Nate Ryan from NBC Sports joins me in the moments after the Homestead-Miami Speedway race to help digest everything that just happened in the NASCAR championship race.

NASCAR championship contenders Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick met with the media Thursday at a hotel in Miami Beach. This brief recap podcast includes selected comments from each driver.

For the 37th and final time in 2018, a driver answers the same 12 Questions from this weekly interview segment. And for the seventh year in a row, Landon Cassill occupies the last-but-not-least position. As a note, Cassill helped refine the questions before the season in hopes of making sure they were driver-worthy. Now it’s Cassill’s turn to answer them. 1. How often do you have dreams about racing? The funny thing is, I have this belief about dreams:  Nobody cares about your dreams. Isn’t that the truth? Like, I do this to my friends and I do it to my wife. She’ll start telling me, “I had the craziest dream last night,” and I immediately go, “I don’t care.” I don’t give a shit. I don’t care about your dream. But you know how people are with telling their dreams, they continue to tell their dreams anyway. So the entire time I just continue to respond with, “I don’t care about your dream. I really don’t care.” Just right off the bat. I just don’t care. I don’t care. But people will go, “Hey, damn, the craziest thing happened last night, I was here…” …I don’t care. Your mother was there, but it wasn’t your mother, it was actually your aunt. And you’re just like, “Sorry.” And she was talking to you, but her lips weren’t moving, and it was insane. Yeah, I don’t care. It’s kind of like when somebody tells you about their fantasy football team. I don’t care. I don’t care about your fantasy football team. Like, “Dude, I have these three receivers!” I don’t care. Sorry. You drafted Jason Witten and you shouldn’t have because whatever…I don’t care. So you approved this question to be on the 12 Questions, basically, and you endorsed it — and yet you don’t care about it. Well, I feel like the answer to my question was good content. So isn’t that why we’re here? We’re here about the content. But I will tell you the recurring racing dream that I have had my entire life. I don’t care. Exactly. That’s the point. Nobody cares. But since you asked the question, I’m going answer it. I don’t know how often I have racing dreams, but I do have one recurring racing dream, and it is actually a footrace. I’m at the racetrack and the starting lineup with the rest of the competitors and it’s a 300-lap race, but I’m running. And I’m running in a tight circle. It’s not a big track either; I’m not like running a marathon. It’s like a tight little footrace and I’m elbowing people out of the way. Like, “Oh my God, there’s Jimmie.” Yeah, I’m like elbowing him, chicken-winging. So my recurring racing dream is that it’s a footrace. 2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize? I don’t think it should matter. I don’t typically get into all that. I think it’s stupid to do the texting the Monday after. Sometimes I’ll converse with other drivers afterwards and just be like, “I didn’t mean to get into you that one lap.” But when I hit people or they hit me, in my opinion, it’s racing and I don’t take it personally and I think other people shouldn’t take it personally. It blows me away how we go to places like Martinsville and then we get mad at each other for running into each other. It’s like, what did you expect? I mean at Martinsville, I hit J.J. Yeley for three laps in a row and I really wasn’t intentionally hitting him — I was just trying to run really close to him because I was faster than him and I wanted to get as close as possible to him so I could stick my nos...

Matt Weaver from Autoweek joins me to help analyze everything that happened in the eventful playoff race Sunday at ISM Raceway.

This is admittedly quite awkward and feels egotistical, but after receiving enough listener feedback requesting this podcast, I decided to share my own story this week. Thanks to those who listened to and enjoyed the How I Got Here series this season, which concludes with this episode.

The 12 Questions series of interviews continues this week with Daytona 500 winner Austin Dillon of Richard Childress Racing. This interview was recorded as a podcast but is also transcribed for those who prefer to read. 1. How often do you have dreams about racing? I’ve had a couple of dreams about racing, and one in particular was about the Daytona 500. I had this dream where I looked in the rearview mirror and no one was behind me and I was coming to the checkered flag. I haven’t had those memories (about dreams) very often, but I did have that one, which is crazy. I thought about it leading up this offseason, and that was a dream and it all happened. It’s weirded me out for a while, but it’s a cool one. I haven’t really had any more. I’ve had one or two others that I’ve brought up at just random tracks that I’ve been on. When you get to focusing on them so much and you’re on the simulator, you can see the track in your mind and your mind just never sleeps. 2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize? I think reaching out to the person is fine if it wasn’t intentional. If you didn’t do it on purpose and it was just a mistake, you overdrove and you hit them, it’s like, “Hey man, I screwed up there. I was over my head.” And that’s a good time to let someone know. If you did it on purpose, I think they know themselves pretty much already. And then there’s a conversation about why you did it — if it was to get back at them for something earlier or it’s just, “Hey man, I had to go. That was kind of the deal and I’m sorry for it, but you understand.” 3. What is the biggest compliment someone could give you? I think the biggest compliment you could get is (about) the person you are. Like you know, you’re a good person. Where your morals are: “Man you get it, you understand it.” That’s a good compliment to me. I’m more proud of the person you are than the driver you are away from the track. I’m a competitor, I’m very competitive, but hopefully still the person is what shows more than the driver and what I do out on Sundays, because that really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. 4. NASCAR comes to you and says they’re bringing a celebrity to the track and they want you to host them. Who is a celebrity you’d be excited to host? Who would be the guy I’d like to hang out with the most out of all these people? The cool thing is, I’m a huge Panthers fan, so all my Panthers buddies there, they’re awesome and real. Whoever I did ask to bring to the track, I would want them to be someone that I can just have like a friend. I want to be shell-shocked to be around them, but have them talk and hang out like it was another one of my boys, my buddies. So I’d want the relationship to be instant, whoever it was. I don’t know why this popped into my head, but Will Smith seems like a cool person. I think that’d be pretty cool. That would be somebody I’m interested in having at the track. Seems like he’s nice, too. I watch some of his Instagram stories with his family, and he’s just him. That’s cool. 5. In an effort to show this is a health-conscious sport, NASCAR decides to offer the No. 1 pit stall selection for an upcoming race to the first driver willing to go vegan for one month. Would you do it? Oh yeah. No problem. I do a lot of things to my diet to keep discipline, just as a person. I’ve just gotten back on it, actually I was there for awhile, just slacking. But my diet is pretty important, and it’s mostly because I’ve talked to (Christian) McCaffrey, and he got me started back on eating right and just taking care of my body. I don’t eat bread, cheese,

Texas native Jerry Jordan of KickinTheTires.net joins me to help digest what happened Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway.

