The Dale Jr. Download - 405 - Marcus Smith - NEW Details About The All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

Back in September, the stock car racing world was turned upside down when the announcement was made that the 2023 NASCAR All-Star race would be held at the recently revived North Wilkesboro Speedway. On this week’s episode of The Dale Jr. Download, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis sit down with the man who helped make the decision, CEO and President of Speedway Motorsports Incorporated Marcus Smith. Devotees of The Download will recognize that this marks Smith’s fifth appearance on the show, and his yearly check-in usually provides great insight into some of the upcoming projects in the NASCAR world.Much has changed since Marcus’ last visit in May 2021, most notably the passing of his father Bruton, who was a major contributor to the racing world and founder of SMI. Marcus reflects on the difficult process of coming to terms with his father’s declining health but is thankful that he lived a long life of 95 years. He also explains how his father got his start in car sales by running a used car lot on his mother’s front lawn. Though he was eventually shut down by city officials, his knack for the industry eventually led to him forming Sonic Automotive, the fifth-largest automotive retailer in the country.The interview addresses the rumors surrounding the reconfiguration of Texas Motor Speedway. Dale and Marcus unpack the September Cup race held at the Fort Worth-based track and discuss what can be done to help boost attendance while keeping competitors and teams happy. Marcus explains that with the current grandstand set-up, there are limited changes that can be made to the track’s actual configuration. However, alterations can be made to the speedway’s profile, much like the recent reshaping of Atlanta Motor Speedway. In fact, with the help of iRacing, they’ve been able to model potential changes and test through simulation to see what effect they’d have on the racing product. The process was essential to the work done in Atlanta, and the results found in the trial runs were comparable to the actual Cup races held this season.In addition to the changes made to the racing surface at Atlanta, there have been talks of bringing a casino resort to the grounds in an effort to build up the area similar to that of Kansas Speedway. Marcus explains that in order for the plans to go through, there needs to be an amendment made to the Georgia state constitution that would allow for sports gambling, and encourages listeners and supporters of the speedway to be vocal to their local representatives.Another huge topic of discussion was the status of the Nashville Fairgrounds project. Those following along will remember that Dale and Marcus have been huge proponents in bringing NASCAR Cup racing back to the famed oval. Marcus makes clear that while they have been seemingly stuck in place for a while, progress is being made on the initiative. A glimmer of hope in bringing relics of NASCAR’s past back to life has been the return of North Wilkesboro Speedway. Dale and Marcus reflect on the huge success of the recent CARS Late Model Stock Car race at the track and fill listeners in on the changes and upgrades being made to the facility in anticipation of next year’s All-Star event. Aside from additional seating being brought in, improvements are being made to the facilities, scoring system, retaining walls, and traffic flow. The conversation also touches on NASCAR’s ongoing television contract discussions and what it means for the tracks and the Race Team Alliance. Tune in for insight from one of the great minds and innovators in the motorsports industry regarding what it takes to run a speedway and what all parties can do to help the sport grow as a whole. Check out northwilkesborospeedway.com for updates/details. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Bojangled Studio, episode 405, and it's time for our guest segment brought to you by Ally. Do It Right. Ally has always been in our corner, and so is Marcus Smith. He's been a good ally for us here at the Dale Jr. Download. He's always coming in here and telling us some great information about what's going on with his racetracks and projects he's got going on. It's fascinating. We're going to ask him for some updates and maybe some new information to see what he's willing to share. A lot of talk about the All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro, Nashville. Fairgrounds. We're going to talk Texas, Atlanta. We're going to talk RTA, TV deals, all the stuff, and how that affects him. Anyhow, let's get him in the room, get started. Marcus Smith on the Dale Junior download. North Wilkesboro Speedway in the hills of Wilkes County, which has come from a dusty dirt track in the late 40s to a cathedral of steel and concrete, but it still maintains a friendly short track atmosphere. Earnhardt brings the car off of corner number four. Earnhardt wins the Tyson-Hawley Farms 400.

Gennhart wins at North Wilkesboro. We are set for the green flag here at North Wilkesboro for the 93rd time and final time for a Nanskar-Winston Cup. The green flag is waving and the Tyson-Hawley Farms 400 is underway. And the drop of the checkered flag here at North Wilkesboro brings down the final curtain of NASCAR Winston Cup racing from the first race, October 16th, 1949, won by Bob Flock. The victory here to Jeff Gordon on September 29th, 1996.

Jeff Gordon wins the final race at North Wilkesboro, the Tyson-Hawley Farms 400. I mean, this is North Wilkesburg. I'm not supposed to win at North Wilkesboro, and Martin'sville, I don't know what's going on. It's been crazy this year, but to be the last race, Winston Cup race, it's going to be here. You know, you feel sorry, but at the same time,

You know, you're related to go down in history and director books. Marcus Smith. He's been on this show many times before. He always brings a lot of new ideas to the table. I just want to let you know that we haven't forgotten about it. What is that in the meaning? What is that we're working on it? No promises, but we have not forgotten.

This place is hand to something, I'm sure, that now we've got really put things. If we can think of a way to do something there, we're going to. Oh, boy. Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines. The green flag is out for racing again at the North Wilkesboro Speedway. After those races, crews will begin restoring the historic Speedway to its former glory, using the $18 million of American Rescue Plan funding. Two multi-week racing events will be held this August and August.

October, the plan is to clean up the track and get it ready for spectators, and that is just the start. Months of work will all come down to tonight. North Wilkesboro Speedway will wave the green flag on its first race in more than a decade. Well, North Wilkesboro Speedway is now back, but this is not a remodel, but instead a racetrack revival. We are back behind the wheel, and we are excited about that. And I'm going to hopefully go out there and run all the laps in my little green sundrop car. The news is going to be coming. And you maintain patience, continue to show as much grace as you possibly can in terms of North Wilsonboro.

I want to introduce my boss and CEO of Speedway Motorsports, Marcus Smith. With the light in the eyes of all the NASCAR fans out there in the stands, today I'm really proud to announce that along with NASCAR, the NASCAR All-Star race will be be hosted at North Wilkesboro Speedway in 2023. What's up, man? Good to see you. Good. What you got?

North Foxborough Speedway hats. Oh, my goodness. Look at these. Classics. Yeah, very nice. So what's up, bud? Not much, having fun. Yeah.

Having fun? Yes. Yeah. What's your day like? Well, I got it this morning, did a little workout. Yeah. What are you doing?

do what's the first what's the first job thing you do in the morning job thing yeah like I want to know like man a guy that owns a bunch of racetracks and there's all the things going on that you have going on like what's the first person who's the first person you check in with well you know honestly for the first thing for me I realize is that I have to have good balance so I start off honestly with a workout you know my wife gets up early and you know we I go out to the gym work out with with a friend and a trainer. I have a weekly Bible study that I do on Wednesdays. In the morning?

Yeah, in the morning after the gym. And that kind of makes sure that I have good balance. Because if I'm all work and I don't take care of my body and my soul, you know, stress can kind of build up. So you drive all the way from downtown Charlotte to Charlott-Murray Speedway to work. And that's every day. Pretty much every day. When you're not traveling.

Yeah. Yeah. Not traveling. Go to the Speedway. That's my office is. We've got another office in town. My brother runs Sonic Automotive. What is that?

It's a car business. Our family is in. My dad started selling cars. That was kind of his first job. Right. He owned, was he a salesman? Did he own a dealership? He started off with just selling.

He said, I bought my first car. Did a used car a lot or what? He ended up with a used car a lot. He did. His first time he had one car. He sold it. He made a little bit of money. And he said, I'm going to try it again.

Yeah. So he ended up with a used car a lot on his mom's front yard. Damn. And Concord. And they said, well, you can't do that. You got to have a business. So he got to use car a lot. Then he started promoting races, promote his first race when he was 17.

Do you remember the first race he promoted? No, no. I wasn't alive. All right. So a buddy of ours, our historian, Bobby Marco, Now this might not be the very first race that he promoted, but the first race they could find of any documentation in the newspapers was in 1949 June 12th at Midland Speedway.

Yeah, yeah, I've heard that. Is that one kind of, that was documented in your brain? My dad said the first race that he promoted was in Charlotte at the fairgrounds, and he was 17 years old. Yeah. How old would he have been in 49, I guess? 49, let's see, dad was born in 27, so you've been 22, right?

Yeah. So before that. So we covered a lot of your experience with your father and you recently just lost your dad and we had Eric Jones on here and I've talked about my experiences and we've had a lot of people on here that have talked about those experiences, but we've had time.

Yeah. You know, we've had time to deal with it and we've had time to come to some term with it, you know? Yeah. You know, is that something that is, been difficult for you to continue to like you wake up every morning and go guy I can't believe I can't just go see him yeah you know I feel so blessed to have had my dad for 95 years and I love the the talk that you and Eric had it was really yeah

it was really just great to listen to and you know as a as a guy who who also lost his dad and um but i you know to have my dad for 95 years um and for the the life he lived very inspiring you know i have this amazing peace that he's in heaven now and um yeah i can't tell you how great that is and um it's uh it's something that you know i first of all i feel grateful for my dad and and second um i know that he would be saying you know get out there, you know, work hard, have fun, love your family, love your friends. My dad always wanted us to have fun and work hard and love your family. And that's what I think about.

It was tough leading up to my dad's death. That was really hard. Knowing, you know, that things were coming to an end. Yeah, yeah. Oh, wow. So. Isn't that different? Yeah, yeah.

You think it would be different. You flip a little bit. Yeah, and I know a lot of people don't get a chance to, like you don't think about that right um i was thinking about it for a long time and just kind of thinking about man one day he won't be here yeah and um that's going to be different yeah and it is different yeah yeah well man um you know i feel like that uh i don't really know anybody else does this but i kind of feel like if i can get to 80 i'll be pretty happy and so 95 would be insane i would be thrilled to live that many, that many years because, yeah, yeah.

I mean, my mom passed away in her late 60s. Dad was even younger. And so when I hear, you know, I think, you know, probably, I don't know, I don't know if this is really healthy or not, but like when I talk to people and they go, yeah, you know, my, he passed away, my uncle passed away, my aunt passed away. I'm like, well, how old were they? And, you know, and you hear some of the ages and you're like, man, that's a long time. that's a good life.

Yeah. You know, and I think if I can get, if I can get to 80, I'll be so, I'll feel lucky, fortunate. Sure. Yeah.

