The Ballad of L. W. Wright

Like Ricky Bobby, he was a pretend NASCAR driver — only this was no movie. L.W. Wright was a fake racer in real life who took on the legends of NASCAR by scamming his way onto the track at Talladega. “Shoot, this story should be a movie!”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yo, Elizabeth Dutton, zaren, I got a question for you.
Do you have a second, Yeah, okay, so we'll take
a second. Do you know what's ridiculous?

Speaker 3 (00:11):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (00:12):
Okay, then you just answer. I guess.

Speaker 5 (00:14):
Well, messages and emails I get a lot. Yeah, you know,
I've been starting to get those emails again, like, oh, congratulations,
your kids should probably go to our college.

Speaker 4 (00:23):
Oh the other Elizabeth, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
But I don't think it's it's I know it's not her.

Speaker 4 (00:27):
Yeah, I know, but well the third Elizabeth Dutton.

Speaker 5 (00:29):
I meant, like a dozen now emails from these like
sort of third tier colleges.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
If I had a kid, they would not be going,
I'm rooting for your fake kid, thank you.

Speaker 5 (00:38):
So anyway, emails, messages I get a lot, The show
gets a lot. The ones that the show gets are
sent to me.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
I'm sure the people when they see that I have
not answered an email, they're like, this is ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Probably our show email rarely gets visible.

Speaker 4 (00:53):
I meant all my emails, yox.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Just AnyWho, We've been getting a lot of these messages.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
A particular one, Oh no, oh god, I thought that
we were done with the emails that that was it.

Speaker 4 (01:05):
They got ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Now do you like cheese its?

Speaker 4 (01:09):
Let's just say I do. Move on, okay? Is that it?

Speaker 3 (01:11):
I and you own Converse All Star high Tops.

Speaker 4 (01:15):
Right, I too, and that's where I keep my cheeses.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
How do you well? Oh, so you have these? There's
apparently getting me.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
I was just joking.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Clear Converse high top sneakers.

Speaker 4 (01:25):
Clear with Converse High Top cheese.

Speaker 5 (01:29):
It's poured inside like a little pocket like those kangaroo
shoes you can.

Speaker 4 (01:33):
I'm so confused.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
So the shoe was clear, but the cheese it's were
going to be on the outside. Does it look like
you see my foot and some cheese?

Speaker 5 (01:39):
It's yeah, you see your sock because you know, let's
not go barefoot in this job. And then but you
there's like a window of pocket and that's where the
cheese its are and anyone can see your cheese. It's
the cheese its are out for the world to see.

Speaker 4 (01:51):
So I'm flexing my cheese.

Speaker 5 (01:52):
It's basically so this was on Instagram and it was
a post that was done not only by the guy
who created them, but cheese it's but they're not for sale, is.

Speaker 4 (02:03):
This even real? Is this like an Ai thing?

Speaker 3 (02:05):
No, it's this guy case In Sullivan.

Speaker 5 (02:07):
If you're curious Instagram at is thank you case God. Okay,
And he makes all these he says concept designed by
me and my spare time for fun. And then the
smiley face with the stars in its size. Uh huh. Anyway,
he does this with a lot of tennis shoes, a
lot of sneakers. He's got Tostitos ones, Tobo Chico oreos,

(02:30):
you know the what have yours. But if you go
to the cheese It shop, they have shoes, but they're slides, okay,
and they have a cheese It cozy oversized retro hoodie
for seventy dollars.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Now you said hoodie, right, and maybe you also said slide.
So did the slides have a pocket?

Speaker 3 (02:46):
For two different things?

Speaker 2 (02:48):
I got that part, so I figured the hoodie has
a pocket. But dude, the stud slide oddly.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Enough, there's no front pocket on the hoodie.

Speaker 4 (02:54):
Wait, wait, you're getting everything. Where am I going to.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Keep my cheese its? They have a Hawaiian shirt.

Speaker 4 (02:58):
You just keep them in the hood like I got
a hood full.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
Of space in your space.

Speaker 4 (03:03):
Your story.

Speaker 5 (03:03):
So Case and Sullivan has everyone thinking that cheese Its
is selling these shoes, but it's just a little special
project of his.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Oh case, god end, Well, if you got a second
now that you've had your cheese It, yes, just to
clear your palate, I got a story for you.

Speaker 4 (03:18):
It's totally ridiculous, I hope.

Speaker 6 (03:19):
So.

Speaker 4 (03:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
So there was once an amateur stock driver, you know,
like a race car driver. He conned everyone he had
to to enter the Winston five hundred at the Talladega Speedway, which,
mind you, is the longest closed course track in professional motorsports.
It's also the fastest track in the world. So he's
out there with forty professional race car drivers names you know,
NASCAR legends, Dale Earnhardt, Richard Petty, Darryl Waltrip, Bobby Allison

(03:44):
and my favorite part, he said, all of this, the
whole idea came to him and basically the responsibility of
Waylon Jennings.

Speaker 7 (03:51):
Oh yeah, this is ridiculous crime a podcast about absurd

(04:15):
and outrageous capers.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Heis and cons it's all weighs ninety nine percent motor
free and ridiculous. Elizabeth, Elizabeth, I know how you love
to drive fast. I say that teasingly. So I figure
you'll love this story because it's all about speed and

(04:36):
driving things you love, like you know, racetracks in.

Speaker 4 (04:39):
The South, so all my favorites.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
Quick question for you, which major American sport began as
an organized crime?

Speaker 4 (04:46):
Answer?

Speaker 2 (04:46):
Nastall, I don't have a pickle. What maybe, but NASCAR
definitely is the only major American sport based on crime.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
I talked about this in the show before.

Speaker 4 (04:58):
Yes, yeah, no, I use the rum runner.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
I remember the woman behind the wheels of Lights out
souped up thirty two forward flat head v.

Speaker 4 (05:06):
Eight talking about her with the product shop. No.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Now, you may already know this, but Nascar, as I said,
started out as a way for run runners to see
who was fastest. They would take those souped up cars
and they became the stock cars of NASCAR. So basically,
for a rum runner, as you've you know, I think
you know this, but we'll just pretend you don't.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Okay, okay, you take a.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Stock car right off the showroom floor, right you say
the aforementioned thirty two forward flathead V eight, I preferred
favorite of the rum runners in the know. And next
you modified the engine, you soup it up and then
you rip out the seats and the floorboards any excess
weight you can. You load up a suspension with new
springs for all the extra weight of the booze you
plan to carry down those mountain dirt roads. Then you

(05:46):
add a metal plate in the front of the car
that's to protect the radiator, but also to give you
a little weight if you need to smash through a blockade.
So now you got yourself a nice good rum runner.
So you gotta go up the mountains, get yourself a
load of illegal booze, and you make that run down
from the hills where the moonshine stills are located. And
then once you load up, you race back down to

(06:07):
the low country where all the thirsty people are on
the speakeasies.

Speaker 4 (06:10):
It's a great life, yep.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
And Willie Carter Sharp was probably I was impressed because
I had not really a good you know, you hear
about her, but like the speed you describe, Yeah, and
these cars like these, these are not cars with power brakes,
these are not cars of power steering.

Speaker 4 (06:25):
These are cars it's like just basically like.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
Really lean into the turn, you know. Yeah, anyway, so
you know, also you're doing this you're killing your headlights.
You're doing this in the dark on a dirt road. Right, Well,
great fun was had by all, then all of a
sudden nineteen thirty three prohibition INDs.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
Now you got all these rum runners with a skill set,
but no way to get paid for it.

