We've Never Seen Anything Like This

Summary

Herm & Schrader Podcast Summary

Episode: "We've Never Seen Anything Like This"
Date: July 1, 2026
Hosts: Ken Schrader, Rick Mast, Trader (with Kenny Wallace absent due to illness)

---

Episode Overview

The episode centers on the exceptional recent performances of Shane van Gisbergen (SVG) on NASCAR’s road courses, explores the evolution of safety and technology in racing, and delivers the trademark banter, storytelling, and racing insights that fans expect from the Herm & Schrader show. With Schrader and Mast at the helm, joined by their buddy Trader, the discussion dives deep into the technical and cultural shifts in NASCAR, the changing landscape of car setups and sponsors, and plenty of personal anecdotes spanning decades of motorsport.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Shane van Gisbergen’s Unique Dominance on Road Courses

[03:49–08:52]

• The hosts are astonished by SVG's commanding performances. Unlike previous “road course ringers,” van Gisbergen consistently dominates from practice through the checkered flag.
• Rick: “He comes in, he's the fastest in practice, he's the fastest qualified, and he stays the fastest in the race. He's the first road racer that I've ever witnessed in my life that has come in here and done what he does consistently.” (06:26)
• Both note SVG’s ability to multi-task inside the car, especially his adjustments to brake bias mid-lap.
  • Rick: “Here this dude is taking another lever and moving a brake bias from turn to turn. That blew me away.” (05:26)
• Schrader points out the difference between ringers and SVG’s full-time status:
  • “He's not a road racer that's dropping in. He's a full-time cup regular that drives these cars every week. He knows about these cars...” (08:07)

---

2. Road Course Competition and SVG's Oval Improvements

[08:52–10:31]

• The new Cup car’s similarity to V8 Supercars is discussed as a key to SVG’s rapid adaptation.
• SVG’s improvement on ovals is noted, with Trader specifying playoff eligibility now requires more than just road-course wins.
• Schrader: “He continues to get better on the ovals too. 14th in points is pretty damn stout.” (09:51)

---

3. The Changing Challenges of NASCAR—Tires, Setups, and Aggression

[11:47–14:57]

• Trader and Rick discuss how race-day tire management has become much more crucial, with tire “drop-off” and abrupt loss of grip compared to past cars.
• Rick: “When they let loose or when they lose grip, lose traction, direct...the next thing they know, they're trying to collect it from spitting out or hitting the wall...there's no forgiveness..." (13:44)

---

4. Fan Engagement & Survey Snapshot

[15:11–15:59]

• The group reviews Jeff Gluck's race poll:
  • “61% say yes and 39% say no,” indicating positive fan sentiment after Sonoma.
• Schrader: “That bodes well for our sport. Says people are happier than they're not.” (15:50)

---

5. Manufacturer & Team Performance—Toyota’s Current Edge

[18:40–20:34]

• The dominance of Gibbs’ Toyotas is dissected against Chevy and Ford; the panel sees the situation as cyclical.
• Schrader: “Maybe the Chevys and the Fords are just a little bit off. I don't know, man. We're splitting hairs here.” (19:26)
• Rick: “We just...go through this again, the wave. I talk about Toyota's on top of that wave right now...But it'll change. It'll come around full circle.” (19:52)

---

6. Evolving Cars and Driver Adaptation

[21:23–23:55]

• Longer segment on how the new Cup car tires (shorter sidewalls, less flex) and aero have disrupted some drivers’ comfort, notably Chase Elliott and Kyle Busch.
• Rick: “The sidewall, the height of the sidewall has made as much difference maybe as the car has made...lack of flex in the sidewall…” (21:58)
• Schrader recounts his own costly learning curve as the sport transitioned to radial tires.
  • “I cost Mr. Hendrick another half million dollars in about three months. I mean, I tore up some stuff…” (23:04)

---

7. Race Recap: Sonoma

[24:30–25:13]

• SVG wins, Chase Briscoe second ("another lap, not so sure he wouldn’t have rattled that bumper"), Ty Gibbs, Kyle Larson, and Christopher Bell round out the top five.

---

8. NASCAR History—Anecdotes & Safety Evolution

[26:51–47:24]

• Rich storytelling about “road course ringers,” dangerous pre-chicane turns at Watkins Glen and Riverside, and tragic losses (JD McDuffie, Joe Weatherly, Billy Wade, Jimmy Pardue).
• Rick: “...now you look at the cars and the walls and you're thinking, damn, we were idiots in the 80s and 90s with what we had. Yeah, we were safer than our past generation, but we're not nowhere near safe as what they got now...” (34:02)
• Discussion emphasizes how each tragic event pushed safety improvements—cars, walls, seats, safety gear.
• Trader: “After those accidents, something changed...that ended up making things safer and saving a lot of guys.” (32:08)

---

9. Carnage Report & Saturday’s Race

[39:31–41:12]

• Sonoma was relatively event-free except a chain-reaction spin (with Carson Hocevar and Denny Hamlin involved).
• Saturday’s Xfinity event was another SVG showcase—“totally in a league of his own.” (40:47)

---

10. Road Course Technique—Brake Bias & SVG’s Craft

[41:12–44:18]

• Renewed amazement at SVG’s active in-car brake bias adjustment and mastery with both feet on pedals, compared to the hosts’ own more “survivalist” approach from earlier eras.
• Schrader: “I'd have had that lever in the wrong damn place when I got to the next turn...” (41:27)
• Discussion also highlights David Green, Jr.’s crash and general talk on racing’s danger/acceptance.

---

11. Sponsors & The Culture of NASCAR

[49:49–55:45]

• Deep dive into Skoal and Hooters’ sponsorships (“top three coolest sponsors ever”) and their unique approaches:
  • Rick: “The only requirement that they ever ask of me was do not embarrass us. Do not embarrass us off the racetrack.” (51:01)
  • Hooters, like Skoal, “loved racing” and promoted both product and sport.
• Shout-out to current sponsor Federated Auto Parts (“they just love racing… always supported it”). (67:27)

---

12. Looking Ahead: Chicagoland

[56:39–59:43]

• The panel is optimistic about strong racing at worn-in Chicagoland, not missing the logistics of the city street course.
• Rick: “Thank goodness we're going, we're going there. We're not going into the city. That's all I've got to say about that. Thank goodness we're going to the big track.” (58:11)
• Discussion of how “cookie cutter” tracks aren’t so similar from inside the car; every oval or copy has its quirks.

---

Memorable Quotes & Comic Relief

• Rick: “Race car drivers are the same everywhere: you wreck somebody one week and ask for a discount on a Ranger the next.” (61:51)
• Trader: “I love playing a game... Famous or favorite race car driver names in history. One is Dick Passwater, for obvious reasons. Two is Jocko Magiacomo...” (25:43)
• Jokes at episode end—classic groaners:
  • “How do you know if a vampire is not well? He’ll be a coffin.” (63:23)
  • “Why did the bicycle collapse? It was too tired.” (64:15)

---

Timestamps of Key Segments

• SVG and brake bias mastery: [03:49]–[08:52]
• Evolution of road course/oval racing: [08:52]–[11:47]
• Tires and racing setup, driver adaptation: [11:47]–[15:11]
• Fan poll reaction: [15:11]–[15:59]
• Manufacturer/team cycles – Toyota: [18:40]–[20:34]
• Tire and chassis evolution (practical impacts): [21:23]–[23:55]
• Race results recap: [24:30]–[25:13]
• Historic tracks, safety, tragedy lessons: [26:51]–[36:46]
• Carnage/Saturday’s Xfinity race: [39:31]–[41:12]
• SVG’s technique and crash discussion: [41:12]–[46:32]
• Sponsorship and NASCAR culture: [49:49]–[55:45]
• Chicagoland preview: [56:39]–[59:43]
• Jokes and closing banter: [63:23]–end

---

Tone & Style

• Genuine, unfiltered, and often hilarious — lots of self-deprecation, ribbing, and old-school storytelling.
• Earnest respect and awe for today’s superstars like SVG balanced with stories from a rougher, wilder NASCAR era.
• No-nonsense, sometimes irreverent but always passionate about racing and the storied community around it.

