The Untitled Jeff Gluck Podcast

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 Zizzo, vice president of communications at Texas Motor Speedway. First of all, what do you do here at Texas so we can understand how you got to this point? I handle all the media relations, so that entails any driver events that we do, setting up credentials for media, working with the marketing team on certain initiatives we have there, and then being on the executive team here at TMS. We get to do advances with drivers. We have Daniel Suarez this year, we had a special guest in Jared Leto earlier this (month), which was really cool. And we’ll have Kevin Harvick in the fall. So a lot of media events and such. It’s basically just managing the media and making sure when they come and visit us that we get the coverage that we’re looking for as well as accommodating them as guests for the weekend. How long have you been here working at the track now? Feels like 50 years. (Laughs) No, I joined in ’05 after I left NASCAR, so I’m starting Year 13. Obviously you didn’t just magically plop down here in Texas and start your career here, so where did this whole thing begin for you? I was a scribe just like you back in the day. I graduated from Florida Southern College in Lakeland. I wanted to be a sports writer, and I was fortunate enough to land at a major paper at the Orlando Sentinel. Just like any young scribe, I started out on the agate desk and did a lot of box scores before I got my break. People were calling in with their high school football scores and you were taking the stats on the phone? That was the worst thing ever when we had to do it. We got a call-in and you’re like, “Oh, no stats, please.” And then you got to move up and you actually got to cover a game, which was awesome. But I worked at the Lakeland Ledger when I was at Florida Southern, so I got a lot of game type experience and live experience, which was great. That helped me at the Sentinel, and I covered everything from the Jacksonville Jaguars’ first year to the Tampa Bay Lightning to the Citrus Bowl to a lot of preps. So it was a great experience for me, and that actually led into racing, which was actually odd for me. So did you cover much racing to that point. How did the move to go into racing get on your radar? They put it on my radar. I was living in Cocoa Beach and I was covering Brevard County preps and some college sports and pro sports like spring training, and then I got the call. They’re like, “Congratulations, you’re our new auto racing writer.” I grew up in New England and my dad loved cars, but he never went to any races or anything. And they’re like, “You’re the auto racing writer.” I’m like, “What? I don’t know anything about auto racing, I grew up in New York. The only thing I saw going around in circles is horses, like at Belmont.” And they’re like, “Well, you better learn it.” I swear, I was so panicked because it was one of those sports I’ve never really followed. I did a little bit … growing up as a kid, I loved Mario Andretti because he’s Italian and I was rooting for him in the Indy 500. And then in NASCAR, (I knew) Richard Petty and all that, but I never really followed it enough that I could cover it. So when they told me that, I was panicked and like, “What am I gonna do?” and my good friend in Cocoa Beach, Mark Tate, he grew up in Hickory (N.C.), grew up with the Jarretts, so he was over the moon that I was gonna cover NASCAR. I said,