I think also something I learned from my dad is watching him and being around him, something that's super important is that he, he never stopped. He never kind of said, I'm old. I'm going to sit around here. Yeah.

That never happened. And, of course, as he aged, he was less mobile. but my dad was 65 when he built Texas Motor Speedway, 67, I think. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, that was... He was still busy.

He was still busy. Yeah, sure. Okay. I mean, that, you think about that. Amy and I talk about that is like, like, I think that, you know, if you can continue to stay mentally and physically active, you give yourself a better shot. Absolutely. My dad always said, if you retire, you die.

I'm never going to retire. Yeah. That's a good point. So, all right, man, well, let's dive into some of the things going on in your world on the business side. One of the things that I want to talk to you right out of the gate is Texas. So we went to Texas. There's been this big conversation about possibly the track getting reconfigured. I know that me and you've had some conversations about, man, what should it, what should happen there?

Well, then we go have a race there. We have all these tire issues. And before the race began, I think. thought to myself, if this is a great race, of course, we had tire issues and it didn't turn out that way in terms of, in many, in many ways. But if this race is really great, what if they don't, you know, it could stall or hold, put everything on hold? Sure. All right. Sure. You walk away from that race. You know, you have the tire issues that a lot of people believe is air pressure related. We're not going to get into, you know, point in fingers about what, what's creating those issues. But that had to

to change the course of your vision on that track in some way. Sure. So what's the situation right now? Well, it's a great question. I mean, like you said, you and I talked about it. I had thoughts going into that race of what it was going to be like. You know, I thought about the way that the All-Star race was, the kind of race it was earlier this year. and compare that to the race that we just finished up,

very different races. And it's interesting. I mean, we're, so what we're doing now is working with iRacing to, to research a couple of different profile changes that we might do at the track. Oh, configuration. Yeah. All right. So you still are in search of a, of some sort of alteration.

Well, or seeing what's out there. I want to kind of investigate what. what the options are. We learned a ton with eye racing around Atlanta. Atlanta is the first track that's been built based on an eye racing simulation. A lot like the race teams talk about simulations now and they can show up at the track and they've already run it with that setup.

We were able to not just build a track with a CAD drawing and all the engineering and math that goes into designing a track, we're able to put virtual cars and go race and tweak it and make a little itty-bitty changes that made a big difference in Atlanta Motor Speedway. And the way it raced is the way that we saw it was going to race in I racing. So that was a huge light bulb moment.

And so we're trying to figure out what could happen differently at Texas Motor Speedway. We haven't figured out exactly what it's going to look like yet. I think that we're going to make some changes, but I'm not sure. I also don't think that, you know, kind of the race that we had this last time at Texas is really a reflection on a problem with the track. It's more like you're talking about. You've got, I mean, thinking about the difference between all the races at the first half of the year

and all the races in the second half of the year. Yeah. You know, the engineers and the crew chiefs. Oh, the cars got faster, loads got heavier. They learned. And that's their job to learn how to go fast. We went to Vegas, and the car qualified three-tenths faster or something like that. It's amazing.

They were going to see way more load. They were going to have to really adjust the way they looked at their pressures and how that was going to be affected and how durability of the tire is going to be tested at Vegas. So I'm honestly going into Vegas thinking we could see exactly what we saw at Texas with issues. That's what I was thinking. We didn't see any. Yeah. I was surprised.

The teams had learned where a new threat. was in terms of being able to get that tire to live. So, yeah, I guess, I guess if you're, if I'm you, I take out all the tire issues and then look at the race. Right. In terms of like, what am I going to do with this racetrack? Right. Right. When the cars weren't having issues, what was I watching?

Was that great? And there's another thing, too, man. That surface is really getting into that sort of prime window of age. Yeah, it is. Whereas you might tear up a racetrack that's actually getting ready to produce. It's best work. That's a great point. That's a great point.

And keep in mind that the reason that we reprofiled Texas and repaved it isn't because the asphalt needed to be repaved. It was because we weren't happy with the quality of the racing that was happening at Texas. So we made changes to try to introduce something different to the show. Yeah. And that's why we took a swing at it. back when we repaved and reprofiled. How come, so the race at Texas, you know, this might be, this might be, I might be on an

island here with this opinion. When I look at races that I ran there and that I was part of and the races that I've seen in the past, you know, decade, I don't see a big difference. Yeah, yeah. I mean, when. I mean, there's years where it's a little more competitive, you know. Sure. there was years where the package of the car, not the track,

like the cars were different. Sure. So the racing was a little better. Or there was one race that was a snoozer. That's going to come and go no matter what, right? Right. That's not the track's control. So what is the button that you've got to mash to pack that place out, right?

I mean, you're the one that you're the guy, we wouldn't know that. What is the thing that really turns? the fans on. I think that that is the question. I know that they look at a race and go, oh, that was boring. Or, man, the guy drove away and it wasn't fun. Yeah.

But honestly, man, when I look back over the last 20 years, there's a lot of those races. That place was packed. Packed. Yep. With the same exact outcome. Sure. So what is it that really gets a fan,

I'm going to this race? I'm going to go buy this ticket. I don't think there is one thing, but that is the question for the whole sport. and, you know, it's everything kind of working together. And that is our biggest opportunity in all the NASCAR is to work together. It's to, you know, get out there with the fans and engage with our fans, engage with our sponsors and the marketplaces that we're in,

you know, put on good races that are fun to talk about and highlight-worthy racing that's fun to watch. You know, all those things work together that make it happen. And I think the best way to look at that is to remember what was going on back in the 90s in the early 2000s. What was it about the sport that was so huge and try to think about some of those details? And there are a lot of details. Little details. Oh, yeah.

Little things like a guy coming out to sign autographs on Sunday morning when he would otherwise not even be at the racetrack. I noticed for Charlotte, for the Roval, a lot of engagement on social media from you, other drivers, guys volunteering their time to add to the weekend, to add to the experience. And those are the details. They are. That moment of Brad or Jeff Gordon or somebody going out there to a souvenir rig only touches a fraction of the fans that are there. But multiple instances of that over the course of the weekend, the year.

Oh, yeah. The fan comes expecting, knowing that that's going to be available to them, right? I think if that happened every weekend and we had drivers give an hour of their time out in the souvenir midway, I mean, like you said, Jeff Gordon was out there, Brad Kuzlowski, a lot of other guys were out there. And, you know, one fan, I think that impression is worth like 10,000 impressions, you know, because they're going to tell everybody that opportunity. And if that happened every weekend in a NASCAR race, holy cow, what a.

what a cool opportunity that is. And I think it does just build a momentum that is amazing. You know, it's amazing how fast an hour goes. It seems like that the drivers or some of the key people are, are understanding that message. It's starting to turn back toward where we, where I say we, where we as drivers, we're like, we're, you know, we're giving the bare minimum effort outside the car, you know.

Like, hey, man, if you want me to be there, what's in it for me? Or, you know, never thinking in a minute to give any free time, right? Or now it's starting to turn. I think there is something turning, which is wonderful. And, you know, we are all in this together. And as Rick Hendrick always says, you can't sink half a boat. I think that the more that we collectively work together, you know, I think all of us would say, man, I love racing.

Or, you know, I love NASCAR. I'm a NASCAR fan. Well, let's just as it all get in there and work together and deliver that message to our core audience. Marcus, I don't know if you're willing to answer this, but I'm going to ask it anyways. I mean, listen, going back to the reconfiguration or the alterations, what options are you guys exploring? Like, what options are on the table and how bold are you willing to go on that? So, Dale and I talked about this a little bit, you know, you've got, when you talk about what options are there or how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how. big can the changes be. Where the grandstands are is, you know, it's virtually immovable. So you

got to deal with where the current grandstands are, where the wall is, where the, where the lights are, to do something that is reasonable in the budget to be able to make that happen. So the profile, the track is the thing that you can work with. And there's a lot in a profile. I mean, look at Atlanta Motor Speedway. We took Atlanta Motor Speedway and took it from, you know, what people would call a, in the past, they've called a cookie cutter mile and a half, and it turned it into a mile and a half super speedway. And, you know, that's made a big difference in the racing that you, you know, is going to happen there. So at Texas, what could we do? I don't know. We're looking at different options. We've got,

you know, there's the parabolic style paving and design, progressive. You know, you could bring the turns down. You can't bring those words in here, man, parabolic. Sorry about that. Yeah. listen to the engineers. I'm glad you used a hand gesture. I would have never known. You could bring the turns down both sides, make it flatter. You could raise them up, make it more like Atlanta.

Different things. You could put it back to the way it was, but I would kind of say, why do that? I mean, we've already tried that. So, yeah, I think, you know, I feel like that back like it was is a good option. I know that that probably doesn't get anybody's attention. You know, if I'm on the racetrack, and I would be worried, that would be the biggest risk, is like, hey, man, we're going to put the profile back

where we were originally. And I'm going to be, I'm not sure exactly how many people are going to be flooding to the ticket gates over that, right? Yeah. But if I, but I think of a progressive bank would be a better alternative than another Atlanta. I think, you know, even maybe even more aggressive than Homestead. Sure, sure.

In terms of that. Well, in a lot of, in my observation, a lot of this has to do with, you know, drivers getting behind it and being supportive. I think, you know, certainly our fans are listening, and, you know, they want the drivers to be happy with it as well. So if the drivers say that they don't want something. Does that really affect your overall decision? It's a factor. It is definitely a factor. What about when they say the best thing to do is to tear it down and start over?

I mean, like when they're trying to be so hot takeish, do you take that personal? You know, I honestly, I don't like to hear it. I think it's really, you know, foolish for us internally, a driver internally to kind of tear down the sport. I think that's not a good business decision. It doesn't feel very solution-based when they're saying stuff like that because it's not realistic solutions.

I think a lot of people really think I would probably feel the same way because I did actually. So when y'all were talking about Atlanta, making it change it. High racing came to me and they said, hey, man, they're going to change Atlanta. We're going to have an op. we're going to have this version of Atlanta on the Alpha site for you to try. Everybody is encouraged to go mess with it and give some feedback.

And we're getting ready to build it. What should we do? Throw some ideas out there. And I said, oh, we've got to revert it back to the true oval that it was. Right. Right. Yep. Well, asphalt.

That was, yeah. That was my first reaction. Right. And then they said, well, no, you can't move the grandstands. and I'm like, well, what are you doing then? If you can't change the shape of the track, then what are we changing? And they're like, okay, well, like you say, but the banking can be steeper, can be flatter. You can go progressive.