Jeff O’Keefe, far left, stands with his Golin co-workers who handle PR for Toyota Racing after Martin Truex Jr. won the championship last season. (Courtesy Jeff O’Keefe) Each week, I ask a member of the racing community to describe their career path and shed some light on how they reached their current position. Up next: Jeff O’Keefe, who does digital and social media for Toyota Racing through the Golin agency. What do you do right now in racing? So right now I work with Lisa Kennedy and her team at Golin, but we work with Toyota Racing in their motorsports department handling content creation, working with Toyota — Kristine Curley, who you had on earlier this year — and the social strategy, social content creation and publishing for all things Toyota Racing. I assume that wasn’t something that was on your radar to start out. So how did this all start for you? Did you grow up wanting to be in sports or anything like that? So we’re going to go a little way back. I grew up in New Jersey — Exit 18, because that’s how you define where you’re from in New Jersey — off route 78 in a little town called High Bridge, New Jersey. Nobody knows where that is. However, about 15 minutes away was a place that many NASCAR people know: Flemington Speedway. Flemington was kind of iconic on the local tracks scene, but then hosted a lot of Craftsman Truck Series races, and it was known being a place where you never went straight on the track. Growing up, me and my dad, he started bringing me to the races when I was a kid and we just started going there: Sprint cars, it was dirt, and then they transformed to pavement, saw some truck races there, and that’s how we bonded, just spending time with dad. From there, growing up, we would go to Nazareth Speedway, which is about an hour away from where I grew up. Back then, they Busch races and Truck races. I remember it used to rain at Nazareth and they didn’t have track dryers, so they would take pickups with tires chained to the bumper and just drag them around the track. We waited about six hours to watch the first Truck race there. And literally so we went up there until about early 2000s from mid to late ’90s. That’s how me and my dad bonded, just by going to races and everything. And then we went to Bristol in 1999. Walking into Bristol in the late ’90s, it was something like you’d never seen before in your life. You’re just like fully taken aback, and just the amount of people. And as I grew older, went to college and everything, I started to learn more (about what was surrounding the track). I was always interested in PR, and growing up in New Jersey has some really great opportunities because New York City was near there. So in college, studying communication and PR and everything, and as we continued to go to these races every year, you started to notice things more. Whether it’s the fan experience, the activation, even the drivers signing autographs and merchandise, people lined up. My brain started ticking: “How do they get people there? Why do they have all these activations set up? Why are people drawn to look at production vehicles at a racetrack?” And then as we sat in the stands, I had total FOMO — and granted it probably wasn’t a word back in 2003 — but that sat in, like “Man, I want to be in there. I want be inside and like I want to be going in there. They seem cool. They seem like really in the know.” And by that point, I was about a junior, senior in college and I was like, “Alright, I want to do this. This is really cool. But I still live and go to college in New Jersey.

The 12 Questions series of interviews continues with JTG Daugherty Racing’s Chris Buescher, a Texas native who heads to his home track this week. These interviews are recorded as a podcast, but are also transcribed for those who prefer to read. 1. How often do you have dreams about racing? I would say probably once a week. It’s pretty often, I would say. If it’s not racing, usually it veers off to snakes or something. You have a fear of snakes? I love snakes, but my wife’s terrified of them and I think somehow that transfers into my dreams, which is not fair. That’s not cool. No, it’s really not. 2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize? If it’s intentional, I don’t think you have any plans to apologize. I think that’s probably understood. You’re gonna rub a little bit and you’re gonna race, and it’s kind of understood. I get run into, I don’t expect anybody to come say anything to me. If I get plowed or I get dumped for something what I consider dumb, I would expect something to be said. Not that it makes it any better, but sometimes it is just the fact that someone did say something, at least they took the time to either own up or say, “Hey, I did that on purpose,” or whatever it was. But to have some kind of acknowledgment of it is nice sometimes. 3. What is the biggest compliment someone could give you? I’d say it probably wouldn’t go anywhere around racing. I’ve had people that seem to appreciate how normal I am away from this deal. I’ve made a lot of friends that just wouldn’t have expected it early on, and I just got to know a lot of people that said that it was actually a lot easier to talk to and become friends with (me) than they thought. And I always thought that’s pretty neat, kind of always my goal. I mean, I like to be as normal as possible, so I think that’s a compliment for me. 4. NASCAR comes to you and says they’re bringing a celebrity to the track and they want you to host them. Who is a celebrity you’d be excited to host? I am very disconnected from that whole side of our world. I don’t have cable at the house. I don’t have anything but internet. So I don’t know a whole lot going on. For me, it usually comes down to other action sports. Like Travis Pastrana, I got to race with him at Roush, and he was awesome to be around and that was really cool. There’s a couple of artists that I’d like to talk to or be able to show around our garage area, like Randy Houser. I get a little mixed up in my music choices — it varies from country to hard rock. So a little bit all over the board there. 5. In an effort to show this is a health-conscious sport, NASCAR decides to offer the No. 1 pit stall selection for an upcoming race to the first driver willing to go vegan for one month. Would you do it? I’ll be in pit stall 39, man. Hate to tell you, but you’re gonna find me at the back of that list. You’d be the last one to do it? That just wouldn’t work for me. We have way too many sponsors that could not handle me being vegan. But beyond that, I’m a meat and potatoes and Bush’s Beans kind of guy. I couldn’t ever do it, no. As great as that first pit stall is, I’d just have to apologize to the team and figure something else out. 6. It’s time for the Random Race Challenge. I’ve picked a random race from your career and you have to tell me where you finished. This is the 2015 Darlington Xfinity race from the year you won the Xfinity championship. Was that fifth? Yeah, it was fifth actually! Wow,

Jordan Bianchi joins me once again to dive into the wild and controversial Martinsville finish and analyze what it means for the rest of the playoffs.

