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The Top Five: Breaking down the Atlanta race

Five thoughts after Sunday’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway…

1. Veterans Day

The top eight finishers at Atlanta all have at least eight seasons in the Cup Series — a veteran-heavy scoring pylon led by the definitive expert on this old track.

Was it by chance all those experienced drivers found themselves finishing toward the front?

“There’s no coincidence,” Kevin Harvick said.

First of all, Harvick is simply better than other drivers at Atlanta. He understands exactly how to get around the bottom quickly and without abusing his tires — as demonstrated in leading a combined 66 percent of the laps in the Cup and Xfinity Series races.

“He can be on a tricycle and probably be that fast here,” said Joey Logano, who finished sixth.

But the other drivers in the top eight aren’t too shabby either, and it’s because they know how to race from the days when it wasn’t just hammer-down and go all-out — a finesse that can only come with experience.

“This is just the way it used to be when you had a lot of horsepower and you could spin the tires a lot,” Clint Bowyer said after finishing third. “It seems like you get on these tracks like we’ll be at next weekend (in Las Vegas) and it’s qualifying laps every single lap, and those kids will show back up.”

“Those kids” weren’t much of a factor on Sunday. Kyle Larson finished ninth and Chase Elliott was 10th after pit strategy (the same as the one Denny Hamlin and Logano used).

But the others in the top 10 — Harvick, Brad Keselowski, Bowyer, Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., Logano and the Busch brothers — all have at least 300 Cup starts.

So despite the youthful look to the Daytona 500, it was the veterans who took over once more experience came into play.

“Talladega is in April,” Harvick said, inferring that would be the next time young drivers would dominate the running order again.

2. Fords focused

Toyota dominated the last two seasons and Chevrolet had its fearsome new Camaro body hitting the track this year, which led everyone to believe the Fords might spend 2018 playing from behind.

But then the manufacturer went out and swept the top three spots at Atlanta, taking four of the top six positions overall.

“It’s clear the Fords have an unfair advantage,” joked Hamlin, who has spent the last two years hearing all the accusations about Toyota’s edge.

Ford drivers were optimistic after their solid day, but cautiously so. Atlanta is “a unique beast” and much different from the other intermediate tracks, Logano said. Just because a driver has a good Atlanta race doesn’t mean it will translate to the other tracks.

Las Vegas “really shows where your mile-and-a-half speed is at,” he added. “Next week will be the true test to see where we’re at.”

Bowyer acknowledged he was “a little bit nervous” in the offseason after knowing the Chevrolets would be showing up with a new body and the Toyotas wouldn’t lose anything.

“But so far, so good,” he said.

3. Jimmie’s jam

What in the world? After two races, seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson is 35th in the point standings — behind even Mark Thompson and DJ Kennington, who only ran the Daytona 500. He is the lowest-ranked driver of all those who have run both Cup races so far.

That’s what happens when a driver finishes 38th and 27th in the first two weeks of the season.

So is it time to panic? Of course not. Johnson and the 48 team can win anywhere, and that’s all it will take.

Still, it has to be unsettling at the very least. Johnson didn’t run well the entire weekend and was lapped on two different occasions before spinning out and really putting his race in the craptastic category.

Another bad run at Vegas could certainly challenge the team’s morale.

4. Gunning it

It’s really quite amazing how few hiccups there have been on the pit stops so far, at least in terms of subtracting one crew member. As noted after the Clash, it doesn’t seem like much of a factor and teams are quickly adapting to the new choreography.

What has been a challenge so far? Pit guns, apparently. As reported here last October, NASCAR implemented a common pit gun for every crew this year. But as it turns out, some teams are having hiccups.

Truex crew chief Cole Pearn told NBC’s Nate Ryan and ESPN’s Bob Pockrass after the race the pit guns were “pieces of shit.” And Truex noted it certainly would be unfortunate if a faulty gun cost someone a win or a spot in the championship race.

Several teams, including Truex, Harvick and Alex Bowman appeared to have issues with them.

But is that a trend, or just a coincidence? Or are they getting blamed for pit crew members messing up?

After all, it didn’t seem like the problems were widespread.

“Mine worked, so we’re happy,” Hamlin said. “If it didn’t work, we wouldn’t be happy.”

It seems too early to judge if this is going to be an ongoing problem or not. Perhaps as the teams work through the quirks of the new gear, it won’t be as big of a deal. But if it happens again in the next few weeks and turns out to be a continuing issue, it’s going to cause some major grumblings from the drivers.

