Marcus Smith on Why The ROVAL is Gone…For Now

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This is the most fun I've had in this chair in the last hour and a half.

I don't know if we've ever argued. Did I piss you off over the weekend or? I'm still soured that I

want the best man at your win. Who was your best man, Dale? TJ. You don't need a cool best for that

race. What are you thinking? Get him, TJ. That's the way it's starting to show. All right then.

All right. Hey everyone. It's Kelli Arnhart Miller here and welcome into the Arby's studio

for another episode of the Dell Junior Download. Where is my big roast beef with horsey sauce?

Come on now. I didn't get your order. I'm sorry. All right. Obviously I'm not Dell Junior. One

look. I did try to borrow the sweatshirt and the hat but I just wasn't digging the hats this morning.

Dale had a last minute change in the schedule so I'm filling in today and excited to be here.

I won't be by myself though in just a couple minutes. Marcus Smith, president of Speedway

Motorsports will be joining and for a big announcement although I'm sure a few of you could

be guessing what that is. So enough about that. Let's bring Marcus in. All right. Good morning,

Marcus. How's it going? Doing great. So yeah, super excited to be here. Dale had to take off

early this morning for an appearance that we have this afternoon so I'm thrown into the ranks here

and I'm excited. There's so much to talk about with Speedway Motorsports this year. So many

changes and I've got a lot of curious questions. All right. We're going to talk about the roval.

Sure. Right. Oh yeah. Big news. The circle track coming back into play, chase race, all of those

good things. We're going to talk about North Wiltsburg having a points race. Did you see that

coming, right? You know, a few years ago. And then the off-star race moving to Dover as well. So

tons of stuff happening. So first things first and I'm super curious about this from

a team owner standpoint because when they announced or, you know, announcing the change with the

roval, you know, that's a race that a lot of times we'll run our fifth car and we'll have a

road course ringer as they call them, right? Right. Right. And a sponsorship or something

that comes together that because somebody says, I want to run a road course. Oh, okay. And so with

that news coming at this point in the year, what is that like? Like what, you know, what brought

that on? What's the timeframe? How does that come together like that? That's a great question. So

we, I don't know, I hadn't been thinking about it. I was thinking about lots of other

things in our business going into January and coming out of December. But the Charlotte team

was having a strategic meeting. They were just kind of talking about your planning and Jessica

Fickinshire said, smart lady. She's smart. She's smart. She said, what do you think about

going back to the oval in October? And of course, it's not the first time I've heard that because

Dale has said it many times. And, you know, but, but when Jessica said it and kind of in the context

of the whole group, I said, well, what do y'all think? Is it what do the fans think? And they,

they said, you know, when you think about the, the point system kind of going back to the chase

and in that story of kind of going back to the way we were, the last time the chase was at Charlotte,

it was, you know, the oval for the Coke 600 and the oval for the Bank of America 400. So

we, I said, if you guys think that fans will like this and it'll be the best thing,

certainly the racing is good. Dale will say, I told you so and, you know, we'll, we'll all have fun.

And so that, that was kind of how it happened. And so then we made a few phone calls to

NASCAR and, and, and our TV partners and, of course, Bank of America is a sponsor and everybody

thought it was a good thing if the fans were into it. How much influence does the TV partner

matter? And the process with NASCAR, just, you know, being a decision that you can make within

a month's time from a strategic meeting that you guys have in terms of all of your conversation

and then the other people that you have to talk with. You know, what I think is neat is that

all of those parties care about what the fans think. And I think just the timing was such that,

you know, back when we, when we introduced the roval, it was at a time when road courses were

having this, this amazing surge. Fans were saying, boy, we love road courses that they kind of race

like a short track. And, and, and so we brought out the roval and it provided another road course

in the, in the schedule, a road course in the, in the playoffs. And it made for something new

and different. So it was one of the highest rated races and TV for a couple of years. Great growth

and great excitement and, you know, some great highlights from, from the race. But I think the

new car and the way NASCAR officiates, the racing hasn't been as exciting as, as it had been initially.

So, you know, we want to deliver excitement. We want to deliver, you know, a great event that has

fantastic competition and those, those amazing highlight worthy moments in racing. So all those

people with, whether it's, you know, NBC or NASCAR sponsors, Bank of America and others,

I think we're all in it together to make, you know, great competition happen and see the fans happy.