Each week, I ask a member of the racing community to shed some light on their career path. Up next: Daniel Norwood, who heads SiriusXM Radio’s NASCAR channel. This interview was recorded as a podcast but is also transcribed for those who prefer to read. Full disclosure: I occasionally do some work for SiriusXM Channel 90, so this could be viewed as a conflict of interest (but that’s not why I did the interview). What falls under your purview for the NASCAR channel at SiriusXM? First of all, thanks for inviting me to do this. I got my hair done. I hope I look good on the podcast. When you write the transcript, make sure I look this good, OK? I’ll put in parentheses: “(Has nice hair).” Thank you. I appreciate that. Make me look taller, if you would. I am the Senior Director of NASCAR Programming, which is really a big fancy title. In radio terminology, it means I’m the program director. I always boil it down to say I do the hiring, the firing and decide what goes on the air. So when shows come on like “Happy Hours” with Kevin Harvick, you’re the one that’s going out and got that and decided to put that on the air? Yeah, you know, everybody has a boss. I have a great one, Steve Cohen. He has bosses, the President and CEO (of SiriusXM), and so forth. But yeah, it’s largely myself and my team working with Steve Cohen, and we just try to find something that’s unique and creative. And in those particular cases (with Harvick), they actually came to us and said, “We have an idea. We’d like to see if you would be interested.” Of course, we were immediately interested. Then you’ve got to go out and try to find some sponsorship and find a way to pay for the show, and that’s kind of the genesis of how those things begin. It’s usually just with the passing of a conversation, usually at the garage or something. That one came about because of the success of Tony Stewart Live. Tony used to do a show with us. He did a weekly program back in the early days, maybe back in 2007 when the channel first started, then dropped down to a handful of times throughout the year. But we got a lot of attention. I think they saw that, and of course Kevin is working on his broadcast career for the future when he hangs up the helmet and thought this might be a good place to go. That’s pretty interesting. So obviously, there’s only one job like yours where you’re deciding all the NASCAR programming and all the hosts and all the shows. How did you get to where you are today? Did you grow up wanting to be in radio at all? No, it was never in my mind in the early days. I wanted to be a psychologist, which in some ways I actually am today. “Sit down and tell me about your problems,” that’s a lot of times what we have to do in a managerial role. But that’s what I wanted to do for as long as I remember, I wanted to be a psychologist. Secretly — and I never really said this to anybody other than my wife — I always wanted to be a comedian. That was my dream. To this day, if I could get over my stage fright — I never told anybody, I don’t think, but I’ve been writing comedy for 25 years. I write it every day, and it might just be a line, sometimes it might be a couple of pages, but I write stuff and I put it off to the side. I don’t know. One day, maybe. A friend of mine, I used to write, he used to perform, and it was a lot of fun. Like stand-up material kind of thing? Yeah, that’s what I enjoy the most, and when I’m away from the racetrack you’ll find me, if not in the movie theater, then in the comedy club or something like that. I just love to live in those environments. I find the more I’m around it, the more ideas that come my way. But nevertheless,

The 12 Questions series of interviews continues this week with Ryan Blaney of Team Penske, who won the recent race at the Charlotte Roval. This interview was recorded as a podcast but is also transcribed below for those who prefer to read. 1. How often do you have dreams about racing? It depends. I dream about races that never happened sometimes that you really don’t understand what’s going on. I’ve dreamt about bad races before, reliving wrecks or something. I guess you could call those nightmares. So yeah, those really are the only two times I’ve dreamt about racing, if it’s just a random occurrence or something that’s never happened before and I can’t really make any sense of it. Or the wrecks, there’s a few bad ones that you sometimes dream about I guess. 2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize? I definitely think it does, especially if it was unintentional. I think you should apologize for sure if it was your fault, and you hope the other person understands. Now if it was intentional, I don’t think you go apologize. You did it intentionally, you’re not gonna go be sorry for it. If it’s an accident and I screw up and I get loose under somebody and spin them out or we both spin out, I’ll try to find them as soon as I can or call them and say that was obviously my fault. But yeah. Different answers for intentional or unintentional stuff. 3. What is the biggest compliment someone could give you? Something that’s really cool to me is when parents tell me that their kids look up to me. That’s a super cool compliment because they’re talking about how their kids are huge fans of me and they love racing, they want to be just like you on and off the track. Like man, that’s pretty cool. I don’t know if I’ve met you guys before, but this kid wants to be like me and he doesn’t really even know me, he just knows me from around the racetrack or from racing and the social stuff that’s out there. That’s really cool and makes me feel good because that’s part of the reason why we do it. You want to be as good of a role model as you can. I remember I was a kid who loved racing and was running around the garage and wanted to be like this driver or that driver just because I liked what they did. So to kind of have the roles now, me being in that spot, that makes me feel really good when parents tell me that or their kids come up to me and are wearing my shirt and they’re super happy to see me, because that just shows they’re big fans and they look up to me. It’s like a big brother moment, I guess. I think that’s the best compliment I can be paid. 4. NASCAR comes to you and says they’re bringing a celebrity to the track and they want you to host them. Who is a celebrity you’d be excited to host? I’ll do a male and female version. I’m a big, big Ryan Reynolds fan, I think he’s an awesome actor. I’d love to have him. Did you say who’s the person or what would we do? Just who would you like to take around? Ryan Reynolds, that’s the guy. And the girl…ooh that’s tough. A lot of celebrity crushes. I’m a big Daisy Ridley fan. Do you know who she is? Yeah. Well, you met her. She didn’t know who you were at the Lakers game. She had no idea. But yeah, maybe that can be a second meeting. She probably doesn’t remember the Lakers thing, but I always will. But yeah, those will be my two. Just next time be like, “Hey, by the way, I’m a NASCAR driver. Just come on out.” Invite her out, yeah. Life’s made. pic.twitter.com/0kTE8Ax4ol — Ryan Blaney (@Blaney)