5. Rain Dance

I woke up Sunday morning absolutely convinced the race would be postponed. Even the most optimistic forecasts said there was only a 20 percent chance of getting the race started, and once the rain hit, it would sit over the track and not move until Monday afternoon.

I’ve been through plenty of rainouts before, but this one was different. Now that I’m spending my own money (money many of you gave me through Patreon to travel to races), I felt deeply disappointed and sort of sick over it.

American Airlines was asking $414 to change my flight, which was a no-go. And buying a new flight would have been in the $500 range. That meant I was going to have to go home without seeing the race after making an investment to get here.

That sucked. But even with that feeling, it’s still not the same as what many fans go through during a rainout. After all, I’m supposed to be here; this is my job. Fans who stretch the budget and spend vacation time in order to make a race and then have to leave to get back home for work, school or other obligations must feel so empty and sad when that happens.

I had a little taste of it Sunday morning, but I got lucky when the entire race unexpectedly got in, just with a two-hour delay.

If it hadn’t, at least fans at Atlanta had a “Perfect Weather Guarantee” that would have given them a ticket credit had the race been postponed and they were unable to attend.

That should be the standard at all tracks. The industry has to make it so that NASCAR’s most loyal customers don’t get burned and have nothing to show for their time and money. Because after an experience like that, who would want to come back and try it again?

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DraftKings Fantasy NASCAR picks: Atlanta Motor Speedway

I’m playing DraftKings this season and will be posting some picks here each week. Disclosure: If you want to play and sign up using this link, DraftKings will give my website a commission.

Atlanta picks:

Martin Truex Jr. ($10,400): I mean, duh. Everyone is going to have him on their teams, but rightfully so. After failing to get on track for a qualifying attempt, Truex will start 35th. Just take the position differential points and be happy for the opportunity not to lose out on them when all the other lineups make the same pick.

Kevin Harvick ($10,100): Harvick starts third, but he was seventh in 10-lap average during final practice — and it came later in the session than most. Harvick is a great long-run driver and knows how to get around Atlanta in a race that will test tire management skills.

Ryan Blaney ($8,400): After a disappointing qualifying result (26th), Blaney presents a prime opportunity to move through the field — especially since he was sixth-fastest in 10-lap average for final practice.

Clint Bowyer ($8,100): Unloaded fast off the truck and was fourth-fastest in 10-lap average for final practice. He qualified ninth, which isn’t ideal for position differential points, but he should be able to give you a solid day.

Possible value picks: Paul Menard ($6,800) qualified 15th, but he was third in 10-lap average behind Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch in final practice. Pretty stout. And then Chris Buescher ($5,900) has short run speed (seventh-best single lap in final practice), which isn’t a bad find at this price. Another potential value pick could be Kasey Kahne ($6,200), who is cheaper than even Bubba Wallace and Ty Dillon despite being 10th in 10-lap average.

I am a promoter at DraftKings and am also an avid fan and user (my username is jeff_gluck) and may sometimes play on my personal account in the games that I offer advice on. Although I have expressed my personal view on the games and strategies above, they do not necessarily reflect the view(s) of DraftKings and I may also deploy different players and strategies than what I recommend above. I am not an employee of DraftKings and do not have access to any non-public information.

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On first day where it really mattered, NASCAR’s new inspection system delivered

Martin Truex Jr. stands with members of the 78 team after the team failed to make it through inspection Friday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. (Photo: Jeff Gluck)

The new Optical Scanning Station inspection system was a mystery heading into the first real qualifying day of 2018.

Would a bunch of teams fail at in the first downforce race of the season at Atlanta Motor Speedway, as they did under the old system? Or would everyone sail through now that it is tougher to push the rules? Perhaps it would be somewhere in between.

“We were supposed to have limited the inspection process by a lot. It’s supposed to be what, 90 seconds?” Chase Elliott said. “If everybody gets through in 90 seconds, we shouldn’t have any issues, right?”

For the most part, that was the case. More than half the field (20 of 36 cars) breezed through on the first attempt, and only three cars had to make more than two attempts.

But while Jimmie Johnson and Harrison Rhodes made it through on their third tries, defending Cup champion Martin Truex Jr. did not. As a result, he will start 35th and spend the weekend without car chief Blake Harris, who was ejected.

