Since I started in Nascar, popularity has definitely gone up. I've become more attractive and helpful to companies that are looking for spokespersons. So from that perspective, things are going really well.

Sometimes it takes looking at the past to really be able to move forward and learn from it.

No one wants to hear my perspective on politics, but I think honestly as you get older, you get more interested in it.

We definitely had the rookie card to pull out, but we don't have that any more. We just need to find a way to immediately get competitive because we've been struggling a little bit as a team.

On Memorial Day, I was out floating on Lake Norman and came across Denny Hamlin. We struck up a conversation, and one of the first things we were talking about was how much it helped him when he started racing the Cup car and how much it helped his Nationwide program.

From a driver's perspective, technology is critical to what we do on and off the track. Technology provides our pit crews and race strategists with the data they need to make split second decisions that can make the difference between winning and losing a race.