Conversation: Ken Schrader

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - There's little doubt about which NASCAR Winston Cup driver competes in the most races. It's Ken Schrader by many laps.

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Tony Stewart is merely a Schrader-wannabe when it comes to racing in more than Winston Cup, Busch Series and Craftsman Truck Series.

Got a late model dirt race somewhere? Call Schrader. ARCA race? Schrader. Winston West? Schrader. Southwest Tour? Schrader.

The count of his extra-curricular races amounts to 40 or more this season, and that doesn't include the 38 times he's supposed to drive a Winston Cup car.

Oh, yeah, he also is co-owner of I-55 Speedway in Pevely, Mo.

	Schrader will race anything. Anywhere. Anytime. Credit: Autostock

Sure, it's a busy schedule, but he'd have it no other way. Even a day off results in a trip to his race shop.

Lee Montgomery of NASCAR.com spoke with Schrader about his crazy schedule, travel woes, retirement and his BAM Racing Winston Cup team.

Q: So how are things at Pevely? Any big races? What's going on there?

Schrader: We've got a bunch of stuff going on. We've got the UMP summer nationals, World of Outlaws night on the 12th, M&Ms night on the 30th - we've got about six, seven Winston Cup guys coming. Just having a good year. It's going real good.

Q: Is that something you spend a lot of time on? Or do your partners do most of the work there?

Schrader: I'm a couple phone calls a day, at least. I get involved a little more than I thought I was going to have to.

Q: Obviously, you race a lot, as everybody knows. Do you ever get a day off? Or is that a foreign concept for you?

Schrader: I could have a bunch of days off if I elected, but I keep pretty busy because that's what I enjoy doing.

I've got days where I don't really have to do much, but I still go to the shop and hang around."

Q: Eventually you're going to have to quit driving, but that's probably not going to be any time soon. Have you thought about retirement? Are you going to be 60 years old driving sprint cars somewhere?

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Schrader: I'll be 60 years old driving a dirt late model somewhere. You know? For sure, I'll be doing that as long as I'm healthy. I sure hope to be.

The day'll come when you don't run Winston Cup anymore, and maybe the day'll come when you don't run trucks or whatever. I'm going to race as long as I'm having fun doing it.

Q: You're going to race until they stick you in the grave?

Schrader: There are a lot of guys out at a lot of tracks, just as long as they're having fun. We all started out doing this to have fun.

Nobody started out doing this thinking they were going to make a living at it. I'll just go back and have me some fun, which I'm still having now, too.

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Q: The TV show, "Inside Winston Cup" has become pretty popular. Is that any kind of option, post-Winston Cup?

Schrader: Who knows? Those decisions aren't always up to you. 'Yeah, I want to do it,' but, hell, no one wants to hire you.

It's not really your decisions. We've had some conversations, but that's not something I really want to look at right now.

Q: All these places you travel, you've probably got some interesting travel stories. Anything you can share that are non-adult, so to speak?

Schrader: There are all kinds of things that happen. But it can happen to anybody that travels a lot. What's fun is to get out to all these places that Winston Cup or Busch or truck doesn't get anywhere near and meet these different people who are big-time NASCAR fans.

Q: Do you have people at some of these small places you go to that who bring you in and serve you dinner and stuff like that? Dave Marcis did that a lot when he was running around.

Schrader: We just keep so busy now. When we get into town, we're racing at night and then we're leaving in the morning.

We've got friends in all these days that we've met over the years. We definitely hook up with them somehow and get to spend some time with them."

Q: You came up an open-wheel guy and tried Indy that one year. How did that Indy ride come about and what happened?

Schrader: I was a stock car guy to start with. I drove a stock car, and then I just started driving some open-wheel cars. People hired drivers to drive the open-wheel cars, and if you didn't do good, they'd put someone else in.

	Credit: Autostock

There were more rides available there. All of a sudden, I was running sprint cars and worked into Silver Crown and won a championship. We got the opportunity to go to Indianapolis in '83.

We were running fast enough but wound up wrecking the thing and didn't have a backup car.

That was the best wreck I ever had because that made me think about maybe looking at racing for a profession - and looking down South.

Q: So that was something that maybe if you had made that race somehow or another, your career would have turned out different? Do you look at things like that?

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Schrader: I'd have been screwed. I'd have been running that s---, wondering where I was going to come up with a sponsor so you could do it. No one hired anyone to do it. So, yeah, thank gosh it wrecked.

Q: BAM is obviously a growing team. You've had some good qualifying runs, like at Daytona, Bristol. But then you've had some not-so-good runs. Is that just a sign of a young, growing team?

Schrader: That's a sign of the competitiveness of Winston Cup racing. You might want to go talk to Dale Jarrett and see what he thinks his well-funded, established team - what kind of year they're having. You look at the cars that are going home every now and then.

We've got a lot of room to grow, and we're working hard at it - just like all the teams are. I'm very excited with everything that's going on here.

A lot of people were surprised when you took this ride, and then you started running good, and people said, "Well, maybe Ken's smarter than we think he is.

There's a lot of good equipment over here, a lot of good equipment. We've got a lot of people. (Car owners) Beth Ann and Tony (Morgenthau) have made a commitment to run the full season and properly funded.

(General manager) Eddie Jones has been around this sport a long time. He knows what it takes. I've enjoyed working with (crew chief) Scott Eggleston. I was told ahead of time by a couple people that I think a lot of that I'd get along really good with Scott.

I didn't think I was rolling the dice at all.