Crew chief Cole Pearn was visibly angry after the car failed for a third time, which followed what Truex said was an extra focus on getting through inspection.

“We stopped practice early just to try to get a jump start and have good plan going into this system today, just to see what happens,” Truex said before inspection began. “We’re trying to get ahead of the curve. It has potential to be very difficult.”

As it turned out, it was for his team. There were problems on one attempt with the body and problems with the rear-wheel alignment on another attempt.

Furniture Row Racing president Joe Garone said the team was frustrated and the mood was “volatile” after the third failed attempt.

“You’re trying to figure out what you actually did, especially when you feel like maybe the equipment itself is off a little bit,” Garone said. “But it’s also on our side as well. … It does change every time you go through.”

NASCAR disputed the suggestion its new equipment was inconsistent. In fact, NASCAR senior vice president of competition Scott Miller said most of the comments he got from teams on Friday were the opposite.

“Of course they’re going to say that,” Miller said of Furniture Row. “… All I can say is we feel like we did our job.

“Everybody else made it out there no problem at all, with time to spare. I don’t know what else to say about that.”

Miller said the tolerances used in inspection Friday will be the same all season long. The new system measures thousands of data points and provides a heat map of the car — it shows green if the car is legal, for example — and Miller said “there’s no real way to fake your way through there.”

The tighter limits could have made for far more headaches. Instead, the day was mostly smooth with the exception of the 78 team not getting through.

 

“I certainly would have guessed there would have been a lot more (than Truex), that they wouldn’t have been the only ones,” Kyle Busch said.

A NASCAR inspector reviews the heat map of a car, which shows green for the areas it passed inspection. (Photo: Jeff Gluck)
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Even Austin Dillon gets nervous going on ‘LIVE with Kelly and Ryan’

Austin Dillon is one of the most self-confident people you will ever meet and rarely seems rattled by anything.

But going on national TV this week — particularly doing the LIVE with Kelly and Ryan  show? That had him shook.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. had texted Dillon the night before the show to congratulate him on the Daytona 500 win and urged him to “go represent our sport well this week.”

So Dillon had those comments echoing in his head, along with fighting fatigue (he gets sleepy and goes quiet when he’s nervous) and being in an unfamiliar environment.

“You look in the mirror before you go around the corner (onto the stage) and they are like, ‘We want you live and (having) energy when you walk in there because people are going to be clapping,'” Dillon said of the Kelly and Ryan appearance. “It’s like an awkward stage, because you are smiling at all these (audience members) that you don’t have a clue who they are, but they are excited because that is what they are supposed to be.

“You are running down the aisle smiling, and then you get there. I never got to meet Ryan (Seacrest) or Kelly (Ripa) before the TV, that was the first time I had met them.”

Dillon said he sat down and started talking about his wife, Whitney, to find a topic he was comfortable with. But he noticed his voice start shaking a little bit, and he searched the audience for her face.

He soon spotted her and felt reassured, and then got more relaxed.

“The interview was easy after that,” he said. “I was trying to be authentic and talk about the whole experience. But that was the most nervous (media appearance) for sure.”

Check out how Dillon did in the clip below:

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How I Got Here with Mike Joy

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This is the latest in a weekly feature called “How I Got Here,” where I ask people in NASCAR about the journeys to their current jobs. Each interview is recorded as a podcast but is also transcribed on JeffGluck.com. Up next: Mike Joy, the longtime NASCAR broadcaster for FOX Sports.

Could you tell me how you got started and how this whole thing came to be?

I was in college and it was right after the dawn of college FM radio. We had a very progressive station, and it was all progressive rock, drug-infused music at night. But the station had a mandate to do live sports of all the university’s teams. So I had done football and basketball play-by-play. The sports I didn’t play in college, I broadcast them and learned my trade from other students who had experience doing it.

And it was fun. I got to doing news for the station and that was no fun. We had a UPI teletype machine at the station — donated, of course — but you were forbidden to rip and read: Rip a piece of copy off the teletype and read what those professionals had written. All stories had to be rewritten.

Why is that?

Because reading off the printed page, you weren’t learning anything. I didn’t want to bother with that — not because I was lazy, it just didn’t challenge me. Maybe I just didn’t enjoy writing all that much.

But I found that I could look at one of those news stories and rewrite it in my head and rebroadcast it as I went. People started telling me that’s a very useful skill, along with broadcasting live sports.

