Zoomster.com is proud to have been in attendance for NNCS teleconferences over the past six years. Coverage of answers told to us during these phone calls has been called "As told to Zoomster". This 2007 season the answers to Zoomster questions are sectioned from the main page, "Driver Connection" into four sections, Early, Midseason, Late Season and Chase Time.

Enjoy the many public thoughts of the top race car drivers in the USA and beyond.

Interviewer: Dwight Drum

2003 NASCAR Champion: Matt Kenseth

Outside the car you often display an unruffled personality. Your team is highly productive over time and they seem to be sometimes considered "quiet contenders" by some fans, and others are surprised by your consistent results. Do you think your steady personality influences this impression, and do you hope some continue to underestimate your team?
"If you're talking about our team being consistent or not getting the recognition that maybe some of the other teams get, I think that we're looked at like that for whatever reason. I don't really know why. Some guys obviously like to see themselves on TV more than others, but I definitely don't shy away from it, either. Being, I think, the underdog and not having all the attention in the past has been an advantage for us. I think it still is. I think sometimes when not just the driver but the team and everybody gets a ton of media all the time and a ton of coverage and all that, I think actually expectations go up and it puts pressure on the guy and takes some of the focus from our driving. Certainly if we can just work on race cars and concentrate on that, I think that's an advantage."

Is it possible to explain the productive makeup of your team that makes the consistency?
"Well, I think it starts at the top, which is Robby. I think Robby Reiser has always done a great job of picking out the right people. He's always had a unique way about getting people. And really, most of the people that we've ever had a problem with or lost or whatever has been people that we got another way. So he's always went and got young guys or guys that haven't really been in the sport, maybe from a different state, off a late model team or maybe off a Truck team or something like that, and that's usually worked out great. Usually when he's gone after people that have been with other Cup teams and stuff like that, it hasn't worked out as well.

"I think if you're the one or our team is the one or whatever, giving the people the opportunity to get into the sport or giving them the opportunity to be with their first Cup team or something like that, it seems like you're able to get them to be more loyal to the car, to do a great job, and that's kind of way he's gone about picking our team out. And we've been real fortunate to keep the basic group together for a long, long time. It's a great group of guys. They work really hard, they're passionate about what they do and take a lot of pride in their work."

Talk about what it takes for a manufacturer to support a NASCAR effort?
"It's a lot more from a car manufacturer's standpoint than it is from just a regular sponsor who just provides money to the team and lets the team do kinda what they feel with it. From our standpoint, we do provide teams with some financial support, but we're responsible for coming up with the gold standard for the engine as well as the vehicle itself. We have to work with the teams to make sure we get the consensus the right thing to do for the engine and for the body. It takes a heck of a coordination effort, not just outside the company with those race teams, but also within the company. We have 80,000 people working here at Chrysler and we have products we're trying to develop for our street production cars. Some of those resources we use for racing, we either share with the street production folks or we take from the street production folks. There's wind tunnel time we're using. There's engineering shaker post time we're using, proving ground time we're using to help our race program. It requires coordination and sales effort within the company to make that stuff happens."

Can you compare the challenge of full-time Nextel Cup racing to those of part-time driver?
"It's getting more difficult - you really can't be part-time anything anymore. It's just like coming over here and running today - you about need to be in a race car every day. I have kept myself going pretty good. I try to keep a pretty good workout regiment, and I've been running some other stuff, just keeping my hands in it in case this does come up, or whatever ended up doing as this year progressed. One thing is going to be tough, it is going into a 600-mile race, and that'll be tough from my standpoint. But the flipside, at least it'll be going into the coolness of the night, so that'll make it a lot easier for the physical endurance-side, but, still, for the guys that do it every week, those guys are going to have a little bit of an edge on you, at least, right off the bat. We can get to that point, but when you go in and you start unloading and you get ready for qualifying and you work through those deals, because I hadn't worked with these guys and it's going to take a little bit of time to get that communication point, and you might get it in the first hour, it might take until practice on Saturday or whatever. And that's kind of my point - sometimes this stuff is hard to work through and get everything figured out."

Are you having as much fun driving Nextel Cup part-time as Mark Martin?
"I think I'm having more. I've just been having a great time. To be able to come and go, kind of, as you please and do the things you want to do, it's more racing on your terms. To me, where I'm at in my career, I feel like it's coming into a situation where it's a good situation. I've been in those pressure cookers over the years at points in my career and to be able to come in and have a good time is probably more important than anything, now, to have some fun and go out and enjoy racing what it's become today and make it easy, because it's easy enough to make it hard but if you can go out and have a good time and make it something fun and enjoyable to do - and I think that's where Mark is today, especially where he's gone and what he's doing, but I think ever since I made my decision in '03 to run a partial schedule, that was the best decision I ever made that point in time."

