NASCAR and IndyCar with Vic Piano
It’s me, Mark Stone, and in this episode of the Backseat Driver Podcast, I’m joined once again by Vic Piano, whose passion for American cars is matched only by his remarkable knowledge of American motorsport.
Together, we explore the fascinating worlds of NASCAR and the Indianapolis 500, discussing what makes these iconic events such an important part of American culture. Vic shares stories from his broadcasting career, including his role in helping introduce NASCAR to television audiences during its rapid rise in popularity throughout the 1980s.
We also look back at NASCAR's colourful origins, tracing its roots to the moonshine runners of the 1930s whose modified cars and fearless driving eventually gave birth to one of the world's biggest motorsports. Along the way, Vic explains the traditions, rivalries, and larger-than-life personalities that have helped build NASCAR's fiercely loyal following.
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Transcript
I'd like to welcome back to the backseat driver, the one, the only, Mr. Vic Piano.
Speaker A:His knowledge of Lincolns and his knowledge of American motorsport is phenomenal.
Speaker A:And the reason we're chatting today is to explain Indy to a degree.
Speaker A:And of course, the Indy 500 is one of the races every true racing driver wants to win along with Le Mans and the motorsport that is a religion in America, which is nascar, which appears to have some of the most confusing rules known to mankind.
Speaker A:However, Vic Piano, welcome back to the backseat driver.
Speaker B:Well, thank you, Mark.
Speaker B:I certainly appreciate my return trip.
Speaker A:Now, we'll start with nascar, the most confusing branch of motorsport known to man, unless you happen to be a Budweiser drinking all American motorsport fam.
Speaker B:Well, from my knowledge of nascar, I started televising nascar.
Speaker B:I tell everybody we televised NASCAR before NASCAR was cool, back in the early 80s.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:A quick history.
Speaker B: ame about in the late pre war: Speaker B:Most guys that were running NASCAR, the names of those guys, they all got their start running moonshine.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And so they, they all had souped up Fords and you know, light body cars like 36, 37, 38 Ford coupes or Ford roadsters were absolutely fabulous for the old dirt trap NASCAR racing.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And as the thing goes, NASCAR is go fast and turn left, basically.
Speaker B:That's basically what it is.
Speaker B:But I was fortunate when I started it, I mean, I was down in the pips because mostly all the advertisers, all the announcers, the sportscasters that we used were very familiar with everything but motorsports.
Speaker B:And so myself being an enthusiast and a producer, I did all the interviews in the pits with the teams, the drivers, the team owners, the mechanics, the crew chiefs, everybody like that.
Speaker B:And I would tell them and I was down there with a camera crew, I would say, okay, look, I'm going to ask you a question.
Speaker B:When I'm done with the question, count in your head five seconds, don't look at me, look at the camera and answer the question.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And then I would take that back to the truck, the production truck, and I would tell the announcers, okay, this is the question you ask, this is the response.
Speaker B:And we would put it together and edit it for air so it looked like the announcer knew what the hell he was talking about.
Speaker B:But I never took credit for that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Now, I mean, guys like Dale Earnhardt and Daryl Waltrip, Bill Elliott and Richard Petty, the king of nascar, but I'll tell you one Anecdote that you'll get a kick out of.
Speaker B:Junior Johnson, who was an original NASCAR driver, and he came from the world of moonshine running.
Speaker B:In fact, he became a guest of the Fed for a while because of his activities in moonshine running.
Speaker B:But he actually owned a team in the early 80s.
Speaker B:And we were at an event and I was in the pits interviewing guys, and there was a 44 coupe running around the track all day in various places, and it had Junior Johnson written on the roof just above the passenger and driver's doors.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And so when I was talking to Junior, I said to him, is that your 40 coupe?
Speaker B:He said, no.
Speaker B:Some good old boy asked me if he could paint my name on it.
Speaker B:And I said, yeah, so you better hope he doesn't get into any problem, because it'll be coming after you.
Speaker B:And so he said to me, I didn't think of that.
Speaker B:I said, well, that was obvious.
Speaker B:But they were a cool bunch of guys.
Speaker B:And I mean, they.