Jordan Bianchi is back for another post-race analysis podcast, this time to help me digest everything that happened Sunday at the Kansas Speedway playoff elimination race.

Each week, I ask a member of the racing community to shed some light on their career path. Up next: Josh Williams, who races in the Xfinity Series for DGM Racing. How did this all get started for you? Did you grow up thinking you wanted to be part of racing? I played normal sports as a kid, started racing when I was four and a half years old, running go-karts. Kind of the typical race car driver story. Did you have a racing family? I did. My dad started racing in Indiana and moved to Florida. He raced on South Florida short tracks and won championships. Most of the track records I had to break in Florida were his. He’s the reason why I race. Always went to the racetrack with him when I was little. When I raced go-karts or quarter midgets or things, he’d race open-wheel modifieds or late models or sportsman cars. I just loved it. Something about it intrigued me a lot. It’s just a different feeling, winning races and getting your picture taken on the frontstretch and things like that. The checkered flag is addicting. When you were little, were you thinking NASCAR all the way? That’s what you wanted to be involved in? Not really. Up until I was about 14, I was racing just to race and go to the next level. I wasn’t thinking, “Oh, I want to be a Cup driver.” Probably the year before I started racing in the ARCA Series, when I turned 15, I started thinking, “Man, maybe we could make this a career and stick with it and maybe race in the Cup Series one day.” I’ve always tried to make that my goal and open every door I can. It’s a tough road to do it if you’re someone like me and trying to do your own deal. I wear a lot of hats when I’m at the racetrack, so it’s a little different story than your typical driver. I’m assuming no one was ever like, “Congratulations, here’s a pile of money.” You’ve had to do this yourself. How did you progress from ARCA ultimately to where you are now? My family supported all of my racing up until the ARCA Series. We did have Musselman’s Apple Sauce as a sponsor there for a little while. We’ve had a few smaller sponsors — Go Puck, Krankz Audio. We’ve had a few people come in off the side when we were running in ARCA and help us out a little bit. And we were low budget. We’d buy scuffed tires from some of the bigger teams and practice on them. They quit selling us scuffs after awhile because we were beating them and they were a little upset. You see a few family-owned teams, even in Xfinity, but it’s tough to race against these big guys with all the funding and somebody who says, “Here’s a couple million. Go play.” We haven’t opened that door yet, but we’re not going to stop until we find it. We’re working with some really good people now in the Xfinity Series on a lower budget scale with Sleep Well and also Star Tron. They’ve helped us out a lot to get to this point. So just trying to build relationships and open doors and hopefully we knock on the right one and they hand us a pile of money and we get to go play. When you won a couple times in ARCA (in 2016), were you thinking people would notice and things would get a lot easier? What was the aftermath of that? Not really. I knew the position we were in and the way the racing model is held now compared to what it used to be. For us, that was huge. That was like winning the championship — having one car, having a dually truck pulling a gooseneck trailer and just running against the big boys and winning races. I knew it wasn’t going to be something spectacular — like, “Oh, I’m going to get a Cup ride tomorrow” — but it did open some people’s eyes who didn’t know much about me. They knew who I was, they knew we ran up front. But sealing the deal and winning a couple races in the ARCA Series, people were like, “Man, this guy is actually the real deal. He’s pretty good.” How’s it been so far in Xfinity? What are some of the triumphs and struggles you have ...

The 12 Questions series of interviews continues this week with a double edition: Front Row Motorsports teammates David Ragan and Michael McDowell are both included in this one. Given the format, it’s highly recommended to listen as a podcast — but it’s also transcribed below for those who prefer to read. 1. How often do you have dreams about racing? DR: I have dreams every night in general, but I don’t really remember them. Sometimes about racing, sometimes about other things. But when I do dream about racing, it’s never really about the competition and trying to race and win, it’s always about trying to get to the racetrack or the cars being on the track on the pace laps and I can’t find my helmet or I’m stuck in the (hauler) lounge and I can’t get out or something weird like that. Or I’m late or I can’t get my window net up. It’s always things I’m worried about that. MM: It’s very funny he said that. I have dreams about seeing the cars start the race, too, and you’re not in it. And you see your car and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, what happened?” That’s crazy. But I would say maybe once or twice a month. Like David said, it’s hard to remember. I do remember last night’s dream. It was turkey hunting, not racing. DR: You should write them down and see if you see a correlation to certain things that are going on in your life. 2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize? I didn’t mean for this to be awkward right after you guys got into each other. (Note: This was recorded the week after the two crashed at Las Vegas.) DR: It’s perfect timing. (Laughs) MM: I don’t know if you picked up the audio, but my crew chief, Derrick Finley, was walking through David’s hauler and he just snickered as you asked that question. (Laughs) DR: I’ll go first, being as I wrecked Michael last week and myself. I do think it’s important. Whether you wreck someone intentionally or whether it’s an accident, I think you should bring it up. If you wreck someone intentionally, you need to let them know you don’t like what they did and why you wrecked them. If you do it unintentionally, I think it’s important say, “Look, man, I’m sorry. I hated I did that.” Just to clear the air. Communication is important. We race with each other 38 times a year and the last thing we need are grudges on the racetrack that bring both teams down. Certainly that’s important with teammates, but even other people in the garage. I try to make it a point to reach out to someone if I wreck them. MM: Yeah, I think it’s super important. Having been on both sides of it, the intentional part is hard, right? Because if you truly did it intentionally, there were things that built up to it. It doesn’t just happen. But a lot of times, those are the ones that are left undone. Like Ross Chastain and (Kevin) Harvick (in the Darlington Xfinity race). I mean, Ross hooked him. There’s no question and nobody can say anything otherwise. Harvick knows he hooked him. So then not having that conversation, that will be an issue down the road in their careers for both of them. So just being able to bring it up (is important). I had it happen with (Marcos) Ambrose— I intentionally crashed Ambrose at Martinsville. And he waited for me after the race. He came up to me — I’ll never forget it, because it was like the most awkward conversation ever — and he was like, “Well what happened?” I said, “Well, you chopped me two or three times and then I crashed you.” And his face, his jaw dropped. Because he’s like, “You’re saying you did that on purpose?” I said, “Well, I don’t want to lie to you. You chopped me off two or three times, so I crashed you.” And I think he said something like, “I should kill you” — it was something very angry and violent, which I get, because I get ramped up. But I remember the next week he’s like, “Most people would have lied to me.