The series of 12 Questions interviews continues with defending Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr. of Furniture Row Racing. This interview is recorded both as a podcast and is transcribed in written form. Truex has participated in a 12 Questions interview for every year of the series (2010-present); an archive of his past interviews can be found at the bottom of this page. 1. How often do you have dreams about racing? Do I ever dream about racing? Yes I do. I can tell you in your dreams, you always win. (Laughs) Do you ever have a winning dream and then it comes true for that race? Eight times last year. (Laughs) 2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize? I think it matters. There’s a line there where you kind of know if that might not have been intentional and might have been an accident. And then when you hear somebody say, “Man, I’m sorry, I really feel bad about blah, blah, blah,” it kind of makes you feel a little bit better. Like “OK, I think he’s not lying.” But you can usually tell when they’re completely full of crap. 3. What is the biggest compliment someone could give you? I think the biggest compliment is just somebody that respects who you are as a person. If somebody says, “Man, he’s a good guy.” In my opinion, that’s a pretty big deal to me, you know? 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? I’m not huge on celebrities. Like I don’t get starstruck or anything. By anybody? It’d have to be somebody old school, like some old (guy) like Hank Williams Jr. or something like that, like a legend. It couldn’t just be some guy that’s on TV or a movie star. It would have to be somebody who is legendary. Hank would do it. 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? Heck no! That’s insane. Who doesn’t eat meat? How could you live? How could anyone live? I don’t know. Like Sherry (Pollex, his longtime partner) tries to do it somewhat because it’s good for her and stuff, but she can’t even do it. She tries, but she has to eat meat, too. It’s impossible. If you don’t eat meat, there’s something wrong with you. 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 2014 Spring Dover race. ’14, that was a pretty rough year. But we did run good at Dover both times. I’m gonna say sixth. Wow, that is correct! Sixth. We finished sixth in both races at Dover that year. How do you remember that stuff? I remember everything. So you can remember most races? I remember a lot of races and what I did and what happened. I can remember racing my Modified and what setup I had and what springs I ran in at what race and this and that. It’s pretty crazy. But I can’t remember people’s names for crap, just so you know. Is that a trade you would make? Not yet. Not until I’m done racing. (Laughs) 7. Who is the best rapper alive? I don’t know. You don’t know any rappers? I don’t. You’re not into rap at all? Not really, no. You don’t strike me as a rap-type person. No. There’s some songs that I think, “That’s not terrible.” Like I don’t turn it off, but I’m not really into it much. So that’s the highest compliment you can give a rap song. Like, “Yeah,

Toby Christie from The Final Lap joins me to help analyze what happened in Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway.

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: Lauren Edwards, founder and CEO of Reine Digital. Can you explain what you do and what Reine Digital does? So Reine Digital, I founded it at the beginning of 2017, and it is a social and digital consulting agency. I work with a lot of athletes, and especially drivers in our sport and media personalities in our sport. And then I have a couple other small clients on that are more business- and brand-focused, but we really focus on kind of the athletes and personalities. So Jimmie Johnson is among your clients? Yes. Jimmie was my first client. I originally worked with Jimmie for five years, helping him with his social and digital and then kind of stepped out on my own and he signed on as a client. Steve Letarte is another client, which has been so much fun. It’s a very different side of things, kind of getting into the broadcast side of things as opposed to a driver. And then I have a couple other people I’m kind of just starting to work with this year, which is really exciting and new and I’m very thrilled. I’ve actually randomly gotten into wineries and distilleries, kind of the alcohol side of things, which is very different and the laws are crazy — it’s nothing like sports — but it’s been really fun. Let’s talk about how you got to this point. So you went to William & Mary. Was racing ever on the radar for you? No. So I went to William & Mary because I wanted to do international economic development. That’s different than this. You probably couldn’t get more different of a career path. So I went there to study international relations and economics as a double major. I took both those majors and I was feeling great. I grew up right outside of Philadelphia. So (former Pocono track president) Brandon Igdalsky’s mom, Looie, lived not far from where we lived and my parents were friends with her. I’ve been really close with that whole (Mattioli) family for years. And so when I was in college, I went up to do a marketing internship with them (at Pocono), just because I felt like it would look better on a resume than being a lifeguard or a waitress or something like that that all my friends were doing. I was like, “OK, I’m gonna go do this and at least just check the boxes, get some marketing experience.” And I fell in love with it. I was like, “This is amazing. I love it. It’s fun, it’s exciting, I’m good at it.” And so my junior year, I went back to William & Mary and added a marketing degree so I could get into sports. Some people go to an internship based on the path they want to follow. You did the internship thinking it might help your resume, but then being inspired by that led you down a completely different road? One hundred percent. My entire high school career and the beginning of my college career was 100 percent focused on government, international politics, economics, that route. And I’m still passionate about that and I love it — and my friends will tease me because I read these really nerdy books about world politics and economies. But for me, just working in it, just being there in the summer and kind of experiencing what the sport was like, I just knew, “OK, now I have a passion for this and I want to do it.” So what happened next? What was your next step? When I graduated college, started applying for jobs and there was a position at Octagon (sports marketing agency) that was available. It was actually on the DLP account,

