Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Yo, Elizabeth Dutton, zaren, I got a question for you.
Speaker 2: Do you have a second, Yeah, okay, so we'll take
Speaker 2: a second. Do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: Okay, then you just answer. I guess.
Speaker 5: Well, messages and emails I get a lot. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: I've been starting to get those emails again, like, oh, congratulations,
Speaker 5: your kids should probably go to our college.
Speaker 4: Oh the other Elizabeth, Yeah.
Speaker 3: But I don't think it's it's I know it's not her.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, but well the third Elizabeth Dutton.
Speaker 5: I meant, like a dozen now emails from these like
Speaker 5: sort of third tier colleges.
Speaker 3: If I had a kid, they would not be going,
Speaker 3: I'm rooting for your fake kid, thank you.
Speaker 5: So anyway, emails, messages I get a lot, The show
Speaker 5: gets a lot. The ones that the show gets are
Speaker 5: sent to me.
Speaker 2: I'm sure the people when they see that I have
Speaker 2: not answered an email, they're like, this is ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Probably our show email rarely gets visible.
Speaker 4: I meant all my emails, yox.
Speaker 3: Just AnyWho, We've been getting a lot of these messages.
Speaker 2: A particular one, Oh no, oh god, I thought that
Speaker 2: we were done with the emails that that was it.
Speaker 4: They got ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Now do you like cheese its?
Speaker 4: Let's just say I do. Move on, okay? Is that it?
Speaker 3: I and you own Converse All Star high Tops.
Speaker 4: Right, I too, and that's where I keep my cheeses.
Speaker 3: How do you well? Oh, so you have these? There's
Speaker 3: apparently getting me.
Speaker 4: I was just joking.
Speaker 3: Clear Converse high top sneakers.
Speaker 4: Clear with Converse High Top cheese.
Speaker 5: It's poured inside like a little pocket like those kangaroo
Speaker 5: shoes you can.
Speaker 4: I'm so confused.
Speaker 2: So the shoe was clear, but the cheese it's were
Speaker 2: going to be on the outside. Does it look like
Speaker 2: you see my foot and some cheese?
Speaker 5: It's yeah, you see your sock because you know, let's
Speaker 5: not go barefoot in this job. And then but you
Speaker 5: there's like a window of pocket and that's where the
Speaker 5: cheese its are and anyone can see your cheese. It's
Speaker 5: the cheese its are out for the world to see.
Speaker 4: So I'm flexing my cheese.
Speaker 5: It's basically so this was on Instagram and it was
Speaker 5: a post that was done not only by the guy
Speaker 5: who created them, but cheese it's but they're not for sale, is.
Speaker 4: This even real? Is this like an Ai thing?
Speaker 3: No, it's this guy case In Sullivan.
Speaker 5: If you're curious Instagram at is thank you case God. Okay,
Speaker 5: And he makes all these he says concept designed by
Speaker 5: me and my spare time for fun. And then the
Speaker 5: smiley face with the stars in its size. Uh huh. Anyway,
Speaker 5: he does this with a lot of tennis shoes, a
Speaker 5: lot of sneakers. He's got Tostitos ones, Tobo Chico oreos,
Speaker 5: you know the what have yours. But if you go
Speaker 5: to the cheese It shop, they have shoes, but they're slides, okay,
Speaker 5: and they have a cheese It cozy oversized retro hoodie
Speaker 5: for seventy dollars.
Speaker 2: Now you said hoodie, right, and maybe you also said slide.
Speaker 2: So did the slides have a pocket?
Speaker 3: For two different things?
Speaker 2: I got that part, so I figured the hoodie has
Speaker 2: a pocket. But dude, the stud slide oddly.
Speaker 3: Enough, there's no front pocket on the hoodie.
Speaker 4: Wait, wait, you're getting everything. Where am I going to.
Speaker 3: Keep my cheese its? They have a Hawaiian shirt.
Speaker 4: You just keep them in the hood like I got
Speaker 4: a hood full.
Speaker 3: Of space in your space.
Speaker 4: Your story.
Speaker 5: So Case and Sullivan has everyone thinking that cheese Its
Speaker 5: is selling these shoes, but it's just a little special
Speaker 5: project of his.
Speaker 2: Oh case, god end, Well, if you got a second
Speaker 2: now that you've had your cheese It, yes, just to
Speaker 2: clear your palate, I got a story for you.
Speaker 4: It's totally ridiculous, I hope.
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So there was once an amateur stock driver, you know,
Speaker 2: like a race car driver. He conned everyone he had
Speaker 2: to to enter the Winston five hundred at the Talladega Speedway, which,
Speaker 2: mind you, is the longest closed course track in professional motorsports.
Speaker 2: It's also the fastest track in the world. So he's
Speaker 2: out there with forty professional race car drivers names you know,
Speaker 2: NASCAR legends, Dale Earnhardt, Richard Petty, Darryl Waltrip, Bobby Allison
Speaker 2: and my favorite part, he said, all of this, the
Speaker 2: whole idea came to him and basically the responsibility of
Speaker 2: Waylon Jennings.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, this is ridiculous crime a podcast about absurd
Speaker 7: and outrageous capers.
Speaker 2: Heis and cons it's all weighs ninety nine percent motor
Speaker 2: free and ridiculous. Elizabeth, Elizabeth, I know how you love
Speaker 2: to drive fast. I say that teasingly. So I figure
Speaker 2: you'll love this story because it's all about speed and
Speaker 2: driving things you love, like you know, racetracks in.
Speaker 4: The South, so all my favorites.
Speaker 2: Quick question for you, which major American sport began as
Speaker 2: an organized crime?
Speaker 4: Answer?
Speaker 2: Nastall, I don't have a pickle. What maybe, but NASCAR
Speaker 2: definitely is the only major American sport based on crime.
Speaker 3: I talked about this in the show before.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, no, I use the rum runner.
Speaker 2: I remember the woman behind the wheels of Lights out
Speaker 2: souped up thirty two forward flat head v.
Speaker 4: Eight talking about her with the product shop. No.
Speaker 2: Now, you may already know this, but Nascar, as I said,
Speaker 2: started out as a way for run runners to see
Speaker 2: who was fastest. They would take those souped up cars
Speaker 2: and they became the stock cars of NASCAR. So basically,
Speaker 2: for a rum runner, as you've you know, I think
Speaker 2: you know this, but we'll just pretend you don't.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, you take a.
Speaker 2: Stock car right off the showroom floor, right you say
Speaker 2: the aforementioned thirty two forward flathead V eight, I preferred
Speaker 2: favorite of the rum runners in the know. And next
Speaker 2: you modified the engine, you soup it up and then
Speaker 2: you rip out the seats and the floorboards any excess
Speaker 2: weight you can. You load up a suspension with new
Speaker 2: springs for all the extra weight of the booze you
Speaker 2: plan to carry down those mountain dirt roads. Then you
Speaker 2: add a metal plate in the front of the car
Speaker 2: that's to protect the radiator, but also to give you
Speaker 2: a little weight if you need to smash through a blockade.
Speaker 2: So now you got yourself a nice good rum runner.
Speaker 2: So you gotta go up the mountains, get yourself a
Speaker 2: load of illegal booze, and you make that run down
Speaker 2: from the hills where the moonshine stills are located. And
Speaker 2: then once you load up, you race back down to
Speaker 2: the low country where all the thirsty people are on
Speaker 2: the speakeasies.
Speaker 4: It's a great life, yep.
Speaker 2: And Willie Carter Sharp was probably I was impressed because
Speaker 2: I had not really a good you know, you hear
Speaker 2: about her, but like the speed you describe, Yeah, and
Speaker 2: these cars like these, these are not cars with power brakes,
Speaker 2: these are not cars of power steering.
Speaker 4: These are cars it's like just basically like.
Speaker 2: Really lean into the turn, you know. Yeah, anyway, so
Speaker 2: you know, also you're doing this you're killing your headlights.
Speaker 2: You're doing this in the dark on a dirt road. Right, Well,
Speaker 2: great fun was had by all, then all of a
Speaker 2: sudden nineteen thirty three prohibition INDs.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 2: Now you got all these rum runners with a skill set,
Speaker 2: but no way to get paid for it.
Speaker 4: So what do they do? Well, Elizabeth, I'll tell you
Speaker 4: don't even worry. They do what they do best.
Speaker 2: They keep driving fast for money, except for now they
Speaker 2: do it on dirt flat tracks all around the South,
Speaker 2: and nude and nude before paying audiences with their like
Speaker 2: you know, pet pig. So in nineteen thirty six, Tone
Speaker 2: of Florida held a race, the first professional organized stock
Speaker 2: car race. Right, the audience loved it, but the guy
Speaker 2: didn't make any money. The promoter sotally, oh yeah, it
Speaker 2: took a little bit of time. A decade passes before
Speaker 2: they can kind of get this racing culture to grow
Speaker 2: and spread across South.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: By nineteen forty seven, Boom NASCAR is founded. Next year,
Speaker 2: nineteen forty eight, in February, Batance again back down in Daytona, Florida,
Speaker 2: NASCAR holds its first professional race. Now do you know
Speaker 2: who the winning driver was?