The 12 Questions series of interviews continues with Timmy Hill, who drives for MBM Motorsports in the Cup and Xfinity Series. This interview was recorded as a podcast but is also transcribed for those who prefer to read. 1. How often do you have dreams about racing? I’d say it happens pretty often, especially if I have a big race coming up. Like for me, it’s kind of funny: When we go to Daytona or Talladega, I always have dreams of what could happen. It’s neat to try to deeply think about what could happen. Whenever I have a race coming up where I think I could do well, it’s funny how your mind creates stuff happening. 2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize? In my opinion, it does. Simply because we go right back into it the next week and you get very little time to digest what happened. So in my eyes, if you take someone out — I guess if it was on purpose, you wouldn’t apologize — but (you should) especially if it was on accident. That guy doesn’t know, and he’s thinking about how he got wrecked and how he was basically done wrong. So if he goes into the next week, it could come back on you. At least for my peace of mind, I like to hear it. 3. What is the biggest compliment someone could give you? My wife and I were reading the book, The (5) Love Languages. And I think my love language has always been words of affirmation. So I like to hear “Good job,” not matter what that is — whether that’s on the racetrack or back home. For me, if I just hear “Good job” on anything, it feels nice. Because so often, people point out what you did wrong. So every now and again if somebody says good job, it makes you feel good. I’m not familiar with the book. Can you give a brief synopsis? We’re about halfway through, but I think there are five love languages. We had a friend, Cindy Shepherd, give us a book — we just got married in January and she said it was a good wedding present to have. So basically, everybody has a different love language. For me, it was words of affirmation. For somebody else, it may be a gift. Everybody takes something differently. In what you respond to, essentially? Yes. So it was a good book to read. I think for anyone in a real relationship or who wants to do better for their significant other, I think it’s a good book to read. 4. NASCAR comes to you and says they’re bringing a celebrity to the track and they want you to host them. Who is a celebrity you’d be excited to host? I love comedians. I could think of a list of them. But I was looking at one, just because it’s football season: Pat McAfee. He used to be a punter for the Indianapolis Colts. And I’m a Redskins fan, so it wasn’t like I was a big fan of the Colts or anything. But he does videos every week about different punters or football plays. If I could host Pat, if he could come to the racetrack, I’d love to host somebody like that. I saw he recently left Barstool, but he’s still doing stuff, right? He quoted himself as a free agent, so he’s looking for a new gig. But his content is really funny. 5. In an effort to show this is a health-conscious sport, NASCAR decides to offer the pole for an upcoming race to the first driver willing to go vegan for one month. Would you do it? Absolutely not. (Laughs) It’s funny, my wife is a vegetarian. I tell her all the time, I’m the complete opposite. I very rarely eat any kind of vegetables. I’ll eat a couple fruits. But I’m as non-vegan or non-vegetarian as they come. Has she ever tried going vegan? No. She loves her eggs, she loves her milk. So she doesn’t want to go that far. She just hates her red meats and meats in general. She’s tried to get me to branch out a little more, and I’ve tried, but it’s just not for me. I know when we were planning out wedding, she said, “I know there are not many vegetarians (coming), so make the meal for yourself.

Racing journalist Jordan Bianchi makes his return to the post-race podcast to help me analyze the Dover playoff race.