The series of 12 Questions interviews continues with Noah Gragson, who drives for Kyle Busch Motorsports in the Camping World Truck Series. Gragson is currently fifth in the series standings after the first four races. This interview is recorded as a podcast, but is transcribed below for those who prefer to read. 1. How often do you have dreams about racing? Probably six out of seven nights. Really? That’s a lot. A lot. I’m always dreaming about racing. Like daydreaming, too — I always am daydreaming. Like that’s 24/7. I’m thinking about racing all the time. 2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize? Yeah, I think so. I mean if it’s intentional, then you just throw them the bird out the window and keep on digging. And if it’s not, then I’m the first to come up and say that I made a mistake and just own up for my actions and my mistakes. So yeah, I definitely think owning up for what you did wrong is definitely crucial.  3. What is the biggest compliment someone could give you? That they thought I did a good job. That’s probably a good one. That’s not that much of a compliment. It is to me, because I try my best and I want to do my best. So if somebody’s saying that I do a good job, then it’s coming off good. So that’s key. 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? Travis Pastrana.  Really? I’m a huge fan of his. You never met him when he was doing NASCAR? Well I wasn’t in NASCAR, I was racing Bandoleros. Didn’t he make a Truck start last year? Yeah, I met him last year and I got to ride in the van with him to the autograph session. I was fan-boying the whole time, so that was really cool. And then probably if I could meet him again, I want to, just to hang out. I’m a huge fan of Travis Pastrana. Could you not get the words out last year or something? Nah, I was just trying to not say a whole lot — just listen to him — because I was just in awe. I just look up to him and try to role-model myself after him. 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? Hell no. I’ll take pit stall No. 2 all day. No vegan for me. I love my junk food and everything. 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 2016 K&N West race at Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino. Where did you finish? Third. The answer is third. Hell yeah. I started second. You started second. You led two laps. Chris Eggleston won. Your buddy Gracin Raz was second, and you finished ahead of Todd Gilliland. What do you remember about that race? I remember missing the pole barely to Ryan Partridge. And then I was on the outside of the front row; it’s a real tight racetrack. A lot of cautions. I was on the outside on like pretty much all the restarts and then Gracin got me there at the end. Ryan Partridge was also up front with Chris Eggleston. I think it was Ryan Partridge, Chris Eggleston, then me. And then there was a lapper, Rich DeLong Sr., we were lapping him and Ryan Partridge went low, Chris Eggleston went high, and then Ryan Partridge got taken out for the lead. So that was a big points implication deal for that race. I think it was the third or fourth race of the season. 7. Who is the best rapper alive? I don’t know. You’re not into rap? I’m into rap and I like listening to those rap songs...

