Ben Kennedy

Okay, yeah, and I dreamed this one up a little bit before the show, and boy does it fall right in.

Okay, everybody, what Mark Martin was able to convince Ben Kennedy, the owner of NASCAR...

Mark rolled up my driveway in that beautiful motor coach last year, and Mark Martin had a lot to say.

So Mark lives, you know, three hours from me, and I said, "Mark, you got a lot on your mind." He goes, "I'm coming to your house." I said, "Mark, I'll believe it when I see it." [laughs] So here he comes.

And I, and I found out why Mark rolled up to my house.

He wanted Charlie Marlow and myself to turn our phones on with little microphones, and Mark went on a tour, and I was the first one on tour.

And he said, "I want the old points system back." Ben Kennedy finally says, "Okay," who is the owner of NASCAR.

But it started at my house here in Arnold, Missouri.

Okay, so to that point, this is where Brother Rusty says you gotta remind people they remember what they want to.

Two weeks ago, Ben Kennedy come out and said, "Hey, we're gonna start looking at this." You know? And, and Scott Ackerson, who was my boss at FOX, he started the NFL Today.

He didn't start it.

He was the boss.

Y- you know, they say, "How do you get along with Schrader and Rusty?" I'm like, "It's simple.

You always let them stand an inch taller than you." If NASCAR will let the NFL stand an inch taller than them, it's gonna be better.

And Ben Kennedy finally got the message, and he announced two weeks ago they're gonna start doing that.

So, uh, good, good setup, Deets.

But also, you touched a tremendous new audience as part of that, right? Can you maybe dive into that a little bit?

I will give Ben Kennedy, who's our chief operating officer, so much credit for events like San Diego and a few years before that, our race in downtown Chicago, and a few years before that, our race in the LA Coliseum.

I'm in downtown Charlotte.

I can see the Hornets Arena from here.

And I'm gonna add this.

Ben Kennedy literally came out and said, "We were ready, until I listened to Mark Martin." The, the man that owns NASCAR, he's the owner, Ben Kennedy said, "We changed the point system because of Mark Martin." And Mark, you changed my mind.

You changed NASCAR's mind.

What does it feel like today, six races to go, and Kyle Larson got a 26-point lead over Denny Hamlin? We have a race for the points championship.

You know me, I'm a social media guru.

Ben Kennedy and Steve O'Donnell both said about a week ago that that they are going to look at that.

They admitted it.

I read the article.

Part of it is the fairgrounds talk.

Part of it is what Ben Kennedy was talking about in a recent interview.

Uh, and there's kind of four big points to look at, and then also some reco speculation that had been going around social media.

I had heard from a few people.

I didn't know if it'd be sooner or later.

We'll find out.

Uh, but looking at the Ben Kennedy stuff, there are two big things.

Firstly, uh, they're gonna be auditioning for new partners, uh, around 2029, maybe 2028 at the end of the season.

So then Sunday comes along.

And I know there were some background conversations between O'Donnell, Probst, Ben Kennedy, and Elton Sawyer.

And kind of the feeling once after a secondary review was that the drivers, there was nothing we planned to do there.

And if you listen to Happy Hour or some of the coverage out of it, You know, he's not going, you know, O'Donnell is not going to encourage fighting, but he's going to encourage passion.

And I'm sure Coke's been a sponsor there for a long, long time.

But I did see yesterday, last night actually, I saw an article talking about how NASCAR was really, especially Ben Kennedy, I think it was, is really pushing to go back to midweek races.

They're tired of competing on Sundays in the fall.

Mm-hmm.