---

For New Listeners

This episode is a perfect example of what’s made Herm & Schrader a fan favorite: authenticity, historic insight, and plenty of humor. Even without Kenny Wallace, the team delivers a rich snapshot of both the current state and living memory of stock car racing, complete with technical analysis, locker-room laughs, and the occasional dad joke. It’s an engaging ride for any racing fan, new or seasoned.

Transcript

[Herman Schrader]

The biggest stage in world soccer is here and every goal changes everything. And now FanDuel is giving you a reason to root for every single one. Introducing every goal pays. Bet on a match and get bonus bets for every goal scored in that match. That's right, more goals means more bonus bets and all you have to do is turn on your token. You know one thing I love about FanDuel is it makes it easy on me because I'm not real good at these computers or digital things. And that's what I love about FanDuel. When I place it bet day, make it so easy on me. So from the opening whistle to the final kick, let there be goals on FanDuel. Visit FanDuel.com DirtyBo to get started now must be 21 plus and present in select states.

[Trader]

For Kansas, an affiliation with Kansas Star

[Herman Schrader]

Casino or 18 in presenton DC first

[Trader]

online real money wager only.

[Rick]

$5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as non withdrawable bonus bets

[Trader]

which expire seven days after receipt.

[Herman Schrader]

Restrictions apply.

[Trader]

See [e-mail] gambling problem call 1-800-gambler or

[Herman Schrader]

visit fanduel.com rg call 1-888-789-7777 or visit

[Rick]

ccpg.org chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland.

[Trader]

Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24.

[Herman Schrader]

7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-Hopeny or text hopeny In New York, the

[Trader]

Colonels cooked up a new $10 bucket of the day just for you. Monday 24 nuggets for $10. Tuesday 8 piece fried chicken for $10. Wednesday 10 wings for $10. Thursday 8 tenders for $10. Friday 24 nuggets for. Oh, you guessed it, didn't you? $10. The $10 bucket of the day deal every weekday only at KFC. It's finger licking.

[Herman Schrader]

Good prices and participation.

[Rick]

Variable supplies last not available on third party ordering platforms.

[Herman Schrader]

Tax extra from the Middle of America I'm in the middle of America. Our other two hosts are in North Carolina and our buddy Kenny Wallace is not here today because he's just not feeling good. Hopefully it's something he gets over quick. But it's the Herman Schrader Show. But right now it's the. Well, it's not the Herm, it's the the Mast and Dietz and Schrader Show. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. I'm looking at Kenny Schrader right now. He had a drink. I mean, yeah, you. How in the world did we agree to do a podcast? I like spending time with you.

[Trader]

That makes me happy.

[Herman Schrader]

Well, it's all about making you happy. We're always honest. We don't know that we're not in trouble already. And sometimes truthful. What makes you think you're not a little different?

[Trader]

You're weird, too.

[Herman Schrader]

Herman Schrader. Here we are to recap last weekend's activities, which I didn't get to watch. So I'm relying on you guys.

[Trader]

We had to call Rick into action last minute, and you're, what, on vacation?

[Rick]

Well, you call a vacation. We're at Emerald Isle, North Carolina, which everybody knows where that's at. Right below the Outer Banks, above Wilmington, somewhere out here along the ocean. So, you know, I'm in a makeshift studio here in my bedroom, right? So all the family's at the beach, and everybody's gone after the liquor and beer. It's Monday, so the liquor store is open. So everybody's gone to the liquor store. The beer is already here. So we're ready. We're ready for a whole week, man. But we're. We're going to entertain right now here on the Herman Schrader Show. So, yeah, we watched the race was yesterday this weekend, so it was a good one again. Another good race, guys.

[Trader]

Well, what do y'. All. What do you make of esvg? I know we. We. I don't really know much more that we can say about him with these road courses, but, you know, in the 60s, you had Dan Gurney. In the 90s, you had guys like, you know, Ron Fellows and. And Dalembach and Robbie Gordon and guys like that that were all good, but not to the extent that we've seen with. With Van Gisbergen. Why? Why? I'll ask you to start with Rick. I mean, I know you watched the race. Could you tell anything from the. The telemetry or the onboards about his break? I mean, what is it, man?

[Rick]

I'm going to tell you. The one thing he did I did see that blew me away, right? So road courses, you know, I was always butts and elbows just, you know, all over the place. Flying wheel, my hands and my legs, my feet, everything shifting and everything was every which way and trying to make it all happen. This dude. This dude looks like he's just landing an aircraft. Just, just as easy. I mean, landing a plane, okay, on an aircraft. Just precision, right? Smooth. But the thing that blew me away, guys, Schrader, maybe You can help me with this. He would shift his gears, right? And then two or three places around the racetrack. He would reach beside the gear shift and it was a lever he was moving, right? He would do it like three times a lap.

[Trader]

Excuse me.

[Rick]

And I finally figured out the announcer said that that's the brake bias lever. So, you know, this, this dude is doing all the stuff he's doing in each lap. He's changing the brake bias on his race car. I'm looking over and I'm watching it and I'm like, what is he doing after he shifts? Has he got another transmission catching another gear? But no, it's a brake bias, right? And I'm like, man, I was doing all I could do just to try to keep the thing in gear and on the racetrack, and here this dude is taking another lever and moving a brake bass from. From. From turn to turn. That blew me away. The other thing that, that if we go back in history, guys, you spoke about Dan Gurney and all those guys. Well, when we came through and I came through in the 90s, we always had these road race ringers, right? And these guys would come in and man, they'd go out there and practice and they'd be fast and they qualify and they'd be fast. You're like, golly. Because all the teams would do. A lot of teams would do it and bring these guys in and it would qualify real good. Well, guess what? About halfway through the race, the talent. The talent of all the regulars would kind of kick in, right? And the road race guys would kind of be top 10. You know, we're kind of relegated back, you might say, a little bit. And it would happen every single race. It seemed like this guy svg, he comes in, he's the fastest in practice, he's the fastest qualified, and he stays the fastest in the race. He's the first road racer that I've. That I've ever witnessed in my life that has come in here and done what he does consistently. So, you know, maybe you can speak to the brake bias a little bit, Kenny. Maybe you can speak to his smoothness, you know, his hitting, his marks, his precision, you know, I don't know, but it's. It's something to witness. I know one thing, I'm fascinated watching this dude do what he does.

[Herman Schrader]

Well, like you said in the 80s and 90s, while. The 90s, that's. That's a long ass time ago now, you know, but we had a lot of them come in, but they never won. You know, one Problem they'd have is you'd be smoking down straightaway to a right hander and they're, they're breaking straight. I'm going to apex late. Well, when they get ready to turn in, there'd be three of us clowns got the brakes locked up, sliding in underneath them, you know, because there was a hole, you know, but we got it. We gotta, we gotta look at SVG different now. He's not a, he's not a road racer that's dropping in. He's a full time cup regular that drives these cars every week. He knows about these cars that had, prior to coming here, had a ton of successful road racing experience, but he's a cup guy now and he runs them cars every week and he knows about those cars, what they feel like. And we've seen that with the improvement of performance on, on, on his oval tracks. So, you know, it's, it's pretty amazing the dominant dominance that he's shown on the, on the road courses. I mean that record is phenomenal. But he continues to get better on the ovals too.