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: Zane Stoddard, NASCAR’s vice president of entertainment marketing and content development. Before we get into how you got to this point, what do you do now on a daily basis? What are some of your goals now? We are responsible for all things entertainment-related. We develop content; we are one of the groups within NASCAR that develops content as part of our company’s broader content strategy. So we develop TV, film, digital projects. We work on strategic partnerships with studios like Disney and Pixar in Cars 3 last year. And then lastly, we work with talent — so we program the performers for some of the pre-race concerts across our tracks as well as getting the celebrities out to our events, which is something that we work hard on and hope that we can sample our sport for these guys, particularly when we’re in the L.A. market. So right now, we’re sitting in a suite where I understand later today, you’re going to be entertaining the celebrities right here. You have some big names coming out. How important is it for you guys to show the sport to different people who don’t normally see it? We think it’s very important. Our product is so great, so it’s really just a matter of giving people an opportunity to be exposed to it and sample it. I have not experienced having somebody out who didn’t flip out and think this is one of the coolest experiences they’ve had, so it’s really fun to get them out. And once again, when we’re in Southern California and many of them live here, it’s a little easier than some other markets to get them out. So we think it’s a good thing for NASCAR, along with all the other great things that our company does in marketing, is to get these influential people out, have them leveraging their social media to talk about their experience at our events. So how did you get to this point? How did you get to the point where you’re showing up at a NASCAR race and hosting celebrities and you have an IMDB page because you were the executive producer of Logan Lucky and all those sort of things. How did you get to this point? I have no idea. (Laughs) So I grew up in California. I didn’t happen to be exposed to NASCAR, but I was certainly aware of it. I’ve been a sports fan, every sport under the sun since I was a kid, which I think many people are that work in NASCAR. I had the fortune out of college for working for an NBA team, then Nike, then the NBA league office itself for almost a decade. And so, hadn’t had the exposure to (NASCAR), but being in the sports business, I knew that it was a big, great business, so I had respect for it from arm’s length. And through relationships, the opportunity became available and I jumped at it, and it’s been awesome ever since. When you get out of college, there’s many people that say, “Hey, I want to work in sports.” It’s not that easy, though. So how were you able to make that first opportunity, that first door open for yourself with the NBA? I think everybody who’s in sports would agree it could happen 100 different ways. I think the tried and true is through relationships, making sure that you are interacting with people who have the ability to give you opportunities in the space. Like many people in sports, I worked for free. I started out with the L.A. Clippers in the sponsorship group over there, working for free, hustling up and down the stairs at the L.A.

The series of 12 Questions interviews continues this week with Christopher Bell, the Chili Bowl champion, Camping World Truck Series champion and current Xfinity Series driver for Joe Gibbs Racing. This interview was recorded as a podcast but is also transcribed for those who would rather read. 1. How often do you have dreams about racing? I haven’t dreamed about racing in a while. As a kid, I used to always have nightmares that I wouldn’t be ready in time. I don’t know why, but I would always have nightmares that I would miss my heat race at the Chili Bowl or something. Like I wasn’t dressed in time and the next thing you know, your heat race or the feature’s pushing off and you’re trying to get in your car. I would have those dreams quite frequently whenever I was a kid. Recently, I haven’t dreamed too much about racing. 2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize? If you intentionally wreck someone, then there’s no need to apologize. If it’s an accident and you really didn’t mean to do it, I think you need to make that effort to connect with him. Generally, if I accidentally get into someone, I guess I don’t go immediately because everybody’s still wound up from the race. But within a couple hours, I’ll reach out and try to talk to him. Like via text? Yeah. 3. What is the biggest compliment someone could give you? Honestly, this is gonna sound weird, but growing up and following (Kyle) Larson’s footsteps, the biggest compliment that people have given me is when they compare me to Larson, because he’s the greatest race car driver I’ve seen. And so for people to have me and him in the same conversation, it’s pretty cool. 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? I don’t know. I don’t really follow too much of the celebrity scene I guess, but recently, I just watched Ride Along and get a good laugh out of Kevin Hart, so that’d be kind of cool. He’d be fun to hang out with at the track. Yeah. He’d make you laugh, anyway. 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? No. I live on meat, so there’s no way. 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. I’ll be good at this. You have good memory? Yes. Then I probably didn’t go hard enough because I was like, “There’s not enough NASCAR races to where you would probably remember most of the NASCAR races.” If you picked a dirt race in 2013, I’d tell you where I finished. Well let’s see. Where did you finish in the 2014 Belleville Nationals feature? Second. No, third. No, sorry, fourth. I think it was, Rico (Abreu) won, I finished fourth. You did finish fourth. Sorry, it was ’15 when I finished second to (Bryan) Clauson. How do you have such a good memory for a race? I can’t even remember races from this year. I don’t know, man. That’s just something that I’ve always had. For the most part, you can tell me any race and I’ll be able to tell you where I finished and pretty much how the race went. I remember at Belleville in 2014, the dash is what lines you up in the feature, and I think me and Rico were running first and second in the dash and I thought I had a flat tire, so I pulled in. So I finished last in the dash which was sixth or eighth, and I didn’t have a flat,

Chicago-area NASCAR fan Jason Rhee joins me from the departures level of Chicago O’Hare International Airport during my layover to help break down what happened Monday at Martinsville Speedway.

