What's it Like to Be Mentored By Dirt Racing Legend Scott Bloomquist?

let's talk about that just for a minute Scott Bloomquist now my disclaimer is he's weird he's different blah blah blah but you know I've said this before Einstein all the greatest are different uh rumbly is is Bloomquist does he fall in that category is uh a brilliant weird man yeah he uh definitely the way he thinks about anything in life is way different than anybody I've ever been around um I think a lot of people have seen that through his podcast and everything he's done but um at the end of the day he's like he's a super nice guy and he's you know people kind of look at him as like hard to approach and that type of stuff but he's very nice guy to talk to anybody he's great with my kids and stuff like he's just a really good guy um he did a lot for me so that was you know to travel up and down the road with him for basically six months was um something that probably very few have ever done but to drive his race car it was you know you know a big accomplishment for me to even have that honor to do it um but yeah I mean just very smart guy thinks about things way different than we do and I think that's what made him so successful for a long time is like when you're thinking about the little things there's so far in depth that he would go um into the smallest things whether it's House Springs travel and the hysteresis and Springs to we were pulling rear ends out almost every other week to check the straightness of rear ends and mess with that I mean there was just so many little Minor Details that he just crossed that nobody else I don't even think thinks about you you went to school uh yeah and sometimes it's not even about tricks and traits about uh the way you work uh pulling ruins out that would be some somebody at a local race track might do once a year maybe never take their rear end out so his work ethic is pretty hardcore yeah and you know there's no shortage of work but like it's always late at night I think everybody kind of knows that how Scott you know works is like we'll get you know home from a race or whatever and it doesn't mean nothing for him to work till four or five in the morning so um you know he just sits there and sits on his Crown Royal and and just works you know so um yeah it's pretty impressive he's just very smart with tires um grooving tires siphon tires he had ways to Sipe tires and groove tires per race track um and I mean he has a wall at his shop that is just full of you know tires that he won races on so he could and he's got them labeled like this was a Batesville Tire this was a Tri-City Tire he can pull it down and look at how it wore and be like okay this is how I'm Gonna Groove my stuff for when I go back to Batesville or wherever so um just kind of crazy he had ways that like he would teach me like how I need to hold the grinder for different places we were going like just crazy stuff you know like it was funny though I I have ergonomics the way I use my grinder yeah so he would round edges at some places he goes and he makes sure the edges are sharp other it's just pretty wild he's just so in depth on everything well my friend listen um you know you've overcome that uh you cover overcame that that horrible accident going through Louisville um any any effects I mean last year you were on your way to your fourth ump National Championship you had a horrible accident with your truck and trailer going through Louisville how is everybody doing yeah uh I get that question a lot I mean I I'm good the only side effects really I have is short-term memory loss I felt like I struggled a little bit with that before uh we call it CRS but um yeah I just now they say that could take a year to two years to really come back just I had a skull fracture right in my temple area and they said that's where your short-term memory is stored and that was where my brain bruising was and everything so just getting through that as more than anything but as far as effects of driving everything I do daily uh no no issues there so my dad uh he's good he's definitely sore he struggles to get up and down sometimes um so it it probably took a harder toll on him than anybody um and then Mason's good I mean he he uh he had a lot of bruising and stuff on his head and but he's uh he's good to go so he's still with me working every day in the shop they're trying to get everything ready right now we're getting ready to go to Kansas today so they're trying to get all that finished up but as far as the facts we're all good um I appreciate everybody man racing family was incredible during that time um so many people did so much for me and I still learn about things um even today like people that did stuff or did this and that and it was pretty cool to see um everything that was done for us and I can't appreciate that enough and uh moving forward just you know right now I don't have a modified rig or anything still I'm still dealing with all the insurance and everything else as far as that was eight months ago I still ain't got everything figured out there so kind of sucks but uh it's just part of it so um it was a catastrophic event I feel like you're still Nick yeah but are you different now because of not so much of the wreck itself but just a catastrophic nature of it are you are you different yeah for sure I just um it definitely changed my outlook on life and you know I got two kids and stuff and I want to be there for them and uh change my Outlook on a lot of things for sure like that night I tell people I was asleep in the passenger seat when when we crashed and um so I don't remember any of it I I woke up in a hospital in ICU for three or four days later or whatever and I don't recall anything that happened in that that whole time uh I tell people like if I died that night I would have never knew the difference like would have never knew you know I just would have never woke up so um it was pretty crazy you know just to sit back and think about that and and everything that could have happened um so there's just we got very lucky for sure and um just to even walk away from it all of us at some point dad broke his back and then me was skull fracture and then Mason was just bruised up so um and I think a lot of people don't understand what happened I need to kind of touch on this is like basically nothing happened as far as like Mason didn't fall asleep nothing stupid as far as that goes we had a truck that was on the shoulder and it was it was a tractor trailer it wasn't hole on a trailer so it was just bobtailing and so you got the little two red lights on tail lights and he was in limp mode only running 10 mile an hour and he'd come out into our lane to go out around like a exit ramp or something and like I said I was asleep so I don't know but he come out into our lane and we ended up hitting him and uh so that was what caused the crash um and so it was just nothing that you know we did wrong or anything and just parted driving late at night I guess you know it's just something that all of us Racers do and we're probably lucky it doesn't happen more often and we got lucky that night right we've had some tough things that have happened in in the sport you know we lost Davey Allison in a helicopter wreck we lost Allen quickie in a plane wreck we lost Rob Moroso in a car wreck you know Nick God works in mysterious ways you know you were on your way to the fourth ump uh modified Championship but months later your coroner calls you up and now you're living your dream so yeah everything happens for a reason yeah a positive and latitude we got to look forward and and uh well listen my friend uh you you've you're you're you're young you're only 31 years old congratulations to all your success I appreciate you helping me live my dirt modified dream you know that I started in late models I asked you if I could buy a car I don't rough you up because I understand competition I do my own deal as you know and uh I'm happy to know that I run the stiffest left rear shock I win yeah and I I mean it's just been cool working with you and uh like I've told people like having you in the pit area whether you're running my car or not it's just uh helps the morale the whole pit area yeah well thank you buddy

Channel: Kenny Wallace

Views: 16,233

Keywords: NASCAR, racing, Kenny Wallace, Scott Bloomquist, Nick Hoffman, dirt racing

Id: ju7X0aqO4EQ

Length: 8min 35sec (515 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 02 2023