Episode 23 - Derek Pernesiglio

Episode 23 – Derek Pernesiglio

Motorsports Storyteller | FloRacing Pit Reporter | Media for Kevin Powell Motorsports

In Episode 23, Brad sits down with Derek Pernesiglio, a longtime presence in grassroots short track racing and one of the sport’s most underrated storytellers. Currently working full-time in the media department for Kevin Powell Motorsportsand his dealerships, Derek also serves as a pit reporter for FloRacing, helping bring the action and personalities of the sport to fans everywhere.

Much like the stories he helps tell, Derek’s own journey has been built quietly over years of dedication, hard work, and passion for racing. Brad and Derek dive into his path through motorsports media, what it takes to capture authentic stories at the grassroots level, and the perspective gained from being both behind the camera and in the pits.

For someone who’s spent years telling everyone else’s story, this episode flips the script — and shines a light on one of the people helping keep short track racing alive.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, I'm Bad Brad and welcome to another episode of Driving Fast and Taking Chances. Today I've got with me Derek. We just did this. I've always just called him Derek P, so but um man, today's episode is brought to you in part by MicroArmor, the world's fastest Greece. Yes, we will fight you to the death. It lasts longer. It absolutely puts Babbitt back in, makes your stuff go faster. It's the world's fastest race in Greece. If anybody wants to fight me, see me after the show, we'll meet you in the parking lot. Check them out. MicroArmor.com. Our buddy Shane White. Thanks for all of his support here of the show.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Derek, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. This was a real treat. Uh you contacted me and reached out to me last week, and I I thought you wanted uh our dream.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

I thought I wanted Brandon, which which I'm gonna get Brandon on here. So if Brandon was feeling let down, tell Brandon not to feel let down. It just wasn't his turn yet. But no, I wanted to talk to you because folks in the industry have seen this face, they know the name, they've seen you in so many places, but I don't know that the world knows where you have landed. And I wanted to make sure everybody knew where Derek was at.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Well, right now I'm currently working for Kevin Powell Speed Motorsports. I'm the PR and media director over there. Uh I really love it over there. They welcome me in there with open arms. Kevin is quite possibly the best boss I've ever had. He's a great guy. Yeah, he's a great guy. You know, the the first day that he hired me, you know, one of the things that really caught me was when he said, You don't work for me, you work with me. And and that was huge with me. Um the cool part is is that you know he knew my talents, so he he was comfortable enough to just let me come in and do my thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

And that's really what I've started to do. I I just we revamped all of his platforms, uh, all of his social platforms, and and just um I just took my video production skills uh and television production skills over the years and migrated over to uh you know social media type of media work. Um the uh it's a lot of fun, it's a lot of ch it's challenging sometimes because you have to um you have to be creative every day. You have to come up with something new or see what's trending. Uh uh, like one of the guys in the shop said to me the other day, he goes, Boy, he goes, You're pretty good at making chicken salad. You gotta do that some days. Well, I came from a career in that. Uh I'm you know, when I worked for NASCAR.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Talk about and we'll we we I definitely want to get to your NASCAR. So talk about early Derek. What even got you interested in this line of work, this lifestyle, this profession?

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Uh, this type of work and life, well, I I've always loved two things as a kid was television and racing. And it always but both how they were made fascinated me. So one of the biggest things that caught me was that 1979 Daytona 500. Fine fight, yeah. You know, the the very first one. Not just because of the fight, but because I was watching race cars on TV. Like, and if you grew up in the 70s, it didn't happen very often. You had Y World of Sports that would maybe have a portion of a race on every once in a while.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

The agony of defeat, the thrill of the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, Jim McKay with the all the yellow blazers and everything.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Yeah, I grew up on that. So to see that racing on television for the first time, it was like, wow, this is awesome. And then Thursday Night Thunder came out, you know, about a decade later, which was midget racing, and that was what my family had raced for years. My father's been a car owner in uh the Northeastern Midget Association since I could walk. So um for me to see the types of cars that I grew up with that my dad owns right now on TV live every Thursday night, it was just so huge. And just to watch the Larry and Gary show and Dave Despain on Pit Road and just to see, like you know, my type of racing out there for the masses, it was just for me, it was huge. And I wanted to do that. That's you know, I if if I wasn't gonna make it as a race car driver, because I drove too before doing television or anything, I if I wasn't gonna make it as a driver, that's how I wanted to, you know, the the route that I wanted to go. But uh when you're a young kid, the first plan was to try to make it as a driver. You want to be a race car driver?

SPEAKER_00 4:27

We all did, yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Like, excuse me, like I I've said, uh, being up in the announcer's booth is the second best seat in the house. Yeah you know, the the the best seats right behind the the wheel of that car. Uh it really is. Um, but yeah, that's uh where it all started for me, the the uh the inspiration for me.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

And then around walk us through the progression, like you so you announced some up north first, is that correct? Yeah. You announced at some racetracks, and then that kind of spiraled, and then, well, we we got you in the south now. But where where did it start? Where's the first place you picked up a microphone? You got an opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

The first place was actually at a little tenth of a mile go-kart track on Long Island called Medford Raceway. Actually, it started off as Mid Island Speedway, and then it uh changed names to Medford Raceway because it was in Medford, New York. But uh I was it started off as just go-kart racing there because I had raced go-karts on Long Island as a teenager, but there was only road course racing at the time. There was no oval track racing. So when this oval track finally came around, it was like, oh, cool. But by then my go-kart stuff was already gone and I was racing Pro 4 modifies and midgets up north. So I just thought it was cool to just see, you know, go-kart racing uh on a Friday night because it was a lot of the kids of the modified and late model drivers with Riverhead. Right, it was their kids. They would race on Friday night, and then the adults would race on Saturday night at Riverhead.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

And you'd probably grown up with a lot of them. I probably knew Freddie Kraft is one of those. Oh, there you go.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

He and I grew up many nights over at Medford Raceway doing the go-kart stuff. Yeah, you know, George Bruin Hosel III, Justin Monsignor. I remember Justin when he was knee high running Junior One. You know, I announced that I announced some of his races. And as a matter of fact, that uh there's a kid by the name of Jeffrey Rogers that has some of the video on his on his Facebook pages of Justin as a little kid and me announcing his races.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

That's pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

But uh that was where I first picked up a mic right there because the regular announcer quit one night. He just walked out of the booth. And my brother nudged me. He was like, You can do that. He was like, You you know how to talk to people at the racetrack. He says, uh, I've seen you in the pits before. Give it a shot. And I walked up to the promoter and I said, You know, I I could I've never announced before, but I could give it a try. And he asked, he said, Can you be here every week? Uh and uh it just started from there. And I started announcing. The thing with Medford was it was a tenth of a mile go-kar track.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Super speed lap.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Yeah, well, actually, it was tiny, yeah. So you're you're turning sub nine second laps there, so you have to bang out a sentence quickly.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

I was gonna say, and were you calling play by play? Yeah, you're doing play. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