Well, yeah, you obviously, you know, wouldn't, wouldn't make a change unless you thought that

good could come out of it, right? Dale, I can't talk from the perspective of running the roval

or running, you know, the oval, roval and oval. I know that if he were in the seat,

he definitely would have a lot of comments about, but have you had driver feedback,

you know, as it relates to? The best driver feedback I had was from Dale. He said,

he said, if you start listening to me, you'd make this decision two years ago.

So, yeah, I did laugh about that too. That's funny. Well, most of the time,

sometimes the only feedback that matters is Dale, right? So what's the process like for your team,

you know, to not, not the physical process, because I would imagine that this is going to be a

little lighter, that you don't have to, to configure the road course, right? So, so it's going to be

lighter. But what's the whole process like? Does it change things for you as it relates to,

you know, sponsorship, the amount of people, I imagine there's more camping spots available

since you can use everything and things like that. Like probably the biggest thing is camping.

I think, you know, that's going to be a big thing for fans to be able to camp again on that turn

one and two side of the oval. So it's, that's really the biggest thing. And of course, the work

that goes into converting Charlotte Motor Speedway from oval to roval is, is tremendous. So

our operations team just got, you know, a huge relief. So it'll be kind of neat. And I think,

you know, the racing in May for the 600 has been fantastic. Bringing that to the fall

will be, you know, I think fantastic again, and it'll be neat to see how the teams react to that,

you know, from the spring to the fall. And, you know, certainly should be, should be exciting.

Super cool. It is going to be exciting. You know, I do think with the point system, the way it is,

you know, road courses present a challenge for a lot of the drivers, right? And lots can happen.

There's a lot of beating and banging and moving around. So that strategy for teams and drivers

should look a lot different, you know, you know, I think you mentioned as a team owner, kind of the

factors that you all think about and should go in from season to season. From my perspective,

as a promoter and as a fan of NASCAR, throwing a wrench in the system sometimes actually produces

some excitement. So if this, you know, creates a little bit more excitement, creates a challenge

that needs to be solved for some of the teams, I think that generally works out pretty good for

the fans and it makes some excitement happen for the teams. And it should be pretty interesting to

see. Yeah, very exciting. What can we expect in terms of the stability of the Oval versus

the Roval? Is that something you're going to look at year to year as, you know, what?

You know, I think after reviving North Wilkesboro Speedway, there's nothing that's not doable.

I thought you'd never get that Speedway, you know, to actually operate again. So

we've got a wonderful racetrack in the classic Oval at Charlotte Motor Speedway. We've got a

fantastic world-class road course with the Roval and we'll bring that back at different times. But

for now, we'll be running the Oval and we'll see what happens. Well, you know, the cool thing is,

I think that the adaptability is great, right? Because you can react to what's going on in the

market, what fans are asking for, you know, what the entire lineup of the series looks like track

to track and you prove that already with the Roval. So yeah, well, it is. Here we go. That's

right. I love driving the Roval, you know, from a sports car perspective, it's super fun to drive

and we've got a lot of customers that like to drive it. So outside of NASCAR week, we'll still

have plenty of opportunities for our different driving experiences and OEM customers to come out

and enjoy the Roval. Very cool. You know, we did the Del Gino Rodalongs for a lot of years at the

Speedway until the Roval came. And then that presented a bit of a challenge, not that people

wouldn't have liked the Roval, but as you know, what Del Junior's temperature was on road courses.

And so we've pivoted. We've done it at North Wiltsboro and so maybe we can get back to Charlotte.

It's a fun weekend to provide for fans that did the Rodalongs with the Hall of Fame being here.

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with Indeed. How's it going to change your plans for the October race Saturday?

Yeah, you know, I mean, like I said, I think now that we have four full-time cars, you know,

they've got to look at each race like it's on, right? So, I mean, the Oval obviously they have

experience from other tracks, other mile and a half, you know, and that kind of thing that they

can prep for and prepare for. I think, you know, I would guess that my drivers are fine

without having the road course, because there's a lot of unpredictability with the road course.

And you're either, you know, you can, you really either have the skill set to do that or you don't,

right? And you can work on it and fine tune. And I know that they've done a lot of things

like that to do. But yeah, it should, you know, I think it should probably make the load lighter

in a lot of cases, right? And I can't recall what's kind of back to back around there and

everything. But, you know, there's a whole different ballgame and getting ready for the

road course races and the cars and so on and so forth. So, yeah. So, probably a little easier

lift for the people back at the shop as well. Yeah, I would think so. Yeah, I would think so,

for sure. Well, you brought up North Wiltsboro and, you know, the revive is just incredible there.