Speaker B:That was back when it was still, you know, pretty wild.
Speaker B:I mean, I went into the prep area and, you know, they were tearing cars apart to see make sure nobody did anything that was, quote unquote, illegal.
Speaker B:Which, it was a pretty broad stroke there back in the day.
Speaker B:But it was an interesting sport to televise.
Speaker B:Although if you're not an enthusiast, it's kind of like watching golf.
Speaker B:It'll put you to sleep if you don't really know, because everybody watches it just in the event that there's going to be a pile up, which is unfortunate, but that's NASCAR in a nutshell.
Speaker A:But, I mean, it's a positive religion in America or parts of the States, isn't it?
Speaker A:I mean, you watch programs on it, and the fans are fanatical, and you watch programs on the drivers and their families and everything else.
Speaker A:And apart from the fact the top guys seem to make a tremendous amount of money out of it, it's a world all of its own.
Speaker B:That's very true.
Speaker B:I mean, most nascar.
Speaker B:The only track that was in existence back then that wasn't an oval track per se, was out in California at the.
Speaker B:I'm gonna have a brain for you at Riverside Raceway.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And that was an actual road course that NASCAR guys drove on, and in order to do that, you had to completely rework the suspensions in the cars.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So they could handle doing more than just making left turners.
Speaker B:So that was an interesting situation.
Speaker B:And I can tell you a little bit more about Riverside raceway, because in mid-80s, I actually did A deal with score off road racing, but that's a whole different deal from nascar.
Speaker B:So yeah, the NASCAR guys, they, they are, they were and they still are a world unto themselves.
Speaker B:But I mean they have guys there who are, you know, legends and who are, you know, like, like Mickey Metal is to baseball.
Speaker B:They are the kings of NASCAR racing.
Speaker B:And they do, it is, it's primarily a southeast US sport.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Now the one thing it's like I was saying before we went on air, it's also one of the few branches of motorsport, unlike stock cars where they automatically hit one another, where if you have a two car team, your teammate who's behind you is allowed to drive up to the back of you, run into you for want of a better description and make you go even faster, push you even harder, which is completely unheard of over here.
Speaker B:That's true.
Speaker B:And I mean I've witnessed that and I've also witnessed fist fights in the pits afterwards.
Speaker B:So it's something that not necessarily expected or accepted, but it happens.
Speaker A:I mean, over the years the cars have changed dramatically.
Speaker A:I mean it's like you were saying, they were basically standard road cars just with a roll cage and some reinforcement.
Speaker A:And now they're, I mean a lot of them now appear to be Japanese based cars.
Speaker A:I mean they're a silhouette of what they actually are.
Speaker A:But the cars have changed dramatically in nascar, haven't they?
Speaker B:Oh yes they have.
Speaker B:I mean if you look back at the old films, in the early days, Daytona beach was where they raced before there was a track in Daytona and they would race on the beach and you would see 56, 57 Ford and Chevy convertibles.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Racing on the sand.
Speaker B:And then when they started racing in the tracks and banking the tracks, those same cars were used on the tracks in early racing.
Speaker B:And no roll cages.
Speaker B:I mean, can you imagine racing a 57 Chevrolet convertible or 58 Ford convertible?
Speaker B:I mean those things were like behemoths on the highway.
Speaker B:And then you were running in one of those with just a seatbelt and a helmet on.
Speaker B:Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker B:That would scare the hell out of me.
Speaker A:Now it seems to operate on at times a completely confusing league system and league table system where somebody does well, but by the time they finish they haven't done well and they have to qualify for all these rounds.
Speaker A:How exactly does all that work?
Speaker B:That's a good question, Mark.
Speaker B:I can't answer that.
Speaker B:I, I am not that familiar with it.
Speaker B:I mean, I go back when Humpy Wheeler, who ran the track in Charlotte and we did the Charlotte 600 for three years in a row.
Speaker B:And it was like, when you ask somebody a question like that, they looked at you sideways.
Speaker B:It's like, you know, asking a mafia don where all his stash is.
Speaker B:They're not going to tell you.
