Since I was kid, what's drawn me to racing is the feeling inside of me, the passion I have for the sport, the feeling I have while competing and doing what I do in a car, on a bike, whatever it's been.

I love 'Donnie Brasco' and 'Days of Thunder,' so after I did 'The Skulls,' I was like, 'I want to be either an undercover cop, or I want to race cars!' Universal came to me with a newspaper article about street racing in L.A., and I was like, 'Are you kidding me? I grew up doing that right off Peoria in Sun Valley.' They asked if I wanted to do it.

The Beach Boys were my favorite. I use to listen to their hits over and over, especially 'In My Room' and 'Don't Worry Baby.' There's something really sad about 'Don't Worry Baby.' Even though it's just a California song about racing cars, the melody is really sad. There's melancholy in it.

And that just shows you how important the car is in Formula One Racing.

Driving a stock car does not require much handling ability, at least not as compared to Grand Prix racing, because the tracks are simple banked ovals and there is almost no shifting of gears. So, qualifying becomes a test of raw nerve - of how fast a man is willing to take a curve.

You have to first of all feel good with yourself before doing something which requires being fast or driving a racing car.

More books, more racing and more foolishness with cars and motorcycles are in the works.

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.

I'm a car fanatic and each morning I wake up with a smile on my face, whether I'm commentating on the Formula One or at Silver Hatch racetrack in Roary the Racing Car.

I've always had a fascination with cars and racing, not that I've ever competed.

Times change, things move. F1 used to have customer cars years ago. You could buy a car from March or from Ferrari and go racing.

A racing car is an animal with a thousand adjustments.

Dirt has given me a really good car control ability, but it would have been an easier transition if I'd been racing pavement my whole life. But off-road has given me such a good foundation for car control when the car is loose, because the competitions are so intense - basically 30 minutes of utter chaos.

I enjoy racing historic motorcars from the '50s and '60s. The seed of my interest was planted when I was about 12 years old and took over my mother's Morris Minor. I drove it around my father's farm. But my favorite car is still a McLaren F1, which I have had for 10 years.

Simply racing a Formula 1 car is an achievement.

People get excited around me and behave differently than they would normally. I don't feel different from anyone else, except that I drive a racing car round in circles faster than somebody else.

Long practise in driving a racing car at a hundred miles an hour or so gives first-class training in control and judging distances at high speed and helps tremendously in getting motor sense, which is rather the feel of your engine than the sound of it, a thing you get through your bones and nerves rather than simply your ears.

I have yet to meet anyone quite so stubborn as myself and animated by this overpowering passion that leaves me no time for thought or anything else. I have, in fact, no interest in life outside racing cars.

I always knew about the risks I was taking. Every year, someone you knew was killed racing. You had to ask yourself, do you enjoy driving these cars so much that you're prepared to take that risk?

In the last three years of racing I've met as many women fans as men fans, and in NASCAR it's the same thing. My wife loves cars, but the difference is she doesn't have 20 years of understanding the background of them. She basically drives them and uses her gut feelings as to which is best.

But to personally satisfy my own adrenalin needs, I've been racing cars a little bit, which has been fun.

I would have probably stolen cars - it would have given me the same adrenaline rush as racing.

Auto racing is boring except when a car is going at least 172 miles per hour upside down.

But my passion is racing cars. It's what I like to do in my off time.