Speaker 3: Barney Oldfield.
Speaker 4: Good guess, Red Byron.
Speaker 3: I only know Barney Oldfield because I did actually get
Speaker 3: a speeding ticket.
Speaker 4: Once'ntil I called you, my grandmother was.
Speaker 5: All, look at you, Barney Oldfield like weepings ashamed Barney.
Speaker 3: That's the only way I know that name.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: Red Byron was a former real life Moonshiner who notably
Speaker 2: was driving a Ford. A lot of Fords in this
Speaker 2: for you. And this means, by the way, the very
Speaker 2: first NASCAR race was one by a criminal.
Speaker 3: So boom right here it is.
Speaker 2: Now this brings us to my dude, NASCAR's mysterious legend
Speaker 2: w Right. Larry Woody, a Tennessee sports writer. He once said,
Speaker 2: I quote, if he could have driven as fast as
Speaker 2: he talked, L W. Wright would be a NASCAR champion.
Speaker 2: Now yeah, now L. W. Wright is the gnome do
Speaker 2: race for the amateur driver. It's not his real name.
Speaker 2: The professional con man who woke up one day and
Speaker 2: he decided, you know, I think I'm going to go
Speaker 2: race the best drivers in the world at the biggest, longest,
Speaker 2: fastest track in the world. I'm gonna go do that.
Speaker 2: So that's what he did.
Speaker 5: It's the longest track, I mean who cares the closet.
Speaker 5: But I mean they're going around and around and around.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for five hundred miles. Sure, so it's a lot
Speaker 4: of miles.
Speaker 3: They don't have to do as many turns if the
Speaker 3: track's longer.
Speaker 4: No, that's true. The turn it's just a bunch of
Speaker 4: left turns. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well they don't have to use their blinkers.
Speaker 4: No, they definitely save it on the turn.
Speaker 3: They don't need. Yeah, the blinker fluid.
Speaker 2: A lot of blinker fluid saved in NASCAR. They don't
Speaker 2: even think they have blinker fluid sponsors.
Speaker 3: They do, do they? Okay, American blinker fluid Jimmy All yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Know you're you're probably I know I'm right, man. I
Speaker 4: don't even know how I forgot that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm full of correct facts.
Speaker 2: So how does my dude l W. Writ con is
Speaker 2: way onto the track? Well, the year Elizabeth is nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty two. I want you to frame your mind. You're
Speaker 2: in the Reagan's America. The month is April. Larry Wright.
Speaker 2: He contacts the local paper, the Nashville newspaper, the Tennessee,
Speaker 2: and he offers a newspaper a news item. You know,
Speaker 2: anybody could do this in newspaper it publishes it and
Speaker 2: I quote. Nashville driver L. W. Wright yesterday announced he
Speaker 2: will be attempting to qualify for next week's Winston five
Speaker 2: hundred Grand National Race at Talladega, Alabama. The thirty year
Speaker 2: old right, a veteran of forty five Grand National races,
Speaker 2: will drive a nineteen eighty one Monte Carlo. The name
Speaker 2: of Wright's team is Music City Racing, and among his
Speaker 2: sponsors are country music stars Merle Haggard and TG Shephard.
Speaker 2: Haggard is scheduled to appear at Talladega with his driver.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so as simple as that story was, fantastic story. Yeah,
Speaker 2: do you think it's true? No, No, it was not
Speaker 2: true at all. Country music legends backing at amateur race
Speaker 2: car driver no one's heard of. People are like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna print that.
Speaker 3: But you know, I don't think Hank done it that way.
Speaker 4: You're spot on. So turns out, uh, LW.
Speaker 2: Wright, He he did get onto the track of Talladega
Speaker 2: that day, and how he did it and who he
Speaker 2: was remained a mystery for forty years, okay forty years,
Speaker 2: no one knew who this guy he.
Speaker 3: Got on the track did his car, He got in
Speaker 3: the car.
Speaker 4: No, he didn't like run like he was racing a horse.
Speaker 3: Just like I thought. Was he like glad handing?
Speaker 5: Like walking around one going to get my carts around
Speaker 5: the corner?
Speaker 4: Nineteen eighty one Monte Carlo and he took it out.
Speaker 5: That's such a great in my mind, I see like
Speaker 5: current Nascar, and then I see him Monte Carlo like
Speaker 5: not tricked out.
Speaker 4: A dust you boys.
Speaker 2: So on the fortieth anniversary, journalists Rick Houston and Steve
Speaker 2: Wade from Scene Vault podcast, they broke the story that
Speaker 2: they had found L. W.
Speaker 4: Wright.
Speaker 2: Nascar goes nuts right all the bad like are you
Speaker 2: kidding me? The legend was finally ready to let his
Speaker 2: story be known. He was ready to kill the mystery.
Speaker 2: It took Rick Houston hundreds of exchange messages to earn
Speaker 2: this dude's trust and the trust of his family, but
Speaker 2: eventually he is able to speak with L. W.
Speaker 4: Wright.
Speaker 2: So turns out, in nineteen eighty two, L. W. Wright
Speaker 2: was working as a bus repair garage he just north
Speaker 2: of Nashville in a town called Hendersonville, Tennessee. Now Nashville
Speaker 2: is known as Music City, the country music capital of
Speaker 2: the world, which also meant big country stars of that
Speaker 2: era brought their tour buses over to Hendersonville to get
Speaker 2: their buses repaired and ready for the road. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: where Old L. W. Wright rubbed elbows with the glitterati
Speaker 2: of country music legends like Tammy Wynette, George Jones, Willie Nelson,
Speaker 2: Waaley Jennings, Merle Haggard and so and so. Now, being
Speaker 2: that close to the country music stars gives Old L. W.
Speaker 2: Wright a big idea. Now, if you ask him, Wright
Speaker 2: credits Whylon Jennings for why he was on that track
Speaker 2: that fateful day. Now, he tells this story rather casually
Speaker 2: and so quote Whyal and Jennis. He was sitting in
Speaker 2: an apartment studio in Hendersonville. This is how Wright tells it.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: Quote George Jones and Merle Haggard was there to do
Speaker 2: a duet on a new album that evening.
Speaker 4: They told me to come over. Wanted to talk to me.
Speaker 4: That was the three of them there. Mer All was
Speaker 4: called me Hoss because I was a big old boy.
Speaker 4: He said, haas, will hear you want a race? I said, well,
Speaker 4: we're trying.
Speaker 2: He said, why don't you let us make a little
Speaker 2: bit of money help you get there. We're not gonna
Speaker 2: stand a lot of sponsorship, but we're gonna give you
Speaker 2: money to race with.
Speaker 4: Right that's his story.
Speaker 5: So these guys are just hanging out like tuning it
Speaker 5: up smart and whatever, and they're like, you know, get
Speaker 5: the bus mechanicsous come over here, get over here.
Speaker 2: You tell me a story. The other day, we gotta
Speaker 2: get him. And I love he says, hass because it's wayling.
Speaker 2: Jennings is known for calling people haas and not but whatever,
Speaker 2: you know, So he's got this country boy's dream. Whalen
Speaker 2: Jennings telling you need to go drive as fast as
Speaker 2: you can right now. Anyway, our amateur race driver L. W.
Speaker 2: Wright says Merle Haggard ponies up three grand. The other guys,
Speaker 2: George Jones, Whale and Jennings are like, oh, I gotta get.
Speaker 4: My three grand.
Speaker 2: I don't know how they'll have three grand on him,
Speaker 2: if it's that night, or if they go to the
Speaker 2: bank and say, LW.
Speaker 4: You come by it later.
Speaker 3: Anyway, in those days, it was required to have three grand.
Speaker 4: In your pocket.
Speaker 2: You know, if you're going to a guitar pick and
Speaker 2: you want to bring three grand exactly.
Speaker 4: So according to they.
Speaker 2: Said, Hus, they'll take care of your tires and mobtail bill,
Speaker 2: won't it. I had a lot of friends that got
Speaker 2: into music, and I didn't use any of them other
Speaker 2: than what they wanted to do.
Speaker 4: So he's always saying that it's.
Speaker 3: Their idea made me do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they basically twisted my rubber arm. So if you
Speaker 2: ask lw Right that what he did with the Country
Speaker 2: Music's Legends money, he said he sold a bulldozer and
Speaker 2: then he paired that money with the country stars money,
Speaker 2: and he purchased himself that nineteen eighty one Chevy money.
Speaker 5: Carlo, Wait, two questions, One, why didn't you just race
Speaker 5: the bulldozer? He was such a good mechanic. Two, why
Speaker 5: did he own a bulldozer?
Speaker 4: He didn't have a big enough ratchet.