You have to bang out a sentence quickly. So that is where my high energy uh style has always come, has really been deep rooted in.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

It had to almost be like an auction.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

It was. You had to you had to be quick, you had to be concise and and get the point across in as few words as possible sometimes. But there were times where you were just blah blah blah blah blah blah, you know, talking lap after lap after lap because there was always something happening.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Trick question. Did you get paid? Oh, yeah. Oh, right, right on, man. You figured out how to monetize it early. That's great.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Yeah, no, I got paid. We got paid everywhere. It wasn't much. I think I got like 40 or 50 bucks.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

But I mean, when you were a kid, that's big money.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think I was 15 or 16 years old at the time. Yeah. Um, uh, and still having fun doing that. And then it evolved actually because uh um, you know, I would I would announce the go-kart races, then go racing with my dad. And you know, my dad would tell the the Nima family because everybody knew everyone that I was announcing races, and and you know, he was Derek was the kid was pretty good, you know. You hear my old man, the kid was pretty good. So one night the uh president of the club, they were gonna be short an announcer, and they called my dad and they said, Can Derek like co-announced uh Wen Kelly Bryant Caruso Memorial at Seacon? And I said, Yeah, okay, sure.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

And again, all people that you knew.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

So Right, it was all people that I knew, and and it and it evolved, you know, to becoming the announcer for the Northeastern Midget Association because I knew all those guys growing up. Sure. So it was not like I had to do a ton of homework on everybody because I knew everything.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

You had the backstory, you knew the cars, you knew the drivers. I think that's what makes announcers great is when you dig in, you get your heels in, and your heels were already there.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

So and everyone in that pit area knew me from a little kid. Yeah, you know, so they saw me grow up in the club too. So it was a natural fit to be able to announce these races uh for Nima. And the cool part was is being one of those traveling announcers, you got to go to Starr, Hudson, Lee, Waterford, Thompson, Stafford, like you got to bounce all over, and I got to announce at these different tracks. So my voice got heard in a lot of different places rather than just one weekly track every week. So that was another way that I also got my name out there, too. Unintentionally, really. It just happened from traveling around with the series. And then around 1997, my brother was racing Pro Four Modifieds at Thompson Speedway in Connecticut. Excuse me. He told Ricky Summers, who was the president of the club, son of George Summers, Modified Legend, that hey, you know, my brother announces races, blah, blah, blah. Why don't you, you know, you're you're a club like Nima is. Uh, you know, why don't you put my brother up in the booth? So Thursday nights they would have the TNT, Thursday night Thompson Thunder, yeah, and the Pro Fours would be one of the divisions, and I was the announcer for the Pro Fours, and I would go up in the booth at Thompson, and that is where I first met Ben Dodge, Russ Dowd, and these guys were like, you know, legends. Legends. They're the Jedi masters of renouncing races, too. And they liked me, they took me under their wing, they liked that the way that I announced, and then I kind of uh uh wiggled my way into doing some other local divisions, and then one time I said, Hey, do you guys need a reporter for some of your races down on Pitt Road?

SPEAKER_00 10:22

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SPEAKER_01 10:45

I said, hey, do you guys need a reporter for some of your races down on Pit Road? And the very first race I reported on Pit Road was excuse me, a um Bush Grand National North Division race.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Bush North was hot back in the day.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

It was Bush North, yep. Uh yeah, I remember it vividly too. Uh Brad Leighton won the race. I was on Pit Road for the first time, and that was my first experience on Pit Road. And I was a young kid, and uh man, I could run. You know, that was the biggest thing. I could run from one end of the pit road to the other and bang out a report left and right, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. You know, and uh the the the guys up in the booth, Ben, Russ, they were like, Man, that was great. That was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

You know, that's a good point. I never saw Benny Parsons run up and down Pit Road. Carry on, I'm sorry, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Uh but yeah, getting back to the the back home, uh they just they I guess they enjoyed my work. And after a while, um they wanted me to come back to do the modified tour races and the Bush North races, and I would come back and do those races along with the the midgets or the the Pro 4 modified that were there. And it was also around that time where a local television up that way was doing a Pro 4 Modified race from Seacon. They asked me to come in and be the color commentary. Uh I did the race with them. The producer thought I did great. He was like, Man, you should really think about a career in this. So I went home, I guess like that weekend or the weekend after that, and talked to my my mom, and I said, I think I want to try going back to college to learn broadcasting.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

I know.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

And yeah, I quit my job at a car dealership and re-enrolled, uh re-enlisted or rolled back again, I guess you'd say.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

And so you went to school and got a broadcast degree. Where'd you go? I went to New England Institute of Technology. Ironically enough, I went to Connecticut School of Broadcasting.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Did you really? How funny is that, huh? Holy cow. I did not know that. Yeah. But yeah, that's uh that's where I went. Lived outside of Providence, Rhode Island. Yeah. So now that I had moved up that way, excuse me. Now that I had moved uh up that way, I was closer to Thompson. I was closer to C Con. Right there, yeah. Right. So star all of them. Right. So those those tracks knew me. They knew I was coming up that way. So I was able to get a job as the announcer at CC Conc alongside Kevin Boucher, who is one of the best in the business, too. He is incredibly talented and really one of the best live guys, really, when he is when he is on, he's fantastic. And um uh uh Thompson was only 45 minutes from the school, and Stafford was maybe an hour and 10. So their Thursday nights I'd get out of my Thursdays, I'd get out of my classes, and I'd go over and announce at Thompson for their regular Thursday night shows. Friday I would drive over to Stafford, I'd be an intern and an announcer over there on Friday nights. Saturday I would announce at C Conc and then drive my father's race car wherever they were running on Sundays for their two-day shows. So I was going to school learning television, driving a race car and announcing races and making a living at it. It was when did you sleep? It wasn't often, that's that's for sure. But um, when you're you know in your early 20s, it doesn't matter, man.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

You know, it's you're just running on speed and energy and and excitement. So at that time, uh, you know, looking back, I was like, man, that was one of the greatest times of my life. But you don't realize it because you're caught up in the moment right then. You just don't realize it. You look back at it now and you're like, man, what I wouldn't give to be back in there right now, just to do that one more time.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Yeah, we all we all sit back and you know wonder if I if I knew then what I know now.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Boy, it would be the United States of Derek, not America. You know what I mean? You'd own the whole place right now for sure.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

So it would. Uh and it really is the it's been an it's been an incredible career for me. It really has. I I've been very blessed. Uh I I wanted to I I I had dreams of being that pit reporter on Sundays uh for the Cup Series races, but they they you have to have that certain quality or factor that they want. Uh and I don't think that I had it. But I can I can say with pride that I I you know I accomplished my goals. I got to work on television for major networks.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

So how did you how did you get to the south? So you told us about uh at home. How did you get down here? How did you wind up in North Carolina?