Speaker B:And they did everything they possibly could to get around the loosely put together rules and regulations for these cars.
Speaker B:And I mean, the factory they had.
Speaker B:The one rule was that you couldn't race a car unless it was a factory production car.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So you couldn't race something that was, you know, low production.
Speaker B:It had to be at least 500.
Speaker B:I believe that was the number that was sold.
Speaker B:And back then, the factory guys got involved in a big way.
Speaker B:I mean, Ford was involved.
Speaker B:Back in the early, early days, Hudson was the dominant car.
Speaker B:The old Hudson twin six.
Speaker B:And you look at those, they look like a beach whale.
Speaker B:You want to try and get them to run down a track was something that I looked at that.
Speaker B:I'm going, well, that thing's the furthest thing you can get from aerodynetic.
Speaker B:Four wheels on it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I must say that when the crashes happen, they are seriously spectacular, aren't they?
Speaker B:Do they?
Speaker B:You know, they are in.
Speaker B:Back in the day when they had little or no protection, they were extremely dangerous.
Speaker B:But, you know, now it's.
Speaker B:It's almost so sanitized that, you know, like I said before, it's boring to watch unless you are a die hard fan.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And you know, you go when we used to do that, Pocono raceway.
Speaker B:Pocono was like the wild frontier.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And we did a couple of races at Pocono race league.
Speaker B:And again, I would take it up because we did not televise any of it live.
Speaker B:We always taped and convert, you know, condensed them to a one hour television show format.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But I would take a camera crew, we'd go around the perimeter and talk to people and, you know, shoot some footage to go out on to come back in on, which is normal television.
Speaker B:And at one point, I had a night.
Speaker B:This was in 82 because I had a brand new 81 Toyota SR5 4x4 pickup.
Speaker B:And we had loaded up the camera crew in the back and we're driving around and we're looking for people, and there were two lovely young ladies who were in beach chairs on the side of the dirt road and they were reading programs.
Speaker B:And so I walked up to them and I said, would you ladies like to be on television?
Speaker B:And they said, oh, yeah, we'd love it.
Speaker B:I said, okay, here's what I want you to do.
Speaker B:I'm going to have the cameraman come over and I'm going to give you a hand signal, have the program up in front of your face, and once I cue you, you drop the program down and say you're watching NASCAR on Ms. Lu Television Network.
Speaker B:Well, they both agreed to do that.
Speaker B:By the time I got back to the truck and got everything set up and came around to do it, I cued them to do it, and as soon as they dropped the programs, their tops were gone.
Speaker B:And I thought, that's really good, but I can't put that on television.
Speaker B:That, in a nutshell, would tell you about the average NASCAR enthusiast.
Speaker B:And a lot of Coors Light and other brands were consumed all day long.
Speaker A:I mean, that's the one thing.
Speaker A:The sponsorship that appears to go into NASCAR is incredible with the.
Speaker A:Is, like you said, the beer and everything else.
Speaker A:I mean, the car is absolutely dripping advertising, don't they?
Speaker B:Oh, yes, they are.
Speaker B:I mean, they're.
Speaker B:They're giant rolling billboards.
Speaker B:And the sponsors, too.
Speaker B:I mean, the guy gets out with his fire suit on and he has so many sponsorship badges on, you can't even see the original suit.
Speaker B:Yeah, but that.
Speaker B:That again, always posed a problem for us on occasion because old Wiser was not a sponsor of ours, but they were all over nascar.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Goodyear was not a sponsor of ours for most of the races, but they were all over.
Speaker B:And when you come into the winner's circle, you know, the guys would change hats.
Speaker B:Each hat had a different sponsor on.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And unless they were one of our sponsors, I would tell the cameraman, do not shoot the guy's hat.
Speaker B:Shoot from his eyebrows to his chin.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:That's all we want to see.
Speaker B:So, I mean, in that instance, if they were a pay and sponsor for the television, it would be great.
Speaker B:I'll give you a quick diversion here.
Speaker B:When I was selling the score off road races at Riverside, Goodyear had a gigantic billboard in the first turn.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And if we're televising a road race, it was no way that you couldn't see that.