[Trader]

He came from the V8 supercars and this, this new cup car, the newest version, I mean it's not really new anymore, but it's a lot closer to a V8 supercar. You know, as far as the transmission and things like that go, the biggest thing is, I think is, you know, when they brought him in, you had to win to get into the playoffs and you could almost guarantee he was going to get into the playoffs because he was going to win one of the road course races. Now it's kind of like what you're saying, Schrader, he's sitting there, you know, 14th in points and just winning on road courses is not going to hack it. He, he's going to have to get in based on the, the ovals. And he said that again yesterday. He's got to keep getting better on the ovals. But the thing about it is, is he is getting better. I mean, you can see the performance is getting better on these ovals for him.

[Herman Schrader]

Yeah, and, and we're talking 14th and points now. Yes, that, you know, that's been helped with his road course success. But still, 14th and points is pretty damn stout. You know, I mean we, we looked at it a lot of different ways when you were running all time. It's like, oh, if you weren't top 10 or you want really need to be top five. But it's just the sports changed and changed and changed. It was changing when, when Rick and I were in there and you want to be a champion, but the guys that are, you know, 12 through 18, 20th, they're running pretty damn good too.

[Rick]

It is. You're bad, you're. When you're stuck in that mess, man, it's, it's, it's. You learn. You really. The easiest place to race when you're in this deal is out front, but when you're back in the back, you call it the hornet's nest. We were golly with Michigan one time and qualified not too good. And we were racing and me and Mark Martin beside, beside racing and we were right in the middle of this pack of cars and you know, luckily I got through this mess and got out of there. Next week Mark came to me and said, Rick, how the heck did you get out of that Hornets mess, man? I, I was stuck back there for 50 laps in the middle of all that. That's what's right. I mean Mark, man, when you, when you run back there, you really learn. You learn hard about race because you're, you're racing as hard as you do. Any worry of it. I actually race no harder because you're, you're fending off everybody and trying to get out of this mess and you really, it's really a teaching experience. So you know, SVG has been back there in the middle of that so much and everybody tells me he's a good student, student of the sport. He works hard. He does. He says he's simulator stuff a lot and obviously he's a talented race car driver. I don't know. I think everybody wants to see this guy do well, you know, just because he does so well on the road courses and is a cool dude too. Right? And so yeah, kudos. Kudos to svg, man. He's, he's, he's got it going on. I'm happy for him.

[Trader]

Is it fair to say this is kind of a double edged question? You know, Briscoe, the last couple of years there at Sonoma has, has kept him, you know, honest. So is the field closing the gap on him here on these road courses? But the other thing, and maybe it was just something they didn't mention back when you guys were racing, but they keep harping on tires and backing up to the competition and trying to not burn the rear tires off it. Was that something you all dealt with on road courses? I don't, I just don't remember hearing that we.

[Herman Schrader]

I think I'll throw myself in that pile with Rick. My biggest concern with those tires was trying to keep them somewhere close to the pavement. But it was so much, it was the first, you know, the first time I went to Riverside. Oh my gosh, I hate to say it. 85 with Mr. Don Levy. And I told him, I said, he said, well, we'll tear up a transmission or something. I said, no, won't. And it was so much different. We, I said I'm just gonna stay on the pavement. And we stayed on the pavement and didn't tear up the transmission and wound up 10th. But we were a lap down at Riverside. You know, how friggin slow you gotta go to go a lap down on a road course. You know, especially then. I mean, you gotta go slow. But, but, but we would, you know, everybody tearing stuff up. We wound up 10th. Well, those guys don't have that option anymore. They gotta run. They gotta run, run, run all day long, hard.

[Rick]

Yeah, to your point. I don't know, you know. No, to answer your question though, you. It seems like everywhere we go now they worry about the rear tires. Burning the rear tires off. Not, not just a road course, but some of these other racetracks. And I, you know, I don't know if that's a product of the car or what it is. But yeah, they, you know, we, we talk about the car a little bit. The, the sidewall of these tires, I don't know if that has an effect on it. You know, the, these cars are stuck so good now. And the short sidewall, they're stuck. And what. All the guys tell me, because I haven't driven them, but all the guys tell me that things are stuck so good when they let loose or when they lose grip, lose traction direct. In other words, they're stuck. Perfect. The next thing they know, they're. They're trying to collect it from spitting out or hit it to the wall. And you know, we. There's no forgiveness, there's no. What is that? Would you call that, Kenny, a comfort zone or a little zone between stuck and out of control? You know, you had that, you had that feeling in the car. But the guys say that that's the biggest, one of the biggest things that they have to overcome. Figuring that thing out. And then I guess when they slip the tires, you know, they're just, they just have a lot of trouble with it. So I don't know, it's a different style right now. It's a different deal.

[Herman Schrader]

I like it, I like watching it. I didn't get to watch.

[Trader]

Yeah.

[Rick]

Oh, I love it too.

[Herman Schrader]

But they're, man, they're Putting on a show. Hey, Dietz, what about. What about our survey? Go to that.

[Trader]

Oh, the surf. You know, I'm so glad you. You remember that every weekend.

[Herman Schrader]

I like that survey, Herman.

[Trader]

Herman. I forget every week. I'm. I'm anxious to see what this says, too. Let's see. So this week, obviously, at Sonoma, this is Jeff Gluck's poll again, the numbers are more in line with. With what they should be. As far as the number of votes. There's 5,931. In about 22 hours, 61% say yes and 39% say no.

[Herman Schrader]

You know, I think that bodes well for our sport. You know, says there's still people are happier than they're not.

[Trader]

So yesterday, Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick both had issues. Tyler Reddick had a power station steering issue. Cost him a number of laps. That aside, you know, we know the last few races, Denny Hamlin has closed that gap to where it's virtually totally evaporated. Now, is it just me, or do you get this feeling that Reddick might be. That that team might be feeling the pressure a little bit now?

[Rick]

Well, I don't, you know, I don't know. Pressure. I mean, they had so many things go their way. Yeah, he dominated. Won all those races first of the year. But, you know, there's two or three of those races. I mean, like Daytona, if you think back. Yeah, that was a last lap move and a couple of other ones, and they had a lot of things go their way, man. A lot of brakes went their way. Okay. And so they kind of coasted in some of that stuff. But where was it? Coda Kota. I mean, he kicked everybody's butt, and he kicked even SVG's butt in that race. If we remember, we're talking about svg, but little Reddick put it on him at that racetrack. And, you know, I've said this my whole life racing. We ride waves, man. We ride waves. It's weird how it works in our sport. You know, we would ride wide ride waves, and you'd be like, for two months, you go, they're all gas millies, races, right? Then the next two months, it's all about tires blowing out, saving tires. That's your next deal. Then the next wave would be, well, we got a lot of mechanical issues. And these guys get on these winning streaks and they win these races and they ride that wave, man. You ride that wave as hard as long as you can ride it. And then when it's over, when that wave goes away, Then you're back there in the trenches doing what you normally do and. And trying to keep up. So I don't know. I. I don't think it's a pressure thing. I think it's just the nature of our sport that, that, that, you know, creates these situations where you, like. Yeah, they're not doing what they used to do. Maybe, maybe things are not going just exactly right. Well, you know, things are still going right. You just got to ride that low wave till the next wave comes up. You ever rode either those waves, Kenny?

[Herman Schrader]

I don't ever remember. I don't never really remember being on the top of the wave. It seemed like it was all coming in and getting. But yeah, we see it all the time. You know, I mean, all the time. It's just not gonna go your way all the time. Maybe not because of something that the driver or the crew or a mechanical part did. There's just going to be some stuff happen.