Speaker 2: And the second one is he used that to pay
Speaker 2: for the donkey he wanted to eventually get because his
Speaker 2: kids love that. So he's like, Okay, I'll use the
Speaker 2: bulldozer to pay for the donkey. I cant for it now.
Speaker 3: I think he stole the bulldozer.
Speaker 4: No, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Why he just had a bulldozer. He's like, I don't
Speaker 2: know why did I buy this? I was drunk and
Speaker 2: I bought the.
Speaker 3: Bulldozer, so an impulse purchased.
Speaker 2: He was at to check how he was like, candy
Speaker 2: bar bulldozer, I have bulldozer. IM ain't that hungry. So
Speaker 2: keep in mind he did just buy any nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: one Chevy Monte Carlo. He bought a race car from
Speaker 2: Cuckoo Marlin in his future Daytona five hundred winning son
Speaker 2: Sterling Marlin. Cuckoo Cuckoo, Cuckoo Marlin and Sterling Marlin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, uh huh cuckoo.
Speaker 4: Whi's a NASCAR You got to get used to this name.
Speaker 4: That is not what his mama named him. She did
Speaker 4: not name him cuckoo. Yeah. So, as L. W.
Speaker 2: Wright recalled it, I said, I'll buy it if you'll
Speaker 2: only paint the car black and put number thirty four
Speaker 2: on it. So he's now telling them they take this
Speaker 2: all red car painted black, put thirty four in and
Speaker 2: I'm taking it. Now he's got his race car. Things
Speaker 2: are proceeding well for old LW. But LW had another
Speaker 2: issue that was going to probably darken some skies for him.
Speaker 2: This troubled. This cloud hovering above him was the FBI.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so he was a coal miner at the time.
Speaker 2: Least that's what he said. And if you ask LW. Wright,
Speaker 2: this is when he was also a bus repairman. He
Speaker 2: had a lot of jobs apparently, or he was overlapping,
Speaker 2: I don't know, but he was in coal mining at
Speaker 2: the time. And his version goes like this, compy, we
Speaker 2: were doing some work for They had a safe and
Speaker 2: they had money in it, and they told the law
Speaker 2: enforcement and they told the insurance people that they I
Speaker 2: had one hundred thousand in there. I'm here to tell
Speaker 2: you today there was exactly one thousand dollars in that safe.
Speaker 4: I didn't go.
Speaker 2: And get it, but it was brought to me. They
Speaker 2: did that so the insurance would pay them. But I'm
Speaker 2: the bad guy.
Speaker 3: It's always someone else exactly.
Speaker 2: He's a victim of circumstances. Really, So this money was
Speaker 2: allegedly LW. Wright's motivation to make the money as a
Speaker 2: race car driver. His answer is, I got this problem
Speaker 2: with the FBI. I should probably go under Talladega to
Speaker 2: make the thousand dollars I need. So he's gonna pay
Speaker 2: back that grand, So he put it.
Speaker 3: He spent the grand on the bulldozer exactly.
Speaker 4: All these impulse purchases. This is not his only impulse purchase.
Speaker 4: You know, that's what I'm sane.
Speaker 2: So anyway, Yes, he put it quote, that was my
Speaker 2: goal to make it right. I knew I could do it.
Speaker 2: I knew I could run fast enough, qualify and all
Speaker 2: that stuff. But it didn't work out that way.
Speaker 5: He wanted to make it right. Yeah, with thew.
Speaker 2: The FBI investigation, the tanging over him, it became a
Speaker 2: bit of a distraction for LW. Let me put it
Speaker 2: this way. He says, it was hard because you got
Speaker 2: to focus on every face in the crowd. You don't
Speaker 2: know who's gonna walk up on you at any minute.
Speaker 2: You wouldn't know how to handle that. Plus the stress
Speaker 2: on you that you gotta do good. You gotta qualify,
Speaker 2: You gotta get out there and run this race. You
Speaker 2: gotta finish in the top fifteen.
Speaker 4: Can't hit the FBI hanging over here. You got a
Speaker 4: race to win. It's like an Elvis Presley movie. You
Speaker 4: gotta win this race. Elvit. I gotta win this race.
Speaker 4: And the FBI is here, Elvis, FBI is here.
Speaker 2: Anyway, A lot of pressure got this first time car
Speaker 2: driver and now throw in he's a con artist who
Speaker 2: shouldn't be there, adding the FBI agents who her it
Speaker 2: e'tone about to grab him. There's a lot of pressure
Speaker 2: for old hell wie he is, but he talks his
Speaker 2: way onto the track at Talidaga. Now, as I said earlier,
Speaker 2: it's the biggest, longest track, the fastest track in the world,
Speaker 2: the true long daddy, Elizabeth. So he said, and I quote,
Speaker 2: I remember pulling in the infield and standing at the
Speaker 2: end of the track and looking down at looked over
Speaker 2: at my brother and I said, Lord, have mercy.
Speaker 4: Ain't no way? He said, Well, what do you mean?
Speaker 4: I said, you think about.
Speaker 2: Holding that pedal flat on the floor all the way
Speaker 2: around this track? That straightaway is almost a mile long.
Speaker 2: How much can that car game before you go into
Speaker 2: that urn? So cold, dark fear rolled through lw Right.
Speaker 2: So what does our com man racer do, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: Well, he's just a little old lump of coal, and
Speaker 3: that that pressure's gonna turn him into a diamond.
Speaker 2: Oh, I love it, because he just needed the Lord
Speaker 2: to help him. That's the extra pressure he needs.
Speaker 3: Wait, the Lord helped him.
Speaker 4: He asked God for help.
Speaker 2: I got off by myself that day, and I said, Lord,
Speaker 2: I'm down here, but I'm gonna need some help.
Speaker 5: God's like, okay, I've got a really long list of
Speaker 5: tickets that people have put in for help.
Speaker 3: But you, LW.
Speaker 4: When I get done with Ethiopia, I'll be right there. LW.
Speaker 2: We got the starvation going on, but I swear you're
Speaker 2: next in line. There's just millions of them. It's only
Speaker 2: one of you. It's a number things, LW. So anyway,
Speaker 2: I was reading that quote and I was like, my
Speaker 2: brother in Christ, this is what we in the story.
Speaker 2: Bill is just called a gross understatement. I'm gonna need
Speaker 2: some help. You're gonna need a lot of help.
Speaker 4: You're gonna need like six.
Speaker 2: Gods worth of help to get any chance to win
Speaker 2: in this race, even gods like Paul. You're asking for
Speaker 2: a lot here. So okay, let's take a little break
Speaker 2: and then we'll after these messages. I'll tell you we'll
Speaker 2: get into Talladega that very fateful day.
Speaker 8: Nice.
Speaker 2: All right, Elizabeth, we're back and we're all about to
Speaker 2: be in Talladega.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we are now, Elizabeth, Charlie, it.
Speaker 2: Is it true that Talladega Knights is your favorite Will
Speaker 2: Ferrell movie.
Speaker 3: Yes it is.
Speaker 4: I remembered you saying that.
Speaker 7: True.
Speaker 4: I thought I remember that.
Speaker 3: It's like that, or let's say that an old school school.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's no racing in old school. So let's
Speaker 2: talk about Talladega Knights.
Speaker 3: I love that movie. I own it on Blu Ray.
Speaker 3: You're laughing, I'm serious.
Speaker 4: You are.
Speaker 2: Do you have a Blu ray player somewhere? Do you
Speaker 2: remember the scene when he did he needed to master
Speaker 2: his fear and then he's like he's like, he's like,
Speaker 2: you know, teacher for teaching him how to drive.
Speaker 4: Dad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ricky Bobby is sitting there and his dad's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: you need a cougar in your car. He gets in
Speaker 2: and there's a cougar in his market and he has
Speaker 2: to drive with the cougar.
Speaker 4: Yes, first time I saw that, lost it, lost it.
Speaker 4: It's like there's some stuff my dad would, Boy, you
Speaker 4: need a cougar in the car. Yeah, you're right, there
Speaker 4: is a cougar in the car.
Speaker 2: Anyway, So imagine if Will Ferrell wasn't in a movie,
Speaker 2: right and no, imagine Will Farrell was really racing against
Speaker 2: the real life NASCAR drivers, Like I know the dude's
Speaker 2: a dope drummer, but I don't care how dope a
Speaker 2: drummer is.
Speaker 4: He couldn't handle that speed. We're talking two hundred miles
Speaker 4: in a drummer.
Speaker 3: Are you confusing him with Chad Smith?
Speaker 4: No, he's a drummer, girl, drummer.
Speaker 3: I've seen him.
Speaker 4: He's really good, is he? Chad Smith says he's I
Speaker 4: don't drum know. I believe the Chili Peppers Elizabeth will Ferrell, Yes,
Speaker 4: one of them.
Speaker 2: I think they take tours. He's like, I need to
Speaker 2: get out for a little sabbatical. Chad, you do some
Speaker 2: comedy which explained some of the movie choices.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh so anyway, so the as I was saying two
Speaker 2: hundred miles an hours basically, how fast these guys are going?