You can go this. You can go that. And so, you know, once I realized and once I got it through my thick skull, that the wall was going to stay where the wall is and that the grandstands were not moving. Right. That helps me go to Texas and understand like, hey, man, this is what you have to work. with people that are a little more removed from it absolutely are going to go oh man put a Bristol there right right yeah Bristol or you know a short track right and well and and you have to tell them and even drivers that race in the cup series yet have those same sort of reactions you have to share

with everybody like look man the grandstands are going to stay the same the wall's not moving the wall is going to be the same now give us some solutions with that parameter like that's how the drivers, if the drivers really want to have some influence, which I want them to. Yep. I want them to steer you in some ways. I want them to know, like, look, man, you've got to come to Marcus and say, all right, Marcus, I understand we can't move the wall. I understand this is all got to be the way it is. And okay, here's what I would do, right? And you're going to listen to that. Right. You're going to, you're going to hear it because you're hearing a solution based around what your limitations are. Sure. And you might not like it, might not use it, but you're going to listen to it because it sounds,

You know, it's within reason. Sure. Right? Yeah. Yeah, I think that kind of constructive feedback is certainly helpful and, you know, much more educated and thoughtful. Yeah. You know, Texas, I think the race itself ended up, you know, there's a lot of wrecks and we had, you know, the situation with the tires and everything else. I don't think it gave it a fair shot with this car and everything else.

Fair point. It'd be different. But we're still working on that. We'll have to figure it out. And like you mentioned, the asphalt, it might be, because when we paved it, we used a new style of paving there with the larger stone. Yeah, aggregate to finish. See, long, big word there.

Big word. But we intentionally paved it so that it would age faster. So, Atlanta, when, you know, I have seen some designs. There's been some other designs out on social media about, uh, development of the property in the area around the racetrack. You know, in my mind, I don't know really what the reality of the situation is, but you're going to reconfigure this track. You were going to bring an exciting new form of racing there.

The intention was to re-energize the area's excitement around the racetrack and around that event. You're going to bring more people, and then that would bring in the investment and the idea that the property around it would develop, right? Basically, it's going to grow similar to what maybe a Kansas or another racetrack would grow that area. Sure. And hotels, even casino, things like that. Where's that situation sitting?

Thank you. So we need people in Georgia to support this idea to allow a constitutional amendment in the state to allow gaming to happen in the state. And so, you know, politicians are doing their... thing and we'll have a chance at the beginning of next year to put this before the legislature that would put an opportunity for the constitution of Georgia to change to allow gaming. So you can build a casino, sports book and all that? There would be, we wouldn't be building it, but a partner would build that and would really, you know, bring in a lot more development, tourism, conventions, all kinds of things.

all kinds of things start happening around there. That whole area could transform over a decade. Absolutely. It would be amazing. You know what's interesting about that? Because see, I grew up in North Georgia, and they were one of the first states to adopt the lottery system, which sent a lot of us to college tuition-based. That was the Hope Scholarship.

So it all depended on lotteries, which is also a form of gambling because you are spending money on ticket. So you're saying, Georgia was the first to do that, but they still haven't really bought in on the sports gambling. So you can't have a casino in the state of Georgia by constitution currently. So that can be changed, and there's a lot of talk about it. And we are in favor of seeing that change, which, you know, then they would get into actually setting up the rules of how it works and maybe where are the taxes that fund that maybe it goes into the Hope scholarship, maybe it goes to other areas. But there's several steps that need to be completed.

But if we are able to have gaming in Georgia and the Landowner Speedway were a site for one of those big gaming resorts, I think it would spur on a lot of great jobs and a great, you know, positive impact for the area. Do you look at the same things that are going on in the, in North Carolina as far as trying to pass, the bills and stuff to be able to have a sports book. Yep. Greg Walter. Greg Walter is a general manager at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and he's in Raleigh every week just about,

working on that and a lot of other things. So where is North Carolina on that? The bill went through last year and didn't pass, and it's going again this year, right? It keeps going every year. It's still in process. Okay, yeah. He's trying to get it across the finish line, right? Yep, yep.

Just takes a few people. let's talk about the fairgrounds we hadn't heard much about Nashville Nashville fairgrounds what's going on everybody so it's so funny because I won't I don't talk to you people might assume that we talk all the time about the fairgrounds and but I don't I don't talk to you I don't worry you out about it every once in a while when we're having a conversation about something else you'll go oh hey something on the fairgrounds you know next week to do and I'm like oh great that's good to hear that they're still moving along okay yeah everything no no no no roadblocks no

no everything's good good yeah but if you'll read every once while I'll see something in my timeline from somebody that's like oh yeah that's dead in the water yeah yeah oh man that's it's not going anywhere right and I'm like man these people don't know yeah yeah anyways yeah um you were telling me something the other day I said uh we we were talking we were on the phone talking about something and uh and you said hey man there's going to be some cool news coming out uh you know this year or soon. Soon. Yeah.

I said, really? Okay. So what's been, what's you've been doing with that? You know, he's like, I was actually in Nashville three days last week. Yeah. He was in Nashville for three days strictly dealing with the fairgrounds. Jerry Caldwell had me beating the streets. We're wearing our shoes out in Nashville.

That struck me. It struck me. What were you doing, though? Well, we were there for a couple of reasons. One, we had the Fairground Speedway, and we had a lot of meetings about that. And then we also supported MRO and the Walter Brothers charity event. So we went up for that. But we had great meetings with people in Nashville on the Fairground Speedway.

We, gosh, we were all over town. And it was really encouraging. So, you know, I honestly for the last probably, I don't know, eight or ten months, I've been hesitant to really talk about it because we've, I feel like we've been at the one yard line for so long. But we are really making progress. And having the fans support in Nashville and all over Tennessee is super helpful. So for all the fans out there to, you know, let your elected officials know that you

love the idea of reviving the Nashville Fairground Speedway, that's super helpful. Yeah. But we're right in the midst of things now and probably start making some. some press here soon. Our buddy Jerry Caldwell, president of Bristol Motor Speedway, is in Nashville today. He'll be there all week working on the project.

So it's continuing to make progress. Yeah, I found that, I mean, I know that y'all are working on it, and I've all, I've, like, calmed way down in terms of, like, my anxiety and antsiness about it

because I've realized now, through this process, how slow, you know, all of the, all the entities kind of work toward, like you say, you've been on the one yard line forever. Yeah. That doesn't mean it. The ball's not moving.

It's just moving in centimeters or, you know. It feels like it's not moving. Yeah. I'll tell you. It's challenging, but yeah, we're making progress. Can you expand on that, though? Why does it slow down? Is it trying to get the support from the community?

Is that still an issue? You got turned down by the review board, some additions he wanted to build. He's making a joke. I've been through this, man. I mean, you go, you take up there and you're like, oh man, I want to put the restroom on this side. And they're like, no, you can't do it. And they're like, you've got to put the restroom on this side.

Yeah. Dale's been declined a couple of times in front of his board. Oh, no. They've been trying to build a small addition on a piece of property. Oh, no. I mean, I know how it works, man. I know all about it. I'm very experienced in these things.

Yeah. So we're, we're, there are a lot of different parties that, that have their involvement. on the project. The fairgrounds is a very important area for Nashville. And so we have listened to a lot of people and made, I think, some great plans that will be a huge positive impact in that area and the whole state of Tennessee. So it's going to be a great project when it's done. Yeah. So let's talk North Wilsonboro. All right. Another place. we're trying to spend Marcus's money. Yeah.

Right. That's how he introed you, by the way. You weren't in here. He's like, look, every time Marcus is here, we'd like to spend his money. Oh, my goodness. And I think that's a thing.

Everybody has ideas, all of which you have to pay for. They said, man, I don't know why Marcus he's going in there because every time he does, they spend his money. That's funny. That's funny.

Well, you know, thankfully, the state of North Carolina is helping us kind of revive North Wilkesboro Speedway. So we've never had that before. This is a very unique situation and really thankful to the legislature and the governor for their support.

It's been, and the fans. I mean, the fans' overwhelming support has made this happen. The state is supporting multiple venues in terms of motorsports. Rockingham, I hear, is going to repave. There's multiple dozens of short tracks, drag strips all across the state getting some additional funding that they would obviously otherwise never have. That's right. That will, these, this will, you know, these little tracks like Hickory and Tri-County and so

forth are like nickel and dime every day to fix a, fix a problem. There's a leak here, a leak here, you fix that one, two more sprout over here. Oh, yeah. And in a metaphorical way. And so this will be a huge, huge help to. all of these facilities, North Wilson Burrell included. So the only thing is, is like when the state comes to you and says, hey, man, you know, we're going to help you.

That puts you in a situation where you are responsible for the future of this racetrack. This can't be a one-hit wonder. It's true. And then you lock the doors and everybody walks away. Yeah. There's a lot. There's a lot that has to be done. Well, I mean, outside, beyond this All-Star race.

Right. Right. That's true. there's got to be some future for the property. I know you've talked about it before, like multi-use venue, concerts, all those things. But everybody really, really wants to know about racing at this racetrack. Yes. We're all geared up, excited about the all-star race.

Yeah. But in your mind, like, you see this North Wilkesboro property is a long-term deal. I really do. I think that North Wilkesboro Speedway is a place that can be celebrated for years and years to come. By renovating it, kind of bringing it back to life, it's going to be a place that that whole region can go to. And, you know, we're embracing our history. And it's the history of NASCAR,

it's the history of auto racing. So, you know, all the different, you know, types of late model racing and every other type of racing you can imagine could happen there. But also music events, car shows, other special events, could be, I think, really fun. So I was, you know, we had this amazing event. Thank you for, you know.

The revival? The revival. It was awesome. Well, you know, you basically opened the door for us to all come in there and celebrate on that property. We appreciate it. That was awesome. So much bigger than I thought it was going to be. I'm glad you said that.

I'm glad you said. I mean, I have to admit, man. It was bigger than I ever thought it would be as well. but the emotions that I felt standing down there while it was happening and the feedback from everyone else. Everyone was sort of feeling the same emotion or the same, you know, what you would want. When you go to a racetrack, what everybody experienced at North Wilsonboro is exactly what they want every time they go to a racetrack and buy a ticket.

