The sixth edition of the 12 Questions is now over, which means I’ve come up with 72 questions for these NASCAR interviews over the years.
Some of the questions have been better than others, and I’m never quite sure how they’ll go over at the start of the season. Some totally flop and don’t turn out has intended, but one question was a particularly embarrassing dud this year.
For those who read it weekly, you might already know which one. At the end of every 12 Questions this year, I asked: “On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate this interview?”
So many people have asked me: “Why the hell did you ask that?”
Now that it’s over, I’ll tell you the background.
Before the season, I was Googling various types of questions to try and get inspiration (the questions are getting harder to come up with) and came across a list of “Questions for job interview candidates.” It suggested an employer ask the potential employee at the end of the job interview: “How did YOU think this interview went?” And it could reveal something about the candidate in the process.
I thought, “Oh man, wouldn’t that be funny if I asked the drivers that question?” Maybe they’d interpret it as a chance to evaluate their own performance, maybe the questions, maybe me. I thought it could be hilarious and they’d rip on me and we’d all laugh.
It wasn’t.
Most of them sort of awkwardly stared at me and politely said they’d give it a 9 or a 10. Some of them said such nice things about it, I ended up cutting that part out because it looked like I was being self-promoting by writing it.
Even Tony Stewart — the one guy I was sure would jab me or say something sarcastic — gave it a 10.
So it ended up seeming like it was a question designed for me to toot my own horn or boost my ego. That wasn’t the idea, but it sure looked bad.
As Landon Cassill noted when I explained this to him last week, “You should have asked, ‘How did you think you did in this interview?” instead of “How would you rate the interview?” Probably so.
By the way, the great @nascarcasm told me this would happen. I called him from the Daytona media center before the first 12 Questions to ask for suggestions on how to phrase it, because it seemed a little off.
He said my version would be lame and I should say something like, “On a scale of Paul Menard to Kenny Wallace, how interesting was this interview?” But I was worried that when I got to Menard or one of his friends, they’d say, “Oh WHAT THE HELL, man?? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Anyway, I probably should have done what @nascarcasm recommended. Regan Smith, a friend of Menard’s, told me Menard would have thought it was funny.
Oh well!
That’s more than you ever wanted to know about the 12 Questions, but since some of you read it weekly, I figured I’d share the backstory.