Speaker 3: Really fast? Yes?
Speaker 5: Really really, that's like five eighty Oakland speeds exactly.
Speaker 2: We know these speeds. You've seen them on the freeway
Speaker 2: zipping by. Okay, So race weekend comes.
Speaker 4: L W.
Speaker 2: Wright is officially now listed as one of the drivers.
Speaker 2: He's in all this stuff. You look in the paper
Speaker 2: it says, oh yeah, Dale Earnhardt, LW. Wright, What the
Speaker 2: who's this? L? W Right, public relations director for the track,
Speaker 2: Tom Roberts, he would say, quote after the fact, NASCAR.
Speaker 4: Was fooled like everybody else.
Speaker 2: Normally new drivers are checked out before they were giving
Speaker 2: a license, but this wasn't a normal case. This guy
Speaker 2: dropped names and places and just simply talked his way in.
Speaker 3: He had a press release with them. Yeah, like the
Speaker 3: old boy.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, there's l w Right. That dude's having a crisis
Speaker 2: of confidence at this point. And I quote from l
Speaker 2: W I was real nervous. I was there with the
Speaker 2: biggest names in racing and me and nobody from back
Speaker 2: in the hills of Virginia, but no background like that.
Speaker 2: I knew I didn't have the ability they had because
Speaker 2: they'd done it for years.
Speaker 3: The little rebel whoop at the end.
Speaker 2: Something that's authenticity, Elizabeth, That's what that is. So now
Speaker 2: he's at talent dig L W. Wright has to pass
Speaker 2: for a professional race car driver. Cuckoo Marlin and son
Speaker 2: Sterling Martin. They've sold a stock.
Speaker 4: Car to L.
Speaker 2: W Right, so he's got an official car. He looks
Speaker 2: like he belongs there.
Speaker 3: Now did he check it.
Speaker 5: Out as a mechanic to make sure? Because if I'm
Speaker 5: a NASCAR driver and some upstart, says, can I.
Speaker 3: Buy y'all's car? I go, yeah, sure, take.
Speaker 5: This one, like my busted up one, the janky one
Speaker 5: I got like, hey, that's what you do that?
Speaker 8: Yeah, hey, take this car.
Speaker 4: I got this limit of the car over quickly in tune.
Speaker 3: Don't even look at it. It's perfect.
Speaker 4: Just don't yeah, don't kick those tires. Oh you know,
Speaker 4: come on, and then it's just race back on the
Speaker 4: starting line. Don't start it here put.
Speaker 3: You'll never mess with Cuckoo.
Speaker 2: So my man to Sterling Marlin. His father with Cuckoo
Speaker 2: was racing. So he's busy. He can't like be bothered
Speaker 2: with this. But Sterling is a young man. He's like,
Speaker 2: you know, like twenty one, twenty two or whatever. I
Speaker 2: think he's twenty five.
Speaker 3: He twenty eight thirty, doesn't it's.
Speaker 4: Very handsome, twenty seven, so surly marn.
Speaker 2: He told ESPN back in twenty nineteen in a story
Speaker 2: about this before the mystery had been revealed.
Speaker 4: Quote, now I'd never heard of this guy, right, but that.
Speaker 3: But you sold him a car, sir.
Speaker 2: Oh, it gets better than that, because he's like lw
Speaker 2: is lying to his face. Remember in his press release,
Speaker 2: he said he had forty five, and he told Sterling
Speaker 2: forty three whatever. He's like somewhere in the forties, and
Speaker 2: it's all telling him he's flat track races in Virginia.
Speaker 2: So this guy's a racers. Dad's a racer. Grip rates.
Speaker 2: He's like, oh, yeah, do you know this guy? He's like, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't know him. He don't know this guy.
Speaker 4: I don't know him.
Speaker 2: He starts listen down. He doesn't know any of the
Speaker 2: names of any of the current flat track drive. Doesn't
Speaker 2: bother him, startling like that's kind of weird. So somehow
Speaker 2: this works.
Speaker 4: To his benefit. Sterling's like, you know what, I bet
Speaker 4: this guy needs help.
Speaker 2: This is my dad's busy, he decides, and I quote,
Speaker 2: so I decided I'm gonna go down there with him
Speaker 2: kind of be like his crew chief, just to keep
Speaker 2: an eye on him.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 2: As soon as we got there, it all got even fishier.
Speaker 2: He decides, this guy is weird and crazy. I think
Speaker 2: he's lying to me. I should get closer and spend
Speaker 2: more of my time.
Speaker 3: On this what like a pro bono crew chief.
Speaker 4: Yes, he's not getting paid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he's doing like he just get this guy,
Speaker 2: by the way, I mean, you got l W walking
Speaker 2: around in this garage and he's doing like what you
Speaker 2: would do, Elizabeth. He's like, I have that ratchet, you know,
Speaker 2: we see this other ratchet over here. I need the
Speaker 2: Everyone's like, who the hell is this dude?
Speaker 3: I need I need the old twisting.
Speaker 4: Thing rod, the hard twisty.
Speaker 2: And so even though he's made it this far on
Speaker 2: a ruise and a lie, LW he just can't stop himself.
Speaker 2: He keeps talking to other folks in the garage in
Speaker 2: the infield of the track, and he's made it. He's
Speaker 2: inside Talladagan. He's about to blow it because the more
Speaker 2: he talks, everybody knows this guy is a liar and
Speaker 2: his ignorance is leaking out of him. He's like you
Speaker 2: like a flatulent old uncle. And he's sitting there like
Speaker 2: after like he's had a big meal and he's sitting
Speaker 2: there taking a nap in the room.
Speaker 4: He doesn't know how much he stinks. Now that's l W. Right.
Speaker 4: So word starts to spread around the track.
Speaker 2: People are like, who's this new? No name Newcome you
Speaker 2: hear about him? Like, oh yeah, he tell you Whyalon
Speaker 2: Jennings is a sponsor. You know, they're all like talking,
Speaker 2: They've read the press releases.
Speaker 4: Everyone. He's the talk of the girlage.
Speaker 3: He said Whalen was going to be that.
Speaker 2: Merle Haggard's gonna be there, and Merle Haggard did not
Speaker 2: show up, and shepherds the other country start. He's like,
Speaker 2: I don't know this guy. He releases a press release
Speaker 2: saying like he's a liar. Yeah people, So people are
Speaker 2: asking about that. I saw the shepherd called you a liar.
Speaker 2: You said he's one of your sponsors. And another guy
Speaker 2: is coming at him, like, how can it be possible
Speaker 2: that not a single one of the NASCAR drivers ever
Speaker 2: heard of you? So he's like, oh, you know how
Speaker 2: it is, I'm I got a name. People forget, you
Speaker 2: know whatever he's saying. Right, He's got momentum at this point,
Speaker 2: so he just keeps the wheels rolling. But most importantly,
Speaker 2: he knows he's got in his hot little hand his
Speaker 2: official NASCAR license to race.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: According to Jim Hunter, the Talladega Speedway president can't down
Speaker 2: to the fact that Alabama is a right to work state.
Speaker 4: He claimed that he was.
Speaker 2: Quote handcuffed by what NASCAR and Talladega Speedway could do.
Speaker 2: Once questions were raised about this new driver, so Jim
Speaker 2: Hunter put it Besides, the damn guy did qualify for
Speaker 2: the race, so you know you can almost hear the
Speaker 2: like the echo of a good old boy chuckle. He
Speaker 2: just got it. Anyway, the way it works since LW.
Speaker 2: Paid is one hundred and fifteen dollars entrance fee and
Speaker 2: his NASCAR competition license fee and the Talladega Speedway on
Speaker 2: hundred dollars race fee, he's now an official interest.
Speaker 3: That's all it takes. And what like a Malibu Grand Prix.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's like a Grandnex.
Speaker 2: Here's nothing they can do about it now because once
Speaker 2: again right to work state Alabama laws were like, you
Speaker 2: gotta let this race.
Speaker 3: Doesn't that mean they can just fire you whenever they want?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that too. It's about it's a whole like, we
Speaker 4: don't have union, so the workers make their own contracts right, right.
Speaker 2: Exactly, So it's usually not good and in this case
Speaker 2: it was not good for the owners. But anyway, it
Speaker 2: cuts both exactly. It's a very sharp knife. It's a
Speaker 2: Ginzu blade on both sides. The day before the race,
Speaker 2: the drivers are taking practice laps, right, so L. W.
Speaker 2: Wright goes to take his qualifying laps. Before he gets
Speaker 2: out there, the driver's in the garage. This driver, Bobby Allison,
Speaker 2: comes up to l W. Wright and this listen has
Speaker 2: a legend right, and the legend tells, look, if you
Speaker 2: don't qualify, don't feel bad because there are a lot
Speaker 2: of guys he ain't gonna make the field.
Speaker 4: LW.
Speaker 2: Wright says, with zero hesitation, I appreciate that, mister Allison,
Speaker 2: but I come down here for one reason, to make
Speaker 2: the field. So impressed, Bobby als replys, well, you're cocky enough,
Speaker 2: ain't you.