Absolutely. It was our version of Field of Dreams. That's what it was. It was like it was a nostalgic field of dreams. Warm and fuzzy. Absolutely. Like we all felt warm and fuzzy. fuzzy. It was so cool. And I really, honestly,

you know, a lot of people say, you know, you can't recreate, you can't do that, you'll never be the same done or da. I disagree. I think. I absolutely know when we go back for this All-Star race that the people, even if they were there for that that Cars Tour event, are going to have that same reaction again.

I know I will. I mean, when I see the first cup car throttle up down the back straight away and go through the gears and inter-turn one hot for the first time, that is going to be, it's going to be hard to keep it together. Yeah. It's so cool. I mean, the first night we were there, Tuesday night,

you guys were there staying in, you had your motor home down the infield, we were walking all around, and just the glow of the joy of everybody. That's what made me think, man, we could have the All-Star race here. Yeah. I mean...

That was the moment? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. On the, on pit road, I was just looking at all these happy people and the amazing positive impact that it was having in that region, in the community. And I just thought, we could do this. And I, until that point, I thought there's no way that we could do that. Wow. Yeah.

Hopefully the All-Star race has that. really stripped down pre-race feel to it. You know, we all, all the drivers stood there for 20 minutes waiting on the announcements to begin. There was some delays because people trying to get in. All of those things were actually great because it really, it felt like we stepped back in time. Yes. And so, you know, then the announcements get underway and the drivers were being, you know, walked up there. Everybody's, everybody's appreciating them no matter if they know them or not.

Oh, yeah. And then they go stand by the cars for a while. You had, it was, it was so cool. It was so cool. The cars parked out on the front straight away. All that was just perfect. Yeah. I wouldn't change a thing.

That's, that's kind of the core of it. You know, we want to preserve all the cool history of North Wilkesboro Speedway and yet make sure that, you know, the PA works and the plumbing and the electrical. But, but it's like a rest of a mod truck. You know, you want to turn the key and it works and the brakes work. Yes. But you want to leave that patina. Yeah, you want to leave the patina. So we're going to leave lots of patina up there at Wilkesboro.

So you will have to make some changes to the track, get it up to code, so to speak, for the Cups series and the NASCAR, you know, component. Yes. There'll be a new catch fence all the way around the track. All going in. We're working on it all right now. Yeah. So you were there not just a couple, it was a week ago. Last week.

Right. So when you walked in, did you notice anything that changed since the cars were race? Did you notice anything that's still out? Yeah. Tell me. I haven't been there. I want to go.

I'm dying to go. Yeah. I haven't been. So please tell me what you saw. Well, it was, was it 18 months ago that we were wheat eating? Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah.

That's so crazy. I mean, think about that. Everything that's happened in that period of time is shocking. Yeah. Because a day before. that happened. Nobody. You, after wheat eaten, you said,

the places, the places already dilapidated, not coming back. I mean, I think we all kind of thought that. Yeah. 100%. It's a rebirth of this, of this. It's alive. History. Yeah.

It's awesome. So unique and so rare. But so what's happened since then is since you were last there, the guys have gone in and we're taking out this first, I think it's four feet of pavement up against the wall. Right. Because that's where the safer barrier is going to go. It has to be a certain way, yeah.

Yeah, you know, so Steve Swift. I saw that line cut in the surface of the track. So is that line, is that where the wall ends? Pretty much. That's pretty far out there. Okay. It is. It is.

So there's going to be a concrete bed, a pad where the safer barrier sits on top of that. Very cool. So that's going to help us to, you know, take care of the safer barrier better, and they're going to set it up, you know, just right, so the water, if it rains, water drains out of it, that kind of thing. Quickly, yeah. All Steve Swift and his team making that stuff happen, and they're doing incredible. So, and then we're going to have to take the pit wall, the outer pit wall, out around a little bit

further to protect all the pit stalls. On the exit of pit road? On the exit of pit road. So it'll follow down cars. Yes. All right. I learned that that wall was extended from the original already. Yeah.

You can see it when you look at it. You can almost see where the original ends. Yeah. They added in addition. You want to cut that turn off. When we were driving a cars tour, we talked about this. And when I went out there and drove a lap, I'm like, I don't really even get close to it. Oh, okay.

I never even noticed the wall down there. That's great. Not that. I'm not close enough to like, you know. Okay. Like at Greenville Pickens, you run. right on the fence. You might bump the inside wall sometimes. Okay. Gotcha. But yeah, no problem. Good enough. Good enough. Because we're going to have to extend it a little bit further to protect all

the pit stalls. Okay. Yeah, but I would assume that if you're also adding in safer barrier, maybe, I mean, the track's narrowing then, right? Yeah, it's going to narrow. Maybe not enough to where you notice that inside of wall. We talked about that as well. I think it'll be okay on the back straight away because we would come off a two and you're kind of driving up a hill. And I never drove, I never chased the whole car out toward the wall. Like I could come off that corner hard as I wanted and still be a little shallow on my exit. So I don't think you're going to feel a sense of being pinched by the wall.

Now off of four, we used every bit of it, right? Right. And so I think you're going to shallow up that exit of four and that'll make things a little difficult, especially for the guy on the inside, because he's going to have a hard time, open the wheel up, open and throttle up. We're using, you're going to leave that.

otherwise and it's all abrasive as hell. Yeah. So all the classic asphalt. As you go down the front straightaway, the thing kind of widens back out. The outside wall sort of goes away from you right as you're entering the corner, about 100 yards before you're lifting. And the inside wall goes away from you and it kind of widens. You get this great, you know, kind of space to work with, if you will.

Options. Exit of four will be sort of narrow and tight up onto the flag stand. That's about it. Well, to hear you describe. that then it makes me think that you know elongating that inside wall doesn't really become as big a factor that's what i thought yeah i was glad to hear that because i was looking at it thinking holy cow can we move that wall in and just you know cheat pit road a little bit because honestly i'll say well we're cheating the track why aren't we cheating pit road why don't we just push that wall in but um so the guys

have a plan and sounds like that's that's okay what's going on with the garage area you're going to put a cap on it so yeah it's pretty busted up it is pretty bust it is pretty bust it is pretty up. Yeah, we're going to put some new pavement in the garage area. You know, hopefully it's not too shiny. We wanted to look. I really want to, like you said, patina. I want it to feel like you're in a historical place. So we're not going to, you know, trucks are going to cover up a bunch of stuff.

We've got, you know, some grass over on the half on the three and four side. Why don't you concrete the garage area? Concrete versus asphalt? Yeah, it's what's down there now, I think, is concrete. Oh, it is? Okay. Yeah. I don't know.

That will be way less hot. That's a good point. During the day. Yeah. That's a good point. Brand new black asphalt working in and around there with no shelter. There's no roof, right? Yes.

It's been an open garage. Yeah. Yeah. So that temperature there, temperature from the waist down would be probably about 20 degrees different. Yes. Yeah. Huge difference. Yeah.

That's a great point. I'll ask the guys about that. Yeah. Working underneath the cars and all that stuff around. Yeah. Hot new asphalt stuff. Yeah. Especially, yeah, on a real hot day.

It's concrete now, and I think you capped it. That's a good idea. Just putty it. Yeah, I'm not sure what the plan is on that side. I'm getting into the weeds. The other side where the grass is. We're going to put some pavement over there. And I'm really excited about it.

We haven't talked tickets yet, but when the trucks pull out on Saturday night after the truck race, we're going to open that up for fans. Parking. To be able to come in. No, to be in the infield. Right. I don't know if the, I don't think we're going to park it. I think we've got to walk in.

We're going to have, like, food and beverage set up. We'll have some picnic tables. Hospitality, tents, things like that. For fans. Yeah. All fans. Awesome. Yeah.

Scoring. So when we were there. I'm going to jump all over the board here. That's okay. When I was there for the revival, we had no scoreboard. Yes. Didn't know who was. Basically, you knew who was leading.

You kind of had an idea, but didn't know what lap it was. You had to ask somebody. Yeah. So what's true? So we're going to have the center. scoring pylon is going to work. The original one, you're going to fix it. We are actually going to

put LED and make it look like an original scoreboard. But it's also going to have new technology and ability. But it's in the same space as the original pilot. It's going to look very similar. It's going to work great. Love it.

And then outside, turn three, just like the classic Wilkesboro, we're going to have some human-powered scoring. Slipping the car. There is. Wow. Are you serious?

Isn't that cool? That is so cool. I think it's a perfect idea. This is what needs to happen. You know, this is a place of history. Yeah. Have you hired that position yet? I don't know.

You probably haven't. I told, you need, you know, I want to turn a resume. I told Marcus, I said, you just need to get some, you know, some college students that need a little extra buck, you know, cash on the weekend, a couple hundred bucks to come over there. All they need to do is stand there and just tell you the top five. And as they, you know, you make a pass, you go flip the card, put a different number up there. I disagree. There are people still around that have done that.

Yes. Isn't that cool? And the lap number would change every five laps. So you don't have to change the lap every lap. It's every five or ten if you wanted. Can you imagine people running around? That's how it went, Mike. I'm sure it did.

I think you could do better, Marcus. I think you could find people more. You don't want it to be better. I think you can find people that could actually do every lap. No. You don't want your vinyl to be digital. Is it like, is it like, like, Van of White where you just like turn the, no, it was a, they hook. No, they, it would be a hook.

They'd go over there with the right number and hook or flip it. Yeah. And they just hooked up there. Wow. And if it was, yeah, if it was, uh, it's just classic, that's going to be awesome. Yeah. And the fun. I know this is, I'm being real particular, but the font is critical to get the font right.

You know that. I need to. Yeah, I need to check that out. All right, Marcus, go ahead. What font? planning to use the money. Look at some pictures from like the 80s and the font, the numbers were kind of like little, I don't know, they differ.

Yeah, I hope Jessica is listening. She can research the font. Who is Jessica? Tell us about Jessica. Jessica Fickensure, she is our chief experience officer at Speedway Motorsports and she is the executive director of the All-Star race at the Speedway. So she's heading that up and doing a great job of it. So fonts fall under that position.

know that. That's good to know. The font of the scoreboard. All right. She got a lot of pressure on her. Oh, yeah. It's the details, man. All the details. So you're going to bring in some additional seating. We had 28,000 for the revival. How many do we have there? So for the revival, we had 19,000. 19. 19. You're telling me, are you only counting like grandstands, general admission? Grandstands, yes. Okay. How many do you think you had including camping and in field? Like around the track? I think we probably had 22,000. Ah, yeah.

Okay. Which is a lot of people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, you think about the infrastructure. I mean, you were there early, so you didn't have to worry about traffic. We want to make big improvements on the traffic. So I tell you, this is where fans can make a huge impact. One, we have a really good plan around shuttle parking.