SPEAKER_01 15:10

I wound up uh down here. It was funny. I was in my last year of school, um, and uh I was announcing at Thompson. Matt Dilner uh was already living down here. He made a trip up north just to see some races, and Matt had no and I have known each other since we were kids. Our family sat together in the grandstands at Isle Speedway. Uh everybody knows the story. I'm sure Matt said it a bunch of times. But yeah, um he came up to visit me in the booth and he was listening to me announce, and I told him that I was doing television and uh uh doing, you know, going to school for television. And he said, you know, send me a tape of some things that you've made. And I did. He showed them to his bosses at race day, the original race day. Remember the original race day was on TNN with Rick Benjamin hosting it before that it was Pat Patterson, yeah, you know, Ralph Shaheen, I think, was the final uh uh host of the show. But um he sent it to his bosses and showed it to them, and they were looking for a production assistant. They needed someone to do that knew racing. So Matt dropped my name to Wheeler Television, which is Patty Wheeler, Humpy Wheeler's daughter. Okay, I never never never put that together. Yeah, and um I I would say a month before my graduation from college, I got the job working for race day. So I bypassed my college graduation ceremony, you know, to go chase my dream down south. So we loaded up a uh you know, a Penske uh truck uh and put my car on a on a tow dolly on the back of it, you know, driving to 1989 Chevy Celebrity.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Killing it, man, because you're gonna be a celebrity. That was perfect.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

But yeah, we uh we drove from uh we drove from uh Providence, stopped to see my family in New York, and then from there headed down to Charlotte. But here's the the funny interesting story is that my first day on the job was covering Dale Earnhardt's death because I drove down here with my dad on February 18th, 2001. Great. Yeah, listening to the Daytona 500 on the radio, just listening to the race and how it's going. And I remember saying to my old man, you know what, Dad? One day I said, I'm gonna interview Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty. I uh you know, and he smiled, he says, Good, I I hope you do, kid. Listen to the race, heard the wreck at the end of the race. Um, but I what I thought was strange is that they never they didn't touch back on it, you know, they didn't follow up on it. Right. And they always do. Right. And I was just like, that was weird, you know, they didn't touch back up on the wreck. They went off the air, didn't think nothing of it. We were about 45 minutes outside of Matt Dilmer's place. Uh get to Matt's place, knock on the door, and I he opens the door and his face was ash. He it was just pale white. And I was just like, What's wrong? And he said, Adele didn't make it through the wreck. And at 7 a.m. the next morning, I'm setting up a camera in front of DEI. The funniest thing too is and I I tell people this all the time, is that there were thousands of people around by the time nine o'clock rolled around, there were thousands of people standing around. Yeah, there were just people gathering coming in. But the one thing that I'll always remember above everything, with all of those people there, it was silent. You could hear a pin drop. Like I that was one of the the eeriest things was how silent it was. It was just it was crazy.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Gracious, man. I can't imagine that being my first day on any job. I mean, honestly, we're about to bury one of our heroes, you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Man, it the funny thing is too, is like you stand in there after a while and you look around and you see the signs that people are holding up, and there's this little girl that had a sign that said, Are there any left turns on the way to heaven? And the flowers, and like you couldn't, I can still feel my arm. I'm getting chills right now just talking about it. You're giving me chills talking about it. I can still like remember getting choked up standing there, you know, because there was if you've ever seen the front of DEI, there's a lot of mirrored glass. Yeah, so you're sitting there wondering how many people are on that other side of that glass looking out at us.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Yeah, it was wild. Wow, man, that's rough. Well, my my follow-up to that would be did you ever get a chance to interview Richard Petty?

SPEAKER_01 19:26

I have not, but I've met him uh a bunch of times walking in the halls at NASCAR.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

There's a possibility that uh we actually had a guest on our podcast who is extremely good friends with Richard Petty. I might be able to get you that interview. That'd be great. Uh just to say that you did it. That way you could, you know, hey Pop, I finally got I finally got the other half. So there you go.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Well, if I get my podcast fired back up, there you go. Yeah, absolutely. I would love to have the king on. Oh my god. Wouldn't that be awesome? Man, that would be that'd be like getting Elvis on the show.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

It would be pretty cool, wouldn't it? It would be if man, if we could get Richard Petty to do both of them the same day, because you guys were close and get him to actually wear a nudie suit like Elvis with the Charlie One Horse hat, could you imagine? It'd be rich. It'd be rich. So so you worked, you work with Speed Channel down here.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

Um you did do you did natural too before it became I've worked with every network you can think of with the exception of ESPN, like MavTV, HD Net, Speed Vision, Speed Channel, Fox Sports One, Fox South, CBS Sports, uh like uh uh of uh NBC Sports.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Now are you are you doing any announcing now?

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Uh no, not really. Every once in a while uh uh I'll grab the mic and do the North South.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

North South somewhere last year. Well you've done all the North South shootouts. Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Yeah, you I'll usually every year I'll do the North South shootout. Uh as far as pit reporting, uh I pit reported the King of the Modified last week on on Flow Sports. Saw a little bit of that. That was that's a lot of fun. I always enjoy being able to uh uh grab you know grab the mic and put the reporter uniform on and then run up and down Pitt Road again. I I I still feel like I I I can still do the job, you know, even at 51 years old. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Uh I still feel like 51 years young.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Yeah. Because you're still surprised. And dude, you look great, man. I see your videos and stuff. You're crusted in the gym, so you're definitely getting after it, man. Uh I'm trying to keep the old man out. That's what I'm trying to do. I let it creep in. So, man, I'm bet you're a better man than I.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Well, I've I've always worked out and I've always exercised, even my years of reporting, but didn't get a chance to do it as often because I was always on the road. But now that I'm off the road, I've got more time to get to the gym and exercise.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Sure. Awesome, awesome. This episode brought to you by the 2026 Chili Bowl Nationals. You want to find out more, chilibowl.com. There are still tickets available for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and you can buy them online. First time ever, jump on there and get your Chili Bowl tickets. Great seats still remain for the 2026 Chili Bowl Nationals, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 40th anniversary. Don't miss it. Chilibowl.com. Now, you uh your current role at Kevin Powell's, are you just doing the race stuff? Are you doing stuff for the car dealerships also? Everything. Everything. Okay. Right on.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Yeah. So I handle media and PR for uh a lot of the all the car dealerships and for the race teams. The dealerships are good in the sense that you've got some creative people over there. They're making content as well. Because sometimes the race team alone, just doing their content and everything, is very consuming. Sure. Because I I'm I'm a department of one. So, you know, there's if if I tell people if I'm shooting, I'm not editing. If I'm editing, I'm not writing. If I'm writing, I'm not uh I'm not voicing something over. If I'm not voicing something over, I'm not, you know, handling emails.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

You know, do you uh do you uh do you sit in the studio with Kevin? It's me. Do you do you do you record those for him now?