NASCAR Legend: Kyle Petty

Can you compare your emotions when you're running well to when you're not running well?
"It's a lot simpler when you're running well. You're a lot madder when you're not running well. When your car is not driving good and it's not hooked up and things are not going good and you're constantly racking your brain trying to figure out what you can do to make it get better. You go through a list of 100 items it seems like. When you're really close then there's only one or two items. J.J. and I talked a lot about it the other night in the press room. It's a lot simpler to run up front. You feel like in a 600-mile race you could go another 300 miles. When you run 25th in a race like that, when the day is over with, it's like, 'My God, I just barely made it 500 miles. I couldn't go anymore.' It's a totally different emotion."

It's easy to be a critic in the stands. What do you think fans most misunderstand about driving at the Cup level?
"That's probably a good question. I don't know. Everybody equates the sport to what they know, which is driving up and down the interstate or driving on a country road or whatever. Race cars don't drive that way. They're a totally different animal. There's really no way to transfer it to the fans what's going through the driver's mind and what's going on - on the racetrack. A lot of times an accident will happen and you see a driver drive into it and you're sitting at home on your couch and you think 'My God, I could have missed that wreck.' Let me tell you something. Sitting here beside me at 130 degrees after four and a half hours you see if you're thinking straight enough to get around that wreck. Things just happen sometimes that you can't avoid. It's easy to sit at home and look at it, but it's a lot different when you're there."

Can you compare the challenges you have now, including the TV booth to some of the challenges you had in the past, say a decade ago?
"No, it's totally different. If I go back 10 or 12 years when I drove for Felix and some of that stuff, I look back on my life then and think how simple I had it. All I had to do was show up and drive a race car. You had life by the tail and didn't know it. Then obviously through starting my own team and some of the other things that have happened in my life, and along my career, I'm in a totally different place. It's a good place. I like where I'm at. I like what I'm doing and I wouldn't change the struggles and a lot of stuff. I'd change one thing and that's about it and I'm sure everybody knows what that is, but other than that I'm comfortable with where I'm at and I'm comfortable with who I am and what I do. That's like the other day they said, 'well, you had a good run. Are you thinking about not doing the TV thing?' I'm dead on the TV thing. That's where I am in my life right now, and that's what I want to do. With the camp and what Patti does at camp and the time we spun with fund raising for camp and with the race team and with doing some media stuff and TV stuff, there's a lot on my plate right now, but come back in four or five years and nobody probably won't be coming around so I've got to make hay while I can right now. I enjoy it right now."

You're probably used to being cheered and booed at the same time during NEXTEL Cup introductions. When it happens, do you know what emotions your wife and mother feel?
"I think we're all getting used to it. I know from my own experience, talking to both my wife and mom, it's tough to hear the boos because they know me, know what I'm about. People that are booing haven't had a chance to get to know me and know what I'm about. Once we all got some experience and time in dealing with it, you realize they're just sports fans, they're going to root for their guy, boo the opponents, everything's good. Just part of being in sports."

Did it take you long to get accustomed to that?
"Not really. Driving for Jeff Gordon, there's certain parts of the country where they boo you just because you know the guy. Out of the gate I had to learn how to accept this at a fast rate."

What are your thoughts, and if you know your mom's thoughts, during introductions at a NEXTEL Cup race when fans mostly cheer you while they cheer and boo some of the other top drivers?
"I don't know. My mom, she doesn't say anything about it. My thoughts are I haven't won enough, I guess. That's pretty wild to see the way that some of the drivers - it's loud because they're getting boos and yells. For mine, I'm pretty lucky. I haven't had as many boos. You get flipped off once in a while, but usually only once or twice a weekend. It's not so bad. "I rode with Jeff Gordon in the back of his truck a couple times around parade laps at racetracks. It's pretty wild to see some of the stuff that gets thrown or pointed at him."

NASCAR Nextel Cup Standout: Martin Truex Jr.

Can you talk about overcoming routine distractions in your job as compared to an interference like the media frenzy over Dale Jr.'s decision to leave DEI?
"You know, there's not really a whole lot of distractions for me. I'm a low-key guy. I don't pay attention to a lot of things out there like a lot of people do. Some people go through life worried about what everybody thinks. I'm kind of the opposite. I mind my own business, work hard on my cars, come to the shop. I'm actually here right now going through some stuff, trying to get ready for Dover this weekend. All that stuff that goes on with the media, with the other drivers, the other crew chiefs, the teams, I don't really pay much attention to it. I do my thing, come in here and work hard on my race car."

It's easy for fans to be critics in the stands. What do you think fans most misunderstand about driving at the Cup level?
"Probably just how tough it really is, how competitive it is, how it takes one or two little tiny things to make you run bad or have a bad day."

If you could take a fan for a ride on a track like Charlotte during a race, if you could do that, what would you say inform them about the expectation of the experience?
"Well, just to hang on. It's really fast entering turn one, both turns are pretty tricky getting into the corner. But just find something to hang on to. It's just really fast. Going for the ride along deals and stuff that they do and driving experiences, if they would have done that in the past, I would say that you know, take it times two because it's a lot faster, and the faster you go, the more edge you get."