My goal, I wanted to be the next Dan Gurney or the next Mark Donohue. I wanted to race. But I didn’t have any money to find out if I had any talent, and there weren’t the junior racing series and cars like Bandoleros and Legends. There were Quarter Midgets, but they were few and far between. There just wasn’t that opportunity. Even Darrell (Waltrip), Darrell got in his first race car at age 17.

So in college, we were running road rallies and autocrosses — which is pylon racing in a parking lot — but we didn’t have an opportunity to really race. So we would run these autocrosses, and one place we ran was a quarter-mile track in Massachusetts — Riverside Park Speedway. They would run stock cars on Tuesday and Saturday nights, and we would have the track Sunday for our autocrosses.

Well, the track announcer, the PA announcer, was also an author and a Shakespearean actor, John Wallace Spencer. I learned a lot from him, especially about timing. John wrote all his books about things that could not be disproven: UFOs, the Bermuda Triangle, things likes that. And he was having to book tours, so they needed another announcer.

Well I was autocrossing one day and they said, “When you’re not running your car, would you go up to the PA booth and just fill in the people that might wander by?” Because the speedway was attached to an amusement park and they’re seeing what’s going on.

Like on the same night you’re running?

Yeah, on the same day. So in between runs with our car, I’d go do that. Well here comes Ed Carroll, a fiery Irishman who owned the racetrack: “Why are several hundred people sitting in a stadium watching one car go around cones instead of being out in the park spending money?” Well, they were being entertained. We were having fun. And I got offered a job Saturday nights as the assistant announcer for his stock car track.

Now, I was in college full time. Part time, I was busting tires in a Firestone store, which because it was a union shop, I was making $3.05 an hour while my friends were pumping gas or flipping burgers for $1.75, which was minimum wage. So I thought I was doing great. So when they told me they would offer me $25 a night to announce the stock car races? Boom! That was awesome.

But I turned them down. I said, “They’re no way. I’m a fan of Formula One and Trans Am and Can-Am, and all you’ve got is a bunch of jalopies going around the track in circles. They’re just turning left!” And the PR guy said, “Why don’t you come to the track one night, why don’t you come Saturday night and see?” So Saturday night, I’m watching the A consi, and it’s the last chance to get into the main event, and these two cars come off Turn 4 side-by-side, banging wheels, bouncing off the wall, one guy wins by inches and the 6,000 people there go crazy. And I went, “Hell, I’ve gotta be a part of this.”

So I’m the announcer at this quarter-mile racetrack, and for the really big events, they would bring in the New England legend — then, as now — Ken Squier, to work the PA. And that’s where I really learned a lot from Kenley about how to make heroes out of these everyday people.

I was really naive. I thought Saturday night racers, that was their job — that they were professional racers, that’s what they did. I didn’t realize that one ran a repair garage, one drove an oil truck, one was a long-distance trucker during the week and they just carved out time on Saturdays to race. So I had a lot to learn. But that was the start of it, and it was the notice from Ken that helped open a lot of doors.

So you’re observing Ken and working alongside with him. At what point did he come to you and say, “You’re good at this, you need more of an opportunity?”

It didn’t take long. Within two years, I was doing public address five nights a week throughout New England, New York State, Long Island.

Is this after you were done with college, or was there overlap?

There was a lot of overlap and some cold winters and eating a lot of mac and cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches in the winters. But that’s OK, I really thought this could work into something.

In 1975, five years after this started, I went to work in Stafford with Jack Arute at his dad’s track, and we had a ball. We’d have Ken come down for some big shows and I think we honed as many announcers out of Stafford as we did top level drivers to go to Cup. That’s where it really took off.

Jack came down to Daytona at the end of ’76, and I followed him at the end of ’78. We worked for MRN full-time in the office during the week, selling ads, signing up stations, and then broadcasting on the weekends. And it was a tremendous education.

When Jack left, I ended up running MRN for three years. CBS was by now broadcasting, and I left MRN full-time, kept doing the races on the weekends, but left the full-time job because of an opportunity. And then as soon as I left, CBS called. They couldn’t interrupt what I was doing at MRN, but once I was no longer there full-time, they said, “We want you to come work for us in the pits.” And again that was Ken Squier.

In the meantime, I learned so much from Ken and Barney Hall and Ned Jarrett, and that kind of helped me craft what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be in this business.