Speaker 4 (06:44):
So what do they do? Well, Elizabeth, I'll tell you
don't even worry. They do what they do best.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
They keep driving fast for money, except for now they
do it on dirt flat tracks all around the South,
and nude and nude before paying audiences with their like
you know, pet pig. So in nineteen thirty six, Tone
of Florida held a race, the first professional organized stock
car race. Right, the audience loved it, but the guy
didn't make any money. The promoter sotally, oh yeah, it
took a little bit of time. A decade passes before

(07:10):
they can kind of get this racing culture to grow
and spread across South.

Speaker 4 (07:13):
Right.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
By nineteen forty seven, Boom NASCAR is founded. Next year,
nineteen forty eight, in February, Batance again back down in Daytona, Florida,
NASCAR holds its first professional race. Now do you know
who the winning driver was?

Speaker 3 (07:26):
Barney Oldfield.

Speaker 4 (07:27):
Good guess, Red Byron.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
I only know Barney Oldfield because I did actually get
a speeding ticket.

Speaker 4 (07:32):
Once'ntil I called you, my grandmother was.

Speaker 5 (07:35):
All, look at you, Barney Oldfield like weepings ashamed Barney.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
That's the only way I know that name.

Speaker 4 (07:43):
Well.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Red Byron was a former real life Moonshiner who notably
was driving a Ford. A lot of Fords in this
for you. And this means, by the way, the very
first NASCAR race was one by a criminal.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
So boom right here it is.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
Now this brings us to my dude, NASCAR's mysterious legend
w Right. Larry Woody, a Tennessee sports writer. He once said,
I quote, if he could have driven as fast as
he talked, L W. Wright would be a NASCAR champion.
Now yeah, now L. W. Wright is the gnome do
race for the amateur driver. It's not his real name.
The professional con man who woke up one day and
he decided, you know, I think I'm going to go

(08:17):
race the best drivers in the world at the biggest, longest,
fastest track in the world. I'm gonna go do that.
So that's what he did.

Speaker 5 (08:24):
It's the longest track, I mean who cares the closet.
But I mean they're going around and around and around.

Speaker 4 (08:31):
Yeah, for five hundred miles. Sure, so it's a lot
of miles.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
They don't have to do as many turns if the
track's longer.

Speaker 4 (08:36):
No, that's true. The turn it's just a bunch of
left turns. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
Well they don't have to use their blinkers.

Speaker 4 (08:43):
No, they definitely save it on the turn.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
They don't need. Yeah, the blinker fluid.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
A lot of blinker fluid saved in NASCAR. They don't
even think they have blinker fluid sponsors.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
They do, do they? Okay, American blinker fluid Jimmy All yeah, yeah, I.

Speaker 4 (09:01):
Know you're you're probably I know I'm right, man. I
don't even know how I forgot that.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
Yeah, I'm full of correct facts.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
So how does my dude l W. Writ con is
way onto the track? Well, the year Elizabeth is nineteen
eighty two. I want you to frame your mind. You're
in the Reagan's America. The month is April. Larry Wright.
He contacts the local paper, the Nashville newspaper, the Tennessee,
and he offers a newspaper a news item. You know,
anybody could do this in newspaper it publishes it and
I quote. Nashville driver L. W. Wright yesterday announced he

(09:26):
will be attempting to qualify for next week's Winston five
hundred Grand National Race at Talladega, Alabama. The thirty year
old right, a veteran of forty five Grand National races,
will drive a nineteen eighty one Monte Carlo. The name
of Wright's team is Music City Racing, and among his
sponsors are country music stars Merle Haggard and TG Shephard.
Haggard is scheduled to appear at Talladega with his driver.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah, so as simple as that story was, fantastic story. Yeah,
do you think it's true? No, No, it was not
true at all. Country music legends backing at amateur race
car driver no one's heard of. People are like, oh,
I'm gonna print that.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
But you know, I don't think Hank done it that way.

Speaker 4 (10:04):
You're spot on. So turns out, uh, LW.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
Wright, He he did get onto the track of Talladega
that day, and how he did it and who he
was remained a mystery for forty years, okay forty years,
no one knew who this guy he.

Speaker 3 (10:18):
Got on the track did his car, He got in
the car.

Speaker 4 (10:20):
No, he didn't like run like he was racing a horse.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
Just like I thought. Was he like glad handing?

Speaker 5 (10:24):
Like walking around one going to get my carts around
the corner?

Speaker 4 (10:27):
Nineteen eighty one Monte Carlo and he took it out.

Speaker 5 (10:30):
That's such a great in my mind, I see like
current Nascar, and then I see him Monte Carlo like
not tricked out.

Speaker 4 (10:38):
A dust you boys.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
So on the fortieth anniversary, journalists Rick Houston and Steve
Wade from Scene Vault podcast, they broke the story that
they had found L. W.

Speaker 4 (10:48):
Wright.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Nascar goes nuts right all the bad like are you
kidding me? The legend was finally ready to let his
story be known. He was ready to kill the mystery.
It took Rick Houston hundreds of exchange messages to earn
this dude's trust and the trust of his family, but
eventually he is able to speak with L. W.

Speaker 4 (11:04):
Wright.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
So turns out, in nineteen eighty two, L. W. Wright
was working as a bus repair garage he just north
of Nashville in a town called Hendersonville, Tennessee. Now Nashville
is known as Music City, the country music capital of
the world, which also meant big country stars of that
era brought their tour buses over to Hendersonville to get
their buses repaired and ready for the road. Yeah, that's

(11:25):
where Old L. W. Wright rubbed elbows with the glitterati
of country music legends like Tammy Wynette, George Jones, Willie Nelson,
Waaley Jennings, Merle Haggard and so and so. Now, being
that close to the country music stars gives Old L. W.
Wright a big idea. Now, if you ask him, Wright
credits Whylon Jennings for why he was on that track
that fateful day. Now, he tells this story rather casually

(11:45):
and so quote Whyal and Jennis. He was sitting in
an apartment studio in Hendersonville. This is how Wright tells it.

Speaker 4 (11:51):
Now.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
Quote George Jones and Merle Haggard was there to do
a duet on a new album that evening.

Speaker 4 (11:56):
They told me to come over. Wanted to talk to me.
That was the three of them there. Mer All was
called me Hoss because I was a big old boy.
He said, haas, will hear you want a race? I said, well,
we're trying.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
He said, why don't you let us make a little
bit of money help you get there. We're not gonna
stand a lot of sponsorship, but we're gonna give you
money to race with.

Speaker 4 (12:13):
Right that's his story.

Speaker 5 (12:15):
So these guys are just hanging out like tuning it
up smart and whatever, and they're like, you know, get
the bus mechanicsous come over here, get over here.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
You tell me a story. The other day, we gotta
get him. And I love he says, hass because it's wayling.
Jennings is known for calling people haas and not but whatever,
you know, So he's got this country boy's dream. Whalen
Jennings telling you need to go drive as fast as
you can right now. Anyway, our amateur race driver L. W.
Wright says Merle Haggard ponies up three grand. The other guys,
George Jones, Whale and Jennings are like, oh, I gotta get.

Speaker 4 (12:46):
My three grand.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
I don't know how they'll have three grand on him,
if it's that night, or if they go to the
bank and say, LW.

Speaker 4 (12:51):
You come by it later.

Speaker 3 (12:52):
Anyway, in those days, it was required to have three grand.

Speaker 4 (12:54):
In your pocket.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
You know, if you're going to a guitar pick and
you want to bring three grand exactly.

Speaker 4 (12:59):
So according to they.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
Said, Hus, they'll take care of your tires and mobtail bill,
won't it. I had a lot of friends that got
into music, and I didn't use any of them other
than what they wanted to do.

