Kenny Wallace's Hometown History Tour: The Wallace Brothers Before NASCAR

and that that right there is what happened in nascar hopefully we'll be forgiven oh my god right here yes there it is there's a bridge good find quiet is dumb quiet we'll get you nowhere well that garage is where it all started for us you drive his race car right here schrader wood i straightened a couple quick changes out there outside where that red truck's at that's our time stamp boom that's it right there listen there's a sense of misery that is required to be successful there's a lot of lazy racers nowadays so lazy it makes me i was 21 years old and i was up winston cup crew chief that was it you'll be all right young but we would be so hungry that we could only afford to eat one time a day that's the way we grew up now i'm getting mad cause it really me off thinking that people don't know these stories out here in the homeland of kenny wallace and we're gonna see some hometown history stuff past and present i guess as we're starting right here what do you got going on in here mitchell and logan it's good to meet you all uh well we're ready to go to florida to race at volusia for six straight nights easy on that right front geometry i'm just kidding we are getting ready to go for a ride and i'm gonna show you the wallace stomping grounds you ready to roll oh we're ready come on let's go this is arnold missouri us wallace's grew up on these back roads you know no different than them old dirt racers down in west virginia and kentucky you know when people see where you live they're like damn you know everybody's from somewhere right i mean i saw your mark martin stuff batesville arkansas so these roads are treacherous and you have to defend against them schroeder said herman why'd you put your fence so far back from the center line of the road i said schrader the reason i got that fence so far back is you got to give the drunks some runoff room sometimes they get asked why did i build right here and it was because this is literally a mile from where we grew up and you can see these roads they don't even you can hardly if anything happens you're dead in the water you know there's a lot of traffic on this sunday this is these are the roads we grew up on you know all of us wallace's rusty wallace and mike wallace you know i really like our area because you you know i'm we're in the country right now but we can go right into the arnold missouri you know they got it all there so you learn how to drive by not dying we learned this is no light we used to run the heck out of these back roads actually that was nice and normal right there we're getting ready to go on this road and you know it's like every okay i gotta tell you something see this little gully right here yeah down there okay that used to be the road if you if you kind of look to the left of me you'll see where there looked like to be a road okay so right here it snowed and rusty rusty wallace came sliding down here i'm sliding down here and rusty flipped his truck in that creek with his girlfriend in there at the time rusty says oh my god i we flipped the truck because we slid in the snow down in a creek and he got out he goes oh my god my girlfriend's down here so anyway this is it this is uh it's built up now this is not the original road the ridge road's right there i watched i watched this trailer court be built when i was a kid and i ran that creek as a kid a creek right there was so much fun i used to come over sunday morning and buy eggs from that place right there i'd buy i'd buy eggs on sunday morning so this this is where we grew up we're gonna pull in there and see if they say anything to us do you know these people yeah but they just might not know who i am oh so anyway this is really crazy you see that garage right there yeah so that garage is where it all started for us that is basically uh oh i guess you could call it a two-car garage but in reality it's a uh one-car garage so that's where rusty started uh mike the house was the house was half that size that section you see to the left my dad traded a race card to the gitamar family uh len gidemar and they added that addition on we used to back our race cars up and let the ramps down and unload the race cars there but you know it's it's sad to say because you know you really wished people knew what you went through a lot of people just skipped to the good part you know we grew up extremely with nothing and uh and we and we did it you know so but it's kind of it's kind of like it's kind of like any musical group right if you go toward gary indiana and see where the jackson five grew up you'd be like okay i won't ask any more questions right yeah that's why we do this to yes remind people in that background people are more people are more angry nowadays than they've ever been they're they're just thinking people grew up you know they've been shot in the ass with diamonds you know that's what i used on the the dale jr podcast people don't realize most of us you know grew up with with nothing so do you you want to go to uh where it all started yes we do okay so that's gonna be about 20 minutes away and we're going to uh we're going to valley park missouri it's a very commercialized town and uh i'll show you where not just our shops were but uh kenny schrader shop more land we're taking to the back roads of morocco when i was a kid i when i was a kid you know i always i guess i guess i grew up on saturday night live when saturday night live was funny it's it's no fun anymore they just got every once while it's funny but saturday night live used to be so funny you just laughed all the time so uh i always called these the back roads of morocco you know they used to make a uh a die hard sears battery if you want to run the back roads of morocco you need this battery you know these all these commercials i love them it's funny how the most random things stick with you over time like that i'm big into psychology i think a lot of people are catching on to me now if you follow me on social media i love psychology because i better understand people you know i like that piece of land right there i might see if that's for sale but you know i love i think that's why me and mark martin and dale jr are such good friends because it's like why are people so honoring what is the deal you know when we started racing we were just racing and he just did now people want to know why how come what it's like simmer down boy i tell you what when i was a kid when i was a kid this road right here i loved my bicycle and i'd go right down in that road and there was a there was an older man he sold bicycle