[Trader]

We were talking a little bit about this, and we seem to talk about it every week. You know, the Gibbs cars, it seems like they're able to put all. All of the cars in the top 10 here fairly regularly. And that's something that in the past, we. We've seen from Hendrick Motorsports. But now it seems like one car will do good. And it kind of rotates between Larson, Elliott and. And Byron. But more times than not, it seems like they're struggling. Do you think that's a Hendrick thing or do you think that's just kind of where Chevy and Ford are in relation to Toyota right now combination?

[Herman Schrader]

You know, maybe the Chevy's and the Fords are just a little bit off. I don't know, man. We're splitting hairs here. We're splitting hairs. It's so. The competition is so, so tough. The only thing we know for sure is. Would say the Toyotas, but Gibbs has a. You know, there aren't. They're on top of their stuff right now.

[Rick]

We just. We go through this again, the wave. I talk about, you know, Toyota's on top of that wave right now. There's no doubt. And is that a function of what is that a function of? Is it a function of Chevrolet's got a new body. We keep hearing that. Well, Ford doesn't have a new body. Okay. They're, you know, they're not doing as well right now. It's just these cars right now are so finite in their adjustments that, man, it seems like what I understand, you get a little something here that makes a big difference on the racetrack and you kind of ride that wave till it runs out. But you know, no doubt they're, they're, they're the class right now. But it'll change. It'll, it'll come around full circle.

[Trader]

This is a Monday.com ad, the same Monday.com designed for every team. The samemonday.com with built in AI scaling your work from day one. The samemonday.comwith an easy and intuitive setup.

[Herman Schrader]

Go to Monday.com and try it for free.

[Rick]

A better help ad. Have you ever had so many tabs open that your computer starts slowing down? Life can feel like that too. BetterHelp's 2026 State of Stigma report found that 74% of Americans believe society still discourages asking for help. Therapy can help you sort through what's taking up space and quietly affecting you. With BetterHelp, connect with a licensed therapist online and switch anytime. Maybe it's time to close a few tabs. Visit betterhelp.com.

[Trader]

Rick, we were talking about it before we went on air and you know, you mentioned that, that this version of the cup car seems like affected the performance of Chase Elliott and Kyle Busch maybe more than anybody. But maybe you have to factor in that they, they don't practice nearly as much. And you were even saying some, you know, the tire people forget, but it's a bigger tire, it's a totally different tire than what those guys raced on with the previous cars.

[Rick]

Yes. My understanding now listening to guys that the, the sidewall, the, the, the height of the sidewall has made as much difference maybe as the car has made. Right. To the what the, the feel that these drivers are feeling. You know, you have, but being such a short sidewall. And Kenny, you can talk to this too. You know, a short sidewall, man, you have no flex between the wheel and the contact patch, the contact patch of the racetrack. That, that flex is gone or not nearly as prominent as it was with the old tire. I know when, when we used to run by supply tires, man, and you went to the, to the radial tire, it was a world changer for all of us. A lot of guys, you know, a lot of guys had trouble adjusting to that just from the by supply to the radio. And a lot of that was due to the lack of flex in the sidewall. And you know, they've taken that another step further and changed the change the feel of these cars. For a lot of these guys, they don't get talked about a lot. But I've, you know, I've listened to Guys talk about that and just something else they have to overcome with the new car, with this car added to it.

[Herman Schrader]

Yeah. When we went to the radio tire, I know I cost Mr. Hendrick another half million dollars in about three months. I mean, I tore up some stuff, but how many years we had this car now?

[Rick]

Four, isn't it?

[Herman Schrader]

Well, let's put it this way. Let's put it this way. Kyle Larson was winning a lot in this car. It's just. It's just the Gibbs team and Toyota's got just a little something right now, and they might have it all year, and they might not. They might have it for part of next year. Who knows? But those other powerhouse teams will be back. What was the finish yesterday?

[Trader]

What was the finish yesterday? See, just when I. The weeks that I don't have this stuff is when y' all asked me.

[Rick]

And what does SVG drive, by the way?

[Trader]

Chevy.

[Rick]

Okay.

[Trader]

Yeah, yeah, true.

[Herman Schrader]

So.

[Trader]

I don't count the road court. That's a different. That's a different deal.

[Herman Schrader]

Chevrolet got manufacturers points in the trophy.

[Trader]

Yeah, they did. They did. Shane Van Gisbergen was the winner. Chase Briscoe was second. And I don't think we could give him enough credit because another lap, I'm not so sure he. He'd have rattled that bumper a little bit. Ty Gibbs was third. He might have had the best car. Kyle Larson was fourth. Christopher Bale big with that broken wrist to finish fifth. Ryan Blaney again is another kind of quiet top ten finish, but he got it. Finished six. Connor Zillich finally got a decent finish in Save. It's Ryan Priest was eighth, Michael McDowell and ninth, and Alex Bowman was tenth.

[Herman Schrader]

Well, I only. Well, there was three or four Toyotas up there. It was. I mean, yeah, Christopher Briscoe and Forge were up there, and Gibbs Chevrolets were up there. I mean, including Victory Lane. I don't know, maybe that was. Maybe we needed to redo the first half hour of the show.

[Trader]

No, no, listen, that's. That's. This is all about breaking it down. And what we all say is not necessarily always right, but it is clear that the Toyotas have won more races. And. And there is a disparity there. And we'll see what happens at Chicago this weekend. But before we go to Chicago, I want to ask you specifically Schrader question. I love playing a game. Famous or favorite race car driver names in history. I'll have three. One is Dick Passwater, for obvious reasons. Two is Jocko Magiacomo. But my third is when when DW broke his leg back in 1990, Cyril Vandermeer was your teammate at Hendrick for the road course races. What do you remember about Cyril Vandermeer?

[Herman Schrader]

Not a. Not a whole lot, because while they were trying to go fast, I was trying to stay on the track. But I do remember, I think he had drove the. The Corvette GTP car a little bit for Rick.

[Trader]

Yeah, I think it was the. The good wrench one, which I got

[Herman Schrader]

to play in that one day. That was pretty much fun. But, you know, those guys just come. Come in for one or two races. We didn't have many road courses then we had Riverside and Watkins Glen was at it in 86, I think.

[Trader]

86, 86.

[Herman Schrader]

Then Riverside went away. We wound up going Sonoma in 88 or nine for the first time. Yeah, you know, Watkins Glen was like a super speedway. You make a couple turns, then you go straight. And we got out to Sonoma and it's like, man, if you mess up this turn, you're three more turns before you get straightened out, you know, it was just like. It was like a short track road course. You gotta watch out for those turns there, Rick. Someone's crashed at every one of those.

[Rick]

Yeah, but like we said last week, you rode me around there the first time I went halfway around the racetrack. I said, just take me back to the pit, Schrader, because every turn you're showing me where somebody flipped. This is where Richard Petty broke his leg. It's where Mark Martin is upside down. This is where Jimmy Martin, Jimmy Means, ended up in the tires, upside down, halfway around the track, said, take me back straight and have heck with this. I don't need deer anymore. Right. And it was true, too, man. You go off, you go off that track and hit those tires, you just get wallered up in them and flip upside down. It's crazy.

[Herman Schrader]

Mikey Waltrip didn't make it all the way around and turned over the first lap and you know, they take him to Infield Care center and he's okay. And they take him back to the hauler and they're unloading the backup car and he's like, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute, guys. Wait a minute. I ain't made it all the way back yet. Let's be. Let's beat this one out and let me go out and try some more.