So you can park remotely, places like Wilkes Community College and a bunch of other areas. How will people find out where they need to go to park remotely? We'll put it on the website. That'll be part of the ticket communication. You want to park remotely. We'll shuttle in. That'll make huge impact on the traffic for people. So you're not going to be in traffic for three hours like some people were around the revival.

We had so much, you know, grace, as you said, around the revival. I mean, people are just happy to see it come back to life. We want to do better on that management of the experience. So shuttle parking for most people. And on site, we're going to do a lot of camping around the property. So people are going to be able to enjoy a whole week up there or a long weekend. It's going to be a lot of fun. We're going to put in some extra helipads to make sure that we've got all the EMS covered.

And folks that I know who did Bobby Labani said that he's borrowing Coach Gibbs helicopter for a double trip. between Indy and Charlotte. That would be pretty cool. So maybe they'll land at the North Wilkesboro. But we've got a big traffic plan that will really help people to, you know, get in and get out in a reasonable way. And, you know, they'd actually do it at the Merle Fest every year. They use shuttle parking and it helps a ton. Yeah.

What's your plan for the weekend? What kind of racing we're going to have? So the main event is NASCAR All-Star Race. We know that. Then we've got the trucks there. Is that the race on Sunday? We know it's going to be Sunday is the All-Star Race. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we're going to have Cup cars on the track.

All right. So that's cool. So we're going to have, you know, practice, qualifying, heat races, and then leading up to the All-Star Race on Sunday. You're going to have heat races? Some form? Yeah, yeah. We'll have to figure out the exact format of things.

But I think, you know, it used to be the All-Star race. the format was the thing, right? Yeah. The format and then the money. And that was the big deal. Now, every race with our stages, we've kind of got that style that came out of the All-Star race. So bringing the All-Star race to North Wilkesboro helps us kind of make the track, the history, and the cars, the star and the drivers and that kind of thing. So it'll be different, and we can't make a difference since it's a totally different track.

And then trucks, we're going to have trucks on Saturday, and that'll be the main event for Saturday. Trucks on Saturday? Yep. And I think they're going to be practicing qualifying on Friday as well. Tuesday and Wednesday are late model races. Tuesday and Wednesday are late model races. That's right. All right.

What kind of late models? I've got a list right in front of me. CRA, super late model series, practice qualifies. qualifying on a feature on Tuesday yeah cars late model stock practice on Tuesday all right I better be making my schedule clear yeah that's what he's doing literally everybody he's writing this down thank you very much would love to have you join us yeah Wednesday cars pro late models practice qualifying and feature and cars late model stock practice qualifying and feature on Wednesday yep love it yes sir and then Thursday there's a

cup hauler parade that's right what where will that be so we're going to go through Wilkesboro, through North Wilkesboro and all through the area and then come to the Speedway. Fanfest, Wilkes County. It's going to be all about celebrating

the Wilkes community. And I think that's going to be really cool for people in the area. What is Fanfest? So it'll include, I hope that includes drivers, fans, food, fun. And this will be on property?

It'll be a combination of in-town and on property. Because downtown Wilkesboro, man, is really cool. Oh, yeah. Kind of love, it's a small town, mom-and-pop stores, has a super cool vibe. Well, listen, all of the people out there who live in a small town, like you already know what it's like. But there are a lot of people who haven't been to a small town. And if you go to Wilkes County, you want to see some culture, some history.

You can go down and enjoy. kind of small town life for a little bit in a really fun way. You know what I love about this? I mean, especially going back to the late model days there, you're giving people an opportunity to participate in this whole week of festivities. You know, look, you're going to have a demand problem on Sunday for the All-Star Race. I mean, my family alone has overstepped their bounds on them coming to me asking for tickets. And I'm like, you're asking the wrong person here.

I know I got, you got a number of people that are going to, you got a number of people that are going want to go that. But now there seems like there's a lot of options here. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, you know, the town festivities and that kind of stuff. Plus you got the truck race. I mean, like, am I wrong in saying that this is what that is designed to do? Exactly. You're on point, Mike. So we're going to have way more demand. And, you know, I feel terrible on one side that we're going to have a lot of people that want to be there on Sunday. And we're just not going to have enough space. So when you add in Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, all three days are going to have cup drivers. So that gives us, we're going to have, it looks like we're going to be able to fit

25,000 seats. So we're going to bring in an additional 5,000 seats on the backstretch. And that we think is going to tap out our maximum in terms of traffic and infrastructure and things that we can support. So with that in mind, if we can bring in, you know, fans on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, but then you add to it Tuesday and Wednesday late model races, you've got a lot more opportunity for people to come and enjoy that All-Star Week. And that's my hope. I got that in my calendar. All right. Good. So I'm going to bring my late model and run the Cars Tour race. Woo! All right. Did you just decide that right now? Yeah. Boom. Look at that. I'm telling you. There you go. We're not just spinning Mars.

Marcus's money today. We're spending some of the hell's money today. Nice. You need a sponsor? Probably. We'll talk about that later. I've got some ideas, but my preferences would be to keep it, my first preference, I guess, would be able to keep it green. I saw the shirts in Vegas two weeks ago.

I see them here and there. Isn't that cool? Yes, it is. Somebody sent an RC car and paid it up like the thing. It's huge. I don't know. They were that big. That's amazing.

That car resonated. You're talking about the demand and all that. And I think I was thinking about it. Like it's been so long, I think when I, I mean, I had a feeling of anxiety and worry about, you know, pushback and flack post-cars-tour race about people not only not be able to get in because they got there and traffic and all the things, but other people just not be able to go. Right. And while that is unfortunate, we all kind of, we learn, we make adjustments, you know.

We ran that cars tour race on a weeknight, people coming home from work, you know, and trying to get there in an hour. Right. When there was a three-hour, you know, journey to get there, right, in front of them that they didn't know about. But we'll make, you know, you'll make the adjustments to be able to get to the truck race, the All-Star race or whatever, and you'll be on property way by, before the event starts. Oh, yeah.

But yeah, there will be people that just simply can't get the ticket, right? Because there's just only so many. I think that that, although unfortunate, is an amazing, it's a good thing. That you have something that is so desirable, right? Oh, yeah. And so my thought is to, if you feel like that this is truly a long-term investment for you, I like and I'm not I'd never tell you what to do but I'm thinking like why aren't you you remember people used to say you can't get a ticket at Bristol oh yeah that's there's people that are what was it how long

was years the last the last time I heard the number of people on the waiting list it was 84,000 people on the wait list at Bristol and so was was that was back then was that such a bad was that was that was There's so much blow. Yeah, there wasn't a lot of blowback. Yeah, they wanted to get on, they wanted to go. They wanted to get a ticket. They wanted to be a race. But we bragged about that.

We openly went, look at this. Oh, yeah. How great this is. So many people want to be here. Yep. That's what you have. That's what you have in your pocket right now at Wilkesboro. It is very special.

It's very special. And it's one of those things. You never, I could never have predicted it. All the excitement about North Wilkesboro and everything. it's just more than I could ever have imagined. And, you know, it's a real testament to the love of the sport and our history and our roots. It's really amazing. Yeah.

You know, I think what he's saying is that don't mind the fact that people can't get there, right? Like, like, just make it a hard-to-get type of thing. I know, but we, you know, I know there are way more than 25 or 26,000 fans that, you know, have been cheerleaders to make this happen. Fair point. I'd love for all of them to get a seat, but we're going to do our best. Put those tickets for the next race on sale. Hey, you want to buy 24?

You want to buy 25? I know you don't know what race that is. I know you don't know what Wilkesboro will technically be beyond that all-star race, but you know, you know the man is there. If you could, let me ask you this question. What number would be the number of people that you would want to be able to sit down and watch that race. Is it 40?

Is it 60? Well, the key is managing, you know, the infrastructure, meaning, you know, plumbing, and tickets, traffic and toilets. You know, Humpy Wheeler. He was my mentor, along with my dad, for years and years, and he always said there's three T's of promoting races, and it's tickets, selling tickets, traffic, because that's your first and last impression in toilets. because if you don't get the toilets right, you know, you'll know.

Yeah. And everybody else will too. So we have to get all that stuff right. And, you know, it's easy to build a grandstand. I mean, we could rent 10,000 more seats and have them there. But I think it would put us in a position where we would have a lot of unhappy people with traffic and the toilets and everything else. Do you look at – this is a bit awful.

topic a little bit, but do you look at what they do at those PGA events where they bring in all the temporary stuff as like maybe a way, a new model or a new way for you all to do things at some of these facilities as attendance sort of ebb and flows, right? Yeah. Do you look at, like for, this will be a perfect example of a place where a bunch of temporary stuff might work, not, maybe not next year, but beyond. Sure. Yeah, I think, so we're bringing in 5,000 temporaries, and that's going to... How much is that? How big is that?

It is... So it's going to replace where the junior Johnson grandstand was. Right. Isn't the front straightaway literally almost... If you just sold the front straightaway, that's like 10,000, right?

Yeah, it's about 10,000. So half of that is what they're going to bring in. Yeah. That's a lot. It's a lot. It is a lot. People don't really realize how many...

Where is that going to sit? That looks like. It's going to sit on the... Turn three? Turn three backstretch. Man, that's where everybody was parking their campus. Well, you're going to still have time or place to park your campers on the backstretch coming out in turn two. Are you taking those suites down that we're standing up?

Yes. They're coming down? They're already down. They're gone. They're gone. Oh, man. I'd like to see a picture of that. But where your motor home was outside the track, outside turn two in the backstretch, that will be a good spot to have an RV.

Okay. Yeah. Howard, what are you going to do to the grandstands in turn two where there was just kind of like no rail or nothing? They just kind of... We're going to improve that. We're going to have some railing. Figure it all out. We didn't anticipate having that many people.

Yeah. I mean, it's just amazing. So we're working right now on making all that stuff. What about bathrooms? Bathrooms. What do you do? Port-a-Johns. We have...

It's amazing. I mean, you've got plumbing that's really old. Yeah. And a lot of pipes. If you ever, if you have an old house that was, you know, that's 50 years old, you got pipes that are in the ground, those pipes were made to last about 50 years, and we're on like 70 years now. So all that stuff is being worked on.

