Rusty and Kenny Wallace's Former Busch Series NASCAR Shop Tour! (Showing Up Unannounced)

These people right here are like, "I'm going into my shop." I know it was my shop before it was theirs. You want to go in there? Yeah. Yeah. Let's go in. And it was that moment we sat on the steps and he taught me right there used to be Wallace Racing on that corner. Right there. We built that shop right here. This one? Yeah. Let's get out and stop right here. I'll explain everything to you. I'm Kenny Wallace. Really? My big brother Rusty loved me so much when I moved out of St. Louis. Now you go back 1984. I'm living here and I'm I'm a crew chief on the Levi Garrett team for Joe Rutman. That shop is gone, but it was right up there at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. I moved back to St. Louis and I become a race car driver in 1986 in ASA, the American Speed Association, 86, 87,88. I get a call from my brother Rusty. Herman, do you want to come back south? That's what we called, you know, the New Yorkers, everybody in the Midwest. You want to go south and be NASCAR? 1989, we rent David if's shop in Lake Wy, South Carolina, 1989. And I win I win the Bush Grand National Rookie of the Year over Jeff Burton. 89. Now, at the end of ' 89, Rusty said, "Okay, I'm going to build that building." My brother Rusty Wallace built that building for me. So when I tell everybody how much I love my brother and I'll never be able to repay him, that's why. So 90 the car is still kind of green and white, but 91 we turned that Cox Tree lumber car to black with daylow 36 numbers. Now we built the building at that time. This is a state-of-the-art building. It's brand new. I mean we don't got a we don't have a 1- in metal surface plate, but we got these legendary concrete people. They come in and they pour this as level as they can, you know, floating concrete. And then later on it got enclosed because come on, come on into your shop. These people right here are like, I'm going into my shop. I know it was my shop before it was theirs. We go down there and tell them that. Yeah. Get out of my old shop. So, um, then I end up making it on my own and Rusty sells this shop to Felix Sabatis. Okay. And uh actually there's a little more to the story, but in uh 8991 92 I drive the Dirt Devil car out of here. Now I win the Martinsville race in the Dirt Devil Bush Grand National car out of this shop. Uh then time goes on and Felix ends up selling the team to go a legendary old cup owner. Forgot. But anyway, uh and then they enclosed it. We always had a top on it out. So that overhang that was open. We always had an overhang. We always had an overhang, but then they they closed it in. I think there's a picture of the Cox Street lumber box truck and trailer out there with that open area behind it. This shop was a happy time for me. We did we we did good out of this shop. And then of course, as you already know, right across the street here was the great Alan Quick. You know, and I know you've already known about this, but Allan built that building himself. And then Paul Andrews who grew up in St. Louis with us. Uh the story with that goes uh Allan Quicky goes to my brother Rusty at the Waldorf Histori for one of the banquetss and goes, "Hey Rusty, do you know anybody that can run my race team?" And Alan Quicky says, "Rusty, I need to be able to walk out of my business, you know, and have somebody do it all." And my brother Rust, he looked at Allan Quicky and said, "I only know one guy that can build the race car from the ground up. Set it up the way you want it and you'll win." And it was Paul Andrews. And at the time, Paul was down in Gonzalez, Louisiana because Nikki Prejan took over Rusty's ASA short track stuff. And Paul moved down there. So when Rusty went from ASA to NASCAR, Paul got left behind, so to speak, but not really. Alan Kwicki called Paul Andrews and the rest is history. They win the championship and then of course sadly that's another story. We lose we lose Allen. But there are so many stories in life at all these shops around here. But those were the days, you know, the the late 80s and 90s, uh, honestly, horribly put, sadly put, when Nhard got killed, it all ended. It's kind of sad. It's like the music stopped. But, you know, you you never think one man, you know, controls a whole sport, but it is sad to say this sport has never recovered since Nhard died. He was a god. He was he was every man wanted to be Nhard. Uh hell, my brother Rusty wanted to be Earnhard if truth is told. But um yeah, that that building there was super nice, you know, we probably had like I think we had three or four Bush Cran National cars and that was big. I think we had five employees and that was big. And I wasn't spoiled because I worked on the cars. I was a fabricator back in the Bush Grand National days. I was a fabricator. I was a mechanic and then I got in the car and drove it too. That's the way those days were. This building right here has a lot of history and now it's just an old body shop. Just people making a living out of it. But is that what it is? A body shop? I think it is. I don't know. Estimate a body shop. You pull up there and they come out and estimate how much damage. You know, it's crazy. Almost probably 80% of these former race team buildings are body shops now. I think suited for. Yeah, they had body shops in them, you know, cuz I mean we listen, you know, the body shop was the very last door on the right and of course our body shop was in the the building itself and it was it it was suited, you know, had a drain in it. Yeah. So that makes sense. Body shop because a lot of the NASCAR shops are what you would call tainted meaning chemicals body