[Trader]

Trey. I don't know if you got to do this or not, Rick. I think you probably did, though. What was the pucker factor like at Watkins Glenn before they put the inner loop in bag straight away, dude, let

[Rick]

me tell you, man, we go up there when I get my first big time deal school and we're racing and I go to. They take me to Watkins Glen to test, right? And I've never been to Watkins Glen. I go out there and I ran. And by the way, Harry Gantt drew me a map of this racetrack before I went and I looked at this map and I studied this map and I put it out and I. Anyhow, I came back in and when I came in, I looked that map. I'm like, I don't know what the hell Terry was putting racetrack. He was drawing his map up. But it wasn't, it wasn't where I, it wasn't where I just came from. But dude, I go out there and race or practice and I come in and I said, guys, man, I've raced all over the, I've raised tracks all over this country, all kinds of configurations and everything. I said, I just went through the most dangerous turn that I have ever encountered in my racing career. And that was the end of the bike straightaway of whatever it is going into whatever turn it is. I'm like, if you have a problem here, you're not going to survive. I said, you're just not going to survive, you know, and the, and then that, actually that was the race where we lost JD And I think Tommy Kendall had gotten broken up there in one of those other cars once. Not in a cup car, but something else and then somebody else. Anyhow, that's when they put the chicane in right after that race. I believe I've got my timing right.

[Herman Schrader]

Well, that's Riverside. You never ran Riverside, did you Rick? Riverside used to go straight down the back straightaway. A lot longer straightaway than Watkins Glen to a really sharp turn. And then they made it where you veered out to the left and made a real wide radius to the right because it was, it was the same way. It just. Long ass straightaway to a tight, tight turn.

[Rick]

Kenny, is that the, Is that the, Is that the. Is that the turn where we lost Joe Weatherly years before us?

[Herman Schrader]

Turn nine. The other, the other, the other end of Riverside, go past start finish line, go up to make a left, go up through S's and stuff and us of kind of not a, not a real fast turn, but a concrete wall on the left side, which he got his head on the wall, you know. But that's no window nets. I don't think shoulder harness were mandatory. I don't, I'm not Sure about that. But I don't believe they were. So it just. Yeah, but that was the other end.

[Trader]

And that's, you know, that's where, you know, throughout history, whether it was, you know, Earnhardt or J.D. mcDuffie or Joe Weatherly or any other number of drivers that lost their lives, it seems like after those accidents, something changed. Whether it was with the car or. Or with the configuration of the racetrack or whatever, that. That ended up making things safer and saving a lot of guys.

[Herman Schrader]

After Weatherly was driving for Bud. That was in Bud Moore's car, which they were the champions the year before. I remember he was champion in 63. Two years.

[Trader]

The two years. The two years before he. He won it in 62 and 63. And he got killed at Riverside in 64. Fireball Roberts died in 64. And then Bud Moore put Billy Wade in the car and changed the number to one. And I think he won like, four races in a row, but went and did a tire test, Daytona, and got killed. And I, you know, I talked to Bud one time about it, and it was not pretty. Whenever they got to that car. I'll just. All right, leave it at that. But it was.

[Herman Schrader]

We're doing a tire test at Daytona. No, back then. I'm talking like when Billy. And they're messing with the inner liner and. Rick, we're going down straight away, and right before the turn, we're. We're gonna run over stuff to deliberately blow the tire out.

[Trader]

Yeah, I remember Bud. Buddy Baker telling me about that. He was like, we were the test dummies before there were test dummies.

[Rick]

Yeah. That's wild. I think it was Jimmy Perdue. I think he was one of those guys. I believe, correct these tech me if I'm wrong, but he was one of those guys. We're going to blow the tire out going into the turn. But I believe I'm right about that. We lost Jimmy Perdue in one of those. One of those tests. You know, one thing that's crazy, man. We in the 90s all through. When I was there at the sport, and I remember thinking of myself and talking to you guys, Kenny and everybody. And we're looking at our cars, man, and we're thinking how safe they are. And we're looking back. We're looking back at the Curtis Turner era. We're looking back at these guys that no fuel cells and no shoulder straps and, you know, the walls and all that. We're thinking, man, oh, man, oh, man, that thing was dangerous back then. It was terribly dangerous. Back then, man, we're. We're good and safe right now. Right? And now you look at the cars and the walls and you're thinking, damn, we were idiots. We were idiots in the 80s and 90s with what we had. Yeah, we were safer than our past generation, but we're not nowhere near safe as what they got now. And it's weird how the evolution, to your point, needs of. We have a problem, it creates. It creates a fix. And I don't know is this.

[Herman Schrader]

It's funny, we got two things there. We had. We had the same stuff they got now. We had. We had the best stuff available. You know, that's what we had. And Mikey Waltrip told me when they came up, you know, this was a number of years ago. He said, you imagine we're going to be able to tell our grandkids that we used to run and there was only just concrete walls right there.

[Trader]

I remember. I remember for a show I worked on, we interviewed Smokey Unit. I saw the interview. I didn't get to do the interview, but I saw the interview. And he had. During his garage, it was. It was like two pieces of plyboard, one on top and one on the bottom. And then tires stacked and rods in them. And then I think the idea was to put plyboards on either side. And. And he said, I just got tired of seeing my friends get killed hitting concrete walls. And I, you know, I made this with the hopes that somebody would. Would do something with it one day. And. And I think it was either. I think it was even him that said, one day we'll look back on concrete walls and say how crazy it was. We, you know, it is no different than racing without lap belts, racing without wind nets, you know, hitting concrete walls.

[Herman Schrader]

Yeah. Luckily, it never bothers us. And.

[Trader]

And just so you know, too, yeah. The touchback on Jimmy pardue. This was 1964, too. And I honestly, I can't remember if Billy Wade died in 64, 65, but Jimmy Pardue was doing a tire test. Charlotte tire blue, went through the Guardrail and Turns 3 and 4, and that's what ended up taking him out. Yeah, I might be wrong.

[Rick]

Yeah, I might be wrong about that, but I swear, I think it was one of those deals. All right, we're going to go down. Here we go to blow a tire out going in the turn, see what happens.

[Trader]

Oh, I watched. I watched. I can't remember what it was, but they. They did a Ted. You know, it was. I can't remember if it was a battery company or if it was Goodyear Firestone or what it was. And they took like six cars, the Daytona, and ran them for like 30 hours straight just to prove that, you know, the car could go that long and stuff like that. And that's why I tell people all the time there's no point running 500 mile races because the whole idea with 500 mile races was to see if the driver and the car could, you know, who could withstand that amount. Now you could run a 1500 mile race and these cars wouldn't stop.

[Herman Schrader]

I never thought of that. That makes sense.

[Rick]

Adobe Firefly is the all in one creative studio with AI powered image and video editing for today's creative process. Built for creators of every kind, Firefly helps you generate, edit and experiment fast because the asks aren't getting smaller, the budgets aren't getting bigger and the timelines, oh yeah, still tight. With all the best creative AI models in one place, Firefly brings your ideas to life. Unlock a better way to make with Adobe Firefly. Monday, AI agents took over my work and I absolutely love it.

[Trader]

Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind. Now they live inside Monday.com, so they

[Rick]

see the full picture.

[Trader]

My work, my team, the whole company.

[Rick]

And I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe. Which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff. Knowing everything runs smoothly in the background.

[Trader]

It's completely shifted the way we work.

[Rick]

Create your own AI agent in minutes

[Trader]

on Monday dot com.

[Herman Schrader]

Was there any big carnage Sunday? Did we tear up much stuff?