There's a way to handle all the plumbing and make all that stuff. Are you adding bathrooms? Not port of porthagons. Are you physically adding brick and mortar bathrooms? We're fixing brick and mortar bathrooms, and we're bringing in extra temporary bathrooms. Yeah. Yeah, a little bit of both. All right.

Yeah, you can have extra bathrooms without them being port of johns, too. Are you going to have those suites for place that we're taking down? We are. Yeah. Those are being built. Some of it's going to be TV booth area. How much space do you guys need? I won't be working the show.

That's right. You'll be right. I'm going to be a fan. How much space would you need if you're doing the TV? Where are you going to sit? I don't know if I'll be sitting anywhere. I mean, I'll be all around. Yeah, all right.

I'm looking forward to it. All right. I've got to find me a seat. We'll have a seat for you. We're building, you know, and really, Resto modding all the sweets and bringing in some that, you know, we're decrepit and needed to be just totally rebuilt for doing all that stuff. There's a big building outside turn four that is just cinder blocks right now.

It's going to be a really cool spot to watch the race from with cool rooftop deck. Okay. It's going to be cool. Okay, so you got all these races. You got all these options. Everybody's got to wonder how do you get tickets and when can you get tickets for these things? Yes. So we've had huge demand, obviously, and it's been amazing. So we've added grandstand seats, trying to give everybody a chance. We've added days. And so the best way to get a ticket, number one, we've had this huge list of people that have already said, we want to get tickets to North Wilkesboro, various lists of support. They're going to get an email, a randomly selected group is going to get an email, from that list that they can buy tickets starting tonight.

Oh, wow. Cool. So that is one of those things. And some people might say, well, I didn't get an email. You know, what about me? We're trying to make it as fair as possible. So everybody has got a chance, but not everybody is going to get an email with that opportunity. But then after all that, the early registrations are done, then we're going to start next Wednesday at noon.

November 2nd at 12 noon Eastern at North Wilkesboro Speedway.com where tickets will go on sale for the public. And of course, it's going to be... Bam! We're going to shut the... That's what it's going to be like. It'll shut the website down. At 1202, that'll be it. Right, yeah.

So, you know, tickets are going to be a weekend package starting at $2.99 for the weekend. You get Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. and then you can also come in Sunday only for the for the infield pass for 99 bucks. That'll be very few, but it'll be available. And then, of course, we have Tuesday, Wednesday, late models. And that package, I think it's $25 a day. Nice. Man.

That's great, man. The prices, too, I heard about the concession prices, $2 hot dogs, $2, $2 soft drink, $2 water, $3 beer. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, that's a big. I'm excited about that. Soft-sided small coolers are allowed. Yep. Awesome, man.

Classic pricing. Try to make it fun and easy for people. And, you know, concession pricing is always something that's sort of a lightning rod issue. So we've taken it down and just made it inexpensive. You don't even need to bring a cooler to this race if you don't want to. That pretty much wraps up our conversation for North Wiltsboro. If you're interested in going to this race, if you're interested in coming and seeing the super late models, the Cars Tour event on Wednesday or the trucks or obviously the All-Star Race.

Follow all of North Wiltsboro's social handles. Twitter is a great resource for everything going on with that event. And also obviously the website, northwiltsboro Speedway.com. It's going to have all that information on there for you to be able to figure out how you need to get there to come see some great racing. Marcus, before we let you go, I wanted to ask you a question. Give me one, the very top one component in the fan experience that you would love to have at every single facility that you own. Oh, man. You get to pick one thing that you're going to bring to the fan experience that's not there, or it's currently inadequate.

All right. I would say the number one thing would be to bring back that speed stage, you know, NASCAR trackside live, television show live audience thing. I think that, you know, and my other number one would be drivers going out and signing autographs like they did and Charlotte a few weeks ago, you know, for an hour or two every weekend. But I think that, you know, giving a chance for our drivers to be on stage, not only live, but, you know, around the country and in living rooms with people. for sure is an amazing way

to really showcase who our stars are. Yep. And, you know, it was that show built personalities that nobody knew before that show started.

You know, our buddy Kenny Wallace, he was not known the way he is known today before, you know, just on his racetrack days, he wasn't known

as that guy. But now, because of that show, he's, you know, a personality that people know of. Lots of other guys.

like that. Routledge started on speed with Tracks Side Live show. I think that that's a great idea. And I think we're actually steering and maybe intentionally or unintentionally back in that direction. There was no component that resembled that in the past couple of years. This

year, I know that the at least in my experience with NBC we have now a one hour pre-race show that wasn't really there before. And there would be the potential that that one-hour show maybe gets moved up an hour with only the intent to bring the drivers on board, right, for their

availability. I mean, the drivers are out and about. Right. They're around the track, doing a Chevy stage. The Chevy stage, which I know a lot about, because obviously being a Chevy driver, is like a tiny stripped down version of that same experience. There's a great crowd. Oh, yeah.

And there's a MC and a driver. Yeah. you know, you multiply that and broadcast it nationally, and you pretty much would have that same experience you're looking for. So I think that that's not out of the question at all. Good. I think it needs a little push. It does.

And I mean, it's not, we have been chasing it now for a few years. We've been bringing, you know, big stage, bringing, you know, all the audio and a host and everything trying to make it happen. It's got to have all the components. TV is really important to make it all happen. And I think, you know, showcasing an opportunity for fans to see at the track, drivers with their own eyes, but then also for everybody at home to see that. You already have an intro stage. Yeah.

You have a band. You have fans all clamored around on that. Why couldn't it all live in that same space? It could. That's a possibility. Yeah. We're open. All you would really need at that point is the table, the talent, which would be Marty Snyder, Kyle Petty, Dale Jarrett.

And the drivers are coming to the intro stage. just a little sooner. Yeah. At some tracks, the intro stage works at other tracks, it needs to be outside. It depends on where you're at. I tell you, just recently, our own door bumper clear, I think at the Roval actually did that, and it was a huge event. Oh, yeah.

The night before the night before. Yeah, it was the night before. Well, back in the... They've done some mornings, though, haven't they? They've done mornings. It's some of your tracks, as a matter of fact. New Hampshire was one. And, you know, for the right price, the Del Jr. download could put up there, too.

That sounds good. Yeah. I got one suggestion, though. Okay. There's one other. The Wi-Fi, and this isn't just your racetracks, it's at all of them, really. It still, there's so much room for improvement on that. And I just know that from the few races that I go to.

Yeah, I mean, it's still, during the race or during the event, I just, I always feel like that if the Wi-Fi thing can be solved at these racetracks, then we've taken the biggest step towards getting the fans, you know, or getting updated or whatever that is. And I just think there's a ton of ceiling to still be, you know, improved upon. Glad you asked that. So we have Wi-Fi. And we started this year. And if you go, if you're at one of our tracks, you can go on, search your Wi-Fi, and you'll see fans first. And you enter in your email address and you get right into the Wi-Fi. I tested it out at every one of our tracks.

There's, you know, 8 to 12 meg speed, which is, you know, really good speed for a public Wi-Fi. free and you can be in the fan zone and the grandstands. It doesn't work in the campgrounds yet, but we have campground Wi-Fi in some other areas. But for the most part, our properties are covered in Wi-Fi, started this year, and it's been a really, really good. What's been the feedback? It's fantastic. You know, because when you get into, you know, if there's more laws passed and just as sports betting and so forth and sports books in general, the live betting, right? All those components come into play. Obviously, people being able to listen to audio and car radio, whatever they want to listen

to, all is going to be right there on that tablet. Yeah, yeah. A lot of people, so the Wi-Fi is there, and I think it's hard to get the word out. So I'm really glad you guys brought that up because nobody reaches more people than you guys. But if you're at one of our Speedways and we've had all of our events for this year, the fans first Wi-Fi. That's yours. That's ours. It works great and it's been a huge hit. We've tested it and tested it and it's been working great. We're only, we're growing it as we go into

next year. The other thing that I think, and maybe everybody listening to us already knows this, but a scanner is so cool. Like most people don't realize that that doesn't exist in any other sport. And you can't actually get the same effect over the internet because it's all time So to be at the track, you put on a scanner and you can listen real time to your driver and their crew chief and their spot or talk. No other sport offers that. I mean, imagine if you could listen in on... Play calling and so forth in the football game, yeah. A quarterback and the offensive coordinator and the head coach talking.

Like, that'd be cool. We get to do that every week in NASCAR. That's true. Yeah. So to be clear, you're saying fan first is going to be the Wi-Fi network at all of the SMI tracks. All of our tracks. That's what it was this year. Because that must have been what I did wrong.

I didn't get on fan first. I honestly didn't. When I was in Charlotte, I could not get anything to go out after the race. Where were you? I text him. I text Marcus. Yeah, he did. He did.

I was somewhere and I was like, Marcus, I can't do, do, I need to get. I'm trying to switch my driver out of the garage of my fantasy lineup, man. Into stage two's coming. I got a hurry. And he's like, I got Wi-Fi. I was like, you do? You hadn't even looked at it. Well, you called it fans first.

I mean, I probably would have missed it. It should have been called. It should have been called. No, it should have been called Marcus Smith's Wi-Fi. Right, right. That's it. I want to be on Marcus Smith's Wi-Fi. That's what we should have.

I know it's going to work then. Oh, yeah. Well, that was my Wi-Fi. If you really wanted to be the hero of the day, you'd have named it after yourself. That's hilarious. That's a good one. That's a good one. Well, and also, actually, at all of our tracks,

we have a huge agreement with Verizon, and they have a huge, what they call a DAS system at our track. So if you have Verizon service at our track, you get full, you know, 4G speeds. And it's... I don't know. I heard y'all say that.

I know. I've struggled. I just didn't experience that. Yeah. I've never... Yeah, I don't know. Like when a certain amount of people are at the same event. Oh, yeah.

You know, you get locked out. And that's for every event. It doesn't matter where you are. You can be at a football stadium. It's all the same. I used to switch from 5G to 4G or LTE or whatever, you know, drop down a notch to the lower band. And there were less people on, less people trying to attach to that. And a lot of times if I just drop my phone's signal, just turn it to airplane mode and then back on.

It reconnects me to the tower. I do that too. It bumps somebody else off. Yes. I hear you on that. But we all agree at this table that that's not something that you should want. want the customers to have to do. 100%, but hey, now there's fans first, or Marcus Smith's Wi-Fi.

That's right. But it is a universal problem in all, like, big events. You have all these people in one spot, and the system is not made for that, so you have to augment it. And it's a never-ending task. It always has to be maintained and rebuilt and upgraded. It's a big challenge. So, but all of our tracks have Wi-Fi and the DAS system.