I got to attend the cars tour race there. Obviously, I've, you know, came to the first

race when we had the cars tour race, but I got to go to the cars tour race there last fall with

just kind of a standalone event, which was really cool for me because I really felt that old North

Wiltsboro vibe of me running around the infield, which isn't the same anymore. But, you know,

just, man, it feels good when you go there. It does. And you have that history of passing it

so long on the interstate and like, man, that was just such, I'm just looking up there at it now,

turns one and two, thinking, could it just come back and you brought it back? It's amazing.

I know. How do you, I mean, that, that, that has to be like a huge feather in your cap.

Well, I love, it's a huge team effort, you know, and I just love, like you said, when you started

again by Dale. Yeah, that's right. You go ahead to put them on your strategic team. I made him

chairman of the board of the speakway. So, yeah, he's on the strategic team. Yeah,

we have a strategic retreat now for the last few years out in South Dakota to talk about.

Oh, that's right. That's right. But, you know, it's just amazing. It's, to me, it actually

kind of feels like a missions trip, you know, where you hear about people that go and help rebuild

a church or rebuild a place for, for people to live. This is rebuilding a special place in a

community that brings the community together, that creates great economic impact for that

community. And it gives, you know, so many of us NASCAR fans a place to go and watch racing,

watch the cars tour, watch the now points race coming up. And it's, it's really special. And,

and one of those places that I think, you know, you will enjoy a trip to North Wilkesboro Speedway.

You'll enjoy going on, on Main Street and join the town and just the people. It's really fantastic.

You've gotten a lot of very awesome compliments from the community there, for sure. It's really

been a revitalization for that community, you know, because so many, you know, so many,

so many small town royal communities have struggled and fought their way to prosperity,

you know. And so it's awesome to see between, you know, lows moving out of that area and the

track closure, this revitalization has been, you can see it, you can feel it. And it feels good.

So the points race there, what, you know, the decision to, to move the All-Star race from

North Wilkesboro and have a points race, moving that to Dover, how, how did that all come about

and work out and what was the strategy there? You know, it was one of those things that we thought,

what can we do to make a significant impact in the NASCAR season that would make people happy?

So number one thing I thought is, is certainly a points race at North Wilkesboro. And then

with the All-Star race at Dover, this is the first time that, that Dover will see the All-Star race.

People that are in the Northeast can come down and enjoy the All-Star race. It's a great date for

Dover to May is a fantastic time in that area. So, you know, we've had rain for the last few

years at Dover. This should be, you know, a much better weather window for us and for all the fans.

So I think it's a bonus for the Dover fans and North Wilkesboro, you know, to see a longer race

at Wilkesboro should be pretty cool for the competition. We haven't had a points race there in

is it 30 years maybe? I don't know, but a long time. And that should be fun. I'm excited to see that,

see both of them. Yeah, that response I think has been positive. You know, I think that

change obviously comes with its critics on social media, my goodness. And, you know,

Dover doesn't feel like the likely, like a likely spot for an All-Star race. But to your point about

the Northeast fans, which are, you know, number one when it comes, if you look at the states,

as far as your fan base and what you got going on, you know, the Northeastern fans are there.

And so that's a great point for them to see. And Dover is exciting. I mean, Dover's a great

racetrack, the feel of that roar, the high banks, you know, a lot of action there. So what can we

expect that weekend, you know, as far as fun? Because, you know, you're thinking of the All-Star

race from Charlotte and then North Wilkesboro, you know, what would we expect? Well, you know,

we're working on the format of finalizing that it's, I think you can always expect some fireworks

out of the All-Star race. We've done some amazing things with the format out of the All-Star. If

you think about side-by-side restarts, that didn't exist before the All-Star race. We used to,

you know, restart nose to tail with the choose cone started out of first legends racing on the

quarter mile at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Then we implemented it for the All-Star race,

whether it's, you know, lights and all these great kind of ideas segments are part of

what came out of the All-Star race. I think, you know, those are things that we've worked with

NASCAR on to help create new and special and different things that have found their way into

every weekend. So it's getting harder to think about, you know, what can we do next? But, you know,

we've tried tires in the past with, you know, stickier tires, alternating tires, option tires,

that sort of thing. So we always want to push the envelope. Always want to, you know, try to do

something that might work, but it also might not work. And that's the, that's the double edged

sword. That's a risk, right? Absolutely. That's a risk. And if you're not taking risk, if you're not

taking risk, then you're not trying enough to move your business forward for sure. So we're

risk takers. That's part of what we do. You definitely are. If you're being a promoter,

you have to have a little bit of that in your blood for sure. I think so. Yeah, I think so too.

