[Kenny Wallace]

I just learned something, you know, from you about Winston Kelly.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

A really. If I could sum up nascar, I would say NASCAR equals passion, period.

[Kenny Wallace]

Very good.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Every single person that touches this sport is passionate about it.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

And that's what drives it. That's what drives all your decisions in life is passion.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

We're all very passionate about it.

[Kenny Wallace]

Well, two things. First of all, I love you.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I love you.

[Kenny Wallace]

If I could hug through there, I would hug you. Listen, everybody. You just listened to the great Kelly Earnhardt Miller, and you can listen to this in podcast form, and it's a long one. So you're going to be able to listen to her from home on the way to work, then back home, then on your way back to work. This was a good one. And you can find us in itunes and Spotify. Kelly, thank you so much.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I want to get in the top five at least. Okay.

[Kenny Wallace]

You.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Oh, Kenny podcast.

[Kenny Wallace]

You can't. My goal. I told Charlie, I said, charlie, I said, when we get to a hundred thousand subscribers, I'm quitting. Ah.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

Okay.

[Kenny Wallace]

I want the silver trophy. That's all it's about.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

You want to quit when you're on the top. Right. But, yeah, it's been a ton of fun. Tons of fun. You know I love you.

[Kenny Wallace]

Yeah.

[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

I love all your commentary. You're one of the most fun people to follow on social media and listen to, and you just tell it like it is, and. And I love it.

[Kenny Wallace]

No, we're all the same. I just. I don't. I don't do anything in NASCAR anymore. So I just. All right, everybody, until next time. We'll see you later.

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[Kelly Earnhardt Miller]

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