Speaker 4 (13:09):
So he's always saying that it's.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
Their idea made me do it.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yeah, they basically twisted my rubber arm. So if you
ask lw Right that what he did with the Country
Music's Legends money, he said he sold a bulldozer and
then he paired that money with the country stars money,
and he purchased himself that nineteen eighty one Chevy money.

Speaker 5 (13:24):
Carlo, Wait, two questions, One, why didn't you just race
the bulldozer? He was such a good mechanic. Two, why
did he own a bulldozer?

Speaker 4 (13:31):
He didn't have a big enough ratchet.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
And the second one is he used that to pay
for the donkey he wanted to eventually get because his
kids love that. So he's like, Okay, I'll use the
bulldozer to pay for the donkey. I cant for it now.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
I think he stole the bulldozer.

Speaker 4 (13:45):
No, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
Why he just had a bulldozer. He's like, I don't
know why did I buy this? I was drunk and
I bought the.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
Bulldozer, so an impulse purchased.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
He was at to check how he was like, candy
bar bulldozer, I have bulldozer. IM ain't that hungry. So
keep in mind he did just buy any nineteen eighty
one Chevy Monte Carlo. He bought a race car from
Cuckoo Marlin in his future Daytona five hundred winning son
Sterling Marlin. Cuckoo Cuckoo, Cuckoo Marlin and Sterling Marlin.

Speaker 3 (14:11):
Yeah, uh huh cuckoo.

Speaker 4 (14:12):
Whi's a NASCAR You got to get used to this name.
That is not what his mama named him. She did
not name him cuckoo. Yeah. So, as L. W.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Wright recalled it, I said, I'll buy it if you'll
only paint the car black and put number thirty four
on it. So he's now telling them they take this
all red car painted black, put thirty four in and
I'm taking it. Now he's got his race car. Things
are proceeding well for old LW. But LW had another
issue that was going to probably darken some skies for him.
This troubled. This cloud hovering above him was the FBI.
Oh yeah, so he was a coal miner at the time.

(14:43):
Least that's what he said. And if you ask LW. Wright,
this is when he was also a bus repairman. He
had a lot of jobs apparently, or he was overlapping,
I don't know, but he was in coal mining at
the time. And his version goes like this, compy, we
were doing some work for They had a safe and
they had money in it, and they told the law
enforcement and they told the insurance people that they I
had one hundred thousand in there. I'm here to tell
you today there was exactly one thousand dollars in that safe.

Speaker 4 (15:05):
I didn't go.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
And get it, but it was brought to me. They
did that so the insurance would pay them. But I'm
the bad guy.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
It's always someone else exactly.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
He's a victim of circumstances. Really, So this money was
allegedly LW. Wright's motivation to make the money as a
race car driver. His answer is, I got this problem
with the FBI. I should probably go under Talladega to
make the thousand dollars I need. So he's gonna pay
back that grand, So he put it.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
He spent the grand on the bulldozer exactly.

Speaker 4 (15:34):
All these impulse purchases. This is not his only impulse purchase.
You know, that's what I'm sane.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
So anyway, Yes, he put it quote, that was my
goal to make it right. I knew I could do it.
I knew I could run fast enough, qualify and all
that stuff. But it didn't work out that way.

Speaker 5 (15:48):
He wanted to make it right. Yeah, with thew.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
The FBI investigation, the tanging over him, it became a
bit of a distraction for LW. Let me put it
this way. He says, it was hard because you got
to focus on every face in the crowd. You don't
know who's gonna walk up on you at any minute.
You wouldn't know how to handle that. Plus the stress
on you that you gotta do good. You gotta qualify,
You gotta get out there and run this race. You
gotta finish in the top fifteen.

Speaker 4 (16:15):
Can't hit the FBI hanging over here. You got a
race to win. It's like an Elvis Presley movie. You
gotta win this race. Elvit. I gotta win this race.
And the FBI is here, Elvis, FBI is here.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
Anyway, A lot of pressure got this first time car
driver and now throw in he's a con artist who
shouldn't be there, adding the FBI agents who her it
e'tone about to grab him. There's a lot of pressure
for old hell wie he is, but he talks his
way onto the track at Talidaga. Now, as I said earlier,
it's the biggest, longest track, the fastest track in the world,
the true long daddy, Elizabeth. So he said, and I quote,

(16:47):
I remember pulling in the infield and standing at the
end of the track and looking down at looked over
at my brother and I said, Lord, have mercy.

Speaker 4 (16:54):
Ain't no way? He said, Well, what do you mean?
I said, you think about.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Holding that pedal flat on the floor all the way
around this track? That straightaway is almost a mile long.
How much can that car game before you go into
that urn? So cold, dark fear rolled through lw Right.
So what does our com man racer do, Elizabeth.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
Well, he's just a little old lump of coal, and
that that pressure's gonna turn him into a diamond.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
Oh, I love it, because he just needed the Lord
to help him. That's the extra pressure he needs.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
Wait, the Lord helped him.

Speaker 4 (17:24):
He asked God for help.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
I got off by myself that day, and I said, Lord,
I'm down here, but I'm gonna need some help.

Speaker 5 (17:30):
God's like, okay, I've got a really long list of
tickets that people have put in for help.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
But you, LW.

Speaker 4 (17:36):
When I get done with Ethiopia, I'll be right there. LW.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
We got the starvation going on, but I swear you're
next in line. There's just millions of them. It's only
one of you. It's a number things, LW. So anyway,
I was reading that quote and I was like, my
brother in Christ, this is what we in the story.
Bill is just called a gross understatement. I'm gonna need
some help. You're gonna need a lot of help.

Speaker 4 (17:56):
You're gonna need like six.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Gods worth of help to get any chance to win
in this race, even gods like Paul. You're asking for
a lot here. So okay, let's take a little break
and then we'll after these messages. I'll tell you we'll
get into Talladega that very fateful day.

Speaker 8 (18:09):
Nice.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
All right, Elizabeth, we're back and we're all about to
be in Talladega.

Speaker 4 (18:33):
Yeah, we are now, Elizabeth, Charlie, it.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
Is it true that Talladega Knights is your favorite Will
Ferrell movie.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
Yes it is.

Speaker 4 (18:42):
I remembered you saying that.

Speaker 7 (18:43):
True.

Speaker 4 (18:44):
I thought I remember that.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
It's like that, or let's say that an old school school.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Oh yeah, there's no racing in old school. So let's
talk about Talladega Knights.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
I love that movie. I own it on Blu Ray.
You're laughing, I'm serious.

Speaker 4 (19:00):
You are.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
Do you have a Blu ray player somewhere? Do you
remember the scene when he did he needed to master
his fear and then he's like he's like, he's like,
you know, teacher for teaching him how to drive.

Speaker 4 (19:15):
Dad.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, Ricky Bobby is sitting there and his dad's like, Okay,
you need a cougar in your car. He gets in
and there's a cougar in his market and he has
to drive with the cougar.

Speaker 4 (19:24):
Yes, first time I saw that, lost it, lost it.
It's like there's some stuff my dad would, Boy, you
need a cougar in the car. Yeah, you're right, there
is a cougar in the car.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
Anyway, So imagine if Will Ferrell wasn't in a movie,
right and no, imagine Will Farrell was really racing against
the real life NASCAR drivers, Like I know the dude's
a dope drummer, but I don't care how dope a
drummer is.

Speaker 4 (19:48):
He couldn't handle that speed. We're talking two hundred miles
in a drummer.

Speaker 3 (19:52):
Are you confusing him with Chad Smith?

Speaker 4 (19:54):
No, he's a drummer, girl, drummer.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
I've seen him.