SPEAKER_01 22:52

We do they have a studio over there. I've seen it in Kevin's place. Yeah, he does uh do a lot of uh uh his commercials over there. Uh and man, uh again, I I cannot say again how much of a great boss Kevin is to work with. Uh um he hired me uh when I was going through a very tough time in my life. I was going through a very messy divorce too, and um my television career was pretty much at its end. And it was one of those m crossroads moments where I knew like, okay, uh reporting on television isn't gonna pay the bills anymore, so I've got to do something. And I still wanted to stay in the sport, either stay in the sport or keep doing television. And Kevin came along and you know, he offered me this and and we sat down and we talked. And uh one of the first things that he asked me at the meeting, the very first meeting, he looked right across me, he said, What's your goal? And uh right there I was like, Wow, you know, he wants to know where I want to go and where I want to be. Um I told him that you know I knew at my age where my career was, I still wanted to do what I wanted to do as far as television and still in racing. So he kind of provided me uh uh an avenue to be able to still do that. And it's I'm very grateful to him for that. How did you meet Kevin? Where did that all start? Well, Kevin and I had known each other just from uh the races, really. Uh uh just going to Bowman Gray, going to the Southern Modified Races, him seeing me on TV, uh, and we had always said hello to each other, you know, mutually respected each other at the tracks, and you know, we just chit-chatted here and there. But what I think really got the ball rolling was two years ago, uh Caraway asked me to do a promo video for the North South shootout. Uh, they had this long script that they wanted me to do, and I'm looking at it, I'm thinking, how am I gonna do a video this long uh with what they want because I had didn't have much budget to work with. Uh and this is where working for NASCAR for years uh helped me because I like to tell people I have made a career out of making chicken salad. When I first started in NASCAR, they said, here's your edit room, here's a library of video, make stuff. So you just you had to pump out content. So and that's really what I'm still doing today. And uh I think that also helps. Uh, you know, so uh taking that experience, making that video for Caraway for the North South shootout, and we we posted it. Kevin loved it. He just he fell in love with it, and he bumped into me at the shootout while I was doing the pit party, and he said, I got an opportunity for you. I want you to give me the call in a couple of weeks. Okay. Perfect. So a couple of weeks went by. I gave him a call. He said, When you come up to my office and let's sit down and meet and talk. And uh, I sat down with him and the marketing director that was there, and we all just started chit-chatting and talked about you know where media is going and social media and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Right on. Now, you talked about uh your driving career. You drove some before TV, but you drove some since you've been in TV.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Yeah, yeah. Won championships since you've been here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Talk about your racing. Um, well, I I mean, uh I I you know, my first goal was to be a driver. You know, you know, I grew up in a racing family, so it was my my goal to be, you know, a race car driver for a living, you know, whether it was Indianapolis or NASA.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Whatever it was. You want to race it, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:16

I wanted to race. Uh I knew uh being a middle class, you know, Italian kid from New York who worked at a car dealership, I wasn't gonna be able to get where I wanted. I knew even back in the late 90s and early 2000s that you needed a ton of money to be able to do what you wanted to do.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

So it just gets worse every day with the money thing, too.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Right, yeah. So really I I looked at it as okay, I I I can drive and race locally and still live on Long Island, you know, and or I can try to go and chase this goal and try to work in television and you know, work in racing in some capacity for a living. So I chose the racing. But uh my driving, uh I started driving go-karts when uh I was uh either 15 or 17, uh racing go-karts. Um from there, I've got I've tried everything. I've run MicroStocks, Legends, Street Stocks, Splendorbus, uh Late Models, um midgets, uh modified, uh Pro 4 modified, um what else? Uh Outlaw carts. Um so I've run the 500cc outlaw carts. Um uh but I've made most of my career in in midget racing, sure. Uh driving for my dad's team. Um just started driving for my dad in '97 in NEMA. Drove for a bunch of years for him and a bunch of other car owners, and um you know, had limited success and never really got a win in midgets. I won in go-karts and and outlaw carts and 500cc uh uh mini outlaws. Um but uh uh um you know I had the opportunity to chase the television thing, so I did. I put the driving on hold and started going after you know television stuff. And my brother even said to me, he goes, you know, it's too bad. He said, because you just started getting good. He said you just works. Right. You just started to get good as you gave up, you know, to go do the television stuff. But I understand, he told me. So around 2012 or 13, I ran into Neil Cantor, who's a buddy of mine, and his cousin Adam races midgets with Nima with us back up north. And I knew Adam from go-kart racing growing up. So I just got friendly uh with Neil, and he's like, hey, you gotta come out to this place called Millbridge, try these, try, try these mini outlaws, these 500cc, you know, outlaw carts that we run and check them out, blah, blah, blah. Uh, and that was in 2012, 2011 or 12. Um, so I went up to Millbridge one night and was amazed how fast they're bad the outlaw carts are. I mean, you've got uh uh uh you've got something that weighs 450 pounds and has a hundred horsepower. It's insane. I remember the first I Kyle Beattie let me hop in his Kyle's a great guy. He's a great guy.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Carter's a heck of a wheel man too, isn't he?

SPEAKER_01 29:06

He is, yeah. I remember Carter when he was a little bit we all do, yeah. And and I worked for Kyle too for a couple of years at SKE, yeah. Yeah, um, but anyway, excuse me, went up there, uh uh saw them run one night. I was like, wow, these things are insane. Hopped in Kyle's cart, and I remember the first time I come off a two and I put my foot down to the loud pillow. Put my foot down in this 500cc outlaw cart, and this thing just pinned me back in this blurs your vision. It felt like it felt like it had that same power that the midget had, or that snap that the that the midget had, you know, and I was in something that had a cage and a wing and it looked a little bit like a midget. You're like, I'm home. That's exactly what I'm talking about. I was like, oh, this is awesome. Yeah, you know, but the biggest challenge was is I had never run dirt in my life. Oh, wow. Okay. I'd never run dirt until I had come down here. Uh so uh after I drove Kyle's one night, uh, I rented Neil's, uh rented Neil Cantor's car for one season, won the championship. Awesome. So we won the championship. I was so happy about that. And uh after that year, uh bought my own and uh we went racing with my own uh outlaw cart, won another winner series championship uh the following year. So that was kind of really rewarding. And uh kind of had like a little rebirth of my my driving career uh down here. I got a grand total of six wins. Nice. Yeah, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

You know, you gotta throw them in there where you can, man.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

Six more wins and two championships added to my resume. Uh I can't complain.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

So, uh, how many missed calls have you had from Rick Hendrix since winning the two championships?