Well, that's going to be super exciting. You know, that you just, it really amazes me the

innovation that you guys think about and changes to bring forth to the series and use of the

different tracks and so on and so forth. So it's going to be exciting. It's going to be exciting

year between seeing all these new things and how they work out for sure. So you talked about

road course racing for your sports car enthusiast. You've got another fun thing coming. So you did

10 tenths. That's right. The new venue and sports road course. What are we calling that? What do

we call that? So the 10 tenths motor club. Motor club. That's right. That's right. We got to get

beautiful. I just haven't done the, I haven't done the car experiences yet, but I need to get you

and Mr. H have me over there and have some fun. It is fun. It is fun. Well, this is a great

opportunity. We're going to host an Iraq race in April around this really special event we call

the heritage imitational. Mr. Hendrick and I, we've got a partnership on the 10 tenths club

and we've got a beautiful track two miles. It's an amazing car show and part of the car show

working with Ray Evernham, who's our executive director of the event. Ray and Rob have put

together the Iraq series to kind of bring it back, but it's the classic Iraq cars. So we're going to

be racing the classic Iraq cars and drivers are going to come back and enjoy some racing at the

It's a lot of fun. I want to race. I think Dale should race. It's going to be a lot of fun.

Now, is this an event? Is it TV? Is it fans? Can fans come? It's all about fans. It's all about

car nuts like me. It's about celebrating history in Iraq and this historic racing. It's also a

big car show. It's a fun event to go to. Even if you don't like cars, it's a really pretty place

and early April, it'll be a nice beautiful weather and we've got a great clubhouse there where you

can enjoy some great food and beverage and just kind of hang out time. Yeah, the patio area is

immense and expansive and you can see over the track and just a beautiful place to be.

So have you announced drivers for the Iraq portion? I think we have. Got to check out the

heritage imitational Instagram and can we see a variety of drivers from different series?

Yes, different different different times and different types of Iraq cars. We've got some

of the older ones, some of the latest generation. It's going to be fun. That'll be super fun.

So we mentioned the impact that the Roval Oval could have on the Chase playoff format. Were you,

as a track owner and promoter, are you involved in those discussions when it comes to what a Chase

series looks like in a playoff and the point series and how do you feel about the new

Yeah, yeah. So I went to the initial meeting that I think it was called a playoff committee

meeting last February, week of Daytona. Dale was on Zoom. We had a room full of people, drivers,

a couple of media members, some team owners, presidents and media. I mean a little bit of

everything was there and it was an interesting discussion. I think the context was should we

do something different? There's always a lot of discussion at the end of every year. What do we

think about the point system? What do we think about the rules of the game? I'm frankly one of

those people who thinks like just give me the rules and let's go play and then see what happens.

See, I'm the same way. I say that every year when it comes to, I love the committees. I love being

able, I like to be able to give feedback from the people that are in the line of fire and you

probably find that too in your business. You need to go talk to the people that are actually doing

the job, doing the work, making the decisions because there's minute details that are very

important that can get upset very quickly. But at the same time, too many opinions to try to do

something can get very hairy. So I'm just like tell me the rules and tell me how to get there.

That's right. So I think, I don't know how the consternation and kind of a controversy

sort of was created, but there was a meeting in February in Daytona last year

and that's when the discussion started. And then of course that all played out

through the ecosystem in the sport over the year. And there was a few other discussions

and that sort of thing. I mean, I have opinions. The first thing I kind of thought of was,

well, what if this year is a great year? What if it comes down to a fantastic championship

and what are we going to say then? And we've taken it away.

Yeah. So I think it, things kind of unraveled, not unraveled, they kind of

came together as the season does. And like you said, every team shows up on race day to win

and you also keep in mind the points and everybody wanted to be

in victory lane and have the championship at the end of the season. So

there's some heartbreakers. I love the old wild world of sports guys that said,

it's the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. You can't really have one without the other.