I would imagine, though, that the transition from radio to TV — it seems to me like it can’t be easy at all. Was it natural for you?

In the pits, it’s very easy because you’re reporting. The difference is, instead of telling people what you’re seeing and having to flesh out the word picture, it’s show and tell. It’s when you move to the booth that TV becomes very different from radio.

Radio, you have to create the entire word picture of the event of the separation between cars, what the cars look like, not just the attitude, but the colors, the paint schemes, the sponsor logo, everything.

In TV, the best TV announcers let the picture do most of the talking and try to tell the viewer what they can’t see — how things are developing, whether intervals are growing or shrinking, and things that they can’t readily see. The more technology we put on the screen, especially with the new scoring pylon, there’s less of that information that we have to give and we can delve much more into the why instead of the what you are seeing.

If somebody wanted to get into it now, should they go straight TV or should they still start in radio and build their way up that way?

I think radio challenges your creativity much more than television from sitting in the booth. Television challenges your restraint much more than radio. On radio, I knew that when I was talking, there were nine other voices that couldn’t wait to get in and all they had to do was flip the switch.

The rule in radio that Ken started is two-fold: You lose your breath, you lose your turn. And if somebody interrupts you, you stop mid-sentence — because they respect what you’re saying, but there’s something of immediacy. If you interrupt, it better be the second coming or something. It better be important enough to interrupt the train of thought of what’s being said.

I always tell people new to TV: “One of my favorite Mark Twain quotes, and I have a lot of them: ‘I never learned anything when I was talking.'” And so instead of talking wall to wall through the event, we need to be respectful and restrained. Let the cars go through the frame and listen to them. Let a battle develop. And even sometimes, let a crash unfold. Let the people see it. And then tell them what and why.

You don’t have to say, “There goes so-and-so up on his side, here’s so-and-so in the wall, here’s so-and-so on the roof.” But we do, because we’re reacting to what we see. So it’s very hard to exhibit that restraint and to let the picture and only the picture tell the story. Now, when you have three Type-A personalities in the booth, all of us having been vaccinated with phonograph needles, it’s very, very hard to have that restraint.

You were announcing on CBS, and then you ended up on FOX once the contracts switched over. But was it that simple? Was there any question you would go there?

Oh, there was. I joined CBS in ’83, and CBS at that time only did three races a year: Daytona, Michigan and Talladega. So I would do the rest of the season for MRN and that persisted for several years. And then I was just doing CBS and picked up TNN when they got into racing and did all the TNN races for five or six years.

But in 1998, I began a three-year run of doing Formula One for FOX with Derek Bell. And while Bob Varsha did the same job on Speed, it then wasn’t really part of FOX, it was kind of different. So that’s where my relationship with FOX started.

Many of the FOX management were former CBS people, because FOX Sports was started when they got the NFL contract from CBS, so they absorbed a lot of those people. So as 2000 rolled around, CBS pretty much assumed that I would move with the NASCAR property to FOX.

It wasn’t that easy. NASCAR had a play-by-play person who was, for lack of a better word, a company man that they really wanted there. There were only two jobs, NBC and FOX. NBC signed Allen Bestwick right away. That left the FOX job, and there were a number of us in there vying for it, and I got it.

But it was kind of touch and go there for a while. And I think what put it over the top was, they had hired Darrell, they were talking to Larry McReynolds, and I made sure through Ed Goren, that David Hill and the FOX execs had a tape of a late-season Saturday race that Larry, Darrell and I had done together at Phoenix. And they looked at that and they go, “That’s it, that’s the chemistry we want. There we go.”

Is it possible today to still follow the career path that you had? For instance, you were a pit reporter on TV. Well now FOX hired Regan Smith because he has expertise and these drivers are so good at talking. Can someone still follow the path that you did to become the next Mike Joy?

I think so. I think the entry level is much easier than it has ever been. Any one of your listeners and readers can buy a piece of equipment, go to their local short track, establish a blog and be credentialed as media and get something up there on the web. Anybody can do that. There are zero barriers to entry, other than the willingness to do it and the cost of the equipment. And then, the more you do, the more you get noticed.

If you’re doing this at a local track and the local track people are smart, they’ll hire you to do it, they’ll hire you to work the public address. There are positions. That’s how I started. Those jobs are still out there, still available.