SPEAKER_01 30:44

Uh none. Not a one.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

If it was, it had nothing to do with your driving, right? Not a thing. You know, but it still gives you the opportunity to get back in the seat every now and then. I mean, I have two late model teams at Bowman Gray. I practice my cars every now and then. I don't want to race them. I don't care anything about it. In fact, Saturday night, I bet you money you won't see me at the track. I'm at the lake house watching it on float. Well, there's no traffic at the lake, none of that. But I like to go up there every now and then. You know what? For the people who've never done it, they don't get it. But just the sensation of being in the seat and driving it. But there's just nothing like it.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

That's what I I tell some of my friends too, because uh the last time I drove a race car was 2019. And um I I it's not that I want to get back out there and and run a run a main event. I I just want to get out there and and just turn some laps. You know, just get the you know, get the hard pump and get the adrenaline up, go, you know, rip the lip around uh a millbridge again and just see if I still got it, you know, that kind of stuff. Because it got to a point in my career where I would roll through the gate and I'm like, geez, I'm walking in the gate here. My biggest competition's 11. You know, yeah, you know, that that became tough. And then uh dealing with that younger generation of drivers too.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

Because they're built different, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 31:59

I've had a couple of them stick me in a fence, yeah, and I'm over here in the pit area, rebuilding the front end of the car, and I look over and they're playing football with their buddies.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

While their dad's putting their front end back together.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

No, while their dad's paid crew puts the front end back together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

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SPEAKER_01 32:36

I'm working and thrashing my ass off over here, and he's not gonna hop in the car to go out there and do it all over again. Yeah, it makes it tough. So, yeah, after a while it was like, all right, I'm just tired of getting fenced by children. And uh that was another reason why, too.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Yeah, we you know, uh, the thing is when you and I were kids, you really had to be about seven or eight to race, and it was directly proportionate to your age and ability. You know what I mean? There wasn't there was no there was no outlaw carts for 11-year-olds when I was a kid. I'm a year older than you, so there was no outlaw carts for uh kids back then. If you were 11, you ran junior stock. That was the option.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

Go-karts, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

That was with no roll cage, number panels, not even intrusion bars, number panels. And if me and you touch tires, one of us had a broken collarbone. It's the way it worked.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

You know, which in a way, I'm sorry, but I I was at uh go-kart race last night, and the way that these guys door slam each other now, they should take the bodies off of them. That'll keep that'll prevent you from touching each other, really.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

You get you let that you let that wheel to wheel happen two good times, it'll slow down every aggressive cart racer ever.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

Yeah, I I mean the don't get me wrong, the bodies look cool and everything, but save it for the big tracks with the super speedways or or something, but because when you're using them as wedges, that's what they are, man.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Like shoehorning them in there, man.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

It's not teaching these kids, plus it's not teaching these kids good habits.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

No, and the problem is is they graduate. If they move on, they graduate to car racing and then they move to the same thing. And here's the thing I tell everybody uh everybody has the ability to out money and out equipment somebody at some level. The further you go up the socioeconomic ladder of automobile racing, the harder it becomes. So if your dad makes$300,000 a year and you're go-kart racing and he's pissing away$200,000, chances are you're gonna have the best equipment, best tires, best guys, biggest truck, biggest trailer. And if your kid can hit a lick, he's probably gonna win some races. We go to the next level, he's still probably pretty competitive. Now we take that same$200,000 and you're trying to run a truck. You're 31st every week. You know what I mean? It's like uh we had Ronnie Bassett on the show and we talked about just the pure amount of money it takes to even compete and show up. You know, he takes that same amount of money, man. He goes late model racing, he's a top contender in the car store. He goes, I guess, O'Reilly racing, and at that level now, that same amount of money, man, we're 20th place race car if everything goes right. So you see that, and now you're right. I think it teaches the kids bad habit. Well, dad'll just buy another one, dad'll just buy another one, dad'll just buy another one. You get to that certain point, that that dad can't buy another one, man.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

And well, one of the smartest things that you can do is race to what the budget allows. Amen. You know, if uh you know, it there's no use spending uh a ton of money to be running in the back of the pack in a weekly in a top division where you could be spending, you know, less money or or a little bit less, but have the same budget to be winning in a lower in a lower division. The prime example is my my father, because uh they've got two midgets right now. They've got the the full midget, then they run they have the light car. Uh, but the problem is is that you know, for them to be able to run the full midget competitively, they've probably got to sink another 15 to 20 grand more into the engine. Well, in with the light car, everybody's motor is the same.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

It's a spec motor, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Right, you know, so they're racing to what their budget allowed, and they're competitive, you know, and they're winning.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

We got a chance to see the light cars last year at Star at the Classic at Bobby's Deal. They put on a heck of a shot.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

My nephew won it.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

Yeah, right. We were there actually. My nephew won it. As a matter of fact, he's wearing one of your suits. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, we had a we had a great time up there, man. The weather was uh chamber of commerce perfect, the lobster was incredible, the people were friendly. We even got along what they call them the Brookas, the people from Seabrook. We even got along with the Brookas. They were saying lobster. They had lobster. You go over to the so I stayed at the Shaw. Yeah, stayed at the Shaw, ate lobster, took Justin up there. We had we had lobster rolls three days in a row, can't tell. It was really good. So we had a good time up there. But yeah, no, it was it was a lot of fun. And you're right. I mean, so many guys are racing honestly out of their means. We did a poll. Eric and I ran a poll last year sometime, and it was if you totally lost your race car tonight at the racetrack, how long would it be back before you're racing the identical same thing?

SPEAKER_01 37:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

50% of the people said I'm done for the year. Some people said I'm done forever. Some people, very few people, like two or three, said we just unload the backup car, it doesn't matter. Some people said next week. But what we learned from that was the general masses were racing gently out of their budget. Didn't mean that they don't deserve to be there. They do, it's their money. They let them do what they want, right? But they were gently out of budget. You know what I mean? Um, and all that. You know, you see, we've both seen, man, we've had friends, our their shops burnt down, their trailer caught on fire, whatever it may be, they're done. And it's heartbreaking, man, because they've been doing it forever and ever and ever. So yeah, no, I can I can see why the 11-year-old fencing you and your efforts would definitely uh become Sam. Now, you also you promoted for a while. Uh I well worked in general manager, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

Yeah, general manager and PR uh media over at Mountain Creek Speedway.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

Because you and I talked when you first got on up there, you and I had some conversations about working together up there, also. Yeah, you did that for a couple years, is that right?

SPEAKER_01 38:00

I did that for three years. Uh was a really great job. Uh working for the Stewart family was fantastic. Adam Stewart and his wife Rebecca, they are fantastic people. They are the salt of the earth. They really are. And that track, it really is one of those hidden gems because you'd never know that there's a racetrack there. I don't know if you've ever been to Mountain Creek before. One time. You got to know how to get there. You have to, right. Well, it's behind a cow pasture. Yeah. You know, like you'd never, you're driving through like farmland, and you'd never know like this little dirt road off of this way is where there's this cool little go-kart track. Some of the best gems ever. And I tell you what, what was really heartbreaking about Mountain Creek Speedway is they sank so much money into rebuilding the place and putting steel walls in, and they've got 22-foot high uh fencing all the way around the place because they wanted to bring the micros in and make sure that they didn't lose one out of the park. Yeah they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, they put brought wheeling lighting in, yeah, the the wheel and emergency lights into the track and all that. They built platforms uh and you know, a media platform for us to have our cameras, camera positions. And then they had one neighbor go to the town and complain and get them shut down. Wow. It's just a damn shame.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

Crazy. Well, you hear stories like that all the time, and you would think, man, it's like even these people who move into areas where racetracks have been forever, everybody in the world's trying to get friendship shut down. Everybody in the world's trying to get caraway closed down, all these other things. And I'm sure up north it's probably just as bad. I know uh we're really good friends with Bobby Weber. He's got neighbors behind there that complain all the time, and some guys always trying to get a petition signed and this, that, and the other. It's just unfortunate, you know, that everybody can't seem to play in the same sandbox and get along.