parts and we were you know we never bought bicycles we we were like race car mechanics we so i needed a chain gave the guy like 50 cents got a used chain and i was back running man but you're right you i travel these roads and there's so many things that you know trigger my brain or anybody's brain so we're getting ready to come up this road here it's called a highway 141 and this is the there there's a new 141 and an old 141 so uh we're going to get on old now this road we're going to make a left on here this is this is the road this is the road that we took our race cars on so so we would do this right here back in the 70s so imagine we had a blue suburban with just a trailer and we'd go down this exact road right here hasn't changed at all and uh this would be our this would be our real road so we're you know it's sunday we're headed to lake hill speedway valley park missouri my dad's racing rusty wallace and mike wallace they're crew members well one time uh i think they were flat toeing my uncle gary's car even uncle gary race back then he was the vacuum cleaner guy wasn't he he owned it he owned the business my uncle gary was the matriarch now the family because my dad died and my uncle gary was the one that made us be somebody he was very smart owned a very small janitorial business but anyway his car came loose right in this area and went off into the weeds and they hardly made it to the racetrack we're like what happened race cars all beat up they were flat toeing it you know back then you'd flat toe your race cars you just you'd flat toe you know there'd be no trailer do you always answer the phone like a talk radio host oh yeah i like this watch this go ahead caller you're on the air jerry you there buddy i think he hung up on me i make a lot of youtube videos so a lot of my stuff is a lot about psychology and you know how do you stay strong and everybody comments on it because no matter what they say no matter how weird you think you are people think the same way you know there there was a there was a old saying why was dale earnhardt senior so tough because he was strong-minded you know to be a great race car driver you can't let people get you because people want to people wanna they wanna chokehold you out they don't want you better than them and they're mad if you do good so so a lot of people i mean a lot text me on the side they're afraid to like or comment on my videos because they don't want people to know the way they are because they're afraid they don't want to be judged and i don't care that's why i think this this kind of stuff is important and why we seek out to do it because like you said people think you're just born somewhere already it doesn't connect the dots in people's head that you know they could do something too because they don't know the stories behind people who get somewhere because it's not talked about if you open that door for somebody it can change their perception on everything around them and like how are you supposed to believe that you can do something if you don't know how someone else did it you get it you you get it 100 i truly believe that god put me on earth and you know listen i i'm not real religious i'm i'm a i'm a lutheran and i do pray but i do believe god put me on this earth to make people feel better about themselves people are so angry that other people make it and there's got to you know the people when i say the people you know what i mean i'm i don't have names but a majority of the people in life are upset that somebody has done something that they want to do and they they just think that well by gosh they got there because their dad had money uh well listen there are stories out there like that but those aren't that's not the majority people think the way they want to think my brother rusty said it perfect rusty's very strong and he has a brilliant mind and rusty said hearn it's sad to say but you have to remind people because they remember what they want to so people get this vision and that's what they want to think in reality you know you look at somebody like a dale earnhardt jr you know junior you know he worked at the dealership you know his dad wouldn't give me many money kelly earnhardt will tell you you know kelly or dale jr they were roughed up now dale jr cannot help who he is it's not like you can put him back in his mama right he's born so here he is and people won't break down life like this i see life like that so okay dale jr is born here he is so it's not fair to say well he was born dale junior's boy it's like okay and you know it's no different than being you know michael andretti marielle andretti's you know son it's no different than you know you know peyton manning or eli manning or any famous athlete you're born now it's up to you to do with your life as you see fit you know so you play the hand you're dealt you play the hands you're dealt i can promise you my hand on a bible about the wallaces now my mom don't like to hear this but our we grew up poor and when i mean poor i mean we grew up in raleigh missouri and woke up one morning there was no heat because somebody forgot to pay the bill and i mean it was freezing and i will never forget that as long as i live but what's aggravating is people they don't they want to skip over that they don't want to hear that because they have these they have this idea of why you are successful in life well he's successful because you know and they just fill in and they use that to justify to themselves why they're not right and i have been put on this earth to make people feel better about themselves you know let them know that that they can make it and listen it's no secret then i'm a i mean i i'm at best a d plus c minus student i'm street smart and that's why i made it it i don't care about you know being elon musk or creighton the damn internet that's not me i'm a street person i worked my ass off you know i picked up soda bottles and taped them all over my bicycle and pedaled my way up to the 7-eleven and turned them in for five cents a piece and you know i just i worked extremely hard to get where i'm at and uh now did i have help along the way hell everybody gets help along the way you know everybody you know everybody in racing will tell you that person everybody's got to have somebody but to get help so you got to show those people that you want it i i hope that i can you know through social media make people feel better about themselves let them know that you can do it you just got to try people give up so damn easy they want people to some of these racers want people to walk into their home and give them money i'm like it