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: Greg Stumpff, founder of helmet painting company Off Axis Paint. You design helmets for a variety of drivers. Who are some of the drivers you’ve worked with? Well, Martin Truex Jr., Cup champion. We got him a couple years ago. Honestly the whole Truex family, we do them. Justin Allgaier has been with me for a long time. Ryan Reed. Joey Logano was part of it for awhile. We do 30 to 40 drivers between the three series now. And we’re very personal, so it’s a lot of personality and things to remember about certain individuals. Because when I do these, I don’t want to just throw a sponsor on the helmet. I want to make it something the driver loves and is part of them. They don’t really get a whole lot of say in the firesuits or the cars or anything else, so the helmet is kind of the one thing these drivers can be part of. So I try to make it very personal. That’s why I’m at the track a lot of times, because it’s cool to see your friends run and to see your stuff on the track. I visited your shop, and you have a nice, big place where you make the helmets, and you guys even pull all-nighters to make these helmets sometimes. A lot of times. It’s right there in North Carolina, in Mooresville, and it’s right next to a bunch of race shops. When things happen very quickly, which they do in NASCAR a lot — “Oh, we need this sponsor on a helmet by Friday” — we can usually pull that off. And there’s not a lot of shops that can do that, so that’s kind of our blessing and our curse, I guess. It’s a lot of long nights, but we can crank out helmets in our shops because I have a great group of guys who love doing what they do. As long as I keep the work coming in, they’ll probably stay with me. Your success didn’t just happen suddenly. How did you get your start? It’s kind of weird, you know? It’s not really one of those occupations where you take a test in high school and it says, “You’re going to be a doctor” or “You’re going to be a veterinarian.” Helmet painter is not really on the list. So honestly, I didn’t really know it was a job until early in high school, when I started looking at designers like Troy Lee. Even then, I didn’t know there was a career path. Those guys were so big and it was so far out of reach, (I thought) there’s no way I could ever make it that far. This is when you were in Missouri? Yeah, I was in Missouri. Dirt central. That’s why I’m good friends with Allgaier and Tyler Reddick, because I come from the same dirt background. Out of high school, I worked on a dirt Late Model team. I traveled all over the country. Like every dirt track — you name it, I’ve probably been to it and scraped that mud off the car. There was a lot of downtime when you travel like that, so I started taking some helmets home on the weekdays and I’d them back on the weekends and make a little side money. I was like, “Alright, this is not bad.” Then I started realizing sponsors will actually pay to get this stuff done; it’s not just the drivers. I literally got on Facebook — Twitter hadn’t really taken over yet — and I just started messaging every driver on there. I got one hit: J.J. Yeley. And he said, “Hey man, I want you to paint my helmet. I’m in Talladega.” We were actually there racing a dirt race, so I went over and met him. I was like, “Wow, this is a Cup guy. I’m big time now.” And he was like a start-and-park back in the day, you know? But I was just pumped to even see my driver’s name on TV. So you essentially didn’t have any contacts at all and were starting completely from scratch? Zero.

