The Showdown is a great way to bring attention to these historic Virginia tracks where many NASCAR drivers cut their teeth in stock car racing, including myself. Tracks like South Boston and Langley are the heart of the sport and draw a great crowd to our Showdown events.

We need to capitalize on the tracks we're really, really good at. At Richmond and Martinsville, our performance and results have not been very good, even though I consider them to be among my two best racetracks.

I can't believe it. Two years ago I was here as a visitor of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and he invited me to come and stay in his motor home. That's the only other time I've been to victory lane.

It's just all about opportunities, knocking doors down and see who answers.

It's an amazing confidence boost when you have that swagger of knowing when you pull on the racetrack, all eyes are on you because they know you're the best.

Definitely the road to the championship gets much easier when those type of guys are eliminated early.

It makes me very hard on myself when I don't achieve the goals I want to achieve. But I feel like that's what makes me as good as I am at times - I push myself to be better, constantly.