And, you know, it's one of those things that we put in, just like we manage traffic and tickets and toilets. Yeah. Lastly, a lot of conversation about TV revenue. New agreement coming between NASCAR and the RTA, and there is a bit of a disconnect. The RTA actually went public with some of the proceedings and how things have went, and where they feel like their position is. You're a track owner. You're one of the guys that if there is a change,

some of the revenue that you're getting is going to change. You're going to have to give up sacrifice to be able to a lot more money to these teams. So when you're hearing about all this, you're in the meetings. You're in the conversations. Not in all the meetings. No. Not in all the meetings? Not all of the meetings?

What's your take? What's your position? So number one, I think that it is, you know, not good to kind of throw mud in our own in our own circle, you know. And so I think when you look at the business of the sport, it's teams and drivers, Speedways and NASCAR. And then, you know, part of our circle is all the other investors in the sport. You've got our media partners and our OEM partners and sponsors and everybody.

And we all kind of want the sport to do well. Sure. I think that the best thing is for us to work together and grow the pie, make it, you know, kind of think about the things that made us great and focus on doing those things that make the sport great. Yeah. And everybody else is going to be doing better because of that. Yeah. Next year is 75th anniversary of NASCAR. It's worked for a long time.

And I think that, you know, there's a lot to be said for that. So growing the pie and growing the sport is all part of, I think, a plan that helps make us all in a better place. So as an owner in the Xfinity series, I obviously don't experience what the cup owners do in terms of trying to make that model work. But when you hear the teams talk about, you know, the expense, you know, let's just throw some numbers out there. it costs the top team or top 10 or top five team $20 million to compete, right? And they got to find, you know, they get whatever it is, $5 to $7 million a year off of the current agreement, and they got to find 60 to 80% of their finances in sponsorship.

And that's getting harder and harder to find to fill that bucket. Yeah. And so they are saying, hey, man, we need some help. We would love this to be easier by getting more money out of this TV deal. The TV deal is intended to go up, right? If everything works the way it should, the next deal should be better than the last deal. Right. Do you have room to compromise?

Do you, do you, are you, when you're in those conversations with the teams and they're saying, hey, you know, this is the number we want or we would like to get to. Right. You know, what's your gut reaction? A couple of things. One, I've heard that it takes 19 to 20 million to field a team today. and I've heard also, you mentioned, I think, $5 million on average per charter in purse money.

I've heard it's closer to $9 million in purse money per team. So that leaves you a, what is that, $10 million, you know, $9, $10 million gap. Yeah. And I've heard that it's hard to sell sponsorship. I get that. We all, we're in the sales business all the time, selling everything.

That's the way the world goes around for us. When you look at the economics of the sport, it is, it's really all, it keys off of us having a successful product that people want to be involved with. Whether it's a fan buying a ticket or a sponsor, buying a sponsorship, you know, that's the, the important thing. So my focus is on building the sport, making the sport a place that people want to be a part of it. in every way. And people that want to buy our t-shirts, they want to buy our hats, that they love this sport.

That is, I think, the most important thing that we all have a piece in. And that, I think, ought to be our focus instead of kind of the details of one group getting more of somebody else's pie, so to speak. Well, getting from macro to my mind, micro, how do you grow the pie? More working together.

You know, less, less finger-pointing, more working together, kind of getting in a room. I think communication is a bridge to trust. You know, if you think about how do you have trust? How do you have good relationship? It happens with communication. And we've got to communicate every good team. I bet in your race team, you know, the driver and the driver and the crew chief and the team owner and the pit crew, if those guys are out of sync, there's a problem,

right? Even though it's all mechanical, that car doesn't work quite right if the communication on the team is out of sync. And I think that's the way it is in this business. We've got to build trust, communicate, and just sort of have those open conversations with each other in a constructive way. I think a lot of the discussion about this topic has been destructive, not constructive. That's what I was going to say. It sounds like that there's people getting in rooms, but it doesn't sound, you know, I'm not in the rooms and we're not in the rooms, but it's like to hear drivers say that there's conversations trying to be done, but they're not as productive as you would hope they would be. Maybe it's because there's too many, or maybe there's too many

opinions or too many varying opinions. What do you do with that? How do you see this, how do you see this resolving itself and everybody being happy um i mean ultimately you got to get people in a room you know i because it's foolish you know for me to say well don't spend 19 million on your car right right i mean i'm not in the race car business um that's a lot of money to spend i i get it and somebody else might say well just pay us more purse and you know and they're not in the racetrack business um it's um there's a lot that we don't know of about each other's business, that even though we're in the same sport, and it's a relatively small sport, I think if we, like I said, get in a room, talk about it.

That's an interesting thing that you bring up. So the way I feel about that is, is, and not that I think you're incorrect, I think that what you're saying is true, but I know nothing about running a racetrack. I don't know what it costs. I don't know. And in my mind, I'm thinking, oh, they're doing great. Sure. It's racetracks are doing good, man.

They got it, you know, they get, look at the TV money that's coming in and, you know, everything's going great for them. Yep. And they absolutely know what it takes to run a race team. Right. These promoters know it costs $20 million. They know where a lot of that money's going. They know how much the engine deals cost, but you really don't know those details. Like, you don't know the real details.

But we assume that you do. We assume as an owner, or I assume that everybody else in the industry, you or Helton, Jim France, anybody, you name them. I just assume that they have a pretty decent understanding of what I'm spending and how I'm running my business. Right, right, right. But you truly don't. You know, that's the kind of, I would love to learn more about that. Yeah. But it's not something that I know in detail.

No more than we know. Like, what you do. In our company, just in our speedways, we have over 300 elevators. And they're not getting younger. And elevators are, you know, they used to cost $100,000. I think now an elevator is probably $400,000 or $500,000. And those things need to be replaced every few years. And that's one of those things that just you don't have to do anything, but replace elevators

and it's millions of dollars all the time. Air conditioning and heating units. and asphalt that never just sits there and behaves itself. It's always moving and cracking and getting out of shape. You know, it's just a lot of stuff that we don't think about. That nobody thinks about. Nobody thinks about. Yeah. It sounds to me, boy, you're asking such an important question, Dale,

and that's what is our solutions to it. And then you bring up a point, Marcus, it's also interesting, and that is I don't know what it costs the way they don't know what it cost me. And so to try to get to a solution, it sounds to me like you're saying that teams and all equity partners have to open up their financials and educate others. But then hence, there's another problem because these guys are also competing against each other. And who's going to open up their financials?

Who's going to say, okay, here's how much we're spending and here's how much we cost us. Because I don't want people to know that about my business. I don't think you do about other affinity. I would say, you know, that's why I mentioned trust, you know, that there's trust. that needs to be had. And we've, like, you know, 75 years in NASCAR, we've had, you know, speedways and team owners and drivers. And, you know, this is not a new thing.

You know, we're paying a big purse and we pay, you know, for all the stuff that happens and teams roll in and we have a race. And so we're not doing something that's never been done before. We just, you know, having a time, at this time, we're having a, maybe it's a bit of a shoving match, and I think we should, to resolve it, you got to talk about it. And I think that a lot of that starts with, the trust starts with communication. Yeah. And respect.

All right, bud. Was there anything else, anything new that you need help spending money on? Do you need help with the All-Star format? Yeah, yeah, we need that. We've talked about that a little bit. We would love your thoughts on the All-Star race format. Me and you have sit down and talked about it a little bit. And I told him my opinion, and I'll be quite honest, man,

is the All-Star race in the past has been full of, for lack of a better word, gimmicks. It's been full of, you know. We had like monster-sized dice. Yeah. Crazy things. Yeah, I mean, fans flipping numbers. Trying to figure out a way. It's fun.

Yeah. Trying to figure out a way to make a create a. a moment. Our sport and sports in general are about moments, and we've went out of, you know, we've went above and beyond trying to create them, especially for this race. And you have so much flexibility. It's not a points race. Do what you want, right?

And, but I think for this race, you know, the race tracks the star. You don't really have to bring in any extra, you know, details, no hoops, no, no ring of fire, nothing that needs, you know. And so I also, so I feel like as far as the format, you really don't have a tall task in front of you as a promoter in this sense because the track is the star. People are going to be there and be happy to be there. And the less they have to worry about, the less math they have to do in their heads. You know, there was a guy that wanted, you know, I was talking about running this late model race for a promoter. and he's like, we're going to have three stages,

and we're going to take your average finish from the first two stages, and that'll be your starting position for the final stage. I'm like, no one wants to sit in the grandstands and have to do this math. I didn't want to do math when I was getting a grade for it. I certainly don't want to do it. Nobody wants to watch a race and not know what they're watching or what's on the line. Right.

You know? And so I think for this instance, you really don't have to go too far. You can, you know, there may be some heat races, were a great idea. I thought this was my idea. All right. This is a, we love to bring, this is almost start from scratch. We love to bring the teams and the drive and the teams into the pit stop, into the qualifying

fact. You know, we want the teams to have a moment to shine. All right. If you're going to have race cars at the racetrack drivers there, on track content, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Yep. All right. Why don't we at some point Friday or Saturday have a pit crew competition?

We used to have Unicau Pit Crew competition. We'd celebrate all of the teams. Basically, the car pulls into the stall. You have a four-tire stop. The car leaves. That's it. There's no lap on the track. The car trips a line entering the stall.

It trips a line exiting the stall. The pit stop is the moment. Yep. Run every car, every car, even the All-Star Open cars through this process to celebrate and crown a true pit crew chute. champion. I like that. All right.

And so, I love the idea of celebrating our pit crews. Right. They are, they're the O line of NASCAR. They are. They don't get enough credit. This is their moment to say, we are the best. Yeah.

All right. We are the best. And so what you do is, all right, you have that moment for the pit crews. You make that, you do whatever you need to do in terms of a monetary, uh, incentive or a trophy or something that maybe moves from team to team each year. like a college trophy would. You've won the bell. You get to keep the bell for the year.

Who's going to get the bell from that team next year? Yeah. Something like that, right? So what that also does is that sets the lineup for your heat races and the lineup for the open. All of the cars that are eligible for the open go into the open field lined up by the way their pit crew pitted the car. So the pick crew has an even more of an impact on the performance of the race weekend. weekend by you know a great car could have a really terrible stop and start near the back right and now you have the comers and goers we were one you know and that solves the problem of heat

racing in NASCAR everybody's in the race why have a heat race if everybody's if nobody's going to be cut right if there's no elimination right what's the so now you have a heat race where everybody's staged they start by how they how they are ordered by the pit stop speed If a Kyle Larson or Chase Elliott has a mid-pack pit stop, he has to drive from mid-pack in this heat race, he has to perform. I like that. You get a 50-lap heat race.

