10 Questions: Kenseth

Dammit!! I need to keep up with NASCAR.com more often! If you have track pass, you can listen to the actual interview on Nascar.com.
Warning: If you don't speak Kenseth, you'll need to follow along with the written words in the interview. He talks extremely fast, still has his Wisconsin accent, but North Carolina has also changed his accent and so it's now a blend of both. He is not easy to understand, unless you are used to listening to him speak.

Former Cup champ discusses hotels, pranks and hamburger buns
From: Nascar.com

By Dave Rodman, NASCAR.COM
December 27, 2005 11:26 AM EST (16:26 GMT)

Matt Kenseth was part of a five-car Roush Racing juggernaut that stormed through the 2005 Chase for the Nextel Cup. Kenseth himself ended up seventh.
The 2003 Cup champion sat down recently with NASCAR.COM's Dave Rodman to answer 10 questions not necessarily related to his racing career.

1. What's your dream vehicle that you don't already own?
Kenseth: That's a good question (laughing). I don't know. Probably that Porsche Carrera GT.

Q: Have you had a chance to drive one?
Kenseth: Naw. Rick Hendrick has one and we always talk about me going over there and he said he'd let me drive it sometime, but I never have.

Q: You know a lot of your Ford counterparts listed the GT as their dream vehicle. Have you ever all got together, kind of like you used to do in high school, and let everybody drive your car?
Kenseth: Heck no! I don't even let myself drive it. Yeah, that's an awesome car. That's my dream car -- but you said one I didn't already have so. . .
But yeah, that's an awesome car. I haven't driven it very much. I've only got a couple hundred miles on it.

2. If time on the road weren't an issue, what would be your ideal pet?
Kenseth: Probably just my cats that I already have. I'm not a big dog person because I don't like it when they crap all over your yard and you've got to pick it up.
And then people don't pick it up and then you step in it, so they're just way too much hassle. Then, they wake you up to go to the bathroom and all that stuff, so (no thanks).
I like my cats. They're always in a good mood and they're always happy to see you. They go to the bathroom in their automatic litter box and clean up after themselves and they've got an automatic feeder.
They're real low maintenance and I like that.

Q: Do they come out on the road with you and Katie, at all -- and how many do you have? Is it just the two of them?
Kenseth: I just have two. Our first cat used to come with us. He came with us for about a year and then he'd had enough.
He told me he wanted to stay at home, so now I leave him at home.

3. What's your biggest pet peeve while driving on the road?
Kenseth: Ugh. I've got a couple of them. Mostly, slow cars in the left lane bug me. But in North Carolina, for some reason, nobody wants to use their turn signals and that bugs me.
They'll be ready to turn right and you could actually pull out and leave, if you knew they were turning -- but they'll just turn in and they won't use their turn signals -- and they don't think anything of it.
I don't think some of them know that they even have them (laughing).

Q: Believe me, that peeve is universal -- but with the left lane hogs, have you found any kind of a solution for that?
Kenseth: No. I try not to get too mad on the road -- I just try to find a way around them (laughing), usually. I usually try to stay pretty mellow.
People flip out on the road. That road rage stuff is real and people just get too worked up. So I try not to be one of them. It doesn't always work -- but I really try not to be (worked up).

4. You've had a lot of years in racing, all over the country and in different divisions, so what's your worst hotel experience?
Kenseth: Actually (laughing), two nights ago was my worst hotel experience, I think.
Aaah, actually, the worst place that we ever stayed was probably the first year that we went to Daytona. It was Speedweeks '93 or Speedweeks '94 -- one of the two.
I was going down there -- it was the year before I raced Late Model cars down there and me and three buddies just drove down to watch the races out at Volusia County (Speedway) and New Smyrna (Speedway) because we were going to try to go down and race a Late Model the next year.
We didn't have any rooms ahead of time or anything and we stayed at this little place on the beach called the Side O Sea. It was bad. It was one of those wear all your clothes and sleep on top of the bed and wear your shoes in the shower kind of places, so it wasn't very nice.

Q: Please, please don't tell me it was $200 a night?
Kenseth: No (laughing). I didn't even have $200 to my name, back then. So I think it was like, 32 bucks or something like that so it was pretty good.
And I think we had, like four of us staying there so that's the way it was back then.