[Trader]

No, I mean you had some, you know, you had some spins and they're talking about, you know, trying to get a rise out of Danny Hamlin. About one would Carson Hosvar. But I mean a lot of that stuff was just, it was typical Sonoma chain reaction. One guy hits the brake, the other one slows down and then the other guy can't slow down fast enough and runs into him and spins him out. They're just, I don't, I don't think I'm missing anything. Was already no, that was the main

[Rick]

deal was the host of our deal. Everybody's fuss about Hosar. Well, he got hit, right? The guy behind him hit him and shoved the ball into. Hamlin was recipient of all that chain reaction stuff. So yeah, other than that, it wasn't really much going on. Bubba, he got turned I think a time or two and yeah, no, it was pretty, pretty, pretty event free as far as the crash.

[Herman Schrader]

A time or Two. What. What about the Saturday. What about the Saturday race? Svg. Yeah, what about the Saturday race? Svg. Big time again.

[Trader]

That was big time. I mean, they were never, ever close to mountain any sort of charge on him there. And again, they're wanting. You know, Justin Allgar had a bad day with a spin or two, and again, there was nothing super serious or anything like that. But Saturday, he was totally in a league of his own.

[Rick]

And that's the race where I noticed him doing the. The lever with the brake bias. Talk to me about that. A little bit straighter. Talk to me. I know where my mind would have been changing brake bias three times or four times a la. Talk to me about that.

[Herman Schrader]

I'd have had that lever in the wrong damn place when I got to the next turn. Know that. But, I mean, you know, you would think, you know, with a little bit. I know about that stuff is you'd think that when you're smoking down in there, you'd be wanting more front brake, although you can't lock up the front brakes. So. I don't know. One big thing is the difference in tires on those cars from Saturday to Sunday. We didn't used to. We didn't used to have that. We'd go out there with our little Southwest tour car, you know, a little short track car, and run Saturday, and I'd make them put the same transmission in my Saturday car as the Sunday car. And they said, that's not. The shift points are all messed up. I said, I don't care. I want to shift in the same spot. I don't want to do one one day and the other one next day because I'm not. I'm not talented enough for that. I'll have things all screwed up, but those tires, huge difference. So I think the advantage. I think the real advantage that he's got over everybody is just talent.

[Trader]

But I would think if you adjust that brake bias, that would. That would, you know, you don't go into turn one and break the same way at Sonoma as you would going into that hairpin at the end. So I'm assuming it would make a difference of how deep you could drive into the corners.

[Rick]

Oh, I get it. Yeah, I know what you're saying. I get it. You could use the different bias at different turns. I get that. It's just the fact that I've never seen anybody actually physically do that during a race. You know, we have a little. We used to be having. Most of these guys got a little knob on the dash and you see, guys just in that knob to lock up the front brakes when they do the burnouts, Right. You see those guys doing that, they'll. They'll put all the brake to the. Or all the brake to the front, so the back wheels will spin to do the burnouts. But hell, I mean, heck, he's doing it every frigging lap. Different turns, right? So, yeah, I get it. I understand what it does. Yeah. And I'm like, well, I get that. That's pretty cool. But, you know, that's beyond my capabilities. Well, no, maybe not. I might could have done it.

[Herman Schrader]

I'm not gonna. I want to speak with Rick. I think here in just a minute. Believe me. When we went and we going down, Was it turn 11, the last hairpin? That 11, isn't it? We were smoking down in there. We were worried about making sure I was always left foot breaker. Were you, Rick? Left foot breaker?

[Rick]

Yes.

[Herman Schrader]

I was damn sure I got my left foot on that brake pedal. When we're coming up to the turn and not earn the clutch and make damn sure I can find that shifter. So I got my hand there. We were worried about different things, and it was more survival than it was anything else.

[Trader]

That's another thing. SVG is a rock foot breaker. I noticed.

[Rick]

Yeah. Yeah. He was using both feet a lot of times. Oh, it brings up one other point, dude. One thing we did. Didn't talk about David Green, son. Man. Man, oh, man, did he take a ride going into turn 11. And I can't figure out yet what happened. I don't know if his accelerator hung, Lost his brakes. But Kenny, he hit. He. He did what we all dread. He goes in turn 11 and I mean nails the wall. Something happened to that race car. Accelerator hung, lost brakes or something. Luckily, he was all right.

[Trader]

Broke the wall.

[Rick]

Broke the wall. Broke the wall, dude. And such a shame, because, you know, that guy will tell you something, guys, I don't. We never talk about him, but, man, that guy's got some talent. Really. On the road courses too, you know, he. He's one of those guys maybe that somebody should be looking at. Looked at maybe to get picked up, but. But aside from that, very fortunate that he was able to walk away from that tremendous crash. Tremendous crash.

[Trader]

Yeah. I don't know if you guys saw it or not, but. And you may know him from being up there in Virginia, but Brandon Godozy, he has been running Lamborghinis for the last number of years. About 10 years ago or so, he was running late models and in Arca east cars and he got turned in the S's Saturday or Sunday at Watkins Glen. And it was the worst thing. That car stopped broadside the middle of the track, got drilled, broke his leg, broke his hip, got a concussion. There's a few other things too. And you know, when you see, I know they try to make these cars safe and everything, but they're still climbing into those Lamborghinis and stuff, opening the door. And when you look at that car after he got hit, you're like, man, these is a wonder this doesn't happen more often. You need to see it. It's pretty bad, Rick.

[Rick]

You know, the thing is, and I tell people all the time, it was like Ricky, my son, when he was trying to race a little bit as a young teenager, racing the go karts and mini cups and we were gone, racing a cup race somewhere and he got in a wreck and, you know, they loaded him up in ambush, took him to the hospital and he was okay. He thought he hurt his back. But we were talking Monday when I got home, he was talking about his dad. Dad, I don't like it. I don't like it. He said, I don't know if I want to keep doing this. I said, ricky, here's the deal. If you're going to race, you're going to wreck. If you race them, you wreck them. I said, sometimes when you wreck, it hurts. And I said, sometimes when it hurts, you get hurt, right? And I said, sometimes it's worse than that. So you have to accept that when every time you strap in the car, if you can't accept that, you got no business being anywhere near our sport as a driver. So that's, you know, that's part of it. That's. You do accept that going in. You don't want it to happen, but you know it.

[Herman Schrader]

They strap in this carbon, real thick carbon seat, six or seven shoulder belts inside a steel cage in a fireproof uniform. The helmet arm, they tether your head to your shoulders. There's no reason to think there's not a chance something that's going to happen. You know, I knew nothing was. I knew nothing was going to happen. I wouldn't take time stuff on.

[Trader]

What was it? What was it like? Schrader? And I know I'm kind of jumping around here and there's a couple of things that we definitely need to hit, but what was it like racing at Winchester in a sprint card?

[Herman Schrader]

I just ran the midget there. I mean, you know that I never ran sprint car there, but the midget there, that's worse. Yeah, it was big. I mean, it was, you know, but you didn't think about it. It's. That's just what you. They did and the seats and everything. We had the same stuff they got now. We had the best stuff available. We weren't thinking about hitting your head on the wall, you know, I mean, it's just. They had a race there this weekend. In fact, yesterday, Tom Bigelow Classic and Newman was going. I don't know how Newman did. Newman ran good at Plymouth, Indiana, Saturday night. I told him, I text him, rick, you know, in the midget, you know, or talk about your weight, you know, or what, you know, how heavy you want your wheels and stuff, you know, and I text him, I said his weight looked wrong. It looked like it had too much in the middle, you know. He said going to the scales was a waste of time. He was not illegal.

[Rick]

Oh, Lord. Schrader has a way. He has a way nice of helping us. Helping us in a funny way.

[Trader]

In a funny way.

[Herman Schrader]

Newman's still right.

[Trader]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, his daughter's driving tour type modified. A 602 tour type modified.

[Herman Schrader]

Yep.

[Trader]

So I, I want to talk about Chicago land, but real quick before I do that, you guys. There was overlap when you guys were both sponsored by sko, right?