Speaker B:So Goodyear told me when I was trying to sell them, we don't need it because we have that billboard.
Speaker B:So I said, okay, that's for the road race, if you want to talk about off road racing.
Speaker B:So I told them, but you know what I'll do?
Speaker B:I'm gonna go shoot that show and I'm gonna edit that show.
Speaker B:I'll bring it back to you.
Speaker B:We'll watch the hour long show for every time you see a Goodyear logo, I'll pay you $100.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:When I took it to them and they saw there was not one reference to Goodyear in that entire show with that did it became a sponsor the following year?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So, I mean, you know, there are.
Speaker B:There are ways to get around those things.
Speaker A:I mean, just out of interest, from the looks of it, NASCAR lasts for an entire weekend.
Speaker A:But how long does a race actually go on for?
Speaker B:Oh, well, the race depending.
Speaker B:I mean, a 600 mile race will go on for what seems like days.
Speaker B:I mean, and that's.
Speaker B:If there's no accidents.
Speaker B:If there's an accident, then that slows everything down.
Speaker B:And normally there are multiple accidents or wrecks or fender benders or whatever you want to call them, that they go under a yellow and then they go under a red.
Speaker B:They got stopped and the tracks got to be cleaned.
Speaker B:So that's why, as an independent television network, we would never televise a race like that live in its entirety, because it could take all day.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:But I conclude the fans must love it.
Speaker A:The longer it goes on for, the more they will enjoy it.
Speaker B:Oh, that will.
Speaker B:Well, I think the longer it goes on for.
Speaker B:And the more adult beverages they consume, the more they're going to enjoy.
Speaker B:I don't know how many of them actually watch the entire race.
Speaker A:And I conclude that the.
Speaker A:I mean, just out of interest, the beers that are for sale there, are they discounted down to encourage them to drink more?
Speaker B:That's a good question.
Speaker B:I'm not sure.
Speaker B:And the only reason I'm not sure is because I don't drink beer.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:But I mean, it seems to be a definite carnival atmosphere at a NASCAR event, as I said.
Speaker B:Absolutely it is.
Speaker B:Absolutely it is.
Speaker B:The whole thing is a carnival.
Speaker B:I mean, and you know, they.
Speaker B:The day before, when they're building it, when they're getting up to it, you know, they open up the pit area so people with a pit pass can go down there and they can rub elbows with their pro drivers and team owners.
Speaker B:I mean, it is a carnival atmosphere.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And the one thing I have noticed, I mean, as I said, the drivers are virtual superstars.
Speaker A:They do seem at times more down to earth than other racing drivers.
Speaker B:I think that's very true.
Speaker B:My experience with Formula one drivers, they are aloof.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:They are not willing to mingle with the fans nearly as much as the NASCAR guys.
Speaker B:I mean, they appreciate their fans because that's what brings in the money.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Now, the other branch of American racing, which is slightly more familiar to the English and the Europeans, is IndyCar because it's single seaters.
Speaker A:Now, the other week I had a chat with Derek Daly, the XF1 driver who went to race in India in IndyCar.
Speaker A:And his claim to fame is he.
Speaker A:Well, he didn't walk away, but he survived what is currently still, currently the fastest motor racing accident in history when even though he managed to skim about 10 mph off his top speed, he impacted the wall just short of 214 miles an hour.
Speaker A:And I said, what's it like?
Speaker A:He said, well, basically, he said, you drive in a straight line for 45 seconds, he said you can virtually take your hands off the wheel because the car is designed to turn left.
Speaker A:He said, but he said the speed is incredible now.
Speaker A:I mean, once again, that is, it's a uniquely American sport.
Speaker A:Though they did try to bring it to England at a circuit, now defunct circuit called Rockingham, but they failed really to run it because in England it rains and Indy cars don't like rain, apparently.
Speaker A:But I mean, that is another serious branch of American motorsport and one you've been involved with.
Speaker B:It is.
Speaker B:And I, I have done two Grand Prix races.
Speaker B:So the Watkins Glen, as I mentioned earlier, and Long Beach Grand Prix.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But as far as the other stock, I, I have never ever done a race at the Brickyard.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And so I, I am not, you know, as familiar with that.