Speaker 4 (19:57):
He's really good, is he? Chad Smith says he's I
don't drum know. I believe the Chili Peppers Elizabeth will Ferrell, Yes,
one of them.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
I think they take tours. He's like, I need to
get out for a little sabbatical. Chad, you do some
comedy which explained some of the movie choices.

Speaker 5 (20:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
Oh so anyway, so the as I was saying two
hundred miles an hours basically, how fast these guys are going?

Speaker 3 (20:20):
Really fast? Yes?

Speaker 5 (20:22):
Really really, that's like five eighty Oakland speeds exactly.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
We know these speeds. You've seen them on the freeway
zipping by. Okay, So race weekend comes.

Speaker 4 (20:31):
L W.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
Wright is officially now listed as one of the drivers.
He's in all this stuff. You look in the paper
it says, oh yeah, Dale Earnhardt, LW. Wright, What the
who's this? L? W Right, public relations director for the track,
Tom Roberts, he would say, quote after the fact, NASCAR.

Speaker 4 (20:46):
Was fooled like everybody else.

Speaker 2 (20:47):
Normally new drivers are checked out before they were giving
a license, but this wasn't a normal case. This guy
dropped names and places and just simply talked his way in.

Speaker 3 (20:58):
He had a press release with them. Yeah, like the
old boy.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Meanwhile, there's l w Right. That dude's having a crisis
of confidence at this point. And I quote from l
W I was real nervous. I was there with the
biggest names in racing and me and nobody from back
in the hills of Virginia, but no background like that.
I knew I didn't have the ability they had because
they'd done it for years.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
The little rebel whoop at the end.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Something that's authenticity, Elizabeth, That's what that is. So now
he's at talent dig L W. Wright has to pass
for a professional race car driver. Cuckoo Marlin and son
Sterling Martin. They've sold a stock.

Speaker 4 (21:33):
Car to L.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
W Right, so he's got an official car. He looks
like he belongs there.

Speaker 3 (21:37):
Now did he check it.

Speaker 5 (21:38):
Out as a mechanic to make sure? Because if I'm
a NASCAR driver and some upstart, says, can I.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
Buy y'all's car? I go, yeah, sure, take.

Speaker 5 (21:46):
This one, like my busted up one, the janky one
I got like, hey, that's what you do that?

Speaker 8 (21:53):
Yeah, hey, take this car.

Speaker 4 (21:54):
I got this limit of the car over quickly in tune.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
Don't even look at it. It's perfect.

Speaker 4 (21:59):
Just don't yeah, don't kick those tires. Oh you know,
come on, and then it's just race back on the
starting line. Don't start it here put.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
You'll never mess with Cuckoo.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
So my man to Sterling Marlin. His father with Cuckoo
was racing. So he's busy. He can't like be bothered
with this. But Sterling is a young man. He's like,
you know, like twenty one, twenty two or whatever. I
think he's twenty five.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
He twenty eight thirty, doesn't it's.

Speaker 4 (22:24):
Very handsome, twenty seven, so surly marn.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
He told ESPN back in twenty nineteen in a story
about this before the mystery had been revealed.

Speaker 4 (22:31):
Quote, now I'd never heard of this guy, right, but that.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
But you sold him a car, sir.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
Oh, it gets better than that, because he's like lw
is lying to his face. Remember in his press release,
he said he had forty five, and he told Sterling
forty three whatever. He's like somewhere in the forties, and
it's all telling him he's flat track races in Virginia.
So this guy's a racers. Dad's a racer. Grip rates.
He's like, oh, yeah, do you know this guy? He's like, oh,
I don't know him. He don't know this guy.

Speaker 4 (22:55):
I don't know him.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
He starts listen down. He doesn't know any of the
names of any of the current flat track drive. Doesn't
bother him, startling like that's kind of weird. So somehow
this works.

Speaker 4 (23:03):
To his benefit. Sterling's like, you know what, I bet
this guy needs help.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
This is my dad's busy, he decides, and I quote,
so I decided I'm gonna go down there with him
kind of be like his crew chief, just to keep
an eye on him.

Speaker 6 (23:12):
You know.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
As soon as we got there, it all got even fishier.
He decides, this guy is weird and crazy. I think
he's lying to me. I should get closer and spend
more of my time.

Speaker 3 (23:19):
On this what like a pro bono crew chief.

Speaker 4 (23:22):
Yes, he's not getting paid.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, so he's doing like he just get this guy,
by the way, I mean, you got l W walking
around in this garage and he's doing like what you
would do, Elizabeth. He's like, I have that ratchet, you know,
we see this other ratchet over here. I need the
Everyone's like, who the hell is this dude?

Speaker 3 (23:38):
I need I need the old twisting.

Speaker 4 (23:39):
Thing rod, the hard twisty.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
And so even though he's made it this far on
a ruise and a lie, LW he just can't stop himself.
He keeps talking to other folks in the garage in
the infield of the track, and he's made it. He's
inside Talladagan. He's about to blow it because the more
he talks, everybody knows this guy is a liar and
his ignorance is leaking out of him. He's like you
like a flatulent old uncle. And he's sitting there like

(24:02):
after like he's had a big meal and he's sitting
there taking a nap in the room.

Speaker 4 (24:05):
He doesn't know how much he stinks. Now that's l W. Right.
So word starts to spread around the track.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
People are like, who's this new? No name Newcome you
hear about him? Like, oh yeah, he tell you Whyalon
Jennings is a sponsor. You know, they're all like talking,
They've read the press releases.

Speaker 4 (24:19):
Everyone. He's the talk of the girlage.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
He said Whalen was going to be that.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
Merle Haggard's gonna be there, and Merle Haggard did not
show up, and shepherds the other country start. He's like,
I don't know this guy. He releases a press release
saying like he's a liar. Yeah people, So people are
asking about that. I saw the shepherd called you a liar.
You said he's one of your sponsors. And another guy
is coming at him, like, how can it be possible
that not a single one of the NASCAR drivers ever
heard of you? So he's like, oh, you know how

(24:44):
it is, I'm I got a name. People forget, you
know whatever he's saying. Right, He's got momentum at this point,
so he just keeps the wheels rolling. But most importantly,
he knows he's got in his hot little hand his
official NASCAR license to race.

Speaker 4 (24:56):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
According to Jim Hunter, the Talladega Speedway president can't down
to the fact that Alabama is a right to work state.

Speaker 4 (25:04):
He claimed that he was.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
Quote handcuffed by what NASCAR and Talladega Speedway could do.
Once questions were raised about this new driver, so Jim
Hunter put it Besides, the damn guy did qualify for
the race, so you know you can almost hear the
like the echo of a good old boy chuckle. He
just got it. Anyway, the way it works since LW.

(25:27):
Paid is one hundred and fifteen dollars entrance fee and
his NASCAR competition license fee and the Talladega Speedway on
hundred dollars race fee, he's now an official interest.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
That's all it takes. And what like a Malibu Grand Prix.

Speaker 4 (25:38):
Yeah, he's like a Grandnex.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
Here's nothing they can do about it now because once
again right to work state Alabama laws were like, you
gotta let this race.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
Doesn't that mean they can just fire you whenever they want?

Speaker 4 (25:50):
Yeah, that too. It's about it's a whole like, we
don't have union, so the workers make their own contracts right, right.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Exactly, So it's usually not good and in this case
it was not good for the owners. But anyway, it
cuts both exactly. It's a very sharp knife. It's a
Ginzu blade on both sides. The day before the race,
the drivers are taking practice laps, right, so L. W.
Wright goes to take his qualifying laps. Before he gets
out there, the driver's in the garage. This driver, Bobby Allison,
comes up to l W. Wright and this listen has
a legend right, and the legend tells, look, if you

(26:17):
don't qualify, don't feel bad because there are a lot
of guys he ain't gonna make the field.