There are two and a half radio networks covering NASCAR on a regular basis: MRN, PRN and then the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Network, which does their one race. So there are opportunities, and there are people coming through radio that could transition to TV, and again a lot of that depends on the focus of the network.

(FOX Sports president) Eric Shanks, who’s our boss, he really likes the idea of having boots on the ground that have been on the field — and that’s not just in NASCAR, that’s in all sports. He wants ex-players and ex-coaches and crew chiefs, pit crewmen, to do the reporting on the ground partly because they instantly know what they’re looking at and why. But also because they can add their own layer of experience into what they’re describing. I support that.

So no, I wouldn’t get a job as a FOX pit reporter now. And there are talented people that wanted that job that Regan Smith has, but he’s well spoken, he puts his thoughts together in a good, concise way, he’s gonna do a great job for us. I don’t think we’ll ever have all ex-athletes in the pits, but we’ll have a balance of them and I think that’s good. Just like I’m not sure we’ll ever have all ex-drivers in the booth. I see two that might be able to, after a couple of years as booth analysts, transition to a play-by-play role. I won’t tell you who; I’ll go talk to their agents first. You know who they are.

What else is left for you to accomplish in your career? What else do you want to do that’s on your bucket list?

The next one, the next race. I’ve called Major League Baseball for FOX. That was fun. Would love to do some more, but I respect that FOX has people whose expertise is 100 percent baseball, and so it’s not for me to meddle in that.

Sports television has evolved so much. When I started, ABC and NBC used the same three or four play-by-play announcers each for everything they put on the air. Jim McKay did everything, from the Olympics to Indy to Daytona — everything, because he was that familiar voice that was important to the network to project to the viewers. And if he was there, it was a big event.

CBS’s approach was different, they knew auto racing was a very different sport. They did not put it in the hands of Chris Schenkel — they did for a while, they tried that, and Brent Musburger, they tried that. But they knew the sport required the expertise of particular people who were immersed in it, and that’s how I got that opportunity. Same with Chris Economaki, with Dave Despain, with David Hobbs, Ned Jarrett — we were all immersed in racing, and because CBS believed that that was what was needed.

It was a combination of timing, opportunity, recommendation, maybe a little talent, a lot of ambition. But to get to this level would be much more difficult than it was. There’s only two networks doing NASCAR, so there’s only two top play-by-play positions. There’s a lot of undercard, and we now have a separate play-by-play for each national series of NASCAR, and another group doing the touring series now for NBCSN. So there’s opportunities there. Vince Welch’s son (Dillon) did the pits for the ARCA race the other day, which is great, because he really wants to be in this business, had the background, they gave him an opportunity. Wonderful.

So at the entry level, at the mid-level, there are a lot of opportunities. I know there’s a bunch of people hoping I retire real soon, and my intent is to greatly disappoint them. Greatly.

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12 Questions with Corey LaJoie (2018)

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Corey LaJoie (second from left) stands with former NASCAR Next drivers who competed in this year’s Daytona 500. (Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images)

The 12 Questions series of interviews continues this week with Corey LaJoie of TriStar Motorsports. LaJoie finished 40th in the Daytona 500 after an engine failure.

1. How often do you have dreams about racing?

Not a whole lot. When you’re a little kid, you have a little more vivid dreams of trying to win the 500, and then you get here and you’re kind of fighting an uphill battle every week with a couple of places I’ve been. So your dreams start to be a little more realistic, and you dream of like maybe running 12th on a good day.

I dream about weird stuff, but for the most part I don’t have vivid racing dreams.

2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize?

Oh yeah, you’ve gotta address it right up front. You can’t let it fester. It’s just like life: If you do it wrong, it just only gets worse, and tempers only get more bitter the longer you go and you don’t address it.

A big reason why people get into it is because they race each other hard week after week, and if you race that person week after week, that means you’re gonna be parked next to them, right? So that’s how it always happens: You get in a fight with somebody, and then you’re riding in the (driver) intros truck with them the next week. Something like that happens all the time.

So nip in the bud, grow a pair. If you didn’t mean to, just tell them, “I didn’t mean to.” I’ve had to do that a couple times, but you can’t let that grow because you’ll end up like a Matt Kenseth and Joey (Logano) situation, and that didn’t end up good for any one of them.

