Herm & Schrader

Kenny Wallace sits down with AJ Allmendinger, and AJ’s career path is wilder than you’d guess.

His parents mortgaged their house three times to keep him in go-karts. He qualified dead last at Bristol and called it the happiest moment of his life. He gave his prize money back just to keep a ride. Then he won the Rolex 24, a Cup race at Watkins Glen, and the Brickyard.

AJ opens up about crying in Victory Lane at the Roval, why he sits on the plane after a bad race convinced, he’s letting everybody down, and the checkered flag he almost handed away before stealing it back for his newborn son. He also explains why he drove Michael Shank’s Rolex car for free, and why he says he lives the best life in the world and is miserable every single day.

Kenny trades his own racing money horror stories, they talk Kyle Larson, and AJ gives his honest take on the Next Gen car and NASCAR’s tech inspection fines. Originally aired 10/18/23.

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Kyle Larson needed ten straight top-ten finishes to basically lock up the Cup title. Phoenix ended that dream in a hurry: a 22nd-place qualifying run, a car that never came alive, and a wall at the end of it.

Ken Schrader’s out for a second week, so Kenny Wallace brings in Rick Mast, his old running buddy from the Busch Grand National days, and the two of them get into everything. Rick opens with the story of showing up to his daughters’ country-music birthday bash dressed as Waylon Jennings. From there, it’s Tyler Reddick ending a long drought and flipping the championship picture upside down. Seven drivers are now separated by 56 points, with Talladega, Martinsville, and Homestead left. Who will take the win is anybody’s guess.

Rick drops a theory that might offend a few people: that Larson’s points lead has been hiding a Chevy problem that’s been there all year. Kenny wonders why Larson keeps telling everyone his car isn’t good, and the guys compare Denny Hamlin’s heartbreak history to Mark Martin’s and ask whether this is finally his year.

Then it gets fun. Kenny passes along Dick Trickle’s three-step lesson in how to wreck somebody (pop him, lift him, then send him), and Rick answers with a Langley story about teaching a guy to quit beating on his bumper. They also dig into how the sport has changed, from the Saturday-night bullrings that raised them to the system kids come up through now.

This week has plenty of recapping, reminiscing, and speculating as the season comes down to the final three races.

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Michael Andretti doesn’t dodge. Kenny Wallace gets the IndyCar legend and team owner to explain how Team Penske got busted with push-to-pass on their cars, why Michael thinks they knew exactly what they had, and whether Roger himself was in on it. He also reveals the meeting where he told Roger IndyCar’s marketing needs a serious overhaul, and Roger wasn’t thrilled to hear it.

Then come the stories. Dale Earnhardt once begged Michael to drive for him, and it ended with Dale in the wall and a friendship that never recovered. Michael explains why he retired at 41 while leading the Indy 500, and what it’s like to rack up 42 wins and never win the biggest race in the world. He also gives his take on how NASCAR’s arrival at Indianapolis helped kick off the open-wheel split that nearly killed IndyCar. Kenny and Michael also get into life as a team owner heading into the month of May, with Colton Herta leading the points and Marco Andretti coming back for another run at the 500. Michael talks about growing up in a family that put four Andrettis in the same Indy 500, his dad Mario’s incredible journey from Italy, and how his father was still hitting 200 mph in the two-seater at the young age of 83.

Originally aired 4/29/24. It’s NASCAR meets IndyCar on Kenny Conversation.

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Ken Schrader is out for two weeks, so Rick Mast is once again stepping in to give his takes along with Herm. Kenny Wallace kicks things off by telling everybody about the dirt race he just won. Started ninth, took the lead with two to go, and made sure to thank himself in the winner’s interview.

 On the Cup side, Chase Briscoe wins again in a side-by-side finish with Christopher Bell, and the guys break down what almost went wrong when teammates race that close to the line. Then it’s Denny Hamlin’s turn. A stray tire lands in another team’s pit stall and drops him from 5th to last, and Kenny says it pains him to say it. Rick goes further: Denny is the Mark Martin of NASCAR. He’s a champion without the trophy, he deserves one, and the sport needs it. They get into why the little gremlins keep showing up every championship run, and why you can’t beat yourself and still win a title. Kenny and Rick debate whether Kyle Larson can string together ten straight top tens, how the stage points are changing the way these guys race, and why this playoff format might be the best NASCAR has had yet. Finally,  Ricky Stenhouse body slams Michael McDowell after the checkered flag, McDowell fires back, and everybody wants to know if NASCAR does anything about it.

Kenny and Rick also get into Corey Day’s big win in the O’Reilly Series, the Jeff Gordon comparisons, and why the guys are wary of how fast the next generation of drivers is getting to the top. Max Verstappen says the paddock has become a zoo, and Kenny sees some validity in that. Rick Mast disagrees completely: if you want to be a hero to the fans, you sign the autographs, just like Richard Petty did. There’s also a heartfelt look at the Kyle Busch memorial and how the NASCAR community comes together. And in true Herm fashion, the show ends with the worst grocery store jokes you’ve ever heard.

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Shannon Spake is one of the best to ever work a NASCAR garage, and Kenny finally got her in the chair. Kenny and Shannon go way back, from sharing a makeup room at Fox to texting each other when life got heavy.

Shannon explains how she made her name in broadcasting from humble roots in Florida. How losing her NFL gig with FOX has motivated her even more. They get into how rough the early days were, with Kyle, Kurt, Tony, and Kevin telling her exactly what they thought on live TV, and why she's grateful for it now. She talks about working pit road pregnant with twins, sitting on tires between reports in an expandable fire suit, and what it meant to be the lone woman up on stage at the Cars 3 event next to the biggest names in the sport.