You've got to have thrill of victory and agony of defeat. Second place shouldn't be all that

great, I think. But it is important in NASCAR, different than say a basketball game. A basketball

game, you have a winner and a loser. In NASCAR, if you run top 10, that's pretty good. If you run

top five and whatnot. But there are some teams who think we can win every race and when we don't

win, we're not achieving our optimal best. And I think that's the part of excellence that every

race team, every driver is chasing. So the new point system, I think if we all just say we're

in 100%, I would really love it if we didn't debate the rules of the sport throughout the season.

I think once we have the rules, let's go race and let's run a championship and see what happens.

So it'll be neat to see what happens. I do think that there was some benefit in the cutoff races.

We don't have those now and that's okay. Yeah, it builds excitement. And that's one of the things

that my husband and I have talked about is just like what and of course I lived through the years

of the regular playoff series with my dad and when it was he and Mark Martin or he and Rusty

Wallace and all those kinds of things. And I remember that being exciting. The excitement of

like you said, the thrill of victory and agony of defeat. If someone has a not so great race

and it pulls them down or takes them out of contention for the top spot or whatever and then

what do they do to get back in it? I will not miss going to the last race of the season with

three cars in the playoffs from junior motorsports perspective and not coming home with the championship.

I will not miss that. The one race thing for me was tough because I felt like it just sort of

no matter how you looked at it, it spoiled everything you did for the year because you were

on the top of your game for the year and you made it there and then you lost to another team that

yes, made it there too, but maybe they were eighth in points. And so I will not miss that part.

As I was hearing about the playoff system, everything I was kind of thinking, I like the

cut off races, I was thinking of how you could take that same group of 12 or 16 drivers depending

on which series you're in and accumulating the points throughout there and then having it come

down to maybe the last three races that there was a point situation and it wasn't just your win and

you're the champion kind of thing or whatever because that has created I think of a lot of

excitement. There's not one great answer, right? People loved what we had, people like what they

anticipate this year is going to look like and we'll see how it works, but it will change the

focus week to week instead of the win in your end and everything you do. And all the things like

back in the day with the point system before 2011, you could take your cars back in the garage

and work on them. I think that they've been talking about that. I don't know if they've made any

changes to that or not. I'm not sure either, but that's an important concept of getting into

a wreck and not being able to fix your car and not being able to bring things back out to help

yourself in that format. So I don't really know, we won't know how it's all going to go

till it's went and we'll see. We'll see what drama, consistency, all those different things

have played out. One interesting thing I thought is the first year of the point system with stage

points, the first year, not every team was really focused on stage points,

but they turned out to be really important. So after that, next season, they were like,

wait, we need to win some stages. Yeah, so they'll figure out some things this year that are going

to matter. I was reading, Dell and I were talking about this on a trip last week and the point

system and everything. We were talking about drivers who either have experienced the system

or haven't and I read a thing from Kyle Larson, he's never raced in anything but the cutoffs

and everything. And so as a driver from his perspective, he has no clue. And I bet there's,

honestly, I bet when you look at the field of drivers since 2011, I think is when it changed,

that there's probably, I'd guess if it wasn't 80% of them out there that haven't raced under the

old point system, if you think about it. It's the only one they've done. Yeah, it's all they've

known. So it's going to be a super interesting year, super great year. Lots of cool things

happening. I mean, you guys have a lot of great things happening. Anything else for any of the

other tracks that we can expect? Well, you know, following up on the driver thing,

80% of the drivers haven't raced in anything besides... I bet they haven't. I haven't looked

at the stat, but... So I bet it might be similar with our fans. We have new fans coming in all

the time and they haven't seen the old style of points racing before. So this is a kind of a

back to the future moment for the sport. So it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. I know

every crew chief and engineer and all the smart people on every team are focusing on how do we

win that championship? How do we win those races? And that's the thing that I'm excited about

for all the fans out there as we watch this season unfold. There's something

a little bit different. There's a challenge. A lot of those crew chiefs haven't raced under

the system either. So for them, it's a new thing. I know there's a lot of math involved,

but it's safe to say that if you win a lot of races, your chances are good at winning the

championship. I want to see the spreadsheet that NASCAR ran to come up with, you know, how the

points ended up. I read that they just modeled out anything and everything. I told one of the

guys in PR upstairs, he's kind of that historian, mathematician person that always brings up the

stats that we can pay attention to. I said, you know, who, if we ran the last, since 2011, ran

the scenarios, who would have ended up the champions? And I think they said Conor would

have ended up the champion last year in Xfinity, which we, you know, to be expected,

this organization won 17 times, he won 10 times. You would think that you would come out with the

championship in a case like that. But I think my dad, if I'm not mistaken, there was a year where

he ran, he won a lot of races and came up short. So yeah. So it's going to be fun.