don't work that way you know and it's disappointing to me um but you know i'm 58 now and uh i've always had this fantasy of getting off social media and i'm resolute resolute means final i'm done so end of 2023 i will be getting all i'll get i will be getting off all social media and i'll probably keep up my youtube channel because it's fun uh but i find myself working too hard you know the reason i got all my sponsors and the reason my career has been extended is because of social media people sponsor my dirt car for my social media they don't give they don't care about that race car whatsoever they want my they want my social media you know actually jegs they love me to death and they're they're honest herman we want your social media i've always enjoyed am debate when i was a kid i'd listen to am radio because i enjoyed listening to people talk you know you you wouldn't watch all this stuff it was something exactly like you you want to see different things you know i learn stuff think about things in a new way i mean it's why we google everything right yeah i mean if you don't know how to rebuild a a transmission you you google build burp transmission you know you're looking for a trailer you get on the internet you find out where there's a trailer for sale and you drive halfway across the damn united states and pick it up yep so so social media is good whenever people address you seriously do they call you herm or is that how you just preface someone telling you something serious is there is herm like the like the whom to who like the proper version to address you when the tone is serious what's the distinction between someone calling you herm and kenny it's kind of whatever people think there's really not a rule the way i got that nickname herman the german there was a a six foot three german man named bob miller bob was the promoter of this race track i'm going to show you and bob was a good race car driver and he also owned some used car lots well i was in trouble all the time and so people would talk bad about my dad they hated us because he won all the time and i would throw snow cones at people or and uh they'd get over the announcer stand russ wallace your boy kenny wallace is in a fight in the grandstands please come get him now this was this was real now this is back in the late 60s early 70s so so bob bob called me oh herman the german because bob himself was a german and there was a medieval warrior herman the german and his wife hilda and you know he just he i guess i reminded him of herman the german so it became herman the german and then it became hermann and then when i made it to nascar earnhardt a lot of those people down there called me the herminator and i love that so right over there my brother mike had a shop over there it's crazy this was not here but what i am happy to show you is that everything is still pretty much intact except the racetrack you know so for example sometimes i'd watch some replays of me racing and uh whether it's dave moody on siriusxm radio or some of the replays so i'm friends with the media right we're like we're like personal friends like you know we know each other and i'll go back every great one so in my life and they'll go oh herman herman the german leading this race here at richmond speedway and i i get a kick out you know because it's personal you know they don't call me kenny wallace they know me so well that i do like it when the media or people call me herman because that means they're comfortable around me you know hey herm and i do i do recognize that a lot of people on social media when they try to be close to me and be my friend they'll go hey herm herm means i'm your friend kenny wallace means they're respectful but they don't know about me yet you know they're trying to figure me out that herman thing took on a life of its own i didn't come up with it my mother my mom judy she calls me ken you know my real name is kenneth lee wallace you know you go back to rusty now mike's name is michael samuel wallace but rusty's interesting because rusty's name is russell william wallace jr his real name is is russell or russ well they grew up calling him mom said they call him russia are you ssy rusty when he was a little boy and it somehow derived into rusty rusty is not even rusty's real name it's just a name it's funny i didn't know that we're gonna go across the merrimack river now this used to be a two-lane bridge right here very very junky bridge when we raced here this is the merrimack river right here so that merrimack river leads into the mississippi river and this whole town used to flood now you see all these gates we call them gates just big mounds you see there the gates yeah that used to never be here so in 1982 in 1982 we built a nascar race car it was sponsored by ramada inn so picture this rusty builds this nascar race car but he goes to the snowball derby to race and he's rusty's down at the snowball derby well for some reason me and my brother mike couldn't go to the snowball derby it was weird so anyway it floods and we come down here to lift the rusty's brand new nascar race car up in the air as high as we could people were putting putting their items on this railroad crossing hoping it wouldn't flood but anyway rusty's original very first nascar cup car got flooded got flooded in this big flood i'm going to take you to where it all started and i'm excited to do this because it will remind everybody i don't think we can go in it's sunday listen rusty wanted to be somebody and he was very clear he knew what he wanted to do you know i always say the biggest epidemic in the world is men or girls that are 32 years old you're 32 years old you still don't know what the hell you want to do with your life we were very clear we knew what we wanted to do we were going to be race car drivers because my dad was a race car driver so that was a gift to us to know what we were going to do here you got chemical companies ball field and people's homes that's why i say this is a very controversial town it's very right over there are people's homes they live there but then here's chemical companies and you know big you know we're going to make a big circle here but you'll get it see there how it says duck in market right there yeah listen to this story my brother rusty wallace had no money and somehow we figured out how to race now there's times you know we write bad checks but we knew we knew when we wrote the check that it wasn't going to be good but we knew if they'd hold that check let us go race we'll come back we'll get some money in the bank then that check will clear so we would leave this little tiny…