That's long enough to really test the tire, push the tire to its limit. We're celebrating this asphalt. It's old. It's war out. Car is going to slip and slide. Let's get to that point in the race. So 50-lap heat races.

All right, two or three of those, that sets your lineup for the race, for the All-Star race. You can invert the top five, top ten, have something fun like that. You don't really have to. You bring your open out there. You do whatever you want to do with that as far as you can have an overall winner that advances.

You can have three stages where you pick a winner from each stage, whatever you want to do there. And then you have your main event. The only thing that I would add to the actual main event on Sunday for the All-Star Race is. Our All-Star races are an abbreviated event compared to our 400 and 500-mileers, right, that we have every weekend. That's okay when we go to Charlotte or Texas or anywhere else for that matter. Bristol. But for this particular weekend, people have been waiting for years, decades, for Cupcars to be back at Wilkesboro. So I would be encouraging you to add about 20% more length to the traditional All-Star format. And I would front-load the very beginning of the event

with a longer stage. Maybe that first stage is 100 laps instead of 80 or 70 or 50. Maybe that first stage, is just really gets everybody's appetite, right? Mm-hmm. People are going, people have been waiting for cars to run here for a long time, and so they really want to see a lot of competition, right? Cars on track. And so that first stage maybe gets a little longer than you traditionally would have. What do you think the stages should be?

100 laps for the first stage. Okay. You know, and then I don't really care about the other two. I really don't. I mean, it could be 50, Yeah, 20. I don't know. You could have 100 laps, 50, 20, 10.

I don't care. I think that final stage should be, you know, a 12th round knockout. Yeah. Right? You got a little bit of time, not a long stage, right? So like 10 laps. 10 laps, okay. Cautions don't count.

Yep. Got to take the checker flag to be over, right? Yep. If it comes, if there's a wreck on the white, re-rack them. Yeah. Old and unlimited green white chain. I mean, it should be a 12th round. Yeah.

Seventh inning, you know, seventh game, ninth inning moment. Yeah. And so, and a short track, like this. It's so slick and worn out. Oh, yeah. It should produce. Sure. But I really want to see the guys have a pretty long, tough run in that first stage.

Right. To really get my feel, my fix of, man, I've waited for a cup cars to be here for a long time. Yeah. And I'm going to see a good little run here. And then the rest of the All-Star race kind of plays itself out. I think that would be a fun way to include the teams. Because honestly, man, that pit crew's pit stop that sets up the entire weekend really plays a role throughout the whole event. That driver's – if you get a guy trying to recover from a bad pit stop that set him back in the lineup,

that's going to be a process for him throughout the whole thing. I think – I love that I did because I missed the pit crew competition. feel like it was a fun thing to celebrate. And it's ironic because today, think about the difference that pit crews make today. I mean, the athletes that are there, you know, I always tell people, these are professional athletes. They didn't go pro in their, you know, in their collegiate sport, but they're going pro in their athleticism and being on a pit crew in NASCAR.

What a cool opportunity that is. And to showcase these guys in a big way, I think is awesome. We actually talked about maybe even doing like a, not a skills challenge, but like some weightlifting challenges. You know, like the cross-fit kind of stuff, you know, where the guys could, you know, throw up some weight, do sort of a, I don't know, an exhibition. Yeah, I think that would be kind of fun, I guess. If you, I don't have a problem with that. If fans are entertained by, hey, man, HMS has got three guys entered in. Yeah, like who lists of most?

deadlift. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And this is Gibbs. Team wise. Yeah. Everybody enters, you design sort of an Olympic style five events.

Every organization enters their best guy. Yes. All right. And he's going to go out there and give it his all and you're going to crown sort of a champion from each event than an overall champion. But it would have no overall effect on the event. Yeah. And you'd say the pit stop for the impact on your starting position.

Sure. Yeah. I love it. be cool. Yeah. Because, I mean, that to me, because if you go out there and have the guys qualify, they're going to, you know, fastest cars start toward the front. Yep. But this sets up a situation where you might have some good cars, mid-pack, toward the back.

What did you think of that as a driver? In terms of what? So, Dale, in his current situation, as a broadcaster, I think you think a little bit differently now. A lot different. So what did you think about that as Dale, the driver? If I don't, if I feel, if your pit crew was in charge of your starting spot. I'm in charge of what I'm doing on the racetrack. Yeah.

So you're okay with it. Yeah. I mean, I feel like, you know, the drivers, I don't know how a driver might really view that, to be honest with you. He might not like that idea, but I feel like that we at some times need to put the onus or the moment or the pressure on that individual. Yeah. It's on the driver in some. instances, but he's on an island by himself. Make the crews be responsible for where this car begins the race.

I love it because I just love the team aspect of our sport that people don't realize. It'll be like this situation where the guys, the crews, you love those guys that are like, give me the ball in this moment. I want it. Yes. There's two seconds on the clock. Throw it to me. I'll make the shot.

Yep. Those crews will have that type of reaction. if they're real dudes right there. They'll be like They won't it. They'll be like, heck,

yeah, man, I'm going to go get you the pole. These guys are intense. Yeah, they work every week. That's the type of pressure we need to put them on it. I like it.

That's the type of pressure I'm going to buy a ticket and sit and watch. Yeah. You know, I don't want it to, if we, you know,

I don't want it to be watered down, you know, go out there running four laps and come down pit road and then a pit stop. Oh, make the pit stop the thing. Yeah. And if they're,

there's a loose lug, that's whatever, penalty. You know, you check the lugs, you check the gas cans. Any gas in there? Oh, you left a gallon. Nice. And then let's stay consistent with it because if that can be built up over time, the residual effects of the winning pit crew or that jackman, I mean, the coverage carries throughout the rest of the year, really.

That's it. When a good team has a pit stop, you point back to the fact that that Jackman did this and this is the team that, yeah, I mean, because they're built up as, you know, the pro ball champions or whatever it is, you know what I'm saying? saying absolutely that this works the first time but it only truly works oh over the long haul if you don't mess with it it becomes a tradition yeah it becomes an honor it becomes something coveted yeah it becomes something hard you know you don't get you don't get to get you don't get another chance to get it till the next year right it's a great point yeah absolutely yeah i like it i think we're on to something

i was kidding when he said you got any new format help but boy he he's put enough study and the team he's he's prepared for a thesis here he isn't been thought to it and if you need us to design the trophy for the I mean we designed this trophy for this is for the online i racing champion be given to him later tonight don't brag about this but i mean you're pretty proud of that aren't you yeah i like it was very you know it's it was easy we just basically stole the old wins the i see i see some similarities yeah so when he's spending other people's money now that's what you get i like it now imagine A team, you know, has a grand, you know, trophy.

Oh, yeah. That they win. They take back to their organization. It sits in the lobby at that organization. It's won by the team. The driver had nothing to do with that. Those guys can rowdy. I mean, imagine what, you know, what kind of morale that would build in an organization

to roll that out on the shop floor. Oh, yeah. And say, our guys brought this home. Those pit crew members are an integral part to the success of every team to And they are true athletes. We should be celebrating them in such a way. We used to know a lot of names. You know, we used to know a lot of personalities, a lot of backstories.

This will be a way to get back to that. Yeah. Great point. Chocolate Myers. We everybody knew who he gassed for? Yeah. Is it because he was a good gas man or because he talked a lot? The teams could have, you know, the teams could develop nicknames that they would be known for.

You know, the Rainbow Warriors. and so forth, all that stuff could come back. I like that. Cool idea. Yeah, man. I got one more question for you. Let's do it. We're going to have music on, I think, Friday and Saturday nights up in North Wilkesboro.

Awesome. We need to have people, kind of headliners that fit that area, I think. Go with the storyline. Who do you think we should have? Luke Holmes is a Carolina boy. That'd be awesome. Would be amazing. Yeah.

If he would, and it says, this is a big deal, this All-Star race. I think the North Wilksboro All-Star event would be something that these entertainers would want to be a part of. Yeah, that's cool. This would be something they would mark on their calendar and go, hey, man, guess where I get to play this year. There's probably not a lot like that. Right. Yeah. And so I think he would be a guy would reach out to, you know, we just recently had him play at our charity event.

Yeah, he was excellent. He was. He was. Classic. Eric Church, Carolina boy. Church is a Carolina boy. I would go after him. Yeah.

I would go for that local home team. Yep. That's a great idea. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool.

All right. Anybody else? I'll think about it. All right. Yeah. Think about it. We got to go to work on that. Those guys get busy.

They do. And it would be awesome to have that home state, hometown tie. I agree. Yeah, that would be cool. Yeah. So we appreciate you coming on here, being honest. You always do. You don't hide from anything, really.

But I know you've got to hold a few things because you've got some, you know, you've got news here and there coming out and you don't want to, you don't want to, you don't want to leak your own news. But what should we be on the lookout for? You said there's some stuff from Nashville coming soon. Yeah, yeah. So stay tuned for that. And I've got to say, I mean, it makes a huge difference for. everybody to show support for that.

How can they do that? Social media support. Like just tweeting. I love it. Just tweeting about it. Just tweeting a positive comment. Really? Really helpful.

That really matters. I think it does. Okay. If the elected officials pay attention to that. Sometimes when I'm using Twitter, I don't know if really, you know, I don't know. I think it might. I think it does. And I think, you know, if local people kind of tell their, you know, whether it's by

tweeting or emailing or calling local people there around the Nashville area to let them know that the Fairground Speedway is a big deal and it would be a big impact and a positive impact for the area. We would love that. And so look for news to spring up here pretty soon the next, you know, a few weeks. And if you're in Nashville, you might see Jerry Caldwell from Bristol Motor Speedway or you might see me, you know, here pretty soon as well. So it's, we're making progress. I'm happy about it. Marcus, thanks for coming today.

Great to hang with you guys, Dale, Mike. Always enjoy it. Thank you. Marcus Smith on the Dale Jr. Download. Hope you guys have a great week. We'll see you next time. Thanks, Ally, for supporting the guest segment of the show. Ally always bringing our friends around.

Marcus is one of them. We'll see you next week. Check out Dirty Mo Media. Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. To tell me what you're going.