Didn't Jimmy Johnson win under three different point systems, I think?

It's possible.

He changed a few times.

Yeah, I have to. I'm sure he did, yeah, because he was in the 2000s and then that changed in 2011

and so on and so forth. So I'm sure he did. We've talked a lot about working alongside NASCAR,

the TV partners, your sponsors like Bank of America that are important to your organization.

We started this trend of working together many years ago in terms of the teams, the sanctioning

body, the tracks and having the mentality that we can all lift our sport together.

Have you seen that working? What do you expect in the future?

Now more than ever, since we had the lawsuit and all the ugliness that came out during that,

now more than ever, it feels that NASCAR is reacting to fans, to different things that

maybe they could have reacted to before. How do you see that moving for you guys as a track owner

and moving forward?

I think it's really great that we get to start this season without a lawsuit,

without the tension of conflict between teams and tracks and NASCAR. Last year,

last few years, there's been a lot of conflict and we would talk about working together,

but there wasn't enough of that. I am totally confident that if NASCAR and teams and promoters

and our media partners and OEM support, you've got this huge ecosystem that by working together,

we can do really great things. We can create these amazing competitions. We're really blessed

to be able to do something that we like, that's really fun and we get to work with people that

we like. None of this is essential in life, but we get to do something that's really fun

and millions and millions of people like to watch it and like to engage in it.

Going into this season, I hope that all of us in the NASCAR and racing ecosystem

really consider ourselves as underdogs, to have the underdog mentality because that's

really when we're at our best and to be able to work hard, to go the extra mile for our fans,

for each other and not have that conflicting mindset that has really existed for the last

few years. That's just a huge opportunity for us and it'll be more fun too.

That's a super cool perspective of the underdog. I think that just made me think that probably

being in the Xfinity series for us and having the success that we've had over 20 years

and wins and so on, we kind of do that every year because we have new drivers. We have got

Rajah this year and you want to see him succeed and perform. Like you said, you throw everything you

have at it, you dig deeper, you think harder and all of those things. That's a super cool

perspective. Marcus, it's going to be a great year. We're getting started here in the next

week or so with Daytona and we'll go from there, hit Atlanta and hit a few more of your great

tracks and looking forward to the year. Thank you. It's great talking with you too. Thank you.

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because it does. Alright, thanks again to Marcus for taking time out of his busy day to come in

and talk about a lot of the changes that Speedway Motorsports has made for the year and why they're

making those. Now it's time for Ask Kelly. Never thought I would be in this position.

Hey everybody, it's Kelly on Hart Miller and we're live on YouTube. If you were expecting Dale,

sorry he had a last minute change in his plans and couldn't make it, but we still wanted to go

live with you today. So it's Ask Kelly presented by Xfinity. Xfinity is waving the red flag on

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Travis is still here with us today. Thank you Travis for being here. I'm enjoying today with

you Kelly. I think it's a nice little change of pace. Hey everybody needs a little change of pace

these days, right? Yeah. Not that this snow weather hasn't been enough for us, right?

What was your snow weekend like? Do you have a fun weekend or relaxing? You know what,

I was home by myself. My boys were off doing a seat fitting and so I played in the snow a little

bit with my dog Zeus, but he wasn't having much of it and so I just watched and had a glass of wine

and watched. I watched like three series on Netflix and got all kinds of TV in which is

something I never, ever do, ever. I was gonna say especially with the season right around the corner

you to get some relaxation. Yeah, it was fun. Yeah, I didn't go out in the snow once and I'm

perfectly fine with that. I went and stayed inside all Saturday and Sunday. I didn't have to cook,

I could just eat what I wanted, when I wanted, how I wanted. I'm like a snacker so if the boys

are gone I just like snack on stuff. What's the go-to snack? Tillamon, snack cheese and green

grapes. Oh, so Del and I have that in common, green grapes. That's where he gets it from.

He's like a grape snacker. Well we got it from somewhere. I'm more of a kettle chip.