Each week, I ask a member of the racing community to shed some light on their career path. Up next: Steve Phelps, who took over the position of NASCAR president on Monday. This interview was recorded as a podcast, but is also transcribed for those who prefer to read. Let’s start at the beginning. Did you grow up as someone who wanted to spend your life in sports? I’ve been in sports my entire career. That’s a good 30 years or so, because I’m old. I grew up in Vermont, loved NASCAR, loved all sports. Went to a lot of NASCAR races when I was a kid up in Vermont. Went to University of Vermont for undergrad and went straight through and got my MBA from Boston College. Then I went to New York and got a job working for a company called American Home Products and was a brand manager on the Chef Boyardee brand. Really? Oh yeah. Pretty exciting stuff. So you were in charge of the advertising, or…? Yes. So anything that had to do with that particular brand was my responsibility. The products, advertising, promotion, what we do from a selling standpoint, what happens at retail — that was all mine. And I got tired of eating canned pasta. But it was a good learning experience, and I moved on to be a brand manager at Guinness (beer). Oh wow. That’s an upgrade from Chef Boyardee — no offense to Chef Boyardee. No disrespect to the Chef. And then I was a brand manager on the Bass Ale brand, which was one of the Guinness brands here in the states. Then I moved on to the NFL, and I was at the NFL for almost 14 years. When you were at Guinness, were you keeping an eye out for a sports job like the NFL? I had a guy who was a family friend, when I was trying to get a job out of business school, who said, “Hey, listen. Best advice to you is to go work for a big brand and get a ton of experience, and then come back and talk to me.” He worked for one of the golf companies. He said, “At that point, come back and we would love to have you work for us. But go get the experience necessary.” And I absolutely wanted to work in sports. I had no idea what that meant, frankly. So when the job opportunity came up at the NFL, I said, “This is something I want to pursue.” And I did. What did you start out doing at the NFL? My whole career at the NFL — which actually dovetails pretty well with what happens in NASCAR — I started as a marketing manager working on different sponsor brands for the NFL. So Miller and Budweiser and Frito-Lay and Visa and different brands. Then I worked my way up from manager to director to managing director and ultimately the vice president. I was overseeing the entire group. It was a great brand, it was great training for me to ultimately get to NASCAR. What was it like working at the NFL and with the people there? Obviously, it’s a behemoth — then and now. What was the experience like? It was a great experience for me, which is why I stayed so long. Great brand. I learned a lot. Interesting thing, because people ask me to compare NASCAR and the NFL — they are very different. The only thing, frankly, they have in common is a large, passionate fan base. Theirs is obviously twice as large as ours. Ours is equally as passionate. But the thing we have they don’t have is our fans understand the need for sponsorship and support those brands. We didn’t have that at the NFL. (Fans) didn’t really care, frankly. They couldn’t identify, if you’re the official something of the New York Giants, what does that do for (fans)? Do you get a long snapper for that? Do you get half of a wide receiver? You just don’t know. Here, our fans know: It puts on the show. My favorite sport, my favorite team, my favorite driver, my favorite track. That’s a unique point of difference for us. If we can back up for a moment, you mentioned you went to some NASCAR races growing up. I was talking to Dave Moody,

The 12 Questions series of interviews continues this week with Truck Series driver Justin Haley of GMS Racing. Haley won the Truck playoffs opener in Canada last month and is locked into the second round of the playoffs. This interview was recorded as a podcast but is also transcribed below for those who prefer to read. 1. How often do you have dreams about racing? I actually had a dream about racing last night, which is pretty rare, I’d say. I don’t dream about racing too much. I’m a pretty heavy sleeper. But last night I dreamt we won Vegas, so by the time this comes out, I’m sure that’s going to be true or false. (Note: He finished third.) It was a two-in-a-row deal after (winning in Canada), so that was kind of cool. 2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize? I think there’s a certain level of respect. Normally if it’s not too big of a deal, I just let my spotter know and my spotter relays it. Especially if we’re early in the race, you don’t want someone hot at you. But if you go out there and get into someone, there’s going to have to be some kind of communication the next week. 3. What is the biggest compliment someone could give you? I’d say it’s that I’m a hard worker and dedicated to what I do. I’ve put my all into it since I was a little kid. If I just keep working hard and putting everything into it even if it doesn’t work out, it’d probably be the biggest compliment. 4. NASCAR comes to you and says they’re bringing a celebrity to the track and they want you to host them. Who is a celebrity you’d be excited to host? Man, I don’t even know. Kaz Grala? He’s a celebrity, right? (Laughs)  There’s some vloggers — I’m pretty big into vlogging. Like Casey Neistat or Roman Atwood. They’re pretty cool. I know Roman did a race awhile ago with Ty (Dillon). I’m not really into the whole scene of music and TV. I don’t watch TV too much, unless there’s a hurricane coming. I always tell everyone if I wasn’t racing and didn’t have to be on social media, I wouldn’t have any platforms. I like doing my own thing and bouncing off my family and friends. Do you have to limit yourself on social media then? I think you have to, to a certain point. I’ve been putting up some Instagram Stories and live videos with Kaz. He’s my best friend. He has a fan base and I have a fan base, so we like to connect them. I do spend quite a bit of time on Instagram — I usually do a post a day to try to engage fans and get my viewership up or whatnot. My tweets are kind of hit or miss. I don’t have a personal Facebook or Instagram, just for racing. 5. In an effort to show this is a health-conscious sport, NASCAR decides to offer the pole for an upcoming race to the first driver willing to go vegan for one month. Would you do it? Oh, for sure. I’ve gone vegan just to go vegan. Are you a healthy eater? Yeah. I think my PR girl and my manager and everyone in my family, they get pretty hot-headed (about his eating habits). I am a very healthy eater. I haven’t had a slice of pizza in a few years. Haven’t had a soda in a few years. Any snacks. Every meal for the past two and a half years has been pre-calculated. It gets hard while racing, but you just have to make smart decisions. I am probably one of the healthiest eaters in the whole garage area — I’d say I probably beat Jimmie Johnson, because I never treat myself. It’s just kind of a lifestyle. I used to eat nachos every day and whatnot. I just found a groove and I like healthy eating. I feel better and I feel like it really affects my performance. Can you give me a quick tip? I really struggle to eat healthy on the road. I don’t even know if it’s healthy foods, but it’s making sure you put the right foods in your body. If I go out to eat at a dinner — like last night, I did with my team — I eat steak and mashed potatoes.

WOW! After an insane finish at the Charlotte Roval, C.J. Woliver from FOX Sports joins me to help break down what we saw in the elimination race for Round 1 of the NASCAR playoffs.