Speaker B:But those drivers, they go NASCAR drivers, they'll do Formula one drivers, they'll do off road drivers.
Speaker B:I mean, they migrate from one racing style to the next.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:For me, for me, I've never done that.
Speaker B:I've always wanted to do something at the Brickyard.
Speaker B:I mean, Indianapolis is like the Mecca for the American sports drivers.
Speaker B:And it's just, it's completely different.
Speaker B:I mean, the closest thing to it would be the Grand Prix car.
Speaker B:The Formula one cars.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:That we did in, you know, in Watkins Glen and in Long beach and we televised those internationally, both of those events from start to finish.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And then what we taped, we taped, we condensed them both to an hour format for US distribution.
Speaker B:But we had over 84 countries that were taking our fees national.
Speaker B:Internationally.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:When we did both those events.
Speaker A:Now though, it is, though F1 as a whole is now almost by an American company and they are adding, shall we say, the American razzmatazz to it.
Speaker A:Although over here, especially in England, we are not overly fond of that side of it.
Speaker A:A Grand Prix is a fixed time.
Speaker A:Very rarely do they run for longer than two hours.
Speaker A:But how do the Americans like Formula One?
Speaker A:Do they understand F1, or is it just something the Europeans do?
Speaker B:I. I think that it's just for this market.
Speaker B:For the American market, Formula One is just another form of motorsport.
Speaker B:Yeah, I don't think it.
Speaker B:It.
Speaker B:It certainly does not have the following.
Speaker B:Nothing has the following of nascar, but years.
Speaker B:You know, NASCAR just was languished in the southern, eastern, Southern states for years and years and years and did not come to national prominence until the late 70s, early 80s, when it all of a sudden became the sport to go to.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, does it attract.
Speaker A:I mean, the one thing Formula One does as such, and especially at Monaco, it attracts the celebrities, most of whom have no knowledge at all of why they're there.
Speaker A:They're just being paid to be there by the sponsors and the manufacturer, the product manufacturers, like Louis Vuitton, people like that.
Speaker A:Does NASCAR attract.
Speaker A:And indeed, does that attract the celebrities to the grid, or are the Americans not as bothered about celebrities?
Speaker B:Well, the NASCAR celebrities are all.
Speaker B:Would be.
Speaker B:And I'll probably get all kinds of flack for this, but.
Speaker B:And I'll be Country western singers.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, because that.
Speaker B:That plays into nascar.
Speaker B:NASCAR is an extension of the country western lifestyle, if you will.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know, they're all good old boys, and they all come from, you know, similar backgrounds.
Speaker B:And there's no.
Speaker B:Not to my knowledge, the original knives, there was no formal training.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:You just got in the car and stepped on the gas.
Speaker B:That was about it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:The guys who.
Speaker B:Who were the champions were the ones who had the most nerve out of the least amount of sense.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:They would just go with it.
Speaker B:And I think it's a sport where the average guy can get into it going down the road.
Speaker B:I mean, not so much anymore, but initially it was.
Speaker B:But I mean, any other form of mot sport racing, you know, you can't just walk into the pit and go, hey, I want to drive this car.
Speaker B:No, there's a whole lot more involved to it than that.
Speaker B:And I mean, the guys in nascar, I mean, I think it's like.
Speaker B:It's like a sports.
Speaker B:Any sports celebrity, like a football player, baseball player, your.
Speaker B:Your lifestyle goes beyond the sport.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And people look at you not as a NASCAR driver, but as a person who actually drives in nascar.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And so.
Speaker B:And so that the.
Speaker B:There's much more to it than, you know, a guy who just drives.
Speaker B:It's like.
Speaker B:It's like Joe Namath being a football player.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Joan.
Speaker B:And Broadway.
Speaker B:Joe Yeah, his off the field antics were as popular as him playing on the field.
Speaker B:So things like Richard Petty.
Speaker B:Richard Petty told me one time that he was out driving somewhere in his regular daily driving car on a narrow road.
Speaker B:There was some woman in front of him who would not pull away, would not get out of his way.