I did have some ranch dip because last weekend when I went to the store for the ice storm

I was craving, I wanted to have like ranch, I have to have ranch sour cream with the dip

that she makes up, right? That's like the only kind of dipping veggie dip kind of stuff so I

had that last weekend but I ate it all. Yes, I ate an entire, was that, I think it was 16 ounces

of sour cream and ranch dip. Yes, I did and one week, I know that's bad. So I wanted it again

but can you believe when I went to the store on Friday that there was zero sour cream? Everybody

talks about milk and bread, it was sour cream. There was no sour cream whatsoever. People buy

the weirdest things like when like the storms come and like. So I had to get a different

style of ranch in a container dip which it was okay but it wasn't as good and creamy as I like it so.

So you mentioned seat fitting so a lot, this is a question that we get

a lot is about why it's racing so what's he up to lately like how's things going with him?

So they just went to Texas to seat fit because Wyatt is going to be racing

Sprint car 360s this year which is making mom nervous but we'll get through it just

like we have everything else. So we've got a full slate probably over 50, 60 events. We're

championship last year, that's a really fun series to run in the trucks, off-road trucks.

We're going to venture out in the junior late model this year so we've ran limited late models,

he's had some good success in that and so we're going to be bumping up the late model

asphalt racing. So we've got a lot on the plate, we'll still do some micros here and there,

we'll still do the outlaw carts here and there but it's going to be a fun year,

a new year of learning for Wyatt. What is that like being putting the mom hat on and watching

and like doing that? The Sprint car stuff is interesting and somewhat scary.

You know the trucks are built like army tanks and they do lose a lot of their sheet metal and

he's been upside down and because you can bike and get over but they're built so strong that I

don't have any issue there. Don't really have any issue in the late models, it's what I grew up on

but I'll tell you though the wind and the Sprint cars and the non-wing stuff is

stressful and a lot of the tracks that they talk about going to are some bigger tracks and they're

going really fast and so it makes me nervous but at the same time this is what we know,

we're a racing family, this is what we do, you can't talk them out of it. He's got it from both

sides from his dad and I and so we roll with it. That's one thing you don't see in other sports is

he could be racing up against a 55 year old. At times you're racing against grown men,

grown women, it's all encompassing. Yeah, we were just watching Volusia last night speaking

of that and the 360 Sprint cars were there and in the top 20 starters there were probably be about

10 or 12 high limit or world of outlaw racers. You had your Brian Browns, you had your Brady

Bacon's, you had a lot of top names and Wyatt will be racing against some of those folks in

just a few short weeks at Central Arizona and when you think about it like that it is mind

boggling. You've got just feature winner after feature winner going up against my 14 year old

son will be racing up against so it is pretty crazy. Brian wants to know does Wyatt ask about

your racing career? Do you guys have you guys ever talked about that? Well yes we do and Wyatt

just needed to be there to experience my career because Wyatt judges my career based off of

stats and because I didn't have a win anytime it's brought up he says well mom you never won,

you never won. So he doesn't have much to say about my racing career and it aggravates me at

times but you know we just move on. Then you realize he's a teenage boy? Yeah and then I'm like you

just don't know, you just don't know. Do you ever watch him race and do you ever like see yourself

in him with things that he does or Dale or your father? Yeah you know I know it feels and sounds

kind of cliche but I do see just the tenacity that he has when he gets in the race car and

the determination he has reminds me a lot about of my dad. He you know he just has it and I don't

know if it's from which side of the family it is or whatever and you can sit here and say oh well

that reminds me of you know dad or that reminds me of this or that but you know he's definitely

got something that's innate and yeah just very cool. At the same time he's just a kid when it

comes to it in fact this weekend the car owner sent me a picture and he was in a box and he jumps

out of the box and he's like hey is this one-way performance and meanwhile they're over fitting

his seat so he's in a kid with the box give him a box they can do have all kinds of fun and having

fun and you know driving a heavy old sprint car at the same time pretty crazy. Yeah so

upcoming this weekend Daytona 500 what's your emotions with junior motorsports trying to

qualify in the 500 again this year? Hold on just a second this is live I know I'm in the middle

of being a mom at the moment so one second my kid's got them school issues. Oh Dale's always on

his phone anyway so that I think the fans are used to a little sidetrack every once in a while

you know mom doesn't turn off. Well I'm seeing like I got 13 texts and it's Wyatt and his teacher

trying to get into the the teams I set up for him so yeah so anyway all right so go ahead.

