Kenny Wallace Explores His Former FILMAR Racing NASCAR Shop! (First Time Back in 25 Years)

right here. Yep. This is it. I'll be Dorne. Wow. I got so many stories about this area right here. We left the Wallace Racing Shop. Fast forward and this becomes like 1994. Okay. 1994 in my career. Filar Racing. The team is out of Nashville, Tennessee. Here's what's interesting about this building. Filbert told me to be on the lookout for a building. I found this building and I was the first person in here. I mean, I'm the driver, but I ended up going in here and I literally started cleaning this place up by myself. You know, they were doing good, but they wanted to go to the Cup Series. So, Philillar Racing, crew chief, Gil Martin, you know, N Moore, a lot of great great talent. Still to this day, they moved from Nashville over to here. Bobby Hamilton was their driver. Jeff Burton was their driver. Then I became their driver. There is a picture out there somewhere. We became friends with North Carolina and Air Force, whatever it was. A black Apache helicopter landed right here. Right here. And uh I'll never forget that as long as I live. Got my butt chewed out in that office right there. I ran six in the Southern 500, but late in the race I was running like third and I faded. The team thought that I wasn't doing as good a job as I could. So, uh Gil Martin had Filbert tell me I needed to get on the wheel more. And that and that office in there is where they they said they watch incar cameras on me. It looks like I was on the wheel too much. So I started I had another seat trying to relax a little bit. You still like to be on the wheel. Yeah. As we learned yesterday. Hi. Hey. How are you? I'm doing good. My name is Kelly Wallace. We have an appointment here. This this was one of the original race shops and we're here to do a a YouTube history video on this shop. Go that way. Yeah. That's the shop. We'll get in there. We're in trouble. I set quick time in the cup series at Martinsville and I ended up running fifth in the cup race and that was out of this building. I'll never forget that my brother Mike said Nemichek was on it's like 1998 maybe and uh Neichek's on the pole in the uh southwestern bell car and all the media is over there. My brother Mike's telling me he goes, "Man, when you set Quick Time, it's like a 100 people left Nec's car over to your car." So it was that building and that building that was it. And they've added on that building and that building. This building wasn't new. Good to see you. We built that body shop on there, right? But that building, all this is like all new, but we've done the best we can. Oh my god. Look at this stuff. Look at your work. I appreciate it. Unbelievable. So, this is what you do, huh? This is what we do. We do anything from show trucks to racing and performance and repair. You guys You guys are a jack of all trades, man. It's whatever you want done. If you bring it to us and it's a diesel, there's a good chance we can help you out. Yeah. So, this is Mitchell's Tableton and his girlfriend. Nice to meet you. Yeah. So, can we go up to that building? Yeah, we can go up there. Let me talk to They kicked us out. Did they? I walked in there. You look like a country western singer. Oh, thank you. I was Yeah. The tractor trailer used to back up right here. Yeah. Oh, this is so different. Wow. We made it. We're legal. Goodbye. By popular demand. So, um I'll tell you what, it's it's in really good shape. The floor is is nice. Is this probably the same gray floor that you guys did? Yep. I I would venture to say this is the paint that I painted on here. You painted the floor in here? Yeah. So, come to find out, the original owner, his grandpa, what's your name again? Will. My name's Will. Will's grandpa. So, you tell the story. So, my grandpa built these buildings originally to be a fire sprinkler building. Um they made fire sprinklers and they were fire sprinkler fitters and that's what it was used for for about eight or 10 years and then he found out he could move a race team in here with Kenny Wallace and he thought that was the coolest thing ever. So he loved coming over here and just checking in seeing what Kenny and the guys were doing. This used to be line full of race cars and it was just awesome. I was I was really young. Yeah, I was maybe 3 or 4 years old. They'd come in and set me on the cars and Kenny would come in. It was just amazing. So awesome. So now that explains what not when I told you I said when I first come in here the floors were extremely dirty like over the top dirty and now he tells me why uh you know metal tubing uh you know sprinkler system you know all the cutting and that would that would explain that he turned it into a race shop and you know how race shops need to look clean and pristine. I had a floor scrubber and I scrubbed the hell out of this place and took up maybe some carpet or just cleaned it really good but yeah let's walk through. So, it was really a very simple shop, but