Speaker 4: Wow? Elizabeth, can you guess who comes up to him next? No,
Speaker 4: it's your boy? Throw up three for Dale Dale, Yes,
Speaker 4: legend Dale.
Speaker 3: See rest with the angels. Dale.
Speaker 4: So Dale Earnheart senor known to be a hard ass,
Speaker 4: but he's somehow cool with LW. Wright.
Speaker 2: He even gives him some Dale Earnhardt tested advice for
Speaker 2: winning a race. He comes up there and says, look here,
Speaker 2: when you get out there, you can get on the
Speaker 2: back of someone that's been here before and follow them,
Speaker 2: stay with them, and then make your move.
Speaker 3: Why is everyone helping him?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I thought this was a competitive sport.
Speaker 2: I think they just want to see what he'll do.
Speaker 2: It's entertainment. They're like, just put the kid out there.
Speaker 3: It's much more of a community than I realized. It's
Speaker 3: just it's all trying to uplift each other exactly.
Speaker 2: It's men helping men, bro being there for in the
Speaker 2: middle of it. They say, we need therapy.
Speaker 4: No, we didn't count.
Speaker 2: We have more times to back each other up on
Speaker 2: our crazy s iday. So now we have Dale Iron hurt.
Speaker 2: And he gives them all this good advice. And he
Speaker 2: wanted to let this good old boy know that the
Speaker 2: seven time NASCAR champion he's got his back.
Speaker 4: Chucks him on the shoulder, said you get out there now.
Speaker 2: So he goes out to do his practice laps and
Speaker 2: he's never seen the track before. He's never been on
Speaker 2: the track, he's never driven his car. He's on talented
Speaker 2: exactly once again. World's longest track, faster than Indianapolis five
Speaker 2: hundred right track is just for some specs, Elizabeth. The
Speaker 2: track is two point six six miles long. It is
Speaker 2: a trioval, which is not standard. Usually a triable means
Speaker 2: you have three turns at one end, two turns at
Speaker 2: the other end. He has five turns.
Speaker 3: So it's sort of from above, looks what triangul.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, well yeah, pentagonal or something.
Speaker 3: It has like a giant octagon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it looks like a rhombus. So you get it.
Speaker 3: One, two, three, Okay, I'm counting.
Speaker 4: Five, yeah, three and then two. Yeah, there it is.
Speaker 3: That's some crazy business.
Speaker 2: So there we are five turns deep. So the north
Speaker 2: south turned, they're banked. The two turn end right is
Speaker 2: banked at thirty three degrees. Oh yeah, the inner trioval
Speaker 2: is banked at eighteen degrees. Now, thirty three degrees. That's
Speaker 2: a super very steep angle. Right, eighteen degrees is a
Speaker 2: steep angle if you're on it. So these guys are
Speaker 2: like driving on a hypot news of a triangle. Basically
Speaker 2: at two hundred miles an hour.
Speaker 3: You're loving this all the mass I do.
Speaker 4: They're coming into turn three Wilde Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: So the entire track forty eight feet wide, which is
Speaker 2: basically about the third of a football field, the width
Speaker 2: of a football field from the sideline to sideline. Oh
Speaker 2: it is, yeah, but the fortye it's about the Yeah.
Speaker 2: So to keep the tracks, keep all these cars in
Speaker 2: the track, there's a retaining wall, and the retaining wall
Speaker 2: is about about four feet high most of the time,
Speaker 2: like uh, like on the track and then seven feet
Speaker 2: past the grand stands. Like they want to protect people,
Speaker 2: so they got next to three feet garry this which
Speaker 2: you guys get three feet because we care. So if
Speaker 2: you were let's just say like you're on this wall,
Speaker 2: like the retaining wall, not the hurricane fencing part to
Speaker 2: the cement wall. Let's say you were an ant and
Speaker 2: you look down at your buddy ant and the grasses
Speaker 2: in the infield of the track. You can be fifty
Speaker 2: feet higher than the ant on the grass. Wait on
Speaker 2: the retaining wall. You're on the retaining wall on the
Speaker 2: outside of the track fee because of the steepness of
Speaker 2: the canted angle of the track. And then you add
Speaker 2: in a couple of feet of the fence that's feet
Speaker 2: higher than the inside field. So just think about that.
Speaker 3: And also keeping the ants is wearing an altimeter, by the.
Speaker 4: Way, of course, like little romans.
Speaker 3: So the taker guys.
Speaker 2: The infield of the track at Talladega, that's the grass
Speaker 2: inside the track, right, that could comfortably sit thirty one
Speaker 2: rose ball stadiums.
Speaker 4: Wait, stop it, that's how big this place is. It's huge.
Speaker 3: Thirty one thirty.
Speaker 2: One rose ball stadiums. It's huge. That's why I always
Speaker 2: stopped to see it. It's a cathedral.
Speaker 3: Having problems getting my head around there.
Speaker 2: I know thirty one rose balls inside the inside the track.
Speaker 2: The track is bigger, bigger driving around. Yes, so this
Speaker 2: is bigger than the United States interamateur race car driver
Speaker 2: L W. Wright, who now has to drive around the
Speaker 2: United States Elizabeth l W.
Speaker 4: What are you going to say? So in his first few.
Speaker 2: Practice laps, he not going fast enough, and I quote,
Speaker 2: I was comfortable in the car.
Speaker 4: The only thing was I wasn't getting the most out
Speaker 4: of the car. Me.
Speaker 2: I wasn't getting the most out of it. I thought
Speaker 2: the car would do more than what I was making
Speaker 2: it do because I hadn't run it before.
Speaker 4: So, to be fair, he hadn't driven it before he
Speaker 4: got on the track.
Speaker 3: So the first wait, he didn't even like adjust the seats.
Speaker 4: Around the car. The guy's like, my race car.
Speaker 2: No, No, the rear view he did it like on
Speaker 2: the track, He's like, I should set my mirrors and now.
Speaker 3: Okay, the angle of the steering wheel.
Speaker 2: To be fair, his first lap went better than you
Speaker 2: might expect. Yeah, but then on his second lapp he
Speaker 2: crashed into a wall, which is about what you'd expect. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so even though he slammed into a wall at one
Speaker 2: hundred and ninety miles an hour, he was still all in.
Speaker 4: So LW.
Speaker 2: Wright said, uh no, cirt never crossed my mind. I
Speaker 2: was in the hospital. First thing out of my mouth.
Speaker 2: I asked a buddy of mine with me. I said,
Speaker 2: how bad? It's a car tore up? He said, I
Speaker 2: think we can put it back together. I said, let's hurry,
Speaker 2: get her out there and get going. He will not
Speaker 2: back down.
Speaker 3: Wait what he wanted to be in the same race.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's going to be.
Speaker 3: He's in the hospital.
Speaker 4: No, no, So they took him at there's a he
Speaker 4: was taken away in.
Speaker 2: An ambu like a fields he was, Yeah, he's not
Speaker 2: taking away an ambulance like to a hospital. He's just
Speaker 2: taken by an ambulance to like the.
Speaker 4: Field hospital because there's a.
Speaker 2: Thirty one rose poles to cross. So they get him
Speaker 2: to the infield track hospital and he's bandages up. This
Speaker 2: won't slow him down, you know, because you know his
Speaker 2: crash doesn't matter to him. He's he's gone fast enough
Speaker 2: to qualify for Talladega. He went one hundred and eighty
Speaker 2: seven point three seven nine miles per hour for an
Speaker 2: average lap speed. So boom he gets in and surprisingly
Speaker 2: not the slowest time. Oh that guy thirty six in
Speaker 2: a field of forty NASCAR drivers.
Speaker 3: Those four guys exactly. Now when you say it's thirty
Speaker 3: one rolls rose bowls?
Speaker 4: Is that?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 6: What if?
Speaker 3: Are they stacked vertically?
Speaker 4: Why would they be stacked?
Speaker 3: Because I can't still can't believe it's that thick.
Speaker 2: Yeah, put on the ground, just like I got what vertically?
Speaker 4: I know, you make a tower of rose bowls.
Speaker 3: That's the only way this makes sense. No, how big
Speaker 3: is this huge?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 2: Now also you get that's why you can go two
Speaker 2: hundred miles. Remember you stand down the straightaway. It's this
Speaker 2: is interesting.
Speaker 3: One lap around this thing and they're done.
Speaker 2: Basically it's a five hundred mile last So this first, this,
Speaker 2: this is the first time. This year nineteen eighty two
Speaker 2: was the first time that a driver crosses two hundred
Speaker 2: miles in any track. And they do it on this
Speaker 2: track because you need the length to get up to
Speaker 2: the speed. So they break a record this year. He's
Speaker 2: out there miles an hour to get They eventually get
Speaker 2: speed governors.
Speaker 4: They realize this is too faster. These guys be driving
Speaker 4: right they Oh yeah, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: Aerodynamic is just runs to take those governors off.