SPEAKER_01 39:43

Well, you know, it's it just comes back to that old adage. You you move next to a racetrack and then complain that there's noise. No, you know, use your brain. Yeah, you know, you know there's a track there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

What do you think they could do there? You know, right.

SPEAKER_01 39:55

Which is that that new law that just passed in North Carolina that's gonna help Mountain Creek get reopened because a lot of the things that they had against them are now gonna be null and void with that new North Carolina law. So I chat with uh with Adam and Rebecca from uh Mountain Creek every once in a while, and and they're they're trying to get racing going back there again. And if you haven't been there in a while, go check the place out because it it really is pretty. And and when they get fired back up again, it I think it's gonna be really cool.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

Awesome. Awesome. So what's uh what's next for Derek? I mean, obviously you got your your gig Derek KPs, things are going great there. You love working with Brandon and the crew there. Uh any announcing that we may see out of you in the future?

SPEAKER_01 40:37

Uh well, I mean, I did the smart modified race this past year. Uh right about now, I'm pretty much down to you're usually just announcing a couple of races a year. Uh uh North South shootout being one of them. Uh Pit Reporting uh uh uh this South Boston this past weekend. Yep. I'm pro I have a feeling, I hope, fingers crossed, that they give me a call to do North Wilkesboro uh again later this year. Did great, absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate it. That was that was a that was a long day on Pit Road because that was all three races. Yeah, that's a lot. We were live for eight hours and 20 minutes. Good gracious.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

That's a long time to be live, man.

SPEAKER_01 41:16

It is a long time to be live, long time to be on your feet and running. Uh, I remember getting home that night after those races and my feet, laying in bed, my feet like cramping up into like into cinder blocks, uh having to get out of bed and like, you know, walk and uh put my foot on a tennis ball and kind of massage it out. But yeah, we were uh it was a long day uh uh running up and down Pitt Road.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

What a great place, though, man. It's so awesome to see Northwolkesboro back. It's just the history, the heritage. I mean, it's just like it's it's almost like the ghosts of racers past are cheering you on every lap there, man. That place is awesome.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

And it's a brand new place with the the safer barriers and the new pavement. The new pavement makes the place so fast. There's so much group now, and it's smooth as glass. It's just it's fantastic. And we and our team almost won the race last year. We led the most laps, we ended up finishing second, uh, you know, lost uh lost a tire late in the race, started a blister. But uh uh we uh decided it over the winter with the modified to come back and run this full smart modified tour with Kevin Palace being the rest of the wards. Uh we also did a partial schedule last year with the cars tour. So the big announcement at the end of last year was this year to be running the cars tour and the smart modified tour. Uh we've got Brandon Pierce and the late model, we've got Brandon Ward in the Modified, and then we're going to run the extra distance races at Bowman Gray. Uh partial schedule at Bowman Gray, we're gonna run as much as we can there, but the big concentration is on the cars tour and the smart tour.

SPEAKER_00 42:48

Awesome. Brandon Pierce, now he's run the cars tour for a few years, is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 42:53

Yes, for quite a few years. Matter of fact, he is second on the all-time starts list uh in the cars tour. Yeah, he's won a he's won races uh in the series before, he's won at South Boston, um, he's won at uh Southern National. Uh so he he he has uh a lot of talent, he's definitely a capable driver. And um right now with the uh cars tour team, it's just a matter of uh gelling and getting up to speed to get to the point where the modified team is at. The modified team is top shelf, you know, top shelf, it's operational, it it you know, it's a functioning well-oiled machine. And now the goal is to get the late model team there too. And we're doing it. We've got Doug Hippie Strawthrough that we just hired, he was crew chief for um for mini Tyrell for many years, worked with cup teams, he worked with Truck and Bush series teams. So we he's got a lot of experience. Awesome, awesome, yeah. Great guy.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

That's exciting to see in the shop's always fun. The open house you guys do at the beginning of the year, that is a really cherry thing. I wish more people would do that. Get people out, get them involved. It's really exciting to see that you guys get your fans in there and get people involved. I just I wish more people would have that. You know, I see race parties sometimes, but The way you guys do it is top shelf.

SPEAKER_01 44:02

Kevin has an impressive facility. For a short track team, Kevin has an impressive facility. When I first walked in the door there, I I could not believe it because I've seen uh uh O'Reilly series and truck series teams that don't that have nowhere near what these guys have. Uh I mean the the huge shop shop, the surface plate, the fab shop, there's a gym on the premises. Uh there's a race simulator there. You know, if we want to sit down and just turn laps at a track that we're gonna be going to. We've got the studio there too, where we can record our commercials and all that stuff. So it when I walked in there the first time, you know, and I saw late late models lined up down one side, modified's lined up down the other side. I was like, wow, this is this serious operation. Serious, yeah. It was cool.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

You know, I think the thing is too, is Kevin's able to kind of live vicariously through that. You know, he had some genius with the dirt car, and he ran some modified races and ran some late model stuff. And I met him, he had just moved here and he had just bought Foothill Ford. And they used to, do you know they used to call him Brewster? You ever heard that? Call him Brewster, yeah. Oh boy. So actually, uh David Sell uh had uh uh had done some artwork or whatever for him and was putting some decals on for him or whatever. And I went up. That's actually I met Kevin Kali, man. Well, he had completely brown hair, and I did too, and he had more of it. So uh I met him for the first time up there right after he had bought Foothill Ford, man. But been great guy, man. Like I say, been very instrumental in racing around here, very involved, helps a lot of folks out, sponsors a lot of cool stuff. So I can see why this is really awesome to see you there with him. I would have never in a million years pegged Derek and Kevin, though, but that's awesome, man. Uh I you know, I didn't think of it either, but you know, when he came to me This episode brought to you in part by Schoenfeld Headers, Van Buren, Arkansas, all the way back to Daddy Schoenfeld building the best headers for all types of racing. If you need headers for your race cars, Schoenfeldheaders.com, check them out online or at any of their thousands of retailers nationwide.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

You know, I didn't think of it either, but you know, when he came to me and we started talking and uh he showed me the the facility and the team and and you know for for me it's a change because I've also come from the the reporting side of it where I you you tell you tell one side of it, you tell the uh the other side of it, and then you tell the story. Then let people make their own assessment of you know who was right, who was wrong, whatever. Uh in the race team side of it, you are PR. You you know, uh so you have to take less of the reporter out of it and more of you have to put more of the I guess you could say cheerleader into it to build up your team. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