like I said, this shop it has got so many memories for me. Obviously, the office haven't changed, but once again, uh the main office up there is where I was told that I needed to drive a little better and it wasn't what happened to the T. I'll never forget Filbert getting mad at me. He wasn't mad at me. N wanted him to get on me a little bit. But what happened to right rear tire was down to the cords and I think they were just disappointed. One thing I really did like about this shop was it wasn't all, you know, sectioned up. It was what you see right now and you walked, you know, you kind of did one of these wheels. You uh you walked right down the middle and we had race cars on the right and on the left. So what was the layout like from chassis to out the door? Yeah. In the back is where we finished the cars. uh you know up here were the cars ready to go. You know, you got to remember back in those days uh you know nowadays you're spending 20 million a year. Back then you could run a whole team in the Cup Series full-time on you know four million. uh you know you had 10 employees but hell I was only making as a cup driver maybe I was making 75,000 a year which was good money but nowadays guys are making 10 million a year uh and and the the salaries were so much less back then because you know this would have been a big cup shop you know we look at everything and and here these people are just working here they don't know any different this guy's like who the hell are you and I'm Like, buddy, you have no idea the history in this building. I don't you know that that's life. That's life. Yeah. So, I remember we used to have the uh pit equipment. Pit equipment out here. This wall thing here. Uh man, I don't know. I don't think that. Yeah, I think it was. For some reason, it was. Yeah, because we had we had uh we had pit equipment in here all the time. Tires, fuel jugs. But, you know, this is a pretty rare building because it's not all sectioned up. You know, when you look back at the Square DS when Square D I brought Square D into the sport and and that's even more of an interesting story where when I built a house here in Concord, North Carolina, there was a system called Elon. E L O N. Everybody makes fun of it in that is in that industry, but it was what happened. It wasn't successful, but I liked it. And it was an intercom system, you know, and in those days it was the big deal. Anytime I say Elon to people like in that industry that I'm like, I don't know what you're laughing at, but whatever. But I put in a square a system called Elon. It was made by Square D in my home. Now, this is how I got the sponsor. So, after I get it in my home, you know, you can pick up your phone, push pound seven and, you know, have speakers throughout the house or security system. Not a year later, an executive, a regional like sales guy comes knocking on my door, says, "Hey, I'm with Square D and we want to sponsor you." That's how I got the Square D sponsor. Like somebody must have said, "Oh, we put a system in the race car driver Kenny Wallace's house." So they were like, "Call him up." Yeah. And I mean, so this shop, this shop is an extension because when when I got the sponsorship for the team, I'll never forget, you know, Filbert Martasi is gone now. Said to me one day, he goes, "You know why I don't have sponsors?" I'm like, "No, Phil." Now, Filbert was a wealthy man, Filbert Martasi. I said, "No, Filbert, why don't you like sponsors?" Jesus because sponsors tell you what to do and I don't want nobody telling me how to control my team. Well, when you went to the Cup series yet, you know, you had to get some money. But Filbert was so wealthy that he ran all his Bush Grand National teams with Bobby Hamilton, Jeff Burton, all on his own money. Is that what that TIC was? Well, TIC ended up being a company that he created called Transportation Industry Consultant. He created a credit card. So TIC what he would do is he would call like not back then but Flying J loves Pilot he would call them and he'd go okay I'm going to have a thousand trucks I guarantee you a thousand trucks are going to come gas up at your place but you got to give me a a price break and they would do it and Filbert would make like a dollar on every transaction. So he was one of the original credit cards for fuel. A fuel card. It was interesting. TIC was a fuel card. If you had a TIC card, there was a thousand credit cards. Every trucker had one. You pulled over here, you used it, and you got a good price. And that and Filbert made all his money cuz he he got a dollar. Filbert himself got like a dollar on every transaction. And he sponsored his own cars with that back then. Interesting. So from all that come this shop. It's like, "Okay, we got Kenny got us the Square D sponsorship. Let's move over to Charlotte now so we can get some of the NASCAR talent." But I got to tell you, I don't know if they really needed to do that because if you look back, uh, Gil Martin worked up works up at