Speaker 4 (26:21):
LW.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Wright says, with zero hesitation, I appreciate that, mister Allison,
but I come down here for one reason, to make
the field. So impressed, Bobby als replys, well, you're cocky enough,
ain't you.

Speaker 4 (26:31):
Wow? Elizabeth, can you guess who comes up to him next? No,
it's your boy? Throw up three for Dale Dale, Yes,
legend Dale.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
See rest with the angels. Dale.

Speaker 4 (26:43):
So Dale Earnheart senor known to be a hard ass,
but he's somehow cool with LW. Wright.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
He even gives him some Dale Earnhardt tested advice for
winning a race. He comes up there and says, look here,
when you get out there, you can get on the
back of someone that's been here before and follow them,
stay with them, and then make your move.

Speaker 3 (26:58):
Why is everyone helping him?

Speaker 4 (27:00):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (27:00):
I thought this was a competitive sport.

Speaker 2 (27:02):
I think they just want to see what he'll do.
It's entertainment. They're like, just put the kid out there.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
It's much more of a community than I realized. It's
just it's all trying to uplift each other exactly.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
It's men helping men, bro being there for in the
middle of it. They say, we need therapy.

Speaker 4 (27:16):
No, we didn't count.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
We have more times to back each other up on
our crazy s iday. So now we have Dale Iron hurt.
And he gives them all this good advice. And he
wanted to let this good old boy know that the
seven time NASCAR champion he's got his back.

Speaker 4 (27:29):
Chucks him on the shoulder, said you get out there now.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
So he goes out to do his practice laps and
he's never seen the track before. He's never been on
the track, he's never driven his car. He's on talented
exactly once again. World's longest track, faster than Indianapolis five
hundred right track is just for some specs, Elizabeth. The
track is two point six six miles long. It is
a trioval, which is not standard. Usually a triable means

(27:53):
you have three turns at one end, two turns at
the other end. He has five turns.

Speaker 3 (27:58):
So it's sort of from above, looks what triangul.

Speaker 4 (28:01):
Yeah, yeah, well yeah, pentagonal or something.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
It has like a giant octagon.

Speaker 4 (28:06):
Yeah, it looks like a rhombus. So you get it.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
One, two, three, Okay, I'm counting.

Speaker 4 (28:11):
Five, yeah, three and then two. Yeah, there it is.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
That's some crazy business.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
So there we are five turns deep. So the north
south turned, they're banked. The two turn end right is
banked at thirty three degrees. Oh yeah, the inner trioval
is banked at eighteen degrees. Now, thirty three degrees. That's
a super very steep angle. Right, eighteen degrees is a
steep angle if you're on it. So these guys are
like driving on a hypot news of a triangle. Basically
at two hundred miles an hour.

Speaker 3 (28:36):
You're loving this all the mass I do.

Speaker 4 (28:38):
They're coming into turn three Wilde Elizabeth.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
So the entire track forty eight feet wide, which is
basically about the third of a football field, the width
of a football field from the sideline to sideline. Oh
it is, yeah, but the fortye it's about the Yeah.
So to keep the tracks, keep all these cars in
the track, there's a retaining wall, and the retaining wall
is about about four feet high most of the time,
like uh, like on the track and then seven feet
past the grand stands. Like they want to protect people,

(29:02):
so they got next to three feet garry this which
you guys get three feet because we care. So if
you were let's just say like you're on this wall,
like the retaining wall, not the hurricane fencing part to
the cement wall. Let's say you were an ant and
you look down at your buddy ant and the grasses
in the infield of the track. You can be fifty
feet higher than the ant on the grass. Wait on
the retaining wall. You're on the retaining wall on the

(29:23):
outside of the track fee because of the steepness of
the canted angle of the track. And then you add
in a couple of feet of the fence that's feet
higher than the inside field. So just think about that.

Speaker 3 (29:35):
And also keeping the ants is wearing an altimeter, by the.

Speaker 4 (29:37):
Way, of course, like little romans.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
So the taker guys.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
The infield of the track at Talladega, that's the grass
inside the track, right, that could comfortably sit thirty one
rose ball stadiums.

Speaker 4 (29:52):
Wait, stop it, that's how big this place is. It's huge.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
Thirty one thirty.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
One rose ball stadiums. It's huge. That's why I always
stopped to see it. It's a cathedral.

Speaker 3 (30:01):
Having problems getting my head around there.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
I know thirty one rose balls inside the inside the track.
The track is bigger, bigger driving around. Yes, so this
is bigger than the United States interamateur race car driver
L W. Wright, who now has to drive around the
United States Elizabeth l W.

Speaker 4 (30:18):
What are you going to say? So in his first few.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
Practice laps, he not going fast enough, and I quote,
I was comfortable in the car.

Speaker 4 (30:25):
The only thing was I wasn't getting the most out
of the car. Me.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
I wasn't getting the most out of it. I thought
the car would do more than what I was making
it do because I hadn't run it before.

Speaker 4 (30:34):
So, to be fair, he hadn't driven it before he
got on the track.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
So the first wait, he didn't even like adjust the seats.

Speaker 4 (30:42):
Around the car. The guy's like, my race car.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
No, No, the rear view he did it like on
the track, He's like, I should set my mirrors and now.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
Okay, the angle of the steering wheel.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
To be fair, his first lap went better than you
might expect. Yeah, but then on his second lapp he
crashed into a wall, which is about what you'd expect. Yeah,
so even though he slammed into a wall at one
hundred and ninety miles an hour, he was still all in.

Speaker 4 (31:08):
So LW.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
Wright said, uh no, cirt never crossed my mind. I
was in the hospital. First thing out of my mouth.
I asked a buddy of mine with me. I said,
how bad? It's a car tore up? He said, I
think we can put it back together. I said, let's hurry,
get her out there and get going. He will not
back down.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
Wait what he wanted to be in the same race.

Speaker 4 (31:22):
Yeah, he's going to be.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
He's in the hospital.

Speaker 4 (31:24):
No, no, So they took him at there's a he
was taken away in.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
An ambu like a fields he was, Yeah, he's not
taking away an ambulance like to a hospital. He's just
taken by an ambulance to like the.

Speaker 4 (31:32):
Field hospital because there's a.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
Thirty one rose poles to cross. So they get him
to the infield track hospital and he's bandages up. This
won't slow him down, you know, because you know his
crash doesn't matter to him. He's he's gone fast enough
to qualify for Talladega. He went one hundred and eighty
seven point three seven nine miles per hour for an
average lap speed. So boom he gets in and surprisingly
not the slowest time. Oh that guy thirty six in

(31:56):
a field of forty NASCAR drivers.

Speaker 3 (31:58):
Those four guys exactly. Now when you say it's thirty
one rolls rose bowls?

Speaker 4 (32:03):
Is that?

Speaker 5 (32:04):
Like?

Speaker 6 (32:04):
What if?

Speaker 3 (32:04):
Are they stacked vertically?

Speaker 4 (32:06):
Why would they be stacked?

Speaker 3 (32:07):
Because I can't still can't believe it's that thick.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
Yeah, put on the ground, just like I got what vertically?

Speaker 4 (32:14):
I know, you make a tower of rose bowls.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
That's the only way this makes sense. No, how big
is this huge?

Speaker 6 (32:21):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Now also you get that's why you can go two
hundred miles. Remember you stand down the straightaway. It's this
is interesting.