The 12 Questions series of interviews continues this week with Kyle Larson of Chip Ganassi Racing. These interviews are recorded in podcast form, but are also transcribed below for those who prefer to read them. 1. How often do you have dreams about racing? I would say when I was a kid, I had them almost every night. I would dream of races and racing. Now I might have quick flashes of it, but not like deep dreams. They might happen every so often, maybe once a week or so. I guess probably leading up to the weekend or right after the race. 2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize? Yeah, if I feel like I’ve done something wrong, I feel like I’m good about making sure I at least text them or come up to them right after and apologize. At times too when it’s not my fault, I seem to apologize for something that I may feel like I did to put both of us in that situation or whatever. But yeah, for sure you need to apologize, because there’s some sensitive people in our sport. 3. What is the biggest compliment someone could give you? Now our race cars are fast all the time, but when somebody would say like I’m carrying the race car on a certain weekend or something like that, I think that means a lot to me. When you’re doing more than maybe the potential of (a car), I think that’s always a positive. And I feel like I’m versatile, but when somebody else can see it and thinks that I’m good in any type of race car, that means a lot to me. 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? I don’t know. I’m not that into celebrities that much. You don’t get starstruck? I don’t get too starstruck. NASCAR will come to me, or to Davis (Schaeffer, his public relations representative), and be like, “Do you want to meet this celebrity?” Davis will ask me, and I’m like, “No, I don’t really care.” I usually turn all those down unless he gives me the politics speech and then I have to do it. So yeah, I don’t really care to host any celebrity. Is that because when they ask you about these people, you’ve never heard of them? Or have you heard of them and you just don’t care? No, I’ve heard of them, I just don’t really care. I don’t know, I feel like they’re not gonna be that excited to meet me, so I don’t really care to meet them. Maybe that’s just jumping to conclusions or judging a book by its cover, but I don’t really get that excited meeting people, so I don’t think they would get that excited meeting me. 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? So I really like salads. What foods are vegan? You would not be able to have any cheese, nothing from an animal at all. Nothing with butter. You can do soy stuff or the fake meat stuff. I mean, I feel like I could do it, but I don’t think the No. 1 pit stall is that important to suffer for a month. But I do like salads, I could survive off salads. Like chicken’s not even vegan, huh? No. And no buttermilk ranch dressing. Yeah, I like any type of salad. I could probably do it for sure, but I don’t think I need to do it. 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. NASCAR career? Yes, because that’s all that’s on Racing Reference. There’s like Knoxville Nationals stuff on there. But you would remember those too easily.

Jim Peltz from the Los Angeles Times joins me to help break down everything that happened at Sunday’s Auto Club 400 in Fontana, including thoughts on what would have happened if Kevin Harvick hadn’t crashed and whether the race has lost some buzz.

Have you ever wondered how much the average sports fan knows about NASCAR? I sat down with my old high school buddy Adam Kekauoha, a big sports fan with minimal knowledge of current events in racing, to find out what has landed on his radar from the NASCAR world.

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: Josh Jones, KHI Management’s director of business development. Can you describe your current job? It’s mostly around Kevin Harvick, between Kevin Harvick’s personal racing stuff and life, to KHI Management, the management company he founded a couple years ago, to the Kevin Harvick Foundation. But I would say KHI Management is about 70 percent of my job with all the different clients I have through that management company. It keeps me on my toes. You are one of the busiest guys that I know. I always see you quite busy walking around. I don’t think it’s for show, I think you’re legit super busy. Nonstop. But you weren’t always this busy, so I would like to find out how you got to this point in your life. You were once a kicker in college. How do you go from being the kicker in college to this crazy path to where you’ve gotten today? Where do you even start? I had a great internship program after college that I had to do to graduate, and I worked at a company called Keystone Marketing out of Winston-Salem, N.C., which was one of the first sports marketing firms in NASCAR. I worked for them and I was an intern, basically doing all the dirty work, everything you had to do from press kits — what we used to call press kits, you’d print all the papers, you’d put them in files and you bring 50 little folders to the track. I used to have a lot of those folders. Yeah, so I used to do that. I also had to do work for the sponsors that were there, so we had Planters, we had Oreo, we had a lot of different ones. And I had to, as an intern, be the Oreo. And one time in 2001, when I was doing my internship, I was the Oreo for my boss today. Kevin Harvick won the race, and I was the Oreo. He had won a couple times, but I was the Oreo that year. And that photo was there. So the photo’s taken back in ’01. Fast forward to 2018. I’ve come a long way in 17 years, but honestly I always tell people it’s true when they say you start at the bottom to get to the top. I’m not totally to the top yet — I want to do a lot more stuff in my life — but right now I’m feeling very fortunate for what I’ve done. Was your head poking out of the Oreo? Nothing. So you were in a full Oreo costume. You can’t see me. It’s my arms. I’ll admit it, it is me. Kevin has a photo of it from victory lane. But yes, that was me, and to this day I still get cracked on about that. I mean, it was only part-time. I was only an intern, it was wasn’t a job or anything, I just did it to help out because we didn’t bring people to the track, so that’s what I did. So how many years into your relationship with Kevin did you say, “Hey, by the way, I was actually in victory lane with you?” I kind of kept it silent. I didn’t start working for Kevin until the end of ’05. I was working for the agency for a couple of years while I was playing Arena Football, going back and forth between both of those positions. Kevin had a New Year’s party at his house in 2006 or 2007, and somehow it came up. I don’t know if it was my wife or if it was me or somebody slipped up and said that. And then from then on out, it’s been, “Oh yeah, Josh used to be the Oreo.” But I was. I’ll admit that I was. But I was an intern, and if you were an intern in your lifetime,