What do you think fans misunderstand most about driving a Cup Car?
"That's a very good question. I would say probably just the ability to hold it on the edge. To go say a 30-second lap around Charlotte, and then to try to get the extra .2 out of it is what is so difficult. I don't think fans understand how difficult it is to get that additional tenth or .2 out of the car. As a driver to push the car to the edge and be perfect."

NASCAR Nextel Cup Standout: Scott Riggs

What would you tell a fan about the emotions that you go through when you're running well in a car, as oppose d to when you're not running well?
"Well, when you're running well, you feel you can't do any wrong. You feel that your guys have done a good job, and you and your team have worked well together to communicate well and to make sure that you guys work together to get that car dialed in. You're really sort of calm and relaxed.

"You're talking over changes and you don't want to change too much because your car's pretty good. So you make fine tuned adjustments. When your car's off, you know, you sort of take big swings at it. You start thinking about where did we go wrong in practice? What did we miss? What about this car feels so much different than what you had in practice?

"Then you start evaluating the changes you might have made between the last time you were on the racetrack and practice to what the car feels like in the race. You start thinking about how the track's changed and what kind of track conditions are different, and if the track's going to come back to you. If the rubber's been washed off the night before.

"You start going over in your mind what kind of things have changed your car so much or what kind of big wholesale changes you might need to do on the next stop to get your car back into the ball field.

"This day and time, the competition is so great and everyone's so strong that you start worrying pretty fast if your car's not good on the first run and you start losing positions. Track position is hard to come by, and you want to make sure you work hard and take big swings at getting your car going the other way and trying to pass cars and make more track position. You take some pretty big wholesale changes to try to get there."

What do you think the fans misunderstand most about driving at the cup level week in and week out?
"Well, I don't think that - I think the fans have a pretty good perspective on what kind of different situations and circumstances can come of a race and change the outcome of your race. But the fans might not know, you know, just how physically demanding a lot of these racetracks are. Not just on the driver, but physically demanding on the pieces and parts of the race car. We do some pretty incredible things with these race cars set-up-wise these days to try to be fast. And if it's off just a little bit, it can really take your car from a car that's a possible win tore a car that's going a lap down pretty quick.

"I think that all the drivers do a great job, and I think there are a lot of good drivers out there. And I think the misconception is that every single driver, whether it's the guy in the back or the guy in the front, every single driver is by far not only an athlete, but a very experienced and a good race car driver. Doesn't matter where they're running.

"I think if you shuffled drivers and teams around, you could change the way they look at different drivers and different teams pretty quickly just by the combination of people you put together it's a pretty big team sport."

What can you tell fans about routine preparation, mental and physical, for the challenge of racing at the Cup level?
"It takes a lot of everything. Focus and concentration to be able to block out all the distractions from the media, fans, sponsor standpoint. There's a lot of distractions from this level, and that's obviously important.

"From a physical standpoint, I can lose anywhere to as much as 16 pounds in a race and that's kind of a lot. I've been training for the past hour and a half in the gym and doing cardio and training and stuff. It's very important, and having a good diet and what you do before the race and what you eat and everything about it, going up to the race is always important."

Can you compare the challenges you have now to the past challenges of getting here, basically?
"You know, I think with every level, everything increases, the intensity all around, the competition all around increases. You go from go-carts with a 20-lap features, then you go to late models, they're a little longer and you move up and you run a Busch race. Wow, how can it get any worse than this? 300 laps, hot. You have to do TV interviews before and after the race. You have to do hospitality events. It's nonstop.

"Then you go to the Cup level and it's ten times worse. More media, more fans, more appearances, more hospitalities, more testing, more races and twice the length of the race. You just have to do it. As you go on, luckily for us it's a gradual scale. From go-carts to the Cup series, it doubles with each step you take. It's not like it just gets thrown at you all at once."

You probably have grown about three or four inches since signing with Joe Gibbs. Do you know how much you've grown mentally in that time?
"I've grown a lot. Every race I go to, I've learned a lot. Especially this last race, running behind Harvick, I was watching his line, watching how he gets into the first turn after a restart. I learned a lot there paying attention to that in the beginning of the race. I think that's what won me the race at the end of the race.

"He would get into the first turn and wheel it in there, just drive it in so hard. I didn't know how he was able to do that. Last restart I just said, Heck with it. I drove it in as hard as he did. He was trying to clear me before we came out of that corner, kind of slide up in my groove. We pretty much drove in the same difference, got back on the gas way too early because he was trying to clear me. I heard him get back on the gas; I got back on the gas. We both knew we had to lift again before the corner was over. It got big coming off that corner. That's the corner that won the race."

Can you talk about what it's like when you finally got your public driver's license?
"Pretty neat. I don't have to bum a ride no more on anybody. It's been, what, a year now since I had it. Definitely nice I don't have to call everybody to go somewhere. It's nice."