Each week, I ask a member of the racing community to shed some light on his or her career path. Up next: Holly Cain from the NASCAR Wire Service. These interviews are recorded as a podcast but are also transcribed below for those who prefer to read. What does your job entail now? I am a writer for the NASCAR Wire Service. I work out of the Daytona Beach office and I help do all of the previews that go out on the wire for the Cup races and to a certain extent, the statistical previews for the Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series races. So during the week, I provide all of the advance information we send out to over 100 different outlets across the country to be able to use in their newspaper, magazine, whatever their outlet is. So as coverage has been lessened across the country, NASCAR has stepped up with its own service to provide content to outlets that might want racing coverage, essentially. And you’re doing that. Absolutely. And then Reid Spencer covers the actual races on the weekend, and sometimes I will go out and help as well. I also get to do some IMSA things, which I love because that was kind of my start in racing. I’m interested in your career path. Let’s just start with the beginning. Did you grow up thinking you wanted to do something in media, like be a reporter? Oddly enough, I did. My whole entire life, that’s all I wanted to do. I can remember back when we had huge tape recorders and I would simply read the newspaper into the tape recorder and pretend like I was doing the evening news. My father (Ed Cain) was a sportscaster and a newscaster, so I get that part honestly. And my mom taught high school English for almost 40 years. So if you think about those two things, journalism makes sense. But I definitely took after my dad and always was doing that. Where was he a newscaster? He worked all over the place. He did New York Islanders hockey, he did the Minnesota Twins, the Minnesota North Stars when the hockey team was still called that, and then he worked in Seattle for many years and covered the SuperSonics when they were there, the Mariners, the Seahawks. So he had worked all over the country. Did you tag along to some of the events when you were growing up? A couple of the things, I would. I would go to some of the football games or the hockey games. My parents have all sorts of photos of me with the players. I have a photo of me with O.J. Simpson. Probably the coolest thing that really inspired me with my father was when he was 22 years old, President Kennedy was shot and he was working at a small radio station in Florida. He actually drove to Dallas and was standing in the police department building right alongside Lee Harvey Oswald — and actually asked a question — when he was killed. My father is in movies and he’s in all sorts of clips and photos from that. So that was a really neat thing to see what kind of a journalist he was that he would pick up and go, and then as it turned out be feet away from one of the biggest stories in the history of our country. My father as a young reporter standing right there as Oswald shot. https://t.co/L9IfObIcgq — Holly Cain (@_HollyCain) October 26, 2017 What did he say over the years about that moment and being there when Lee Harvey Oswald was shot right in front of him? Well, it was a very career-defining moment for him. He was only 22 years old, right out of college when he did that. What it always showed me was you have to go get the story. You can’t sit in a press room and expect it to come to you. He just was a shining example of what to do journalistically and was there to help me for many years. So did you go to school for journalism and get on that career path from the start?

The 12 Questions series of interviews continues this week with Clint Bowyer of Stewart-Haas Racing. This interview is recommended as a podcast, but is also transcribed for those who would rather read. 1. How often do you have dreams about racing? I don’t really dream, Jeff. Helluva question. Really? You just sail right through the night? I can’t even remember my dreams. Don’t you ever wake up, and you’re like, “What the hell happened?” Yeah, but sometimes I’m interviewing you in my dream. It freaks me out. I don’t have that, Jeff. I don’t ever dream I’m interviewing with you. 2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize? Yes, but it means zero. You’re still going to get retaliated, and sometimes, with peers and things like that, it just depends who it is. If it’s somebody you’ve kind of had a run-in with before or you don’t get along or you don’t speak off the racetrack or something else, they don’t really know you, they don’t know that that was (unintentional). I mean, a guy like Jamie McMurray. He’s gotten into me before and it was a situation, like that wasn’t on purpose. Pissed you off, it was a bad deal, but it didn’t mean anything to me and I knew he’d be calling and as soon as he did, I was like, “I get it. It’s all good. Shit happens.” Same goes on the flip side of that. It just depends. If it’s a kid that’s been racing you hard and doing something stupid for four or five weeks and making it hard and over-pushing the envelope and it finally catches up to you, that’s the one that gets to you and makes you mad. 3. What is the biggest compliment someone could give you? I think the biggest compliment now in life is, “Your kid’s a good kid” and “he was polite.” (Bowyer’s son Cash) went over to somebody’s house the other day and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe how polite he was.” You’re like, “Yes!” He didn’t get that from me, by the way. But nonetheless, your pride comes from different things now. Once you have a family and kids and everything else, you know, yes — when somebody says you did a good job in the race car or something else, that’s meaningful. But when they say that about something that is your pride and joy gives you a compliment, it’s a good feeling. 4. NASCAR comes to you and says they’re bringing a celebrity to the track and they want you to host them. Who is a celebrity you’d be excited to host? I think all of them. It doesn’t matter. If it’s a celebrity, it’s meaningful that they’re there, that they want to be there, that they’re choosing to be at our sport. So it’s always fun for me that we get to meet celebrities because I don’t view myself as worthy of being able to hang out with celebrities. I’ve always been starstruck and big-eyed. When you see somebody that you see on TV or grew up seeing on TV, I’m no different from anybody else. Like, “Holy shit, that’s whoever!” It still rocks you back on your heels and it’s a big deal. If I had to pick somebody who the next celebrity would be or would blow me away, I don’t know. It would have to be somebody funny, because I like having fun in our sport, I like having fun in general. But when you are around people like that, you can kind of embrace the relationship a little bit more and show them the funny side of our sport. Get them in a car and put them in a situation and they’ll freak out or something like that. I like that aspect of celebrities and things like that. That’s kind of a shitty answer to your question, but I’m serious,

Longtime race fan Matt Gross joins me after the Richmond race to help break down everything that happened Saturday night in the second race of the NASCAR playoffs. Also, Paige Keselowski makes a guest appearance to explain her work supporting hurricane relief efforts.