3. What is the biggest compliment someone could give you?

For the stage that I’m at in my career, you’re just trying to survive and scratch and claw and stay in the sport because you’re hoping for an opportunity to get in a well-funded car. But for now, you’re here, you’re digging, you’re scratching, you’re clawing, and when people from the other side of the garage acknowledge that they know how hard I’m working and they see me develop as a race car driver — even though the results may not show it every week — when somebody actually on that side notices and says, “Hey man, you’re doing a good job, keep it up,” it definitely makes the hard work worth it sometimes. Because then you know it’s not going unnoticed.                                

4. NASCAR comes to you and says, “Hey, we are bringing a celebrity to the race and we’re wondering if you have time to say hi.” Who is a celebrity you’d be really excited to host?

Probably Ryan Reynolds. That guy’s a stud. I think he’s funny. I think that’d be just a hilarious day of just walking around with that guy and showing him our sport and showing him everything that our lives are every week and kind of see what he thinks. I think that’d be my choice.

I mean, (wife) Blake Lively might come with him, so then you’ve got to think about who his plus-one is.

5. In an effort to show they are health-conscious, NASCAR offers the No. 1 pit stall selection for an upcoming race to the first driver willing to go vegan for a month. Would you do it?

(Laughs) No, man! No. That No. 1 pit stall ain’t worth like a good pizza and a cheeseburger and some beer. No pit stall is worth that. I can’t do that.

6. It’s time for the Random Race Challenge. I have picked a random race from your career and you have to guess where you finished. This is the K&N East series, 2012, the year you finished second in points, the September race at Loudon.

I finished second to (Kyle) Larson by like three inches.

Wow! You remembered that one right off the bat.

Right off the bat. That’s the one that still stings because I led, I don’t know if the race was 150 laps and I led…

You led 25 laps.

I led like the last 25, and on the last, late-race restart, I couldn’t get going on the short run and Larson rolled the top on me and I got back to him in (Turn) 3 and moved him when he crossed the line. He beat me by like three inches. I hadn’t won at Loudon up to that point, always ran good, but that one was too close to home.

So I brought up a bad memory.

No, it’s all good. I mean, obviously it kind of brings up back when people used to think I was a good race car driver. So that feels like a lifetime ago. But that was a fun race. Darrell (Wallace Jr.) finished third in that race.

Yeah, I have here that Larson won, Bubba finished third and Chase Elliott finished fifth, so it was a pretty stacked field.

Yeah, K&N was tough back then.

You won five races that season. You finished that season with five straight top-twos, and three of your five wins came in those final five races. So that was a pretty strong finish.

Yeah, and then we had a judgment call on a carburetor that cost us 25 points, and we lost the championship by six points.

Oh, is that what happened? I don’t even remember that. Dang. Was it the right call?

Depends on whose truck you’re sitting on. Not mine, I can assure you.

7. Who is the best rapper alive?

That’s a good question because I like rap music. I like all music. I’ll have like some MercyMe followed up by Tupac or totally out there. Let’s see my latest. (Opens iTunes.)

What’s on your phone here?

I like Rick Ross.

Rick Ross, the Boss?

Yeah, Rick Ross the Boss. Meek Mill is good. (Keeps scrolling through iTunes.) I’ve got a lot of Rick Ross in here. I like Gucci Mane, too. Yeah, so I like rap music. I like it all.

So you’re going with Rick Ross for your answer?

I’m gonna go with Rick Ross, the Boss.

Kyle Busch last week said Eminem, so we have one vote for Eminem.

(Laughs) He has to say that, because that’s what the big yellow thing is on the hood of his car.

8. Who has the most punchable face in NASCAR?

Wow, what a question that is. I don’t know, it just depends whose face needs to get punched in certain situations. I mean, I pretty much like everybody.

Some people just have annoying faces though.

Now there’s people’s faces I don’t want to punch, I can tell you that. Like (Ryan) Newman. That guy’s neck is so solid, you punch his head, it’s like one of those little guys in martial arts — the little blow-up thing with the black base, and his head just bounces right back off your fist. So Newman would be a guy I would not want to mess with. He’s like cornbread-fed.

I feel like Newman would be one of those people in a superhero movie when they start attacking the guy and it has no effect on him whatsoever.

He’s like the rock guy (Thing) from the X-Men.

Yeah, he’s like that. Keeps coming.

So I would say Ryan Newman has the least punchable face.

9. NASCAR enlists three famous Americans to be involved with your team for one race as part of a publicity push: Taylor Swift, LeBron James and Tom Hanks. Choose one to be your crew chief, one to be your spotter and one to be your motorhome driver.