Speaker 4: Dude, l W does real well.
Speaker 2: The fastest guy they who says the record Benny Parson,
Speaker 2: he did two hundred two point one seven miles.
Speaker 4: LW.
Speaker 2: Wright he did a speed that was one eighty seven
Speaker 2: win three. That's thirteen miles slower.
Speaker 3: It's really fat.
Speaker 2: Thirteen miles slower than the record setting speed. Our amateur
Speaker 2: is killing it right.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: The fastest I've ever driven is one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: five miles an hour. Oh, I was clenching like when
Speaker 2: I was doing that, and it was on a straight
Speaker 2: country road. I didn't have to worry about anything. I
Speaker 2: knew what I was doing. I could see forever.
Speaker 3: What kind of car was it?
Speaker 2: It was the old Mercedes Sedan. Those things good, they
Speaker 2: will they I didn't think it get that fast. It
Speaker 2: kept going and kept going and kept going.
Speaker 5: One one time when I was driving, it was like
Speaker 5: on the five, that was the fastest.
Speaker 3: You were like fifty six. I mean it all the way.
Speaker 4: So you're on the five. What else going doing like
Speaker 4: fifty six story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So after w crashes into the wall and his
Speaker 2: impromptu crew chief Stirling Marlin has to like, like you know,
Speaker 2: basically bolster his confidence, right, he also has an issue.
Speaker 2: His car is wrecked, and now he's got to go
Speaker 2: around to other drivers and try to like get parts
Speaker 2: from them. So he gets a door and a fender
Speaker 2: and a quarter panel from one racer, and then he
Speaker 2: goes over to Richard Petty and he gets a windshield
Speaker 2: trim for Richard Petty. Then he gets the windshield to
Speaker 2: go with it, because his windshields blown out, so he
Speaker 2: gets a windshield from Dale Earnhart's team, and then he
Speaker 2: gets the snaps he needs to tie down his windshield
Speaker 2: from Darryl Waltrip. So all these legends are like, yeah,
Speaker 2: here you go, I got all the.
Speaker 3: Parts of extra. Did they invoice him later?
Speaker 4: I don't care, don't care? Oh good old boy.
Speaker 2: So finally day of the race comes l W Right
Speaker 2: out of the field hospital in his car.
Speaker 4: Cars slap back together after crack up.
Speaker 3: It's like a civil war.
Speaker 4: No one can stop him.
Speaker 3: Now, so put him under ether exactly.
Speaker 4: He's kind of goofy and weird. We're gonna need to
Speaker 4: get you.
Speaker 3: You got to amputat.
Speaker 2: That's just what we do here. Son put some cocaine
Speaker 2: in him because he got ghosts in his blood shows up,
Speaker 2: so L W. Pulls his car out on the track.
Speaker 2: He's out there on the grid, lines up next to
Speaker 2: the stock car legends at the starting line. Quote that's
Speaker 2: when it really said in I thought, well, I finally
Speaker 2: got here. It doesn't matter what happens today. I'm here,
Speaker 2: and that's what I was shooting tours. But I wanted
Speaker 2: to run good. You know, that's like the good old
Speaker 2: boy model. I want to run no good. How do
Speaker 2: you think my boy LW. Wright does at one hundred, sorry,
Speaker 2: two hundred miles an hour? Next two men nicknamed the
Speaker 2: Intimidator and the King, how do you think he does?
Speaker 3: Not so hot?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, rather than me asked you that question, We're
Speaker 2: gonna take a little break and then I'll be back
Speaker 2: to show you the race. Nice okay, Elizabeth Okay. Talladega Speedway.
Speaker 2: Our man LW. Wright is on the grid at the
Speaker 2: starting line with all the legends. Hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 2: people are watching him. I don't know if that's true,
Speaker 2: but at least at home. Millions of people watch on TV.
Speaker 3: So covered and bandage.
Speaker 2: Now do you think he's gonna do well? No, he
Speaker 2: did thirty six in the time to you know, the
Speaker 2: qualifying time. So right, I'll just I'll tell you this, right, But.
Speaker 3: How long did he go before he crashed? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Not well, well it was rather than us voting about it.
Speaker 2: Why don't you just close your eyes and picture May second,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty two, the Winston five hundred at Talladega. You
Speaker 2: are an ant. You've crawled across the sun warm track.
Speaker 2: It's as stock cars line up for the race. You
Speaker 2: climb up onto one of the cars.
Speaker 4: You're bored. Whatever the race car of LW. Wright.
Speaker 2: He's in Row eighteen, number thirty six, in a field
Speaker 2: of forty cars. This means nothing to you. You're an
Speaker 2: ant engine start. The cars rumble and shake, eager to race.
Speaker 2: The drivers grip their steering wheels, ready to make hate
Speaker 2: to the other drivers.
Speaker 4: LW.
Speaker 2: Wright just hope he doesn't die or kill someone else
Speaker 2: by a mistake. And you wonder what the hell is
Speaker 2: all this noise? You came to this track someone's RV.
Speaker 2: You don't know anything about NASCAR. This is your first
Speaker 2: NASCAR race too, So you can practically hear what LW.
Speaker 2: Wright is thinking in the car because you're sitting there
Speaker 2: on the glass of the windshield.
Speaker 4: He's in there, and we all lined up.
Speaker 2: Everybody was antsy, and boom, the green flag is waved.
Speaker 2: The cars all roared to life. They're off wi seeing
Speaker 2: that flag drop. The front runners took off the middle
Speaker 2: of the field. Itn't and I was waiting, come on,
Speaker 2: come on, come on.
Speaker 4: He sees the turn. Come he floors it.
Speaker 2: The wheel squealed car races storage us. Elizabeth and Aunt
Speaker 2: on the windshield of this race car are now stuck.
Speaker 2: The wind presses you down to the glass. You're just
Speaker 2: staring at this guy and he's staring.
Speaker 4: Down their track.
Speaker 2: The cars get to going fast sixty miles an hour
Speaker 2: within seconds, then one hundred, one hundred and ten, one
Speaker 2: twenty one, thirty, one, forty one fifty. You're up to
Speaker 2: one hundred and ninety miles an hour. None of this
Speaker 2: means anything to you, but you're going super fast.
Speaker 3: My little ant limbs are flying.
Speaker 4: The world is blurring fast. Your antenna you lose one
Speaker 4: WoT well the leg gohost. This crazy bastard is in
Speaker 4: this race. LW.
Speaker 2: Wright would later tell a journalists and I quote, as
Speaker 2: soon as I cleared the flag stand, I remember dropping
Speaker 2: the outside lane and going to the front about ten cars.
Speaker 4: I remember that. I guess it was all adrenaline in.
Speaker 2: No sense, but I went to the front and hurry,
Speaker 2: and I thought, this is where I'm gonna stay. So
Speaker 2: after lap one you can tell this maniac is in
Speaker 2: it to win it. Lap two doesn't go as well, though,
Speaker 2: because you're still pressed to the glass of the windshield.
Speaker 2: The wind is intense, the speed insane. You wonder how
Speaker 2: long you can hold on your little ant body quivering.
Speaker 2: Couple drivers retake their spots ahead. Lw falls back into
Speaker 2: the pack. Lap three, one of the front runners, Darryl
Speaker 2: Waltrip in the Mountain dew Buick takes first place. He's
Speaker 2: down on the lead of the high speed train made
Speaker 2: of car race cars and the King, Richard Petty is
Speaker 2: in the lead pack.
Speaker 4: So is the intimidator Dale Earnhardt, but he has yet
Speaker 4: to make his move.
Speaker 2: You are desperately hoping this all in soon, but there
Speaker 2: are still four hundred and ninety two miles to go
Speaker 2: in this race. Lap four, a young driver David Simcoe,
Speaker 2: spins out at one hundred and ninety miles an hour
Speaker 2: and slams into the wall.
Speaker 4: You're a gas How does one.
Speaker 2: Get off a race car going one hundred ninety miles
Speaker 2: an hour? Your little antenn I are wondering, but evan
Speaker 2: no chance to answer because the speed Lap four is
Speaker 2: going and Dale W. Wright, He's footstays smashed down on
Speaker 2: that accelerator. Yet some part of him, the part that
Speaker 2: keeps them alive, it won't let him drive as fast
Speaker 2: as the other drivers. They do things he would never do,
Speaker 2: never think to do, and if he did thing to
Speaker 2: do them, he still couldn't do what they do. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: you're inventing like aunt religions. You were praying for Aunt
Speaker 2: God's to deliver you off of this windshield. Lap ten,
Speaker 2: Dale Earnhardt in the blue and yellow Wrangler car.
Speaker 4: He makes his move Dale three for Dale.
Speaker 2: Dale has pushed his way up to from the twentieth
Speaker 2: starting position up to the fourth spot at the head
Speaker 2: of the pack. L. W. Wright is now in the
Speaker 2: last place, falling behind very fast. You're like, thank God,
Speaker 2: thank the Aunt God's now at this point. Dale Earnhardt,
Speaker 2: Jeff Bodine are coming into the trioval too wide. It's
Speaker 2: lap eleven. L W Wright gets lapp by the lead cars.
