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.

I can assure you that most of the drivers have a lot of things they'd like to do, but racing keeps them from doing that. We're so restricted because of our long season. We have a one-and-a-half-month period where we get to do what we want - that's shorter than any other sport. It makes it tough, for sure.

As far as a career legacy, I just want to be known as the guy everyone had to watch for, constantly.

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 spend the hour before the race cracking up with all my friends and joking around, but as soon as I get around that race car, I completely change. The focus changes. The competitive juices get flowing.

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.