Daytona 500 second year junior motorsports gonna try to make it what's the are you able to

be calmer you like anxious person? No I'm not an anxious person whatsoever I am super calm

you know I feel like especially when you're going to do something for the second time I feel

more prepared more ready I know what to expect you know I know how hard it was last year against

the other competitors to make that race and all and so you know now I have a little bit of

understanding about what we're gonna go through and what could happen or might not happen I still

have high expectations obviously to do well and to make the race but yeah I'm pretty I'm kind of

it is what it is kind of person I don't get too hyped up on I have a little saying on my social

that says don't worry about what you can't control. It's a good way to live I don't know how like

you and other owners sit on the pit box because I would I'd be a nervous wreck and I'd probably

making you know the crew chief and stuff even more nervous I'd have they probably like please get

off the pit box. No I'm good like that you know and I don't think Dale's super anxious or nervous

like that but he has a lot more commentary that he wants to tell them just because he's raised and

you know he thinks you know he can think about that aspect of it a lot more than I can and so he's

in their ear so maybe they want him to get off the pit box for that reason but yeah yeah I don't

think any of us are too like crazy nervous or anything like that. It probably also helps that

you know you also have you know junior motorsports is raised on Saturday so like there's so much

going on there's not really a whole lot of time to actually like think about it. There's not a lot

of downtime right yeah true to to sit around and go okay what's gonna happen so. Are you excited to

get the new cup uh new uh of Riley season started for you guys? That's gonna take some getting used

to but I am you know it's been fun seeing the graphics and all the different things for the

cars coming along and you know we did a driver's photo shoot and everything last week and having

them all in here having Rajah part of our team's been super fun and cool to get to know him better

and yeah I'm looking forward to it. It's gonna be you know obviously different with the championship

and everything the way it's gonna play out and we're gonna have to look at each race a little

differently and look at the year a little differently and um so um but I'm excited we've

got uh you know a lot of a lot of changes that we've made in terms of crew chief pairings and

drivers and all of that but the core and the foundation of the business is is still the same

and I feel like um 17 wins obviously is a lot to to try to um to shoot for but you know I think

you'll see us in the victory circle quite often. And that's a good you know you want to have that

bar like you always want to be challenging you don't want to you know settle. Yeah you gotta

have the bar set high. So you mentioned the change and that's you know the playoff format now the

chase obviously we saw how the season ended last year three cars and not getting the win.

Are you excited to for the chase to come back? I am you know I'm excited that the one race

opportunity is out um you know the um yeah the the championship points series should be good.

Um I think we'll miss aspects of the playoffs you know in terms of the cutoff races and things

like that but you know overall I think we'll be crowning champions that have put in you know

consistent hard work winning etc all year long and I think that's what should be rewarded at the

end of the day. Yeah that's one thing that I kind of wanted was the the cutoff races because you

get that like game seven moment. Yeah yeah. You know I think rewarding the drivers for winning

I think will be a good thing and so I'm excited to. Yeah I think I think you know if we um

if it could have looked a little different I would have liked to kept some of that kind of

cutoff race aspect but that last um series of races be you know three races or something that

kind of lined up the best four and then kind of worked it out from there you know but again

everybody's gonna talk well such and such isn't good on this type of track and you're not good

this is the kind of tracks that were in that series and da da da da there's just always gonna

be something. Always gonna be somebody that's critical something right. That's right that's

right. All right well I think uh that's it for today we're gonna keep it a little short here.

All right everybody was expecting Dale they they left us they didn't uh come on for my segment.

No I think a lot of people here we had one one fan said me more Kelly and Dale love the sibling

back and forth I think people were happy to see you jump on. I'm just kidding it's it's fun.

All right well we're gonna close it up and ask our fans listen up Xfinity is waving the red flag

on internet price hikes and raising the green flag for savings now you can get the speed and

reliable Wi-Fi that you need locked into one price for five years no surprises no late yellows just

a straight shot to victory lane and just like that folks we've got a winner Xfinity imagine that.

All right everybody thanks again for tuning in this has been really fun filling in for Dale

in the RB studio uh don't worry he's gonna be back tomorrow for this guest segment and also

Dale and Amy will be together for Bless Your Heart which comes out on Thursday this week.

Meanwhile have a great week. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Instagram Facebook X and TikTok.

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Marcus Smith on Why The ROVAL is Gone…For Now

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