Speaker 4: That's bad.
Speaker 2: That's very bad. That's dangerous. With all the other cars
Speaker 2: roaring past him a two hundred miles an.
Speaker 3: Hour, he's going so slow that he gets last lap.
Speaker 2: They're racing past him. He's doing like one seventy one sixty.
Speaker 2: I don't know, LW Wright, and you are now a
Speaker 2: speed hater. You're gonna be lucky if one of the
Speaker 2: cars isn't slam into you. NASCAR officials are waving the
Speaker 2: black flag. That means you've been ejected from the race.
Speaker 2: On the TV coverage that you can't hear this, but
Speaker 2: the commentators finish this point, everything's okay, she's earned heart
Speaker 2: faint a little really racy now, followed.
Speaker 4: By the other commentator racy.
Speaker 2: The car that was given the black flag a lap
Speaker 2: ago was LW. Wright from Nashville, Tennessee and the Music
Speaker 2: City Racing Chevy.
Speaker 4: LW.
Speaker 2: Wright, by the way, has come way too far to
Speaker 2: listen to some black flag wave and official He refuses
Speaker 2: to pull into pit row. Next time you and he
Speaker 2: passed the starting finish line, you've still clutching onto the windshield.
Speaker 4: The announcers are awed by LW. Wright.
Speaker 2: So LW Wright again given the black flag as he
Speaker 2: passes by us, and Right has been ordered to the
Speaker 2: pit area. LW Wright won't not stop racing now, you
Speaker 2: stop thanking the new aunt gods. They have failed you
Speaker 2: so clearly NASCAR is gonna have to send like a
Speaker 2: cop car onto the track to get this guy off.
Speaker 2: They don't know what they're gonna do. So you give
Speaker 2: You've given up on your aunt gods. You are now
Speaker 2: just praying that the black flag something throws it, Something
Speaker 2: happens luckily for you. Physics take the wheel, and the
Speaker 2: old ant gods in the new save you. Because in
Speaker 2: lap sixteen, really it's only lap thirteen for LW Right.
Speaker 2: Black smoke erupts from the speedway and the reel drivers
Speaker 2: they all caught. They slowed down for the costion flag
Speaker 2: because Lwright is slammed into a wall and his race.
Speaker 4: Is now officially over.
Speaker 2: Rip me yep car wrecked Lwright. He drives back to
Speaker 2: the garage with what's left of his car. Once there,
Speaker 2: he pulls himself from the wrecked race car. You crawled
Speaker 2: down off the windshield.
Speaker 3: Oh, I made it.
Speaker 4: You're free, Elizabeth. He made it. Whoo, Genie, you're free.
Speaker 4: Lw Right.
Speaker 2: He didn't win the race, No, didn't even really, he
Speaker 2: didn't even finish it. But he'd done it, Elizabeth. He'd
Speaker 2: done it.
Speaker 3: He done did it.
Speaker 2: He raced at the best in the world and he
Speaker 2: didn't kill anyone himself included. That's good, right, And since
Speaker 2: one driver crashed before him, he didn't even finish last
Speaker 2: what So he got thirty nine, which means he won
Speaker 2: fifteen forty five dollars what which means he got the
Speaker 2: thousand dollars you needed to get himset out of trouble
Speaker 2: with the FBI.
Speaker 6: Oh.
Speaker 2: Yes, As for the winner, that was Daryl Waltrip in
Speaker 2: case you were wondering. Yeah, he won the eighty two
Speaker 2: when Talladega wins. Anyway, so the race is still going right,
Speaker 2: and he's now in the garage and people have been
Speaker 2: talking about the black flag. He very embarrassed. He just
Speaker 2: wants all this to go away. So what does he do? Well,
Speaker 2: he vanishes after the race, is just.
Speaker 3: Like a puff of smoke and he turns into bats.
Speaker 2: He does his best impression of disco. He's just I'm
Speaker 2: out right, he's he disappears from the scene. Gone right,
Speaker 2: He's gone. Before the race is over, he leaves his
Speaker 2: car in the garage. He cuts out like he had
Speaker 2: a bill to pay and he was not going to
Speaker 2: pay that bill. He dines and dashes the Talladega right
Speaker 2: so in his wake. By the way, as the days come,
Speaker 2: you know, after the race, days pass, and the checks
Speaker 2: that he'd been writing to keep his con going, they
Speaker 2: all start bouncing.
Speaker 4: It's like a kid's super Bowl.
Speaker 2: Like they're not going like big bounces, right, so everybody,
Speaker 2: and I'm talking like the bounced checks aren't just for
Speaker 2: the race.
Speaker 4: He he bounces his rent check for his apartment.
Speaker 3: He was gone, gone working leading up to this, he
Speaker 3: was doing the old.
Speaker 2: I think he was doing bus repair works. I don't
Speaker 2: know what he was doing. I mean, I think he
Speaker 2: had five jobs.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't want to know what he was doing.
Speaker 2: So the cops get called on him. NASCAR is she's
Speaker 2: a warrant for lw Right. I don't think that's what
Speaker 2: all the new story. The issue a warn I'm a
Speaker 2: can NASCAR.
Speaker 3: Issue in in the court of Nascar.
Speaker 4: It like SEC rules.
Speaker 5: They went to the NASCAR judge and then the NASCAR
Speaker 5: DA was like, hey, this is the evidence we have.
Speaker 4: Throw the NASCAR book out him, Like, let's do it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So one Nashville businessman who'd given him about thirty grand
Speaker 2: apparently then just sponsorship fees. And so I don't know
Speaker 2: how this works out, but he goes and hires a
Speaker 2: private detective to get his money back. No luck, No
Speaker 2: one ever sees lw. Wright ever again. For forty years.
Speaker 3: Boom disappeared, just completely, he disappears.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So then this dude Rick Houston I told you about,
Speaker 2: and Steve Wade who had the Scene Vault podcast or
Speaker 2: they still do. They break this story last year on
Speaker 2: the fortieth anniversary. Turns out ldw Right did not exactly
Speaker 2: go off the grid. He didn't even quit racing. Days later,
Speaker 2: he went to Nashville and he tried to race again
Speaker 2: that race. Elizabeth was the Grand National nineteen eighty two
Speaker 2: Cracker Barrel Old Country Store for twenty Winston Cup.
Speaker 3: Yeah it was Cracker Barrel four twenty.
Speaker 2: Do you remember that that lovely weekend we spent at
Speaker 2: the Cracker Barrel for one cut back in ninety eight.
Speaker 4: That was awesome.
Speaker 3: That Elsell never mind.
Speaker 4: Saw I take that back.
Speaker 3: Cracker barrel exactly of town.
Speaker 2: So he qualified for the Talladega five hundred. He could
Speaker 2: not qualify for the cracker barrel for twenty cup. It
Speaker 2: was too hard for him. So now he's running out
Speaker 2: of money fast. So what does he do now? He
Speaker 2: quits racing. Now he's like, I can't do it. Also
Speaker 2: because remember he's still on the run from the FBI.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, so, and I quote, I didn't panic, but
Speaker 2: I felt like, well, it's time to back up and
Speaker 2: have another plan. That's why I said it's time to
Speaker 2: pack up my family and just quit.
Speaker 4: I'm done.
Speaker 2: They were shocked because they didn't know a tenth of
Speaker 2: what was going on with me and all this. They
Speaker 2: was honest and it was everything they were. They didn't
Speaker 2: understand why I had to be pressured to move. I
Speaker 2: didn't tell them until after the fact. I said, it's
Speaker 2: in your best interest just not to ask no question.
Speaker 2: Let's just do this. And that's what I did. Right,
Speaker 2: Dad of the.
Speaker 5: Year being pursued by the NASCAR police exactly.
Speaker 2: This dude has a wife and four kids. He's not
Speaker 2: to nero and heat. He's got a wife and four kids.
Speaker 3: He's got a at Talladego in this.
Speaker 4: No, No, they don't really need he was a race
Speaker 4: car driver.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: I mean they know that there was a race car
Speaker 2: that Dad had like in the driveway at one point,
Speaker 2: but they don't think.
Speaker 4: Maybe that was his buddy. He has all sorts of.
Speaker 3: Weird doing that.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 2: I like to imagine this son was like, let me
Speaker 2: get this rad Daddy, you failed to win two NASCAR races.
Speaker 2: You entered to pay off your debt, some robbery at
Speaker 2: your day job, and that's why the FBI is after you.
Speaker 2: And that's why I can't go to the prom with
Speaker 2: Becky Lamb. That ain't fair, Daddy, That's what I picked.
Speaker 5: It's lucky that Daddy doesn't wind up buried under the
Speaker 5: track at Charlotte Motor Speed.
Speaker 2: Then he has this great like sad Ricky Bobby bowment.
