The early contender for music video of the year?
Well there’s really no such thing, but if there was, it would probably be this one… even though I haven’t seen it yet, I know it’s gonna be great.
Earlier this week, Luke Combs announced he was released a new single called “Back In The Saddle” this Friday, July 25th. It’s the lead single from his forthcoming (unofficially announced) album, ad he’s been sharing clips of song he wrote with frequent collaborators Jonathan Singleton and The Brothers Hunt on social media, and it sounds like a classic Luke Combs heater:
And then, he shared something possibly even more exciting, which is that NASCAR stars Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the legendary Richard Petty will be featured in the music video that will also drop this Friday.
In the photos I could tell that it looked like it was probably filmed at a short track somewhere in North Carolina, and during today’s ask Jr. segment of his Dale Jr. Download podcast, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was asked about how it came to be. Jr. said Luke texted him and asked if he would be in it, and they decided to film at Tri-County Motor Speedway in Granite Falls, North Carolina (the home of Eric Church, if that sounds familiar).
Jr. wanted it to feel authentic to the song, and he really helped bring it all to life it sounds like… even if he had ulterior motives in choosing this specific track because he’ll be running a late model race there later this year:
“Well, basically Luke texted me and said, ‘Hey man, I’m gonna do a music video for this song.’ He sent me the song, he said, ‘Would you wanna be in it?’ I said, ‘Yes, absolutely.’ And so we started talking about what we would do, where we would do it. They thought, man you know, let’s get Next Gen car and go to Charlotte Motor Speedway.
And so we looked around and there weren’t really any Next Gen cars available for us to use. And so I said to Luke, I was like, why don’t we… the song is about getting back in the saddle and kind of a little bit of a comeback story, or you know, kind of like a veteran going back to his roots even. And so I thought, man let’s go to a short track and let’s take one of the late model stock cars. This will be great to shine a light on grassroots racing, to shine a light on light models.
And so we went to Tri-County Motor Speedway, which is about an hour and 15 minutes from the house. We wrapped two of our late model cars identically, so we’d have one car with all the windows out of it and a bunch of cameras mounted all over it and then another car that looked clean and you could film the car from a distance. Luke gets up in the grandstands and walks around the track, and they filmed us in a tunnel and doing all kinds of other stuff.
And then he’s up in the flag stand and I’m making laps. And I’m racing at Tri-County later this year, so I thought, I wanna go somewhere where I can get some laps. And so I ran and I followed a camera car around the track a little bit, we got some shots that way.”
Jr. added that he’s excited for everyone to see it:
“And then I ran some relatively hard laps in the car with the cameras mounted all over it. And then then I got my car ready, put on a set of tires and went out there and ran probably 25 really hard laps. And then they filmed Luke up in the stands, and Richard Petty’s in this as well. He kind of comes in at the end, he’s like ‘Hey, my turn. I wanna run. I wanna drive.’ So pretty neat, man.
I was honored to be asked to do it, and I’m thankful that Luke and his team thought of me and Richard and included us in this project. So pretty cool, pretty awesome opportunity. I think it’s out Friday. I look forward to what people‘s reaction is to it.”
Jr. has been in several other music videos before, including “Show Me What You Got” by Jay-Z alongside Danica Patrick, “The Road I’m On” by 3 Doors Down alongside Tony Stewart and he was even in the video for Carrie Underwood’s song “The Champion.”
But those were all years ago, and let’s be honest, this match up of Combs and Jr. just makes SO much sense and I can’t wait to see it:
“It’s pretty much whatever he and I wanted to do, it feel like. Luke’s like, hey, whatever Dale wants is great, I’m glad he’s doing it. And so you know I’ve never driven Next Gen and I never will be racing in a Next Gen car in my life. And so having me in the Next Gen running around a racetrack at Charlotte talking about back in the saddle, people are gonna go, well, that’s bull****.
They’re gonna go, this is bull****. They’re gonna be disappointed more than anything. So I thought, let’s do something realistic because I do run four or five late model races a year.”
Sounds like Jr. was a big help in this production and even got some practice in for later this year when he runs there in October… pretty smart, if you ask me.
You can watch him talk about it here:
