Exclusive interviews with two stars of NASCAR

In preparation for this weekend’s big NASCAR events at the Texas Motor Speedway, including the AAA Texas 500 on November 4, we had the pleasure of meeting and talking with two big names that’ll be competing. See below for exclusive short Q&As with Matt Kenseth (pictured at left signing autographs for fans) and Trevor Bayne. Not only are they great drivers, they also have recently taken the checkered flag at the storied Daytona 500. (Kenseth in 2012 and 2009 and Bayne in 2011).

RoadLoans: What was the first car you ever had?
Matt Kenseth: It was a 1982 four-door Honda Accord. It was an old beat-up car of my sister’s that I had to work on to get it to run.
RL: Who’s your favorite driver of all time?
MK: Probably have to say Dale Earnhardt.
RL: If you weren’t racing cars what would you be doing?
MK: I’d be in big trouble. No, I’d still be working on them, I’d still be working in the business somewhere. I’ve always been interested and intrigued by how to make a car go faster and how they work as much as I have been on driving them. So I hopefully would be a crew chief or something like that.
RL: Got a favorite band?
MK: Probably of all time I’d have to say Metallica.

RoadLoans: What was the first car you ever had?
Trevor Bayne: First car I ever had was a race car before I turned 16, but the first street car I had was my dad’s car, a BMW. The first one I ever bought was an H2 Hummer.  Now I drive Fords obviously. I have a Ford Raptor and a Ford Mustang.
RL: Who is your favorite driver of all time?
TB: I was a Jeff Gordon fan growing up. That’s who I watched…my first number was 24.
RL: And now you get to compete against him, right?
TB: Exactly, it’s been really neat. That’s the thing about our sport. Most sports you have a small life span in the sport, so kids growing up don’t necessarily get to play against the people they grew up watching. For me it’s been really neat because all of the guys I grew up watching are pretty much still in the sport and I get to race against them now.
RL: If you weren’t racing cars what would you be doing?
TB: I’d probably be in the mission field somewhere. In the off-season I like going to Kenya and New Mexico and stuff like that. I always say that I’d like to be in Nicaragua or somewhere with a little surf shack renting surf boards and doing mission work, that’d be pretty sweet. Maybe that’s retirement one day, but if I wasn’t racing that’s probably what I’d be doing.
RL: What’s your personal motto or what keeps you going?
TB: It’s so easy in our sport to be defined by your last race and that’s something I don’t ever want to do. I want to be more than just a race car driver and every time I go to the race track I want to go to win and give everything I’ve got 100 percent. Whether it’s racing or an autograph session or whatever, I want to do it with everything I have and give it my all. That’s how I try to live my life.

Written by: James Mayfield on November 2, 2012