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Kyle Larson finished second at Las Vegas and actually extended his championship lead to 40 points with five races to go. But the way he got there had Schrader taking a closer look at one of Larson’s biggest risks of the day.

The guys break down Larson’s wild finish, including the move that sent him into the wall and could have changed the points picture if it didn’t work out. Larson still came away with a runner-up finish and a bigger championship lead, but Schrader explains why he thought the move was a pretty low-percentage play. Also, NASCAR went green about an hour after Chiefs-Raiders kicked off, and the grandstands looked like it, so is NASCAR losing its own Sunday to the NFL? Herm and Schrader get into it, including the advice his old FOX boss gave NASCAR and why Herm thinks "know your place" is the whole answer.

Then things get even more interesting with Brad Keselowski’s exit from RFK. Why would a 42-year-old former champion be asked to step away from driving when he clearly still wants to race? Kenny and Kenny get into what might be behind the move, what happens to the No. 6 and why silly season is already getting interesting.

They also talk about Larson’s thoughts on stage racing, Denny Hamlin’s rough day, Chase Elliott somehow not knowing about the Keselowski news until he got to Vegas, and why that 40-point lead might not be as comfortable as it sounds with five races still left.

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Mark Martin stops by Kenny Conversation to talk about his new book, Never Lift, and the stories in it are wilder than you'd expect.

We'll start with the one Kenny couldn't wait to hear. Mark's dad, Julian, loses his cool after a big race in Springfield, Missouri, when a brand-new ignition quits with the win on the line. Nobody says a word all the way to Denny's. Then comes the crowbar. Then comes the pole in the parking lot. Then comes the coil’s ultimate demise. Trust us, you'll want to hear the rest of this one.

From there, Mark and Kenny go deep. They get into the highs and lows of his career, including at a win at Bristol two weeks after losing his dad. Mark explains why he never tried to out-drive Larry Phillips or Dale Earnhardt and just made his car better, and how he and Rusty Wallace shared setups for years without a single problem. He talks about what made Al Unser Jr. and Juan Pablo Montoya so good, why Sebastien Bourdais impressed him in IROC, and how he remembers every spring and stagger number from races decades ago.

Then it's modern NASCAR. Mark says why he stuck his neck out on the points system and why he thinks the current format is a fair compromise. He also gives his honest take on stage racing, the Hocevar and Blaney fight, and what happened to Corey Day at Martinsville.

Also, Mark and Kenny go over the book tour so far, including the packed signing and what's coming up at the Oktoberfest races in La Crosse.

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Kenny Wallace went to Disney, came home to a Martinsville mess, and has been fired up ever since.

This week, Herm and Schrader start with what happened after the checkered flag at Martinsville and the fights that went down. Then it's on to Kansas, where Kyle Larson ran away with it and the guys argue about the points picture with six races left. They also ask whether the stage points might be the best system NASCAR has ever had. Then comes the question that split the room: was it a good race, and should NASCAR quit comparing itself to every other sport?

A fan question from the YouTube comments sends them back to the Earnhardt days: why did nobody ever wreck the guy? Herm and Schrader have some thoughts on the pecking order and respecting the field.

Then it's the Blaney and Hocevar fallout from Bristol, Hailie Deegan's win, and a Herm rant about ARCA that Schrader wasn't about to get in front of. They close with a dirt racing roundup, Bobby Pierce love, a few jokes, and Schrader's plan for a weekend race that was canceled on him. Nobody on this show was ever accused of staying on topic.

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She's 22, she drives a 12,000-horsepower Top Fuel dragster for Ron Capps, and she still remembers exactly what it felt like the day her dad found out — before she did. Kenny sits down with NHRA rising star Maddi Gordon to talk about the wildest way anyone's ever gotten offered a ride (spoiler: she was on a motorcycle when she found out), the double-family-win day that changed everything, and fangirling over Sophie Cunningham backstage at NASCAR.

But there's way more to Maddi than the win light. She started a fabrication company with her sister when she was 15 — before she even knew she had to pay taxes on it. She was welding trailers at 12. She's given up wakeboarding, snow skiing, and street motorcycles because she's not risking an injury that could take her out of the car. And when she's not strapped into a dragster, she's still working on the family business — a custom cabinet shop her grandparents started over 50 years ago. Three generations of racing, a dad who's an Alcohol Funny Car champion himself, a sister who builds the engines and does the taxes, and a driver who says racing isn't just what she does — it's what she was put on this earth to do. Full send, zero fear, and an absolute joy to talk to. This one's a ride.

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Rick Mast sits in for Herm this week, and he and Ken Schrader waste no time getting into it. The Blaney-Hocevar fight at Bristol gets the full breakdown — who really screwed up, why Rick says the real mistake happened before a punch was ever thrown, and what it means that fans can't get enough of Hocevar while the garage can't stand him. They’re not pulling any punches when it comes to their thoughts on what needs to happen with the rising star and the drivers who have to put up with him.

From there the guys get into Jesse Love beating himself up over a mistake, and why they say he needs to let it go, and where Logano's playoff run stacks up. They’re also getting into Denny Hamlin’s Chase performance so far and what the regular-season champ needs to do in the next seven races to win. There’s also the Kyle Busch tribute that Ty Gibbs made in Bristol and why the guys say despite previous issues with Gibbs’s behavior, they’re seeing a change for the better for the young racer.  They also get into the sobering reality of racing, the fact that crashes do happen and how life changing they can be.

Finally, they end the show on a lighter note with some jokes – courtesy of Rodney Dangerfield. This week’s episode of Herm and Schrader has it all – except for Herm.

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