Speaker B:So he pulled a NASCAR trick, he bumped her bumper, pushed her out of the way.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, who else would do Scholzig life.
Speaker A:Now, the other branch of American motorsport that you've been involved with, though we do have it in England, it's nothing like America is off road racing right now.
Speaker A:It is.
Speaker A:Once again, that's a serious thing in America.
Speaker A:I think the most famous one, I might be wrong is Baja, is it not?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Well, in, in the early 80s when I was televising NASCAR, I was a fan of four wheel drive.
Speaker B:I mean, I got into it when I was in the army and when I got out I lived on Long island where it snowed in the winter and on this particular street that I bought a house now and I thought it was odd that everybody had a four wheel drive vehicle until it snowed.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Then I realized that's the only way I can get in and out of here.
Speaker B:So I got into that sport and I would, you know, I would race at Pocono in the wintertime on the ice and have fun like that.
Speaker B:So I decided one day because I was into all these four wheel drive trucks and I read all about nascar, so.
Speaker B:And Mickey Thompson, it was a famous, famous.
Speaker A:Now there's a name from the past, from that.
Speaker A:That's a name I do remember.
Speaker B:Well now Mickey had started to score off road championships and score off road and he had hired a guy named Sal Fish who had been, I think the publisher of Motor Trend or Rodent Track or one of those magazines.
Speaker B:So I just.
Speaker B:One day I was in my office, I picked up the phone, I called Score.
Speaker B:I said, like to speak to Sal Fish or Mickey Thompson.
Speaker B:Sal got on the phone and I said, hey, I'd like to talk to you about televising off road racing.
Speaker B:Yeah, he said, that would be great.
Speaker B:So I actually flew out to la.
Speaker B:I met with him and then I met with Toyota's advertising agency, Dancer Fitzgerald tried to sell it to Toyota, but they didn't want to buy it the first year.
Speaker B:They had another client, Bridgestone Tires, which I sold it to.
Speaker B:So Sal said to me, and we were talking about doing the race at Riverside because to do an actual off road race like Baja, the expense in producing that was far, far more than I could generate from advertising sponsorships.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So we were going to do the, the race at the racetrack.
Speaker B:So then sound said to me, do you have to go back to New York right away?
Speaker B:I said, no.
Speaker B:Why?
Speaker B:He said, well, how would you like to pre run the Mexicali 500 with me?
Speaker B:Yeah, I would absolutely love that.
Speaker B:So that I did that.
Speaker B:That was my experience there.
Speaker B:Then when I got into the off road racing stuff, no one else had ever done that the way we were going to do it.
Speaker B:And I used NBC's post production facilities a lot out in California.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And so when we finished the first one that we did, this guy named Bruce Flanders who was a track announcer.
Speaker B:He was a great announcer.
Speaker B:I hired him to do the play by play.
Speaker B:Mickey Thompson was going to do the color and then Sal Fish was going to fill in a little bit.
Speaker B:So we edited the entire race at NBC studios in Burbank while Mickey Thompson and Southfish and Bruce Flanders were sleeping on the floor.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And once we finished, I put a table up and I gave Bruce Flanders and I gave Mickey Thompson a headset and a microphone and I said, okay, I'm going to play back the program to you and you are going to add the announcing to it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So it was already done and it worked out great.
Speaker B:And then Mickey actually invited me to come to his house up in the hills.
Speaker B:And I went and he was showing.
Speaker B:I mean, I know Mickey Thompson from being a kid in drag racing and everything else.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I went to his house and he took me in the back at a huge garage and he had had a fire in it, but it had housed all of his championship vehicles.
Speaker B:So a lot of them were missing because they were being restored after being burned.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And we walked into his garage and in one corner there was a pile of wooden crates stacked up.
Speaker B:There had to be a dozen of them at least.
Speaker B:And they all said fomoco on the side.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I said to Mickey, what's in those crates?
Speaker B:He looked at me and goes, them's 427.
Speaker B:And I looked at him, I said, you wouldn't want to part with one of them.
Speaker B:But that was, it was.
Speaker B:I was, I was enamored with him because he was a childhood hero of mine.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:In racing them all.
