1. Do you typically arrive for things early, late or on time — and why?
I’m early for everything. For one, I can’t stand people who are late because I feel like it’s disrespectful, so I don’t want to be that guy. I don’t want anyone ever waiting on me. I stress out about it, if I’m being honest. I think, “What if I get in a traffic jam or something happens and I’m late?” So I just get there early, and that’s OK. I can do something while I wait.
You’d rather inconvenience yourself than somebody else.
One hundred percent. That’s the right thing to do, in my opinion. When someone starts showing up late, it pisses me off, and I think “This person is disrespecting everybody here and thinks they’re better than everybody else.” That’s just a douche canoe move, you know? I don’t like it.
2. What is the pettiest thing that annoys you during a race weekend?
Sometimes the traffic flow leaving the racetrack bothers me. The (traffic pattern) could be a lot better leaving some of the races. I’m like, “This would be a lot better if I can just turn here. I wouldn’t be holding anybody up. What are we accomplishing by doing this?”
3. What is something you’ve learned to stop explaining to people?
Well, I don’t have to explain the playoffs anymore, do I? So I will stop doing that.
You were the defender of it before in some ways.
I mean, I only defended it because I liked it. But I like this, too. It’s OK.
4. If you could go back to the early days of your career before you reached NASCAR, what is one different decision you wish you had made?
Nothing. It all led to where I am. Sure, it’s easy to look back like and say “You made this mistake and that was dumb,” but I learned from it, so why would I change it? Did I say stuff that I shouldn’t have said? Sure, I learned from it. Did I make bad moves? Sure. Everybody has. But I don’t think I would change it. It’s made me who I am, and I’m in a pretty good spot. I’m alright with where I’m at.
5. What is it like to be in a debrief after a bad race?
(Laughs) It’s no fun. You’ve just got to relive the misery one more time. Think about how if you have a bad race, it’s a long 400 or 500 miles, and you just want it to be over when you get out of the car. But you’ve got to figure out why it was a bad race; otherwise you have more bad races, so you’ve got to go through it.
But it’s not fun. Like Monday morning you walk in the shop, it’s like “Ugh, yesterday sucked.” But it sucked for everybody there. It’s not just me, right? We’ve all just got to figure out where we were bad, and we have to talk about it. You have to have the hard conversations. I call that the dirty work. You’ve got to do the dirty work, right? Like nobody wants to do the dirty work, but you have to do it.
6. This year, I’m doing two different wild card questions, one about the present and one about the past. So the wild card question about the present is: You went bald all the way in the offseason and started shaving your head. What’s it been like? Are you happy with it? Are you happy with the reaction?
The temperature change was the biggest thing. Not only when you go outside, but when you go to sleep at night. I’m way colder than I used to be. But I’m good. It just needs to get the suntan because at first it’s like, “Oh, that is white.” (Laughs) So it takes a minute to get that right. But I kind of like it. I’m good with it. The beanie game has stepped up.
I’ll tell you what my daughter told me the other day. We tell our kids if you don’t brush your teeth, your teeth will fall out. So my daughter, she’s almost four, and she comes up to me: “Daddy, did you not brush your hair? Is that why it all fell out?”
I’m like “That’s it, honey. Brush your hair. And your teeth.”
7. As for the wild card question about the past, I wanted to ask about the incident with Tony Stewart when he got mad at you at Fontana in 2013. Interestingly enough, the move he was mad about these days seems hardly controversial or even worth a discussion, let alone a fight. It seems commonplace and that’s how all of you race these days, correct?
Yes, that would be mild in today’s world. That’s what so crazy about it: I was the aggressive guy at that time. I was blocking, I was making moves, doing all this stuff. And the guys who had been there for a long time, they didn’t like that. And that’s where we started to butt heads.
But now the whole field is that way. The whole field. We used to be surprised if someone went three-wide on a restart, right? Like, “Oh man, someone went three-wide!” Now four-wide is a big deal and three-wide is like “Eh.” Blocks are all over the place now and the racing has changed to where I’m not the most aggressive guy out there anymore. The timing of where I slid into this whole thing was a little bit off.
I was surprised about it when he came up all mad at me. I was like, “What did I do? What are you upset about?” But those were the days when if you were faster than the person, they were expected to let you go; just roll over on a straightaway and let you go. And then you were expected to do the same thing back.
Where I was like: “I mean, let’s just race. You try to hold me off and I’ll try to pass you. That’s how we do it.” No one else was that way yet.
8. If you could get any driver’s helmet in the history of motorsports, whose would you like to have?
Mario Andretti. I just think he’s the coolest race car driver in the world. He’s the most B.A. race car driver ever.
9. When things are not going well, do you prefer people to leave you alone or check in on you?
I always have people around me. I’m not alone hardly ever, if I’m being honest. I like it that way. I don’t want to be alone when things are going bad or when they’re going good. It takes an army.
10. What is something about yourself that would surprise people who think they “know” you?
I like to grow whatever I can. Business-wise, if I can get involved in something, I’m all in. I like to be part of that stuff and prove I’m not a one-trick pony. Prove to people I can do more than one thing. That’s in my DNA of some sort.
Why do you think that is?
I want to prove it to myself more than other people. And I can bring a lot to other things. I have so much great experience in this sport, and NASCAR is elite. All the people in here are so good. If you can take that into other places? Gosh, you can win in anything.
11. What is something you laugh about now that was absolutely not funny at the time?
Back when I was 15, I was running Pro Cup, and Roush was supplying the pit crew for us. They had this brand new pit car with this cool color-changing paint on it.
I went to drive it in, and I pushed the clutch in — and my foot got wedged behind the brake pedal but on top of the clutch. It got stuck and I couldn’t get my foot out, and I panicked. I drove it through the pit stall, over the tires stacked in front of it, it hit the tires, popped up and into the fence, broke the fence and knocked the radiator out of the car.
I was so embarrassed and I thought, “This is the end of my racing career right here.” Roush was in the same building it is now, and I had to push this car back in there. It was just like “Ugh.” It’s funny now, but gosh, it took awhile for it to be funny.
12. Each week, I ask a driver to give me a question for the next person. I ended last season with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and this is the question he wanted to ask you: If you could go back to any NASCAR season and compete in a competitive car, what past year would you want to experience and why?
I grew up watching the mid-’90s, early 2000s, so that’s the era I would like. Just because that was when I fell in love with the sport. That’s when the sport was at its absolute peak. And all the guys I watched, it would be cool to race against them — Terry Labonte and all the guys like that.
So probably either that or racing on the beach (in the ’40s and ’50s). The problem is the risk factor is much higher. The further you go back, the higher risk you have. So how far back do you really want to go? But I do think racing on the beach would’ve been really neat, at least be there to see it one time.
Do you have a question I can ask the next person?
What’s your perfect All-Star Race format? What would you do and where would you do it? And what would you do with the current track (Dover)?
