Cocoa Beach, Fla. — For better or worse, stock car racing and professional wrestling has always had a unique sort of synergy between each other. Both have a deep history and devoted following in the Southeastern United States and have often utilized that shared marketplace to grown and evolve over the past three decades.

The best example of that synergy can be found between NASCAR and the old World Championship Wrestling promotion who both owe a large amount of their respective growth to Ted Turner and his TBS cable empire as both were weekly stalwarts of the network in the 1980s and 90s. In fact, Turner owned WCW and had a passion for both “the business” and stock car racing.

There are countless examples of Turner leveraging two of his most valued properties together in building a unified following.

It is with that in mind, that I admit that I’ve been watching a lot of the WWE Network during this off-season. For those out of the loop, the WWE Network is a Netflix-style streaming product that allows me to enjoy events from days gone by, beneficial given the current boring and downtrodden state of the modern WWE television product.

One of the joys of watching WCW Monday Nitro reruns has been the countless references to NASCAR and weekly races on TBS. At the height of WCW’s popularity, the primary storyline was an invasion of the promotion by a trio of outsiders dubbed the New World Order, led by a turncoat “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash.

Part of the faction’s agenda not only involved taking over the WCW but seemingly all of pop culture as Hogan (in real life) was attempting to become the next Hollywood action star, using a camping television show, “Thunder in Paradise” as his metaphorical vehicle into mainstream entertainment.

By 1996, NASCAR was two years removed from the inaugural Brickyard 400 and was soaring to the heights of its own popularity behind Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, Terry Labonte and Mark Martin. So naturally, the nWo gazed its fictional ambition towards taking over stock car racing as well.

The unit “recruited” Kyle Petty to drive the nWo Chevrolet and even featured him during an episode of Nitro to introduce him as the newest member of the villainous but popular faction. WCW “responded” (remember this is just an storyline) on various occasions in 1996 and 1997 with branded cars, including this Slim Jim Halloween Havoc entry driven by popular Busch Series contender Jason Keller.

The conflict, which coincided with a Hogan/ Macho Man Randy Savage title bout at the Halloween Havoc pay-per-view event, boiled over into the fall Busch Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. That race was obscurely attended by both The Outsiders (Hall and Nash) and the Macho Man.

Much to the delight of the charismatic Savage, Keller finished 10th in the All Pro Bumper to Bumper 300 at CMS, while Petty — in the nWo car — crashed hard into the outside retaining wall, earning him a DNF and a taunting from both Savage and Keller on the October 7 edition of Monday Nitro.

Coming full circle, this is what I have been watching during my winter break, prompting this unplanned post. But this article wouldn’t be complete without the Savage/Keller interview which I managed to upload for your entertainment below.

Ooooooooh yeeeeeah!