Each week, I ask a member of the racing community to shed some light on his or her career path. Up next: Johnny Gibson, the voice of the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series. This interview was recorded as a podcast but is also transcribed for those who prefer to read. What do your duties entail as part of your current job? Basically, I am the series announcer. My job is to provide information and help the fans at the racetrack understand and enjoy what they’re seeing and to describe everything to the people watching and listening at home on DIRTVision. How did this all start for you? Did you grow up as a race fan, did you grow up wanting to be an announcer? Grew up as a race fan, never had any thoughts or really any real ideas of being an announcer. Started going to races very young in Pennsylvania with my dad, met people involved in racing just from being around as a fan. Met more people through the people I met originally, and one thing led to another and I started going to World of Outlaws races and helping them sell programs. There was a gentleman named Bill Woodside who was selling the programs at all of the Outlaw races. I moved from Pennsylvania to Indianapolis in 1994 and started going to the Outlaw races to help Bill sell programs. I had met him through Kevin Eckert, who I had met as a race fan. Started walking through the stands (saying), “Hey, get your program here.” It was a way to get into the races for free, maybe make a couple of bucks. I went to help him at a race at I-96 Speedway in Michigan on the Monday after the King’s Royal in 1995, so that would have been July, and Bill wasn’t there. And the Outlaw merchandise people said, “Hey, can you sell programs tonight? We haven’t heard from Bill, we don’t know what’s going on. Can you do the whole thing tonight?” Sure, I can do that. By the end of the night, they said, “We still don’t know what’s going on with Bill. We race Wednesday in Memphis, Houston on Friday, and Devil’s Bowl Speedway on Saturday. Can you come and do those races for us?” I really didn’t have anything pressing going on at the time. Let me back up just a second. At that point, I was a musician. I was playing in rock bands and working like a series of day jobs that were pretty much dispensable. If I had a gig come up and had to leave a day job and worry about the next one when I came back, that’s what I did. What were you playing in the band? I played drums. And actually at that time I wasn’t in a band. I had played in bands in Pennsylvania and moved to Indy with the idea of just a change in scenery and getting in a different band there. And while that was sort of in the process of happening, the Outlaw thing sort of happened. So I decided to go to Memphis and Houston and Dallas to do those races and by the end of the night, that Friday at Houston, they said, “Bill has definitely resigned. Do you want to do the program gig from now on?” And so basically I’d be traveling with the World of Outlaws full-time selling programs. Thought about it for about a half a second and said, “Sure.” So I did that for the remainder of ’95 and for all of the 1996 season. Back in ’95 and ’96, World of Outlaws was televised on TNN. So when I was done selling programs, I’d go work for the production company and maybe be a spotter for a cameraman or be a runner or whatever. That’s how I met Bobby Gerould, who was doing the pit reporting at the TNN races, and Bobby was doing a lot of PA announcing in California. So in September of ’96, we raced at Kings Speedway in Hanford, California, and Bobby came up to me before the races. He was on the mic that night, and said, “When you’re done selling programs, come up to the booth. I’d like to do an interview with you about...

The 12 Questions series of interviews continues this week with sprint car driver Rico Abreu, who won the Gold Cup earlier this month in Chico, Calif. These interviews are recorded as a podcast but also transcribed for those who prefer to read. 1. How often do you have dreams about racing? Usually if I’m thinking about a race or if I’m leading up to a big race, obviously I’ll be thinking about it all the time and I’ll have some dreams about it. But I think the biggest thing is I’m around race cars all the time and here working on the sprint cars. So it’s basically my life and it’s all I think about. The biggest thing is just the work ethic that we all put into this team. I have had some dreams where things go wrong and then some dreams where things go good. Sometimes when I have good dreams, big dreams, I’ll jot them down or I’ll remember them three or four days later. But I haven’t had any serious dreams about racing, just a few here and there of my car. Maybe just sometimes I’ll think about the attitude of my car and how it feels when I’m on track and that’ll come into a dream one time. But I’ve never really thought about that. 2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize? I assume no one would really get into another person intentionally in sprint cars because that would pretty dangerous. But if you do have an incident with somebody, does it matter if you apologize to them later? I think it does later on. If you run into somebody or crash with somebody and they’re upset with you — or if they’re not — I think it just shows the level of respect if you go down there and apologize even if it wasn’t your fault. Sometimes people think things are different than you think. I had an incident with Sheldon Haudenschild a couple weeks ago where I ran into the side of him and took us both out of the race. I think it was more of a racing incident, but I just made sure that the water was cool when I walked over there — more so even if everyone was angry, it just shows a level of respect if I go on over and say, “Hey, I didn’t obviously do this on purpose, but I took you guys out.” 3. What is the biggest compliment someone could give you? I think it goes a long ways when people that you don’t think pay attention to your racing or what you’ve got going on in your career — when things start to change and your career can kind of go in a different direction and like it looks like it’s going downhill based off results — when people reach out to you and just show they see what’s going on and understand how difficult things can get. People who’ve reached out who you don’t realize that are paying attention to your career or racing and say, “Hey, keep working hard,” or, “Good job,” or anything on that level. Or winning a race, I feel like your true friends or your true fans who are close to me reach out and said, “Good job,” just because of the people, they know the work that gets put into this and how difficult it is. Even in any level of racing, when you run a race team at a high level and you win or you run good or you’re competitive every night, people pay attention to that, and I like reaching out to people that I see that put a lot of work in or have a lot of drive and passion for the sport and have success. I like to reach out to them and say, “Hey, that’s really cool that you won,” or “You had a great run.” I just think it means a lot to those people, it means a lot when I get a message like that. I won earlier in the year, and a guy like Chip Ganassi, he reached out. I don’t know if he follows my path lately just because of the direction it’s been going whic...