Richard Childs. He's a legendary crew chief. New Moore, New Gear People. This the shop is not chopped up. So there's not stories here and stories here. Now the the one story I can tell you is this wall used to be lined with bolt nut bends. And my daughters who are grown ladies now and they're, you know, 30, 33 years old, my daughters used to come over here and the crew would laugh a little bit cuz my kids would go through all the bolt nut bins. Kids love nuts. Bolts and nuts. Good. Look at here. Yeah. So my my daughters my daughters would be six, seven years old just messing that all up. I wonder if there's any marks on the floor from where a surface plate used to be or you know like any old surface plates used to be up there. We used to load the cars up bolts that were cut off and ground flat and cut stuff anchored in the floor. There's another shop that I want to show you. When when the team when the team was moving from Nashville, we needed this staging area for the red dog cars that were so famous. That shop, we just we just rented a little area out. Go up there, I guess. What the Sorry, I cost a lot. Okay, so yeah. Okay, so here's the deal. Let me just get out and tell you this real quick. This is crazy. This looks like a place that works on these little flat. Okay, so quick stop. Remember I took it from Wallace Racing to the Filar shop 19 into 9394. Remember we won Richmond with the red dog car. We won Richmond 1994 with the red dog car. We rented a sliver of this building to the right hand side. Uh my brother Mike was renting this building and he sub least rented us a little area. Jim Murray 2 can and myself. The team was over in Nashville. They're working on cup cars and they're like here here's the red dog cars. I got that sponsor too from my brother Rusty. So, now that I think about it, I I brought a couple sponsors to film Mark. We were working on that car in a corner and my brother Mike had motor homes and everything. So, it's funny. You're in Victory Lane at Richmond and you're like, you wouldn't believe where our car was at. It was just had a little section here. But, uh, now it appears to me that they fix up these little cars. Myself and Toucan did the work on the car and then I jumped in it and I won in 1994 at Richmond in that red dog car and that shop's over here a little bit. Where was the setup played at? Oh, it was like right here, but I don't know. Maybe that's like where the paint is brighter. Like you painted the floor, put the plate down, and it kind of saved it. It looks like it's a little bit less worn out right here. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, there's evidence of more foot traffic up than the other areas. Parts and things up up there, our partner. But once again, it's just a you know, you you do such a good job at this. Yeah. So, here's a race shop. Now, it's a machine shop. That's what I like looking for is like the the forensic evidence of Yeah. something else. And if all we have for this one is a little bit of a cleaner section in the floor where the where you know you could see like the where the the hardcore prints were cuz you know those those surface plates were so heavy. So heavy you didn't need to bolt them in. All you had was studs. So then you you put a big Allen wrench in there and you turn it and it might lift it up a little bit. So it had like a little foot every so often. Yeah. And and so you you really never bolted surface plates in the floor because they weighed thousands and thousands of pounds. So by this time you weren't working on the car anymore. I wasn't. No, I really wasn't because it it it's kind of funny. It's always a joke. I always tell people, you know, it's Wallace's, you know, to this day I you know, I work on my race car, but it's kind of like uh a full, you know, 180 because or a 360. I guess they say life is full circle. I'm at the end of my career right now, but I'm winning dirt races and I'm doing everything myself. My hands look good today. But when I was here, I was helping. But it was at that time where they had these things called crew chiefs. These were these guys that made your car handle. It's a joke, right? Because, you know, I did all my own stuff back then because that's the way it was. You know, you you look at old pictures of Richard Petty up in Randleman, North Carolina, the you know, Richard Petty, Lee Petty, they Richard was working on his cars. It wasn't until later in NASCAR when corporate America come in and then the driver had to go do all these appearances. It's like, I ain't got time to work on the car anymore. I got to make my sponsor happy. And that was, you know, cause and effect. What was the cause? We needed more money. So now the driver is out selling product. And by the way, team, I'll be back. I'm going to drive the car. So it went from race car driver did everything with some people to race car driver had to get somebody to do everything because I had to go out and like when I was in this shop, I think I did maybe 30 