[Herman Schrader]

I don't think so.

[Trader]

Why would so like, not the only reason I ask. And you know, I got the head on today because I just love this hat.

[Herman Schrader]

What.

[Trader]

What was it like being sponsored by school? I know. Was Johnny Hayes still there when you were there, Kenny, or had he left by then?

[Herman Schrader]

Johnny was there a little bit. I think. I dealt with Johnny Bruce and Brian Buckauer. They were awesome. You know, they. They were great. But I had drove the scope of the Kodiak car for a number of years before the. Before the skull car. And the skull car was for andy Petrie, not Mr. Rick. But no, they were. They were. They were really good, good people.

[Rick]

That was. That had to be the top. One of the top three coolest sponsors that ever was in our sport. And because they had trouble at first. I mean, originally they had a little trouble with rjr, okay. Coming in as tobacco company. They. And Johnny Hayes was in the middle of all that stuff, getting that stuff straightened out. I mean, there was some. There was some girl. There was some pains he had to go through way back before my time. But Johnny Hayes was a man when I was there, right? And happened with Kenny, the, The. The thing ended. M. Lou Bantle the, the man that, that actually built that company into what it was, you know, he was a marketing genius. He told me one time, he said, Rick, this one, he was, they were sponsoring me and Harry Gant. He said, Rick, if you and Harry would win on Sunday, he said, that's just icing on the cake for us. He said, we've already achieved what we want to achieve with that race weekend. Because they would trade off associate sponsors like Seven Eleven and Magic Mark on the Circle K and all those guys to get prime shelf space. They put those sponsors on the race car, right? And for a radius 200 miles around that racetrack, all SKO had prime shelf space. And they did a lot of that trade off and doing, doing a lot of those things, but they were just, man, just such a frigging cool company. I mean, when you got a sponsor that tells you if y', all, if you win on Sunday, that's just icing on the cake. We've already done what we need to do. The only requirement that they ever ask of me was do not embarrass us. Do not embarrass us off the racetrack. They really care about on the racetrack. Don't embarrass off the racetrack. And that, that was kind of their take and they were just, man, I was so fortunate. That was my first big time deal in, in cup racing with, to have a company like that. And here's other things unique about that and I don't know if it was still going with you, Kenny, but I was not allowed to say skull when they interviewed me, right? Wherever you were at, you were not allowed to say scold. You don't say school in your, when you're talking, when you're my school, what you call it, car and all that. You had learned how to not. How to not thank your sponsor. It was, it was really crazy. So after the Skoal deal went away, then I had to relearn all this stuff, right? And. But how that thing ended. Mr. Banner retired. They had. We had all the government things that came down that drove us out of the sport. And you know, they. This, the sponsorship with my team, which was Richard Jackson, was, was ending at the end of 96. The one with Leo Jackson, Leo's team, which was Harry's team, it ended up being Andy Petrie and Kenny's team. That sponsorship had a little bit longer on his tenure on the contract. So that carried on another couple years after, after our deal ended. So. I don't know. You could write a book, I think, about Skoal and how they marketed themselves and how they marketed nascar, how they treated the drivers and how the drivers were supposed to act and react to everything. I think you could write a book on that. It would be, it'd be a good, it would be a good reading. So not to, not to think that I really am partial to my sponsor sko, but I'm just telling you a few facts.

[Herman Schrader]

What a what. Tell us about the Hooters sponsorship.

[Rick]

Very cool company, man. I had a whole. I had a Hooters card, a Hooters credit card or not a credit card, but it was. I don't. VIP card. I could go to any Hooters and get free food. And they didn't catch it till like two years after we left the sponsorship. That thing was still working two years later. Then it finally went away.

[Herman Schrader]

Pretty cool.

[Trader]

The one that, you know, the one thing about Hooters, Bob Brooks, he grew up close to where I did down in South Carolina and, and it was kind of a similar deal to school in the sense that these, this, these were sponsors that got in and loved racing. They didn't get in to. To necessarily promote the product, just to promote the product. They were promoting the sport too. And that's like Red Bull I think. You know, they were on Van Gisberg's car yesterday. You look at what they do in Formula one and whatnot. They're another company that just seemed to love racing.

[Herman Schrader]

Yeah, our sports been very fortunate that and especially back, you know, a number of years ago when it was really growing then. We've had a lot of good sponsors that in their work and promotion to promote their own product went a long way in promoting our sport in general.

[Rick]

Adobe Firefly is the all in one creative studio with AI powered image and video editing for today's creative process. Built for creators of every kind, Firefly helps you generate, edit and experiment fast because the asks aren't getting smaller, the budgets aren't getting bigger and the timelines. Oh yeah. Still tight. With all the best creative AI models in one place, Firefly brings your ideas to life. Unlock a better way to make with Adobe Firefly.

[Herman Schrader]

This is a Monday.com ad.

[Trader]

The same Monday.com helping people worldwide getting work done faster and better. The same Monday.com designed for every team and every industry. The samemonday.com with built in AI scaling your work from day one. The same Monday.com that your team will actually love using the samemonday.com with an

[Herman Schrader]

easy and intuitive setup.

[Trader]

Go to Monday.com and try it for free. Yes, the same Monday.com. Real quick, before we go, I want to talk about Chicago this weekend. Ten years ago, I would have never imagined saying that I'm looking forward to going to Chicago land. But this car, we've talked about it on mile and a half, the Xfinity cars and the way that O'Reilly cars, excuse me, the way they've raced on mile and a half. What do you think we can expect out of this weekend and how important do you feel like it is for this racetrack in its survival to have a good weekend?

[Herman Schrader]

I think we can expect all the races there this weekend to be good because we've already these, they've just shown that they can put on good shows everywhere. I think that track will be, you know, seasoned quite a bit more. I think it'll be great. Long term plans, who knows? I know I don't. But there's a reason that this place was still ready to go. You know, it's still ready to go and they kept it ready to go and the fact that it's still there. So, you know, I, there's, there's no telling, but it's a whole, got to be a whole lot easier and less stressful to go up there. And it does have to be to shut down the city, Chicago for a weekend and build a track there.

[Rick]

Yeah. My answer is pretty simple. Real short. For once, thank goodness we're going, we're going there. We're not going into the city. That's all I've got to say about that. Thank goodness we're going to the big track.

[Trader]

Well, it may, it may be coming back from what I hear. But we'll, we'll see what happens. Trader how, you know, when you look at these tracks, everybody says, oh, they're cookie cutters and Texas and Charlotte are the same and Vegas and Kansas and Chicago are all the same. I mean, I know about the back straight away, bowing out a little bit at Chicago. Other than that, how does it drive different than some of those.

[Herman Schrader]

They're all a little bit unique. And when we, when we first went to Texas and they told us the engineers say this is just like Charlotte. And I said, well, those engineers need to be shot because they, they, they don't have a clue, you know, but they're all just a little bit different. That'd be like saying all quarter mile dirts are the same. They're not. You know, it's hard any of these places to make two turns the same, much less duplicate another racetrack halfway across the country. So they've all got their unique challenges. Sitting on the top row of the grandstands or sitting in the living room, they might look very, very similar, but sitting in the race car, they're not.

[Trader]

Yeah, going into that first turn at Texas, Rick, that first cup race, it didn't go exactly like Charlotte, did it?