Speaker 3 (32:27):
One lap around this thing and they're done.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
Basically it's a five hundred mile last So this first, this,
this is the first time. This year nineteen eighty two
was the first time that a driver crosses two hundred
miles in any track. And they do it on this
track because you need the length to get up to
the speed. So they break a record this year. He's
out there miles an hour to get They eventually get
speed governors.

Speaker 4 (32:49):
They realize this is too faster. These guys be driving
right they Oh yeah, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
Aerodynamic is just runs to take those governors off.

Speaker 4 (32:57):
Dude, l W does real well.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
The fastest guy they who says the record Benny Parson,
he did two hundred two point one seven miles.

Speaker 4 (33:04):
LW.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
Wright he did a speed that was one eighty seven
win three. That's thirteen miles slower.

Speaker 3 (33:08):
It's really fat.

Speaker 2 (33:09):
Thirteen miles slower than the record setting speed. Our amateur
is killing it right.

Speaker 3 (33:12):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
The fastest I've ever driven is one hundred and fifty
five miles an hour. Oh, I was clenching like when
I was doing that, and it was on a straight
country road. I didn't have to worry about anything. I
knew what I was doing. I could see forever.

Speaker 3 (33:23):
What kind of car was it?

Speaker 2 (33:25):
It was the old Mercedes Sedan. Those things good, they
will they I didn't think it get that fast. It
kept going and kept going and kept going.

Speaker 5 (33:32):
One one time when I was driving, it was like
on the five, that was the fastest.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
You were like fifty six. I mean it all the way.

Speaker 4 (33:40):
So you're on the five. What else going doing like
fifty six story.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
Yeah, So after w crashes into the wall and his
impromptu crew chief Stirling Marlin has to like, like you know,
basically bolster his confidence, right, he also has an issue.
His car is wrecked, and now he's got to go
around to other drivers and try to like get parts
from them. So he gets a door and a fender
and a quarter panel from one racer, and then he
goes over to Richard Petty and he gets a windshield

(34:05):
trim for Richard Petty. Then he gets the windshield to
go with it, because his windshields blown out, so he
gets a windshield from Dale Earnhart's team, and then he
gets the snaps he needs to tie down his windshield
from Darryl Waltrip. So all these legends are like, yeah,
here you go, I got all the.

Speaker 3 (34:19):
Parts of extra. Did they invoice him later?

Speaker 4 (34:21):
I don't care, don't care? Oh good old boy.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
So finally day of the race comes l W Right
out of the field hospital in his car.

Speaker 4 (34:28):
Cars slap back together after crack up.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
It's like a civil war.

Speaker 4 (34:34):
No one can stop him.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
Now, so put him under ether exactly.

Speaker 4 (34:37):
He's kind of goofy and weird. We're gonna need to
get you.

Speaker 3 (34:41):
You got to amputat.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
That's just what we do here. Son put some cocaine
in him because he got ghosts in his blood shows up,
so L W. Pulls his car out on the track.
He's out there on the grid, lines up next to
the stock car legends at the starting line. Quote that's
when it really said in I thought, well, I finally
got here. It doesn't matter what happens today. I'm here,
and that's what I was shooting tours. But I wanted
to run good. You know, that's like the good old

(35:05):
boy model. I want to run no good. How do
you think my boy LW. Wright does at one hundred, sorry,
two hundred miles an hour? Next two men nicknamed the
Intimidator and the King, how do you think he does?

Speaker 3 (35:20):
Not so hot?

Speaker 2 (35:20):
Yeah, well, rather than me asked you that question, We're
gonna take a little break and then I'll be back
to show you the race. Nice okay, Elizabeth Okay. Talladega Speedway.

(35:50):
Our man LW. Wright is on the grid at the
starting line with all the legends. Hundreds of thousands of
people are watching him. I don't know if that's true,
but at least at home. Millions of people watch on TV.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
So covered and bandage.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
Now do you think he's gonna do well? No, he
did thirty six in the time to you know, the
qualifying time. So right, I'll just I'll tell you this, right, But.

Speaker 3 (36:11):
How long did he go before he crashed? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (36:15):
Not well, well it was rather than us voting about it.
Why don't you just close your eyes and picture May second,
nineteen eighty two, the Winston five hundred at Talladega. You
are an ant. You've crawled across the sun warm track.
It's as stock cars line up for the race. You
climb up onto one of the cars.

Speaker 4 (36:37):
You're bored. Whatever the race car of LW. Wright.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
He's in Row eighteen, number thirty six, in a field
of forty cars. This means nothing to you. You're an
ant engine start. The cars rumble and shake, eager to race.
The drivers grip their steering wheels, ready to make hate
to the other drivers.

Speaker 4 (36:52):
LW.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Wright just hope he doesn't die or kill someone else
by a mistake. And you wonder what the hell is
all this noise? You came to this track someone's RV.
You don't know anything about NASCAR. This is your first
NASCAR race too, So you can practically hear what LW.
Wright is thinking in the car because you're sitting there
on the glass of the windshield.

Speaker 4 (37:10):
He's in there, and we all lined up.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
Everybody was antsy, and boom, the green flag is waved.
The cars all roared to life. They're off wi seeing
that flag drop. The front runners took off the middle
of the field. Itn't and I was waiting, come on,
come on, come on.

Speaker 4 (37:22):
He sees the turn. Come he floors it.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
The wheel squealed car races storage us. Elizabeth and Aunt
on the windshield of this race car are now stuck.
The wind presses you down to the glass. You're just
staring at this guy and he's staring.

Speaker 4 (37:34):
Down their track.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
The cars get to going fast sixty miles an hour
within seconds, then one hundred, one hundred and ten, one
twenty one, thirty, one, forty one fifty. You're up to
one hundred and ninety miles an hour. None of this
means anything to you, but you're going super fast.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
My little ant limbs are flying.

Speaker 4 (37:49):
The world is blurring fast. Your antenna you lose one
WoT well the leg gohost. This crazy bastard is in
this race. LW.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
Wright would later tell a journalists and I quote, as
soon as I cleared the flag stand, I remember dropping
the outside lane and going to the front about ten cars.

Speaker 4 (38:02):
I remember that. I guess it was all adrenaline in.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
No sense, but I went to the front and hurry,
and I thought, this is where I'm gonna stay. So
after lap one you can tell this maniac is in
it to win it. Lap two doesn't go as well, though,
because you're still pressed to the glass of the windshield.
The wind is intense, the speed insane. You wonder how
long you can hold on your little ant body quivering.
Couple drivers retake their spots ahead. Lw falls back into
the pack. Lap three, one of the front runners, Darryl

(38:27):
Waltrip in the Mountain dew Buick takes first place. He's
down on the lead of the high speed train made
of car race cars and the King, Richard Petty is
in the lead pack.

Speaker 4 (38:36):
So is the intimidator Dale Earnhardt, but he has yet
to make his move.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
You are desperately hoping this all in soon, but there
are still four hundred and ninety two miles to go
in this race. Lap four, a young driver David Simcoe,
spins out at one hundred and ninety miles an hour
and slams into the wall.

Speaker 4 (38:51):
You're a gas How does one.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
Get off a race car going one hundred ninety miles
an hour? Your little antenn I are wondering, but evan
no chance to answer because the speed Lap four is
going and Dale W. Wright, He's footstays smashed down on
that accelerator. Yet some part of him, the part that
keeps them alive, it won't let him drive as fast
as the other drivers. They do things he would never do,
never think to do, and if he did thing to

(39:13):
do them, he still couldn't do what they do. Meanwhile,
you're inventing like aunt religions. You were praying for Aunt
God's to deliver you off of this windshield. Lap ten,
Dale Earnhardt in the blue and yellow Wrangler car.

