Big Sky Speedway Billings Night at the Races brings you Kenny Wallace this Saturday August 29th. He has the 12th most starts in the history of NASCAR at 905. He also holds the most starts in the Xfinity series which garnered him the nickname “The Mayor of the Xfinity Series” and has 344 more starts in the Cup Series. Now retired the “mayor of the Xfinity series” has a dream he’s looking to fulfill of racing all over the United States. I had the pleasure of interviewing Kenny over the phone and he talks about how he got involved with the Big Sky Speedway.
“I’ve always had a fascination for dirt racing and I’ve been running dirt cars for about 15 years now. Kyle (Soltesz) and myself become friends and started talking about it. I heard about this really big weekend coming up. I’m just really excited to be a part of everything on Saturday August 29th out at the Big Sky Speedway.”
Four lucky people will have the opportunity to meet the legend himself Saturday night. For any fan that’s a memory of a lifetime and for Kenny the fans are what keeps him going.
“When all of the races are over, we’ll hang out, we’ll drink a couple of cold ones. We talk and we’re hooting and hollering but we’ll talk about NASCAR racing, anything in dirt racing. It’s a lot of fun to do that because I’m able to answer all their questions about Danica Patrick or Dale Earnhardt Jr. or something that they have interest in and other ways they’re not able to know anything about it.”
Kenny has been racing all his life but how did he get into racing in the first place? Well it’s a family affair.
“Well my dad raced and my dad took us racing on a local level. All around St. Louis. My brother Rusty who I love very much, my brother Mike, they took it to the next level and I’m the youngest one. My brother Mike is four years older than me and my brother Rusty Wallace is seven years older than me. I’m young enough behind them that I always wanted to do what they were doing, I wanted to do what my dad was doing.”
And Kenny goes on to talk about living out his dream of racing and how he’s the luckiest guy in the world.
“I made a living racing cars. To me that’s just insane. I’m so thankful, humbled. Listen I’m not a great driver, I’m an OK driver and that’s OK with me because when you start talking about any type of sports it’s hard, listen there’s only a handful of the greatest, right? The rest of us make up the competition. It’s been a wonderful career. There’s been a lot of disappointment along the way but now where I’m at in my life, I’m having the time of my life.”
Kyle Soltesz of Target Digital Solutions at the Big Horn Radio Network contributed to this story.