The 12 Questions series of interviews continues with Daniel Hemric, who is in his second year driving in the Xfinity Series for Richard Childress Racing. This interview was recorded as a podcast, but is also available in transcript form below. 1. How often do you have dreams about racing? It’s kind of self-induced when I do have dreams about racing. It’s probably the anxiety of not running like I want to run, where I really have to put a lot more emphasis on that racetrack on a given weekend, doing a lot more studying or doing a lot more simulation. Whatever it is, when I lay down at night and that’s the last thing I’m thinking about, that’s when I dream about racing. It’s more frequent, in all honesty, at this level than what I’ve ever had in the past doing short track racing. In short track racing, I would go through spells where you’re one of the guys to beat every single weekend, you’re winning races on a constant basis. So when I’d have those dreams, it was about winning races. It’s crazy — over time, I’d win a race after I’d dream about it. And then (the dreams) happened often and I would win often in those situations. I was like, “Man, that’s kind of creepy.” But it always worked out. At this level, I’ve had one of those dreams where we ran good. You know how dreams are — they don’t make sense a lot of how it’s all tied together. But it’s kind of all correlated. When I have dreams about running well, it all translates, and when I have dreams about rough weekends, sometimes we’ll overcome some of that, but a lot of it plays out roughly the way the dreams do. So kind of crazy how it’s all worked out over the past, but I need more of those winning dreams. That’d be good for this series. You might need to go down to one of those psychic places  and if you need some extra income or something, just pop in the store front. You’re exactly right. Honestly, I wouldn’t even tell my wife (Kenzie) about it for the longest time. But it was starting to happen more and more and I’m like, “I’ve gotta share this with somebody, because it’s a lot to hold in.” It’s pretty wild. 2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize? For sure. I’ve got a new spotter, Branden Lines, and he’s doing an incredible job. But during Atlanta qualifying, we thought Joey Logano was on his fast lap and he was gonna shut down at the flag stand after making his one lap in qualifying. And so I rolled off pit road, only to find out he was getting the green. So long story short, I ran the top of (Turns) 3 and 4 coming to green, Logano goes to the bottom and he was coming to the checkered, but it just worked out that he merged right behind me — I’m talking two or three inches. It didn’t mess him up, it almost kind of helped him draft to the line and run even faster, but I made sure when I got out I was like, “Hey man, it was just a miscommunication.” That’s more of a driver ethic code, because if I didn’t say anything, if we’d been in the race running side-by-side, if I was him, I would have been like, “Hey, this dude pulled in front of me in qualifying, I’m not giving him a break.” So I think it’s good to knock that stuff out and get ahead of it. 3. What is the biggest compliment someone could give you? Coming from where I’ve come from and doing it the way I had to do it, often I’ll go back short track racing and because the parents of the kids that are trying to figure out how to get their kid to this level or even further, they’re always saying,

Dominic Aragon from TheRacingExperts.com joins me to help break down Sunday’s race at Phoenix — or as he calls it, the “Kevin Harvick Invitational.”