Speaker 4 (39:23):
He makes his move Dale three for Dale.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Dale has pushed his way up to from the twentieth
starting position up to the fourth spot at the head
of the pack. L. W. Wright is now in the
last place, falling behind very fast. You're like, thank God,
thank the Aunt God's now at this point. Dale Earnhardt,
Jeff Bodine are coming into the trioval too wide. It's
lap eleven. L W Wright gets lapp by the lead cars.

Speaker 4 (39:45):
That's bad.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
That's very bad. That's dangerous. With all the other cars
roaring past him a two hundred miles an.

Speaker 3 (39:49):
Hour, he's going so slow that he gets last lap.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
They're racing past him. He's doing like one seventy one sixty.
I don't know, LW Wright, and you are now a
speed hater. You're gonna be lucky if one of the
cars isn't slam into you. NASCAR officials are waving the
black flag. That means you've been ejected from the race.
On the TV coverage that you can't hear this, but
the commentators finish this point, everything's okay, she's earned heart
faint a little really racy now, followed.

Speaker 4 (40:11):
By the other commentator racy.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
The car that was given the black flag a lap
ago was LW. Wright from Nashville, Tennessee and the Music
City Racing Chevy.

Speaker 4 (40:19):
LW.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
Wright, by the way, has come way too far to
listen to some black flag wave and official He refuses
to pull into pit row. Next time you and he
passed the starting finish line, you've still clutching onto the windshield.

Speaker 4 (40:29):
The announcers are awed by LW. Wright.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
So LW Wright again given the black flag as he
passes by us, and Right has been ordered to the
pit area. LW Wright won't not stop racing now, you
stop thanking the new aunt gods. They have failed you
so clearly NASCAR is gonna have to send like a
cop car onto the track to get this guy off.
They don't know what they're gonna do. So you give
You've given up on your aunt gods. You are now
just praying that the black flag something throws it, Something

(40:53):
happens luckily for you. Physics take the wheel, and the
old ant gods in the new save you. Because in
lap sixteen, really it's only lap thirteen for LW Right.
Black smoke erupts from the speedway and the reel drivers
they all caught. They slowed down for the costion flag
because Lwright is slammed into a wall and his race.

Speaker 4 (41:08):
Is now officially over.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
Rip me yep car wrecked Lwright. He drives back to
the garage with what's left of his car. Once there,
he pulls himself from the wrecked race car. You crawled
down off the windshield.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
Oh, I made it.

Speaker 4 (41:19):
You're free, Elizabeth. He made it. Whoo, Genie, you're free.
Lw Right.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
He didn't win the race, No, didn't even really, he
didn't even finish it. But he'd done it, Elizabeth. He'd
done it.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
He done did it.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
He raced at the best in the world and he
didn't kill anyone himself included. That's good, right, And since
one driver crashed before him, he didn't even finish last
what So he got thirty nine, which means he won
fifteen forty five dollars what which means he got the
thousand dollars you needed to get himset out of trouble
with the FBI.

Speaker 6 (41:48):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
Yes, As for the winner, that was Daryl Waltrip in
case you were wondering. Yeah, he won the eighty two
when Talladega wins. Anyway, so the race is still going right,
and he's now in the garage and people have been
talking about the black flag. He very embarrassed. He just
wants all this to go away. So what does he do? Well,
he vanishes after the race, is just.

Speaker 3 (42:06):
Like a puff of smoke and he turns into bats.

Speaker 2 (42:08):
He does his best impression of disco. He's just I'm
out right, he's he disappears from the scene. Gone right,
He's gone. Before the race is over, he leaves his
car in the garage. He cuts out like he had
a bill to pay and he was not going to
pay that bill. He dines and dashes the Talladega right
so in his wake. By the way, as the days come,
you know, after the race, days pass, and the checks

(42:30):
that he'd been writing to keep his con going, they
all start bouncing.

Speaker 4 (42:33):
It's like a kid's super Bowl.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
Like they're not going like big bounces, right, so everybody,
and I'm talking like the bounced checks aren't just for
the race.

Speaker 4 (42:40):
He he bounces his rent check for his apartment.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
He was gone, gone working leading up to this, he
was doing the old.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
I think he was doing bus repair works. I don't
know what he was doing. I mean, I think he
had five jobs.

Speaker 3 (42:52):
You know, I don't want to know what he was doing.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
So the cops get called on him. NASCAR is she's
a warrant for lw Right. I don't think that's what
all the new story. The issue a warn I'm a
can NASCAR.

Speaker 3 (43:01):
Issue in in the court of Nascar.

Speaker 4 (43:03):
It like SEC rules.

Speaker 5 (43:06):
They went to the NASCAR judge and then the NASCAR
DA was like, hey, this is the evidence we have.

Speaker 4 (43:12):
Throw the NASCAR book out him, Like, let's do it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
So one Nashville businessman who'd given him about thirty grand
apparently then just sponsorship fees. And so I don't know
how this works out, but he goes and hires a
private detective to get his money back. No luck, No
one ever sees lw. Wright ever again. For forty years.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
Boom disappeared, just completely, he disappears.

Speaker 4 (43:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
So then this dude Rick Houston I told you about,
and Steve Wade who had the Scene Vault podcast or
they still do. They break this story last year on
the fortieth anniversary. Turns out ldw Right did not exactly
go off the grid. He didn't even quit racing. Days later,
he went to Nashville and he tried to race again
that race. Elizabeth was the Grand National nineteen eighty two

(43:51):
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store for twenty Winston Cup.

Speaker 3 (43:55):
Yeah it was Cracker Barrel four twenty.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
Do you remember that that lovely weekend we spent at
the Cracker Barrel for one cut back in ninety eight.

Speaker 4 (44:01):
That was awesome.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
That Elsell never mind.

Speaker 4 (44:06):
Saw I take that back.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
Cracker barrel exactly of town.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
So he qualified for the Talladega five hundred. He could
not qualify for the cracker barrel for twenty cup. It
was too hard for him. So now he's running out
of money fast. So what does he do now? He
quits racing. Now he's like, I can't do it. Also
because remember he's still on the run from the FBI.
Yeah yeah, so, and I quote, I didn't panic, but
I felt like, well, it's time to back up and
have another plan. That's why I said it's time to
pack up my family and just quit.

Speaker 4 (44:32):
I'm done.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
They were shocked because they didn't know a tenth of
what was going on with me and all this. They
was honest and it was everything they were. They didn't
understand why I had to be pressured to move. I
didn't tell them until after the fact. I said, it's
in your best interest just not to ask no question.
Let's just do this. And that's what I did. Right,
Dad of the.

Speaker 5 (44:48):
Year being pursued by the NASCAR police exactly.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
This dude has a wife and four kids. He's not
to nero and heat. He's got a wife and four kids.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
He's got a at Talladego in this.

Speaker 4 (44:58):
No, No, they don't really need he was a race
car driver.

Speaker 3 (45:02):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
I mean they know that there was a race car
that Dad had like in the driveway at one point,
but they don't think.

Speaker 4 (45:07):
Maybe that was his buddy. He has all sorts of.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
Weird doing that.

Speaker 6 (45:10):
Well.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
I like to imagine this son was like, let me
get this rad Daddy, you failed to win two NASCAR races.
You entered to pay off your debt, some robbery at
your day job, and that's why the FBI is after you.
And that's why I can't go to the prom with
Becky Lamb. That ain't fair, Daddy, That's what I picked.