Yeah, that makes logical sense. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 46:42

Yeah, and you know, uh I get to I still get to pick up a camera and shoot. Uh you know, I still get to grab the microphone and talk on camera because you know, we we're doing a whole bunch of different things over at Kevin's place, uh trying a little segment that we just sit down in the shop and I just chat with people. Yeah. So much like what we're doing like right now, just a conversation. Just a more raw, stripped-down version of it, really, where we're just it's just two guys, it's just two guys, two mics, and a camera, uh, and that's it.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

Awesome, man.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

So yeah, so we're we're you know, we're trying different things, which is what I like. Kevin would eventually like to get to a point where we have uh uh like a media type of company where we have clients, where we have podcasts and shows that we're doing, uh things like that to also uh promote our sponsors as well, promote our partners. Uh so we're we're slowly getting there. He he and I we talked about it at the beginning. I you know, uh he knew that this was going to take a couple of years to to put together. So I'd like to think like after the first year, we're we're building a pretty solid foundation brick by brick. You know, it's uh he he said to me one of the first things he said to me, because I was so overwhelmed, he said to me, How do you eat an elephant?

SPEAKER_00 47:58

One bite at a time. One bite at a time. Kevin and I agree on that. We talk about that all the time, but it's like people are like, Oh my gosh, I'm never gonna get all this stuff. Do you think you could eat a whole elephant by yourself? And everybody immediately says, No, no, no possible way. Oh, and I said, You can. It's just one bite at a time. I'm like, Oh, okay, I never thought about it that way. And so yeah, yeah. And uh Kevin's Kevin's not afraid to bring the elephant in, too. I can tell you that.

SPEAKER_01 48:19

He's been fantastic to work with. Really, uh, I can't complain one bit. Uh and um uh I you know, anything that I come up with, uh I try to run past him. Uh the cool thing is, is like he he likes to let me run with things too, so uh I I feel comfortable in in that regard. Uh and it's been a very great working relationship and also a really good friendship, too. He's been so good to me. Awesome. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 48:43

Hey, um is there anything that we need to that you know that we need to ask him? And is there anything that you want to bring up PR publicist-wise? Obviously, this is not live. We edited all these, but is there something that you want to bring up or something that you want to touch on while we got you on here too?

SPEAKER_01 48:56

Um, just where we'll be where we'll be this weekend uh at Way County.

SPEAKER_00 49:00

It won't be this won't come up this week. Oh, right now we got like 15 other episodes, but you're probably six or seven weeks out. Yeah, okay. I can't really think of anything. So what I'll do is we'll come back, we'll get back in conversation. I'll have you plug your sponsors, I'll have you plug your drivers and stuff again, definitely plug the dealerships, things like that, talk about buying a car from Kevin, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 49:30

We're gonna end up right around the Kevin Powell Motorsports 100 weekend at all, right?

SPEAKER_00 49:34

Yeah, that's about when this will come out. That was kind of our strategic plan.

SPEAKER_01 49:36

Oh, okay. Yeah. All right, so we'll do that then. I'll say, you know, we've got the Kevin Powell Motorsports 100 coming up. Yeah, Bowman Gray Stadium. It's usually a big night at the track. You know, Kevin comes there, a lot of our reps do so Derek, so you guys hold on. One one other thing though. Go ahead. When you uh some of our sponsors are competitors of yours. Um, so I don't if uh you want you not might want me to mention them because we have Simpson Steel.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

No, absolutely mention them. Dude, it's here's the thing. We we we know you're coming here, and uh again, there's no hard feelings with our stuff at all. I think your over-the-wall stuff is still velocita. So I think it is, yeah. We don't we don't have any, and I'll show you a text with Kevin. We're not done doing business together, right? It's just that they had an offer that they couldn't refuse, and Brandon and them jumped on it. Brandon and I have been friends for 30 plus years. I've known his dad longer than that. We're all still very good friends, so it's not an issue at all. That doesn't my thing is is my deal. I don't want to cramp cramp your stuff. You know what I'm saying? I didn't do the Velocita commercial pro before your thing. We won't do the Velocita commercial in closing. We do have the Velocita logo up there, so we don't want to get you in trouble with your stuff. And you know, at the end of the day, it's a publicity podcast for all of us, so it doesn't hurt anybody at all.

SPEAKER_01 50:48

But yeah, I just wanted to make sure that absolutely and plug in them and then you don't you guys our feelings don't get hurt like that at all, so it's not a problem at all.

SPEAKER_00 50:55

So yeah, right on so um is that it? Okay, cool. So, Derek, you guys have got a lot of fun stuff coming up. Sounds like you and Kevin, the teams are working really well together. Really exciting to see the cars tour and the modified. Um, you know, it's neat to see both kinds of cars there out of the shop. I know a few years ago I was down there, they were actually putting together a super late model too. So I know Brandon will drive anything with a steering wheel, man. What's next for you guys? What's coming up? What's exciting? Obviously, we want you to plug your sponsors and stuff and also tell everybody how they can get in touch with uh Kevin Powell, man. Kevin says yes.com. I know it's a big thing. He really does go out of the way to help people get into a nicer, newer ride, you know. So give us kind of the what's coming up, talk about your sponsors and then the things that uh how we find how we find out more about the team and Kevin.

SPEAKER_01 51:39

Well, uh a couple of things that are coming down the pipe, uh, actually right around the time that Bowman Gray starts up, uh uh uh let me let me start that over. Uh some of the things that we've got coming up is uh this new uh live show that we're gonna be doing each week uh called the KP Sports Center. Nice. Which is going to be just a 20-minute uh live hit from the racetrack. Uh we'll be we'll be streaming out to all of our platforms. And really what it is, is uh it's a lead-in to the flow broadcast. Oh, right up. Uh yeah, we'll be on uh for about 20 minutes before a race, giving you updates of you know who was fast, who was quick, where they qualified, maybe even a starting order uh before the show. Great up. Uh just talk about where we're at, what we're doing, just basically just paint the picture of what we're doing. And we're only gonna be up for 20 minutes. Pre-game show. Basically, like a pregame show. We're gonna be doing a live shot, and some some live shots will be right in front of the racetrack with the fans walking in, so it almost looks like that college game day kind of thing. I like it. Uh, we may do some from the top of the hall or two, looking down the pit area, you know, whatever kind of cool backdrop we can get. So they're there Kevin is dubbing it the KP uh sports center. I like it. And uh it'll be on just for about 20 minutes. It'll be like a lead-in to the flow broadcast. Wow. So you can check us out, you know, before the flow broadcast. And you know, once we go off the air, you turn on flow.

SPEAKER_00 53:04

Yeah, I like it.