shop, you know. So yeah. Yeah. You would you would want a NASCAR building. There was a lady named Pat Lair. Pat Lair was a state-of-the-art uh decorator and she decorated for Nhard. And then Nhard told Rusty, and I'm sure Pat's still doing good. Look her up. Pat Lair. She came in here. We had green carpeting. We had gold and dark wood. And you know, that stuff's still in my my memory. I wonder if it still looks like that in there. Yeah. You want to go in there? Yeah. Yeah, let's go in. We could leave the truck here, walk down there or pull down. All right, let's just walk in live. All right, we'll ask for forgiveness. Let's ask for forgiveness. Maybe we'll get lucky and get two shop tours out of this. This is a big time war for me. When was the last time you walked into this building? Well, this is also a bad memory, too, because this is the garage that Felix Sabatis fired me from. So, this was when I in 93 when I was driving the Dirt Devil car in Cup, my very first. We were running out of the shop and Felix fired me. So, this shop is a mixed bag of happiness and sad for me. I've had dreams about this place. The brick's still really nice. Shrub shrubbery was a big deal back then. Everybody had shrubbery. Oh yeah, it's different. Oh my god. It is. You don't even know. So, my name is Kenny Wallace. We originally We originally built this building. Nice to meet you. I'm sorry to intrude. This is a good friend of mine. This is the Stapleton YouTube channel. They do a lot of history. Awesome. I think we watch some of your videos. You do all of the local garages and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So, what would happen is what would happen is we'd come in here and that was the parts room. So, that wall was never there. And there was a beautiful, this was all green carpeting. That was Rusty's office. Rusty's Rusty's 1989 Winston Cup trophy sat right behind his desk between those two windows. See where that Gerber collision glass is? Yeah. Rusty's massive Winston Cup championship trophy sat right there behind his desk. That was Rusty's office. This was just stuff. This is where the secretary sat. Dick Pacers, one of Rusty's business partners. Still to this day, his daughter worked here. This is here, but that really would have been over that way. And there it is. What's going on? My name's Kenny Wallace. I know Kenny. We built this building. That's right. This is crazy. Hey, Kenny. Wow. Bernie right there. Hey, Bernie. Bernie. Good to see you. Kenny Wallace, right? He's here to visit us. He was in this building a while ago. I tell you what, it's it don't look bad. That's right. You still got it. We try to keep it up. It It doesn't look bad. Yeah, we I got I got to tell you about that right there. So, uh How are you? I'm Kenny Laws. Oh, yeah. I got to tell you, this is a big deal. So, before we had 1 in be before we had 1 in uh level metal plates to jig our cars on, this was a big deal. This this was Rusty Wallace's idea. This was our setup. This is where we put the race cars. And at the time, this was the most level we could get any concrete person in the United States. Mhm. It didn't turn out right. And Rusty made them chop it all out. It was a disaster. Yeah. And we had it reoured and at that time that was thought as the most level piece of ground around. Yeah. Yeah. And that was a big deal. Yeah. Then they had the metal plate back there. Then that was that was our fabrication. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I remember we sold that plate. I'll be down. Yeah. So then that's where we built the cars. This is where they were right here. That room right there is what we called our transmission and gear room, you know, because we had the 9-in Ford rear ends. And we must have had 30 gears from Daytona all the way to Hickory, you know. Wow. 289, 293. You go to Hickory, you're running a 6 something. My toolbox that I have in my shop right now sat right there. Wow. Right here. I thought I had a lot of right here. This is where my toolbox was all the time. Mine was right here. And I And I got to tell you another story. Come here. You'll love this story. This one's unbelievable. Let me see if the steps are still there. No. No, they're gone. Okay. Well, you can see the line. So, yeah, we had to close that off. Okay. So, this was this was the set of steps right here. So, um, this is where we put the bodies on the car. Then our body shop is through there. So, my brother Rusty gets into Daryl Walrip in the All-Star race and spins him out and Daryl Walrip says, "You can choke on that $200,000." So, that was a time in life when Rusty was the good guy. and coming to the checkered flag. My brother Rusty lost spins Daryl out and the and the crew starts fighting, right? Rusty goes from wearing the white hat to everybody hated my brother. It it devastated him. Rusty comes here and I'm back here working and it's like 6:00 at night and everybody left. And me and Rusty sit on these steps, me and Rusty Wallace, my brother. And he goes, "Come here, Herm." And we sit down and he said, "My brother says this to me and Rut Ste, he's watching this." He goes, "You know what, Herman?" Herman's my nickname. He said, ' Don't change. He said, "Everybody likes you." He says, "I can piss off people way easier than you can, and now I'm the bad guy." So Rusty went from everybody loved Rusty Mhm. And in one moment, one corner spun Daryl Walter about and for some reason everybody started hating Rusty. And it was that moment we sat on the steps and he taught me Rusty said just stay you. Stay Kenny Wallace. Don't change. And I'll never forget that as long as I live right there. Back in the day to uh Pontiac sponsored us. So you use the real