Q: You get what you pay for I guess, right?
Kenseth: Yeah, most of the time.

5. What's your favorite food?
Kenseth: There are a couple of them. I've always liked scalloped potatoes and ham, but my wife has turned into such a good cook, and she cooks me such good stuff all the time.
My favorite thing that she makes me is chicken pot pie, which she makes real good. It's a lot of work to make and especially in the fall when it starts getting cold I always bug her to make it for me.

6. If you had to choose, would it be being honest, or being nice?
Kenseth: There has to be a combination of both, I mean, I think honesty is probably the biggest thing my dad always instilled in me, and beat into me when I was younger.
That was always one thing he tried to teach me and that was one thing I always tried to do, but there's also a point to that, and if you've ever seen the movie 'Liar, liar,' you know what I'm talking about (laughing).
So I think you really need to be a combination of both, because I think that people are nice to you but aren't really telling you their real feelings and maybe they're saying something else behind your back -- I don't like that, at all.
But yet you can't be so brutally honest that you go out and hurt everybody's feelings, either.

7. What's your fondest childhood memory?
Kenseth: Oh, I think you're going to stump me on that one. I don't know. I had a great childhood, I just don't know if I really had one (memory).
I mean, I grew up in a little town in the Midwest and it was a place where you didn't lock your doors and you didn't lock your cars and you could ride your bike to school and ride your bikes down the road and on the sidewalk and do all that, so I had a great childhood.
I loved growing up where I grew up and had a lot of fun. We could do a lot of cool things.

8. With Katie cooking for you, like you say, you don't want to go the wrong way on this next one, but what would your dream date be? Where and with whom?
Kenseth: (laughing) I don't have one any more and I'm glad that the dating days are over, to be honest with you.
Actually, my favorite thing to do is me and Katie go to The Palm in Charlotte, which is our favorite restaurant, so whenever we want to treat ourselves or I want to treat her we'll go down there and go to eat.
So that's probably it, right there -- taking her somewhere away, but that's probably the most fun place that we usually have -- we just go down there and get a good dinner.

9. Again, racing in the Midwest I've got to think of Dick Trickle and all the pranks he must have played, but what's your worst prank, either perpetrated by you, or done to you?
Kenseth: You know, I get smart with people and we joke back and forth and stuff like that, but I've never really pulled any really big pranks on anybody that I can think of.
Jeff Burton has always been a big prankster -- but I just don't get into that because you always get it back, you know what I mean (laughing)?
I've seen a lot of them but I haven't really pulled any.

Q: What's the worst one you've seen played?
Kenseth: Man, I've seen a few of them, but Rich Bickle was always big on pulling pranks and I can't remember if somebody did it to him or he did it to someone else.
But somebody put a hamburger bun inside their helmet that was hanging upside down in the car -- and it was full of ketchup and mustard and all that stuff.
And I can't remember if he put his helmet on or if somebody else put his helmet on -- but that was a bad one.
And then somebody else took his driver's uniform one time -- and I don't know if we should be saying this on here or not -- but I guess he doesn't wear underwear with his uniform and somebody soaked the bottom of his uniform with Ben Gay.
I guess he wore it and he was a little uncomfortable (laughing).

10. What would you consider your "Welcome to NASCAR" moment?
Kenseth: (laughing) I have a couple of them that stick out. When we won the race at Rockingham in 1998, that was our first Busch Series win and we didn't have a sponsor and I was so excited.
That was still probably my most memorable race, ever. For me and Robbie (Reiser) and John (Reiser) and the whole team -- for everybody, that was the first win for all them guys.
For any of the crew guys, it was their first win and it was the first win for me -- all that stuff. I was so excited, I went down and did some doughnuts in the infield at Rockingham, and they had the Cup race the next day.
Well, I guess -- I never even thought of it -- but I guess they were mad at me because I tore up the logo on the grass, or something.
I had never met Mike Helton the week before (at Rockingham), and I was in my Busch car, with my helmet on getting ready to go out for practice (the next week) and he came walking up to the window.
He put his hand out, and I thought he was coming over to congratulate me. But he grabbed my shoulder, and he said, 'congratulations on your first win -- but don't you ever tear up my grass again.'
He looked at me for about a second, and then he got up and walked away (laughing). So I guess that was probably my welcome to NASCAR experience.