"He saved my life" - $9M-worth Kenny Wallace recounts Dick Trickle's fiery defense against Rusty Wallace on an airplane

Kenny Wallace recalled how Dick Trickle once defended him against his brother Rusty Wallace's verbal onslaught. The trio were seated inside Rusty Wallace's airplane once, and this was when things turned ominous for the younger Wallace, but he had Trickle backing him up.

Kenny Wallace and Trickle were indulged in a conversation, and suddenly the former burst out laughing, which irked his elder brother, Rusty Wallace. The elder brother then immediately asked his younger brother to "shut the f**k up with that laughing."

As things heated up, Trickle stood up for Kenny Wallace and fired at Rusty Wallace, asking the latter to stop "talking" to his younger brother that way. Explaining this further, Kenny Wallace said in his recent YouTube video,

"It was Dick Trickle that said let Kenny be Kenny because you know there's all these people trying to change me... I wanted to win so bad that I was like yeah, you know and Trickle got it. So there was a couple of people that knew me good and they'd look at people and they go look, 'let Kenny be Kenny, and that's when he'll be at his best.'" (0:50, 1:06-1:20)

"When you start trying to change him here, let Kenny be miserable, he'll run better, that never worked. So that's basically my Dick Trickle story. He saved my life and to this day I'm just heartbroken over Dick committing suicide." (1:21-1:39)

Dick Trickle died at the age of 71, when he shot himself in Boger City, North Carolina, in 2013. Reports say that the former NASCAR driver was in excruciating pain, and according to his brother, he would not have committed suicide if he were not in such severe pain.

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Kenny Wallace unraveled why Dick Trickle committed suicide

Father Dale Grubba (left) talks with stock car racer Dick Trickle prior to a race at the Wisconsin International Raceway in Kaukauna in the 1980s. Source: Imagn

Kenny Wallace, in the video, opened up about the potential reason behind Dick Trickle's suicide. Wallace elucidated how Trickle was almost helpless at a point and decided to end his life.

"I really feel like Dick committed suicide because he was taking pain medicine," Wallace said. "He fell off of a roof when he was a kid, broke his hip, and well later in life like 67, 68 years old, he had hip surgery and it didn't go good." (1:40-2:06)

Wallace then went on to talk about how Trickle traveled around the world to figure out a cure for his pain because of the failed surgery. He recalled how the late NASCAR driver informed Wallace that he had horrible pain around his left chest, which felt like a knife stabbing.

Kenny Wallace continued to explain that doctors, instead of 'fixing' the pain, prescribed him plenty of medicines, which came with suicidal thoughts as side effects.

In the end, the former Fox reporter concluded that the pain and the suicidal thoughts from the medicines forced him to take his own life a decade ago.