SPEAKER_01 53:05

So that'll be one of the things that's coming down the pipe. Uh, I'll be one of the hosts. Kevin's gonna host sometimes uh uh in a little bit too. Gracie Gibbs is also gonna come along and be a co-host too, so we're excited about having her as part of the team. Uh, we also have Tori Hedgecock that's gonna help us out this year, and Brendan Klantz. So everybody, it's gonna be a collaborative effort from all of them to be able to put this little little show together that we're trying. So that's one of the things that's coming down the pipe. And then, of course, we've got uh the the Kevin Powell Motorsports 100. Right. Big race every year. Big race every year at Bowman Gray Stadium. It's always cool to see uh all of our Kevin Powell Motorsports employees come out and enjoy a night of racing. You know, hopefully we can win it. Yeah, you know, we've got we've got Polaris off-road uh on on the car this year. So uh we had Suzuki last year, so Polaris this year. And um obviously any race we show up to, we want to win, so we're gonna try to win that one. Uh and then um we've got uh all of our our sponsors, you can uh our platforms that you can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, at Kevin Powell Speed Motorsports. Uh you can find us at Kev PowellSpeed KPSM on X, because we couldn't fit Kevin Powell Speed Motorsports. They wouldn't allow the whole name.

SPEAKER_00 54:21

Wrapped all the way around the platform, man. Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:24

They wouldn't allow the whole name. It was only X amount of letters, so I had to condense it down to Kev Powell Speed KPSM on X. But everything else is Kevin Powell Speed Motorsports on all of our platforms. So that's how you can find us Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, and uh all of our sponsors. I mean, gosh, we've got uh we've got some great partners that have helped us out. I mean, we've got Kevin SaysYes.com, uh Kevin Powell's Foothill Ford, iHeartRadio, uh Polaris Off-Road, Bill Steen Shock, Simpson Stilo, uh Um Affordable Towing and Recovery, uh Robin Sandblasting, Racing Electronics, Molecule, uh, Hank Thomas Performance. Um hold on, I got another one. Uh uh Robin Sandblasting. Um uh I'm sorry if I missed that. The drive shaft shop. Yeah, I didn't know they've been great.

SPEAKER_00 55:13

50 pounds of weight off the car to get all the decals on there, man.

SPEAKER_01 55:16

Yeah. But uh you know what? They are are great partners. They they do provide us with some great products and ability to be able to run like we do. Uh oh yeah, pro system brakes too.

SPEAKER_00 55:26

Right on. If I want to buy a new car truck, SUV, or get a better ride, how do I find out more about Kevin Powell?

SPEAKER_01 55:32

You contact crazy Kevin Powell. Kevin Powell. Yeah. No, Kevin, you know, just like he says, you know, Kevin Powell's Foothill Ford, Pilot Mountain, and then Kevin Powell Motorsports, Winston-Salem, and Greensboro, the Winston-Salem and Greensboro stores. You can get all your Power Sports needs there. Uh motorcycle, ATV, side by side. There's even some watercraft there. Uh, they do even Harley Davidson's. They they have a great line of uh pre-owned Harley Davidson's as well. Uh so that's the Greensboro location and the Winston-Salem location.

SPEAKER_00 56:02

And then the Ford store is in uh Pilot Mountain. Pilot Mountain. Yeah, and you can buy a new Ford from Kevin.

SPEAKER_01 56:08

Buy a brand new Ford from Kevin, yep. Uh right uh right in the shadow of Pilot Mountain itself.

SPEAKER_00 56:13

Look at that, man. Awesome, awesome, man. Well, Derek is great to catch up, find out where you are, what you're doing, what's ahead for Derek. And uh, man, I actually uh I had the honor of actually announcing one race with you.

SPEAKER_01 56:24

Yes, that was the the polar bear. The frog, yeah, the polar bear. Polar bear is we know we also did another one, I think was we did uh we did Myrtle Beach some some time ago.

SPEAKER_00 56:34

Yeah, we did. I know, I know we remember the polar bear me you doc love. Yeah, uh I think maybe Wesley Outland may have been on with this too. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_01 56:40

Tony Stevens when he had a lot of things. Tony when there was pit road radio.

SPEAKER_00 56:44

Pit Row Radio before it became Pit Row TV. We did uh that was the Frank Kimmel Street Stock series at Rockingham, right? Where they had those funny looking blades on the roof of the car because they were going too fast. How cool was that series, though? That was pre-the-most exciting part of the day, remember when the garage fire? The car caught on fire and they pushed a guy's car out? That was the most exciting part of the whole day.

SPEAKER_01 57:05

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 57:05

But there were like a hundred of those cars. They were racing like five wide. It was impressive.

SPEAKER_01 57:10

You know what, though, was cool about those races is that it brought you back to what Grand National slash cup races was back then because they were on bias ply tires and you can see them just porpoising up the track, just trying to chase it and everything. And they got the big blades across the roof that were disrupting all the air. And there was one guy in the field and one of them old-style Dodge Charles. Remember, it was dressed up like Bobby Isaac's car, the K insurance car. And uh, I thought that was one of the coolest things. I wish it would have lasted, man. And they raced them at super speedways, too. They were in Rockingham, Kansas, Kentucky. Uh they ran a bunch of Chicago land, they ran those huge tracks.

SPEAKER_00 57:49

It was crazy. I did get a chance to announce me there. You're right. We did do one at Myrtle Beach together. Yep. So uh it was always fun kind of sitting in the tower with you, man. And maybe one of these days they'll convince me to grab a microphone. We'll get back up there, man. So you never know. Yeah, you never know. We'll do it again. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you for having me on. This has been a lot of fun. Derek, thanks for coming. Absolutely, man. Wish you guys the best with your 2026 season. And we will get your driver on, and we do want to get your owner on here at some point, too. So yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 58:13

Brandon would be a great interview, too.

SPEAKER_00 58:15

No, no, he's raised everything, and we've known each other forever. We'll talk about pro cup stuff and all kinds of stuff from back in the days.

SPEAKER_01 58:21

You know, it really is amazing because uh I I the more I've worked with Brandon over the years, the more I see that he definitely would have been the total package for the test car. Because not only can he drive the wheels off of a car, he can talk to people like you, like anybody. He's so likable, he's so personable, he's got great people skills, uh uh is wise beyond his years, too. That's the other thing, too. And I can sit him down and tell him, Brandon, I've got a 60-second video, I've got to shoot on this helmet. I need you to talk about it for 60 seconds. And he can sit there and talk about the little details of it, the nuances of it, and okay, is that good? And be good.

SPEAKER_00 59:00

Yeah, no, he's he is absolutely an ace, man. You uh you definitely got blessed with a good driver there for sure, man.

SPEAKER_01 59:06

Yeah, a driver that should have gotten some some opportunities.

SPEAKER_00 59:10

Absolutely, man. But you know what? I don't think he's mad about it. He's content. He's winning races and having a good time. So I think he's living his best life right now.

SPEAKER_01 59:17

Hey, if you're making a living driving a race car, that's pretty hard to beat, ain't it?

SPEAKER_00 59:22

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Derek, thanks a lot for being on today, folks. That's gonna do it for driving fast and taking chances. If you're in the market for a newer used car, Kevin says yes.com, check them out online. That'll do it for this week. Drive fast, take chances.