body of the car. So, you know, Pontiac sent you the hood, the roof, the deck, and we would put all that metal up there. You like if we went to build a new car, we needed the hood, the roof, you know, all that. So, up there's where all that went. Well, later on, that became a little parts room. And and my crew chief, Steve Bird, that's where that's where Birdie, that's where Birdie called the whole team in. And he looked at all of us and he he started he was crying. Birdie, I'm sorry, buddy. and he said, "I have emphyma." But but Birdie smoked a lot. Birdie's doing good. He's living in Florida now. But that office right there is where Steve Bird, the great crew chief that took Rob Moroso to all his wins and made Randy Loy uh you know, one of the 75 greatest drivers. That crew chief, Steve Bird, he was my crew chief and took me to my wins. That office right there is where he told us he had empa. Wow. A lot of memories in here. When did that get added on? So, we always had an overhang. This channel and doing these videos is our full-time job. It's a lot of work and we'd like it to grow. If you're enjoying this stuff, it would cost absolutely nothing for you to help us by hitting the thumbs up button. So, when we sold it to Felix Sabatus and and created the the number 40 Dirt Devil cup car, it was housed out of here. But then Felix sold this place to it's a legendary name, great uh he ended up starting the NASCAR race day planes. Uh Brooks, but it was pretty cool watching, you know, back in the day. This was one of the state-of-the-art NASCAR shops. Now it's an old beat body shop. Diamond Ridge had it for a while, right? I think that was the last one that was in here. Those are Diamond Ridge colors. Yeah, these colors are Diamond Ridge colors. Gary Beal, I think that was him, but it was Diamond Ridge Motorsports when we came in here. You know what I was paint? This was already like that. Oh, it was like this. Oh, wow. What year was that? Yeah, you did. Good job. What year did we buy this place? 2000 2002, something like that. I'm heading back to St. Louis. My flight leaves later. So, I'm really glad I came here because this shop is in a lot of my dreams, you know. A lot of memories. A lot of memories. Yeah. A lot of memories here. Out of this shop was the very first Cup car I ever drove in my life. And an insurance man, forgot his name, but anyway, we built that cup car and I went to North Wilsboro for the Cup race and I'm running good. I'm running like top 10. Dave Allison in the 28 Texas Havlin car. We're going down into one and he loses his brakes and Davey's good friend of mine and Davey just knocked the ever living hell out of me and spun me out and wrecked me, put me out of the race. Uh, but that car was built here. So, my very first Cup car I ever drove, I think it was 99, number 99, was out of here. Yeah. Fabric built the cars here. Storage up there. Clean stuff was here. Setup. And there's pictures out front. I got to show you this. I went to the front the grass up here. I took a putty knife and I popped Wallace Racing off the sign. And it wasn't too easy to do, but I was able to do it. See that? See those word Wallace Racing? Those exact letters were on a sign right out here. Oh, really? Yep. And And I took them and I kept them forever and I hung them up in my race shop. Yeah. Those right there. I wondered where that came from. Right here. That's crazy. Well, this was more therapeutic for me. Thank you. Thank you guys for letting me walk in here. No problem. Absolutely. Pretty cool. Yeah. Little history and stuff around here. Pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. All It's crazy cuz all the NASCAR shops are now body shops. Still got old. What's the space over here? Quicky down there. It's just legendary. Bobby Allison's up here. Yeah. Nick, is now they're running Spire over here. Spire Motorsports out of Quicky's shop right here. Good. That's good to see that. What about Allison's shop up in the cult? I'm not sure. There's still a team back there, but I'm not real sure who it is. I'll be Rev Racing, I believe. Rev. Oh, yeah. I'm not sure who they are. Well, we better get going. My plane leaves at 251 and we still got more more to do. Y'all are really nice. Thank you. Thank you. All right, guys. Have a good week. All right. That's nuts. It's still there. That is [ __ ] That is incredible. Do you want to take a picture with the building? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. This this place is like, like I said, good and bad for me. Walking around with you makes makes my job a lot easier. Normally takes me a lot of phone calls and haggling around getting there. You're just like, let's just walk in. Let's let's go up here and take it. I mean, you know, it's it's a deal where I'm the old man now. I'm the teacher, right? When I was here, I was 29 years old. You know, actually younger. No, I tell you what, I was 26 years old when I was here. So, stop and think about it. I was here 26 years old and now I'll be 60 in August. You were my age, right? And I was young. You couldn't wear me out. We going to take a picture? Yeah. Yeah. And now you can just walk in there. It's my building first. Get out of my damn Get out of my damn building. You know what was great though? What was great, and I mean this humbly, they showed me respect. They're like They were glad to have you. We heard about that. We heard about that. Yeah. Right here. Yep. This is it. I'll be darn. Wow. 1994 in my career. Filar racing. The team is out of Nashville, Tennessee. You want to see part two of this, head on over to the channel page and watch the Kenny Wallace visits Filar Racing building. We posted it before this one, so it's live