Speaker 2: He goes out and LW says he has to say
Speaker 2: goodbye to his dream. And he says, quote, the race
Speaker 2: car stayed in the back of the trailer right there
Speaker 2: at this house where I left it. I didn't even
Speaker 2: open the door and look in it. I just drove
Speaker 2: a boy. So he cut to one year later. Okay,
Speaker 2: the FBI finally catches up with old Dell w Right.
Speaker 2: He's arrested, tossed in a cell. I was picked up
Speaker 2: in West Virginia, hauled me to Knoxville, Tennessee, stayed in Noxfield, Tennessee,
Speaker 2: twenty six hours, and they come unlocked the sale and
Speaker 2: told mister ry E can go.
Speaker 4: We're done. That was the end of it.
Speaker 2: So the thing he'd been running from, the FBI threat
Speaker 2: that pushed him to risk his life and the life
Speaker 2: of others at Talladega, upset his family's whole thing and
Speaker 2: go start his own amateur witness relocation program. That was nothing.
Speaker 2: It was basically clear pepsi. It was a big nothing. Right,
Speaker 2: So what does l W. Wright do when he finds
Speaker 2: out he didn't really need to run his life and
Speaker 2: uproot his family. If I knew that when I run Dalladega,
Speaker 2: that would have been a different outcome because I wouldn't
Speaker 2: have gotten up and left Nashville. I wouldn't have moved.
Speaker 2: I would have took care of what I need to
Speaker 2: take care. I would have gone him back to racing.
Speaker 2: So after forty years, LW. Wright finally willing to tell
Speaker 2: his story, and he gets this dude, Rick Houston, I
Speaker 2: told you about the journalists, get him hundreds of messages,
Speaker 2: earned his trust, and then he convinces him like okay, oh,
Speaker 2: I want to meet in person. So they meet at
Speaker 2: the secret location. Out walks his seventy three year old man.
Speaker 2: He confirms that he is indeed LW. Wright or that
Speaker 2: was the name he was using. He has the racing
Speaker 2: suit that he warned that day at Talladega to prove it.
Speaker 2: The racing suit matches the only known photo of L. W.
Speaker 2: Wright from that day and is confirmed by the stitching.
Speaker 2: That's what kind of journalists that Rick is. He's down, like,
Speaker 2: I recognize the stitching. So now he starts to correct
Speaker 2: the legend. He wanted to correct his legend. He was like,
Speaker 2: you know, I have a bone to pick with some
Speaker 2: of the facts people.
Speaker 4: Have claim right.
Speaker 2: He takes issue with all the people claiming he owed
Speaker 2: money all over town, which I don't know how he
Speaker 2: could do that, but he's like, no, that ain't true.
Speaker 2: You tell him, come down talk to me and all
Speaker 2: this right anyway. My favorite thing though, is that he
Speaker 2: bought the car from Cuckoo Marlin your boy, yeah, and
Speaker 2: Sterling his son, right, and he'd ask him to paint
Speaker 2: the race car black and add the number thirty four.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Now, as LW.
Speaker 2: Wright said, thirty four come from Wendell Scott. He was
Speaker 2: the one who already tried to race, but didn't have
Speaker 2: the means or the money. So I picked up thirty four. Now,
Speaker 2: Wendell Scott, I loved this. As a former Moonshiner, he
Speaker 2: was an indep pendant black stock car driver who raced
Speaker 2: in the fifties. So for the entire decade, NASCAR tracks
Speaker 2: woudn't let him race. They wouldn't let him on the track,
Speaker 2: so he raced independent. And even in those races, these
Speaker 2: other good old boys they would intentionally wreck his car.
Speaker 2: So he was like fighting to constantly keep his car roadworthy. Right,
Speaker 2: Wendall Scott keeps on racing, right on racing, and he wins,
Speaker 2: and he wins, and he wins. That good old boy
Speaker 2: could drive right. So eventually he wins two championships. In
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty nine, NASCAR goes, oh, we gotta concede, he's
Speaker 2: a good old boy a little let him ride. So
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty one, Wendlescott becomes a first black NASCAR driver,
Speaker 2: and he persisted, and he becomes like the person to
Speaker 2: beat the sclerotic culture of the Southern segregation.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, but perhaps L. W. Wright saw
Speaker 2: something of himself and the underdog Wendell Scott.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Perhaps being a Southerner, he understood that someone needs to
Speaker 2: beat these old Southern ways.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I did think this that the journalist Rick Houston, he
Speaker 2: had the most interesting take on the whole affair and
Speaker 2: who the real L. W.
Speaker 4: Wright is.
Speaker 2: And he said, I quote in the grand scheme of
Speaker 2: things in the rear view mirror, what he did wasn't
Speaker 2: truly all that bad. And I will say that the
Speaker 2: story we've all heard all these years, in the story
Speaker 2: that he tells us now, they are not the same story.
Speaker 2: Is there closure?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: But to sit there and listen to him finally talk
Speaker 2: about it to a lot of NASCAR fans, that's a
Speaker 2: day we never thought would come here.
Speaker 4: He's just in it for the story.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 3: Do we know what his real name is?
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it doesn't really matter. Yeah, so it was
Speaker 4: a kid.
Speaker 2: Don't want to put it out there, No, no, no domb
Speaker 2: for so Yeah, olw Right telling the story. This is
Speaker 2: why it comes at a steep cost. The FBI catches
Speaker 2: back up with him because now the story is out
Speaker 2: there and he's bragging on and talking about numbers and stuff.
Speaker 2: They don't let him go, and best I can tell,
Speaker 2: he's presently in Jefferson County, Tennessee jail on felony charges
Speaker 2: of theft, burglary, passing bad checks, evading arrest, and so
Speaker 2: he tells you the truth and finally, boom, now he
Speaker 2: has to pay for the costs of what he did
Speaker 2: back then. I guess the FBI listens to podcasts, so
Speaker 2: you know it's Elizabeth who says all this stuff anyway,
Speaker 2: So why did he do it? LW had the final word,
Speaker 2: and I'll give it to him. On this ick. The
Speaker 2: rush of danger. I like pain, believe it or not.
Speaker 2: I used to box see this old nose. I had
Speaker 2: thirty one golden gulve fights. Out of thirty one fights,
Speaker 2: I won twenty nine. But just to get out and
Speaker 2: deliberately do something to somebody, No, I don't do that.
Speaker 2: But the excitement of being in the middle of it
Speaker 2: for me was rush. You don't think about the danger
Speaker 2: around you. I mean, you're standing in front of a
Speaker 2: pistol and it fires at you. You're looking at him
Speaker 2: dead and the eye and you're saying, you better make
Speaker 2: it good because I'm gonna get you. I guess it's excitement.
Speaker 2: I may not be right in the head, you know what.
Speaker 2: So no, my brother in Christ, you may not be
Speaker 2: right in the head. But if you want, you can
Speaker 2: always come sit next to me.
Speaker 4: So yeah.
Speaker 2: Also, it is just for everybody else. If you ever
Speaker 2: doubt yourself, you ever have a moment you're like, I
Speaker 2: don't know if I can do this, just think of
Speaker 2: old L. W Right and go, goddamn, I can do this.
Speaker 4: So what's our ridiculous takeaway here?
Speaker 3: You know what my ridiculous takeaway is that a nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty one Monte Carlo was at some point a new car.
Speaker 2: Yes it was, and it was a bitch in new car.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's it. Thank you for asking my ridiculus takeaways, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: Once again, I don't have one for you.
Speaker 4: So I have a story. You know. That's what I
Speaker 4: did over here.
Speaker 3: You carried the weight on this one, so you can.
Speaker 2: You know, you can find us online if you'd like
Speaker 2: to talk to us about stuff. You can send us
Speaker 2: messages on Instagram, or you can have messages on Twitter.
Speaker 2: You can just you know, retweet stuff or like post,
Speaker 2: you do whatever the heck you want. I'm not here
Speaker 2: to tell you what to do. It's your social media anyway.
Speaker 3: I don't know how you live.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't care. But we do have the talkbacks
Speaker 4: in the iHeart app. We like those.
Speaker 3: I do like that, enjoy those. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Anyway, you can also email us Ridiculous Crime and gmail
Speaker 4: dot com.
Speaker 2: No one checks them we have, I damn sure don't,
Speaker 2: but we do have the website ridiculous crime dot com.
Speaker 4: It's worth a check. Yes, thanks for listening, y'all.
Speaker 2: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarren Burnett,
Speaker 2: produced and edited by Dale Earnhardt's driving instructor Dave Kusten.
Speaker 2: Researches by Marissa Intimidator Brown and Andrea. The Kang song
Speaker 2: Sharpened Tear, our theme song is by George Jones. Historical
Speaker 2: re enactors Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Executive producers are
Speaker 2: Been the Cracker, Barrel four, twenty Cup Bowland and Noel.
Speaker 4: This is why I prefer Formula.
Speaker 6: One Ridicus Cry Say It one more time.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
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