Speaker B:And then the following year he was murdered along with his wife, which was a horrible, horrible experience.
Speaker B:But such as life, you know, So I mean that, the off road stuff, I really enjoyed it, had a great time doing it.
Speaker B:But the reality of it was we did it for three years, basically, we broke even for three years.
Speaker B:And then I told Sal Fish, I said, look, I can't continue doing this because the bottom line is it's not making money for us.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker B:So we got out of it and pretty much that was the last of the motorsports racing that we did.
Speaker B:It included a lot of NASCAR racing, the grand Prix races.
Speaker B:I did one ISCA drag race, which I was not actually at the event because it was a conflict.
Speaker B:I had another event I was doing, so I can't take credit for that.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, we did a ton of NASCAR.
Speaker B:We did the World 600 a bunch of times.
Speaker B:We did the Mountain Dew 500, the Mason Dixon 500, the Coca Cola 500 to get back to all the sponsorships that were going on.
Speaker B:And we did a Budweiser 500.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So Anna Miller High live 500.
Speaker B:That was.
Speaker B:And Skull.
Speaker B:Skull Chewing Tobacco and snuff.
Speaker B:We did those.
Speaker B:In fact, they had Burt Reynolds as the Skull Bandit.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because, I mean, Skull Bandit was also one of the sponsors on some of the Le Mans car.
Speaker A:I think it was the Porsche, either the 956 or the 962S.
Speaker A:There was the Skull Bandit cars.
Speaker A:And over here, people wonder what it was and they had to be told, it's just you in tobacco.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:Very, very much an American product.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Again, again, that's something I never, never got into.
Speaker B:I happen to love cigars.
Speaker B:Yeah, so.
Speaker A:So, I mean, we.
Speaker A:I mean the other famous American race, but it's not actually a race.
Speaker A:They only go up one at a time.
Speaker A:I don't know if you been involved, but the one thing that over in Europe people know about because of the success of Audi and things like that, of course, is the famous Pikes Peak hill climb.
Speaker A:I don't know whether you've encountered that right.
Speaker B:No, I have never televised the Pax Pikes Peak hill climb.
Speaker B:I've wanted to do it, but it was always my dream to drive a flathead Ford up to Pikes Peak.
Speaker B:It's still on the bucket list.
Speaker B:I haven't done that yet.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:I mean, the Americans, I mean every right to them, American motorsport is still, still remains uniquely American in many ways.
Speaker A:Doesn't.
Speaker B:Does.
Speaker B:And I think at the top of that list, and I think it will never be bumped off, is the nascar.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:NASCAR is uniquely American.
Speaker B:However, like you said, now when you watch nascar, you see Toyotas.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Running around the track.
Speaker B:You see Nissan's running around the track.
Speaker B:Coming to me, that's a sacrilege.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I'll be perfectly honest, when I've watched the odd thing on Netflix or YouTube about NASCAR, it does seem very strange that they are now all Japanese cars because to my mind, NASCAR is uniquely American.
Speaker A:And the cars that, it's like you said, they were Hudson's, there were Chevrolets, there were Fords, there were always the American brands there.
Speaker A:And now you hardly see an American brand, which seems a shame.
Speaker B:It does.
Speaker B:I mean, NASCAR was started before there were any Japanese cars, before there were any German cars, before there were any other European cars in this country to any degree.
Speaker B:I mean, if you, in the 50s, if you saw an XK140 going down the road, you could wait three, four, five months before you ever saw another one.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I mean, nascar, the best part about nascar, and I think it was all by design, was that you couldn't race a NASCAR car that wasn't a production model.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:From American car builders.
Speaker A:I mean, do you think there's, do you think the fact that it's Toyotas and thing and Nissan now do nascar, do you think it's had an effect on the sales of these cars?
Speaker A:Because I mean, our mutual friend Joe Pep runs Toyotas.
Speaker A:I know, much to his annoyance because it's like he says they're incredibly reliable, but he doesn't like them.
Speaker B:Really?
Speaker A:I mean, how much effect do you think it has had on the sales and the popularity of the Japanese cars in America?