[Rick]

Dude, it was the third race before I ever made one lap. That friggin place third race we wrecked the first friggin lap each two weeks. I'm like, oh, Lee, it was, it was awful. But the kitty's point, man, like at Indy, you look at India, the most symmetrical racetrack, I guess, ever designed. You got four turns. I could tell you right now if it's in 1, 2, 3 or 4. It's like I'm at a completely different racetrack. When I was there, okay, it seemed like I go and turn one and two. I mean, the turns to me were so significantly different. What I was feeling and what I was trying to get the car to do and all that. And you just look at it, you're like, from the grandstands, it all looks the same. But you know, to Kenny's point, each track has its own little thing that you don't, you know, you don't pick up on, you don't need to pick up on. That's just part of what we do as drivers, right? But oh, man, I've got to tell this. I've got to tell this. I can't help it. The first, the first, the first time at Texas, I'd qualified pretty good, actually around, I don't know, 10th or so, you know, and everybody's reckon, you know, there we, we, we stopped qualifying. They took Ricky Craven out of there in the hel and everybody's fussing and you can't race and it's a dangerous track. And so they drop the green flag, we take off and I look back in the mirror and I see this car in the mirror taking them three wide on the bottom going into three, right, I'm like, who the hell is that? That's Jeff Gordon. We come off of four right in front of us. Somebody gets crossed up, right, we're trying to get whoa down and here comes Jeff, runs all over me and we, I think it's me and Andretti end up in the wall and won. Or maybe that was the second year. I mean, whatever. So the good part about this story, man, the typical race car drivers, that the next week, I think it's Martinsville, I don't remember. I go up on Jeff's truck and it's Jeff, and I think Ray's in there is. Hey, Rick. Hey. Hey, guys. I said, let me ask something, Jeff. I said, yeah. He said, yeah. I said, what? The first lap last week at Texas. We're all trying to survive this thing. Get going. The first lap, you take them three wide down the back stretch and pile all up in us in the front stretch. What the hell were you doing? Just tell me what the hell were you doing? He looks at me and he says, rick, I just effed up. He said, and the next sentence, the next sentence, before he catches a breath, hey, you've got Polaris associate sponsor on your remedy car, right? I said, yeah. He said, you think you could get me one of them rangers at a good deal? I'm like, God, I love race car drivers. God, I love race car drivers.

[Trader]

Were you able to get him a good deal?

[Rick]

I don't think I was still mad at him at the time. I don't think I did. I think I got Rusty. One of them. Maybe Rusty may have gotten one. I don't remember. I don't remember.

[Trader]

I'm sure Earnhardt had something to say about Remington on the car.

[Rick]

Tell you a real quick story about Earnhardt. We did a commercial for everything one time down there called the Allison Farm. Some more outside of Charlotte. Two day shoot one of the new rifles they were doing. When it's all said and done. All right, Remington says, okay, Dale, what, What? You know, what do we owe you? How much you gonna charge? He said, and they come up with some number. He said, well, this is what I'd normally get, or whatever. They said, okay. He said, don't give it to me. Just give it to the race team. So Remington wrote a check to the race team for Dale's services of doing a commercial. But Dale was true. Dale loved. Dale loved hunting. He loved Remington. So he was forged in a relationship with Remington, too. So, you know, he got a few guns out of the deal over the years. See, he wasn't a dummy. He was pretty shrewd.

[Trader]

All right, boys, I got. I got jokes here. Rick, your favorite part. Yours too, Schrader. Here we go. How do you know if a vampire is not. Well, because. Because he'll be a coffin.

[Herman Schrader]

It'll be what?

[Trader]

Get it? Vampire. A coffin.

[Rick]

A coffin. It's like a dude. It's like a duping, Kenny. A duping. The car is a duping. He's a coffin.

[Trader]

Okay. Why do pirates get. Why? Where do pirates get their hooks? Secondhand shops. I got one more. This was my Favorite. Oh, why did the bicycle collapse? It was too tired,

[Herman Schrader]

Popsicle. Oh, too tired.

[Rick]

Too hard.

[Herman Schrader]

All right, I'm gonna write this.

[Rick]

Oh, the famous John Smokes. The famous Atlanta Braves player, John spokesman.

[Trader]

Oh, Schrader. You should know some jokes. You don't have to find one. You got a clean one.

[Herman Schrader]

I'll find.

[Rick]

Hey, man, I'm gonna do something put in my hip pocket. So when the next time I get a call 10 minutes before the show, I have them with me. So I give y' all some. Oh, my.

[Trader]

Well, real quick, real quick, before we go, I do want to wish Kenny well. We're not sure if he caught something in Mexico or what's going on, but he's not feeling good. And just pray that he'll be feeling better. And. And I'll be back on the show next week. I think it takes a lot to put Kenny down, so.

[Herman Schrader]

Yeah.

[Trader]

Hope he feels well.

[Herman Schrader]

It takes a lot because I got kudos. I got a text before 8 o' clock from Kenny. It's like, whoa, this is serious.

[Trader]

Oh, real quick, because I didn't get to ask you about this. So you said last night with the race car didn't go too good? It didn't look like it went too good.

[Herman Schrader]

We got rained out. Okay. We did our show last Monday in daytime. We got rained out Monday night in peoria. We ran 11th from the back at Benton. Tuesday, we got rained out Wednesday, we got rained out Thursday, we got rained out Friday. Saturday, we got rained out at Hobstad. So we went Springfield. And last night we went to Double X Raceway, which is only two. Two hours, 40 minutes from the shop. And I'd never been there before.

[Trader]

Wow. What. What track is this?

[Herman Schrader]

What number in California? Missouri. And it didn't.

[Trader]

What number?

[Herman Schrader]

Yeah, that list needs to be updated. Probably about 5, 20.

[Trader]

How could you have never been there? If you see in Missouri, they run

[Herman Schrader]

sprint cars on Sunday night. Is sprint cars is their main class. Just never. I don't know how long it's been there. Just. Just hadn't. Just hadn't made it.

[Trader]

You plan on going back?

[Herman Schrader]

Well, I hadn't planned on going, so we'll just have to see.

[Rick]

Do you get tow buddy? Do you get tow money when it rains out?

[Herman Schrader]

We were lucky, most of them, because they were bigger races. It's part of a series. It's called the summer nationals. They've got like 32 races in 30 days or something like that. Most of them were called early in the morning because people are traveling pretty far. I haven't been getting any money. When I race Rick, it runs so bad.

[Rick]

Hey man, we're, we're talking about this. The cool sponsors, I think one and I'm not doing this because Schrader's on the show but the Federated Auto Parts deal, those guys are into it because they love it. I mean I know it's Kenny's. Schrader is Schrader sponsor and I'm not promoting those guys because we're on this show. But you know, their local company to me and way back before Schrader, back when I was running dirt, they, they would sponsor dirt guys all around. I'm talking about in the 70s and 80s, you're around home in Virginia. Those guys were always involved in our sport, man. And they, they ended up one of the best guys they could end. Just two great people together, the Federated people and Schrader, you know, spreading the joy across the nation. But again that they're, they're one of those companies just. Yeah, they promote their brand but they just love racing, you know, they've always supported it, man.

[Herman Schrader]

They're a good group. Good group.

[Trader]

Now are you going to ask him for an oil filter, man?

[Rick]

You can't get. The reason they're able, the reason they're able to afford racing is because they don't give me stuff. They don't give stuff away.

[Trader]

All right, Trader. Okay, take us home.

[Herman Schrader]

I don't know what the hell it is, but Dirty Mo Media, you can listen to this stuff and the Kenny Wallace YouTube channel, you can see Rick's mask, beautiful little face and his hot dog hat while he's on vacation in North Carolina. It's a bad day to be a hot dog. We drove through the truck stop last night at 1 o' clock and got roller dogs and they were pretty damn good. Next week, guys, we'll see you back.

[Rick]

Thank you guys. Always a pleasure.

[Trader]

Check out dirty mo media on twitter,

[Herman Schrader]

facebook, tick tock and instagram.