Speaker 5 (45:25):
It's lucky that Daddy doesn't wind up buried under the
track at Charlotte Motor Speed.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
Then he has this great like sad Ricky Bobby bowment.
He goes out and LW says he has to say
goodbye to his dream. And he says, quote, the race
car stayed in the back of the trailer right there
at this house where I left it. I didn't even
open the door and look in it. I just drove
a boy. So he cut to one year later. Okay,
the FBI finally catches up with old Dell w Right.

(45:51):
He's arrested, tossed in a cell. I was picked up
in West Virginia, hauled me to Knoxville, Tennessee, stayed in Noxfield, Tennessee,
twenty six hours, and they come unlocked the sale and
told mister ry E can go.

Speaker 4 (46:01):
We're done. That was the end of it.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
So the thing he'd been running from, the FBI threat
that pushed him to risk his life and the life
of others at Talladega, upset his family's whole thing and
go start his own amateur witness relocation program. That was nothing.
It was basically clear pepsi. It was a big nothing. Right,
So what does l W. Wright do when he finds
out he didn't really need to run his life and
uproot his family. If I knew that when I run Dalladega,

(46:24):
that would have been a different outcome because I wouldn't
have gotten up and left Nashville. I wouldn't have moved.
I would have took care of what I need to
take care. I would have gone him back to racing.
So after forty years, LW. Wright finally willing to tell
his story, and he gets this dude, Rick Houston, I
told you about the journalists, get him hundreds of messages,
earned his trust, and then he convinces him like okay, oh,
I want to meet in person. So they meet at
the secret location. Out walks his seventy three year old man.

(46:48):
He confirms that he is indeed LW. Wright or that
was the name he was using. He has the racing
suit that he warned that day at Talladega to prove it.
The racing suit matches the only known photo of L. W.
Wright from that day and is confirmed by the stitching.
That's what kind of journalists that Rick is. He's down, like,
I recognize the stitching. So now he starts to correct
the legend. He wanted to correct his legend. He was like,

(47:08):
you know, I have a bone to pick with some
of the facts people.

Speaker 4 (47:12):
Have claim right.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
He takes issue with all the people claiming he owed
money all over town, which I don't know how he
could do that, but he's like, no, that ain't true.
You tell him, come down talk to me and all
this right anyway. My favorite thing though, is that he
bought the car from Cuckoo Marlin your boy, yeah, and
Sterling his son, right, and he'd ask him to paint
the race car black and add the number thirty four.

Speaker 3 (47:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (47:31):
Now, as LW.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
Wright said, thirty four come from Wendell Scott. He was
the one who already tried to race, but didn't have
the means or the money. So I picked up thirty four. Now,
Wendell Scott, I loved this. As a former Moonshiner, he
was an indep pendant black stock car driver who raced
in the fifties. So for the entire decade, NASCAR tracks
woudn't let him race. They wouldn't let him on the track,
so he raced independent. And even in those races, these
other good old boys they would intentionally wreck his car.

(47:52):
So he was like fighting to constantly keep his car roadworthy. Right,
Wendall Scott keeps on racing, right on racing, and he wins,
and he wins, and he wins. That good old boy
could drive right. So eventually he wins two championships. In
nineteen fifty nine, NASCAR goes, oh, we gotta concede, he's
a good old boy a little let him ride. So
nineteen sixty one, Wendlescott becomes a first black NASCAR driver,
and he persisted, and he becomes like the person to

(48:15):
beat the sclerotic culture of the Southern segregation.

Speaker 4 (48:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
So I don't know, but perhaps L. W. Wright saw
something of himself and the underdog Wendell Scott.

Speaker 4 (48:23):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
Perhaps being a Southerner, he understood that someone needs to
beat these old Southern ways.

Speaker 4 (48:28):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
I did think this that the journalist Rick Houston, he
had the most interesting take on the whole affair and
who the real L. W.

Speaker 4 (48:35):
Wright is.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
And he said, I quote in the grand scheme of
things in the rear view mirror, what he did wasn't
truly all that bad. And I will say that the
story we've all heard all these years, in the story
that he tells us now, they are not the same story.
Is there closure?

Speaker 4 (48:47):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
But to sit there and listen to him finally talk
about it to a lot of NASCAR fans, that's a
day we never thought would come here.

Speaker 4 (48:53):
He's just in it for the story.

Speaker 6 (48:54):
You know.

Speaker 3 (48:55):
Do we know what his real name is?

Speaker 4 (48:56):
Yeah, but it doesn't really matter. Yeah, so it was
a kid.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
Don't want to put it out there, No, no, no domb
for so Yeah, olw Right telling the story. This is
why it comes at a steep cost. The FBI catches
back up with him because now the story is out
there and he's bragging on and talking about numbers and stuff.
They don't let him go, and best I can tell,
he's presently in Jefferson County, Tennessee jail on felony charges
of theft, burglary, passing bad checks, evading arrest, and so

(49:20):
he tells you the truth and finally, boom, now he
has to pay for the costs of what he did
back then. I guess the FBI listens to podcasts, so
you know it's Elizabeth who says all this stuff anyway,
So why did he do it? LW had the final word,
and I'll give it to him. On this ick. The
rush of danger. I like pain, believe it or not.
I used to box see this old nose. I had

(49:42):
thirty one golden gulve fights. Out of thirty one fights,
I won twenty nine. But just to get out and
deliberately do something to somebody, No, I don't do that.
But the excitement of being in the middle of it
for me was rush. You don't think about the danger
around you. I mean, you're standing in front of a
pistol and it fires at you. You're looking at him
dead and the eye and you're saying, you better make
it good because I'm gonna get you. I guess it's excitement.
I may not be right in the head, you know what.

(50:03):
So no, my brother in Christ, you may not be
right in the head. But if you want, you can
always come sit next to me.

Speaker 4 (50:09):
So yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
Also, it is just for everybody else. If you ever
doubt yourself, you ever have a moment you're like, I
don't know if I can do this, just think of
old L. W Right and go, goddamn, I can do this.

Speaker 4 (50:19):
So what's our ridiculous takeaway here?

Speaker 3 (50:22):
You know what my ridiculous takeaway is that a nineteen
eighty one Monte Carlo was at some point a new car.

Speaker 2 (50:29):
Yes it was, and it was a bitch in new car.
So yeah, that's it. Thank you for asking my ridiculus takeaways, Elizabeth.
Once again, I don't have one for you.

Speaker 4 (50:38):
So I have a story. You know. That's what I
did over here.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
You carried the weight on this one, so you can.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
You know, you can find us online if you'd like
to talk to us about stuff. You can send us
messages on Instagram, or you can have messages on Twitter.
You can just you know, retweet stuff or like post,
you do whatever the heck you want. I'm not here
to tell you what to do. It's your social media anyway.

Speaker 3 (50:58):
I don't know how you live.

Speaker 4 (50:59):
Yeah, I don't care. But we do have the talkbacks
in the iHeart app. We like those.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
I do like that, enjoy those. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (51:04):
Anyway, you can also email us Ridiculous Crime and gmail
dot com.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
No one checks them we have, I damn sure don't,
but we do have the website ridiculous crime dot com.

Speaker 4 (51:14):
It's worth a check. Yes, thanks for listening, y'all.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarren Burnett,
produced and edited by Dale Earnhardt's driving instructor Dave Kusten.
Researches by Marissa Intimidator Brown and Andrea. The Kang song
Sharpened Tear, our theme song is by George Jones. Historical
re enactors Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Executive producers are
Been the Cracker, Barrel four, twenty Cup Bowland and Noel.

Speaker 4 (51:44):
This is why I prefer Formula.

Speaker 6 (51:46):
One Ridicus Cry Say It one more time.

Speaker 1 (51:59):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
from iHeartRadio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.