Speaker B:Well, I know for a fact that the score off road racing had a huge, huge effect.
Speaker B:And we had Toyota as our primary sponsor for the last two years that we did it.
Speaker B:And they had Ivan Stewart and he was the, he was the king of, of off road racing.
Speaker B:Just like Richard Petty was the king of nascar.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And so I know they had a following and I will say in my life I've owned one Toyota.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:It was an 81 SR5 4X4 pickup.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And it was the most trouble free vehicle I have ever owned.
Speaker B:And I am a stout Ford Lincoln Mercury guy.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean that's the one thing you do know about Japanese cars.
Speaker A:And I'll hold my hand up and admit this, they are incredibly reliable vehicles.
Speaker A:I mean the Toyota and Honda are renowned the world over for being incredibly reliable.
Speaker A:A friend of mine used to own a Toyota single cab pickup four before.
Speaker A:The abuse it was subjected to working on his farm was beyond belief and it never stopped.
Speaker A:There's the famous Top Gear 1.
Speaker A:They dropped it off the top of a tower block, put it back on its wheels.
Speaker A:They started it up and off it went again.
Speaker A:I mean they are.
Speaker A:The reliability is phenomenal of them.
Speaker A:But it just seems a shame.
Speaker A:It just seems a shame that, no disrespect to the Japanese manufacturers, I mean they're good at what they do.
Speaker A:But it wouldn't be nice to see American cars at nascar.
Speaker B:Oh, I totally agree.
Speaker B:I mean even NASCAR has a truck division.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Where they race pickup trucks.
Speaker B:And initially you saw Ford, Chevy and Dodge pickup trucks.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Well now that's also become infested with Japanese full size pickups.
Speaker B:I mean Japanese trucks, initially they had a market all to themselves, but they were building mid sized pickup trucks.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:In this country traditionally a pickup truck was a work vehicle.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:In the 80s all of a sudden pickup trucks began to get rise in popularity with suburbanites.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:That was before the SUVs.
Speaker B:They had a pickup truck and then when they came out with and Ford had four wheels or four door pickup trucks for years that they sold in other countries.
Speaker B:Never sold them in this country.
Speaker B:But when they came out with a four door pickup truck in this country, I thought, okay, that's a miracle of science.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You have a four door pickup truck, you can carry your entire family in it.
Speaker B:You can carry all kinds of junk in was limitless truck, you could do anything you wanted with it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I mean, one last question.
Speaker A:Whilst it is, shall we say, unique to a particular area of America, do you think there's any reason why NASCAR has never expanded into other parts of the world?
Speaker B:I would have to guess that the primary reason for that is, is because it's known as uniquely American.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:You know, if you wanted to run a Dakar to Paris in a brand new Ford Chevy or something, I don't think you'd have much choice or much chance.
Speaker B:And you know, the, the European tracks too.
Speaker B:I mean can you imagine running full size cars, even a full size Jag or a Bentley or a Rolls Royce on the Monaco racetrack?
Speaker B:I don't think so.
Speaker B:I mean they're designed for specific style of car.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And the NASCAR is the same way.
Speaker B:I mean NASCAR like the closest thing they got to running a road course was when they did out at Riverside.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I believe that was the only road course that NASCAR participated in.
Speaker A:And was it a success or did they not.
Speaker A:Did they not bother again?
Speaker B:I'm sorry Mark, I didn't hear you say that.
Speaker A:Was it a success or did they not bother again?
Speaker B:I don't really know.
Speaker B:I don't know if I could.
Speaker B:Could even expand.
Speaker A:Anyway, once again, Vic Piano, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you.
Speaker A:I mean, it's explained certain things that you need to talk to an American to find out about this, because no matter what you try and look at in England, etcetera, You never get the true facts about it all.
Speaker A:But once again, Vic Piano, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you.
Speaker A:Thank you very much, sir.
Speaker B:Well, thank you, Mark.
Speaker B:I certainly enjoyed it and I look forward to being back again.
Speaker A:Oh, you'll definitely be back again.
Speaker A:Thanks very much indeed, Vic.
Speaker A:Take care.