appearances a year for Square D all over America. Hell, I got to where, you know, there was a time in NASCAR where I made a lot of money. I had a King Air 200 and I bought that plane specifically because of this shop because I had the Square D uh you know Square D first of all square D uh what they do is they take electric off the telephone pole and they bring it in here. So you just can't run a wire in here. The wire comes into a big box and square D they made all the bro breakers the breaker box and it's electrical distribution. There might even be some big breaker boxes around it still. There's a 6ft box in the room over there. It's huge. Is it a square D box? Okay, here we go. I guarantee you we got it free. Oh my. Look at this. That's it. Well, if I can get in there. That's all right. Look at the logo right there. See that squarity logo right there? So that uh so when you know maybe his uh maybe his grandfather put that in, but more than likely we did because you can see th this is this is what squarity is. So you know the best way to explain squarity is this. That's something else I like to look at in these old places is what the breakers say cuz sometimes people don't change them or they cross off, you know, something like that. I I think this building is so simple. Dynamometer. Wow. Yeah, we never built our motors. Jack Rous built them. I think there's more stories about this time stamp right here. Square E came along. Filar moved here. But but Filmore also shut down here. You know, was there ever a race team in here after Filar? Not that I remember. But I can tell you this about this time. I had decided to do better with try to do better with my career. And uh I told Filbert, I said, "Philbert, I want to go drive for Andy Petri. He's going to start a second team. Kenny Schrader is driving the Eminem's car or Oakwood Mobile Homes car." And so I end up leaving here. Filbert makes me pay 30 $40,000 to buy my way out of the contract. Sadly, Filbert goes, "I'm out." And shuts the team down. Gil Martin ends up going to work for Jack Roush or not Jack, Richard Childris. And everybody kind of fended for themselves and went on. But Filbert was one of my Filbert was my best car owner in my career. My wife and myself have been married almost 39 years and I renewed my wedding vows at year 25 and Filbert came to it really. But Filbert allowed me to spread my wings. I left him. He taught me a valuable lesson. buddy, you're going to you're going to pay you away cuz I got a contract. So, I borrowed money. Uh I borrowed money, got on my contract, went and drove for uh Andy Petri, and that was the end of Filmore Racing. The the shop just shut down and everybody went so there I don't remember anybody else ever being in here. May maybe there was, but I I don't I don't remember. You ever think about what would have happened if you had stayed? I think we think about everything, right? Uh I'm the one that told Andy Petri I went to Andy's drove for him two years and he started being mean to me and u and I said I quit and hold on now and but if I don't do that then I don't end up getting in the Penso car sitting quick time at Rockingham and leaving every lap except the last and Andy's car beat me. They they short pitted with Joe Neichek. Um, you know, I I think sometimes people say, "Would you like a doover in life?" And I'm like, "No, I probably mess it up because in the end I've got everything I want in life." Now, I will say, "Did I want to be Jeff Gordon?" And I say this all the time. Hell yes, I did want to be Jeff Gordon. And I'll go to, you know, but I'm at peace with myself now. You know, you see all you you know, my dear friend Mark Martin's upset that he didn't win a championship and they call him Mr. Second Place. And I look I'd cut that finger off right there to do what Mark Martin's done. So that's a lesson in life. You know, everybody, oh, if I could have done this, I could have done that. That's competition. And I tell I tell all these young kids, I say, be careful. Competition will kill you. Not physically, mentally. competition to ruin you because you know I don't want to be 26 years old again because when you're 26 years old you're worried that you're going to be poor living underneath an overpass in a cardboard box. Yep. Know all about that. Yeah. Well, but that was me. That was me. And you know and now I'm old and I don't want to do that. My highlight of my whole trip is you telling me that what you told me. I still remember walking through here and seeing cars. And you are such a good person. You're I can just tell you're of their person. I appreciate that. Thank you. I mean that. Yes, sir. I like you. It was really good having you. If you ever need anything you ever in town, we're here. You are rare. Your your type is rare. I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you, buddy. Is a good man right there. Was there any other race teams in here after Philar? Not that I know of. Um I don't think there was. I really don't. Maybe,…