That’s easy. LeBron James will be the crew chief, he’s a great leader of men, he would get that ship rolling good. He probably doesn’t know how to take a tire off, but he can get them people working like in a synchrony. I don’t even know if that’s a word. Symphony, maybe?

Tom Hanks on the roof spotting because — what’s that movie he was in with the plane? (Sully) He’s a familiar voice, it’s kind of like a calming Tom Hanks voice up on the roof, so you don’t get fired up.

And then T-Swift will drive the bus, and I’ll let her sing karaoke all she wants.

You’d hang out for the weekend?

I’m engaged, so I can’t answer the question like that…

OK, well you can bring your fiancee. I’m sure she would want to hang out with her.

Yeah, for sure. So yeah, T-Swift driving the bus, Tom Hanks on the roof, LeBron James calling the shots. That’s a dream team.

10. What is the key to finding the best pre-race bathroom?

I’ve always said if you’re a fan, you find the closest port-o-potty to wherever (drivers) get off the trucks from driver intros. You can meet everybody from Danica to Dale Jr. to anybody else if you stand to the closest one off the driver intros truck. Usually there’s a line about six deep with all drivers (waiting to pee).

So that’s a little tip for the fans: If you want to get an autograph, don’t worry about waiting around all day by the pit area, because they’re not gonna sign it. Go to the port-o-potty, and preferably try to have them sign it before they use the bathroom, because there’s no sink in there.

11. NASCAR misses the highlight reel value brought by Carl Edwards’ backflips and decides a replacement is needed. How much money would they have to pay you to backflip off your car after your next win?

How much money? Does that include the medical bills they would have to pay for?

You would probably have to negotiate that into it.

You ask that question to (Daniel) Hemric, and he’s gonna tell you, “For free.” That’s his thing. But for me, I have a hard time doing a backflip on a trampoline, so I’d probably do it for $100,000. And I’d be close to sticking it.

So you wouldn’t get hurt that bad?

No. But I would make sure to park in the grass. I would do it in the grass, for sure. But yeah, 100 grand, I’ll do it.

12. Each week, I ask a question given to me from the last interview. Last week, I interviewed Kyle Busch. His question was: With life on the road, how do you balance the travel with each location, whether you go out, you stay in a motorhome — you have a motorhome?

No.

OK, so a hotel. How do you decide if you’re just gonna chill, or go do something fun in that city — what goes in the decision?

Since I stay away from the racetrack, I can see the surroundings when I leave and kind of pick different restaurants on the way back. You’ve got your one or two restaurants you want to hit up in every city you go to. I go to Phoenix, I’ll hike up Camelback (Mountain). Or there’s a really good steakhouse in Atlanta which I go to, little things like that.

But you try to keep it routine. You want to go to bed fairly early, maybe see some friends who don’t live at home and live somewhere else and meet up with them.

I like to stay at hotels. For one, it doesn’t cost me anything — I just show up and get in the rental car and go to the hotel. But everywhere has its little perks. There’s some places like Pocono where there’s nothing really to do there, so everywhere has its pluses and minuses.

So you don’t have to worry about race traffic too much in the morning? You get there early enough?

Yeah, so I leave fairly early. That is a nightmare of mine, waking up in a cold sweat and waking up late on a race day like, “Oh.” Then you’re like, “It’s 3:30 in the morning, let’s go back to sleep.”

There’s your racing dream.

Yeah, that’s one of the dreams I’ve always had, waking up and you’re late to practice, you’re late to qualifying or something, and you wake up and you’re like, “Oh. Phew. Good thing.”

I don’t know who the next interview is going to be with, but do you have a question I can ask another driver for next time?

You should do Bubba, and then you should ask him how much gas money he gave me for driving him to school for three years.

What’s the story there?

We went to the same high school. He was a year and a half younger than me, so I drove him, picked him up. I lived like five minutes away from school, so I had to drive past the school like 10 minutes, turn around and come back. So it was an extra 20 minutes twice in my day, right?

I drove him to school for two and a half years. And he gave me $20 the entire time!

You ask him that question, he’ll bust out laughing. So ask him how much gas money he gave me for wasting valuable time to come pick his ass up and bring him to school. I love Bubba, but he should have given me more gas money.

So he still owes you, with interest.

Yes. He can afford it now, I’m sure.