 | | Honey-do list? Ken Schrader says his wife, Ann, takes care of all the chores. Credit: Autostock |
By Dave Rodman, NASCAR.COM
December 20, 2006
11:38 AM EST (16:38 GMT)
Veteran and multi-faceted driving talent Ken Schrader races in a season that never sleeps, whether he's driving his No. 21 Nextel Cup car or one of his dirt cars. And that's why he stopped by Daytona International Speedway last weekend to assist his Wood Brothers/JTG Racing teammates at an ARCA RE/MAX Series test session before heading across the state for a dirt Late Model race at East Bay Raceway in Gibsonton, Fla., near Tampa. After 22 seasons in Cup racing, Schrader took a break to answer 10 questions not necessarily connected to his racing career. 1. Kenny, what's at the bottom of your honey-do list? Schrader: I don't have a honey-do list. I don't do [anything] at the house. Ann [wife] is pretty self-sufficient. If she wants anything done around the house, she knows that she needs to do it. If she gives me something that needs to get done, I'll take it to the [race] shop and get the guys to do it, but the house [work] ain't mine. Yep, delegation is a beautiful thing. 2. What's your favorite dirt track, from a fan's perspective and from a competitor's? Schrader: That would be Pevely [Mo., I-55 Raceway] and Paducah [Ky., Speedway, both of which Schrader owns]. What makes a good dirt track? It's multi-groove racing, from the top to the bottom of the track, a minimum amount of dust and the show getting over at a decent time. Track preparation is the key. Sometimes you've got material you can't overcome, but it takes a combination of both the track surface and taking the time to prepare it correctly. 3. What's your favorite short track brawl story? Schrader: I never really had one. And I ain't seen a lot of brawls at the racetrack, either. Not a ton, anyway. 4. If you could go back in time, what period in history would you like to live in, and why? Schrader: I don't want to go back; I want to go forward in time. I'd just like to go forward about 100 years, drop in there for a little bit and see what's going on -- that's it. Yeah, I've seen a lot change since 1979, '80 and '81 and '84, '85 and '86 in Cup -- but I wouldn't want to see just that, I'd want to see everything in the whole world and how much it had changed. But the going back stuff, I've been there, did that and I read about the rest. 5. What's the most embarrassing moment you'll own up to, either in or out of racing? Schrader: There are enough that I don't know where to start. I'm pretty klutzy and that makes for a lot of embarrassing moments. 6. Which athlete outside of racing do you most admire? Schrader: Tiger Woods -- and I don't know nothing about golf, I don't like playing golf and I don't like watching golf. But I know when he kicks everybody's butt all the time, it's because of him. It had nothing to do with equipment or flat tires that day or anything else. It's because he stood up there and did his stuff right. In other sports, your team -- and of course you being part of it -- but as a team, you're on that day or you're on that year, where everything's going good. He's just an individual that's awed everyone. 7. Did you ever fake anyone out to win a race? Schrader: Yeah, yeah, we've done that a time or two. A lot of times, on the dirt tracks, you'd just move around. You make 'em see the nose [in one place] and they'd go there [to block] and you go around 'em the other way. But we were screwed at a race in Monroe, Wash. [Evergreen Speedway], and there was no way we were gonna win it. The yellow came out with 10 [laps] to go and we were on a different brand of tires than everybody else and I knew we were in trouble. I knew we were gonna get passed with four or five to go, so this was in the mid-'90s, when we didn't have a fire bottle [system] in the car, you just had a fire extinguisher. So I had taken it out [of its bracket] during the yellow flag and put it in my lap. And when he got right to the inside of me, with about four to go, I held it up to the window net and pulled the trigger. It appeared that I blew up, but I never checked up. That just bought us a couple laps, it bought us enough laps and we were OK. We didn't get a quick yellow flag because nobody ever slowed down. Well, I never slowed down -- he slowed down -- but no one else did. We ended up winning. It was a Northwest Tour race. 8. What are the goofiest things your kids, Sheldon or Dorothy, have ever done? Schrader: That would be an Ann question. I don't know. It would probably just be something they've said, you know, kids say the darnedest things. 9. What is your favorite recent movie, and what is your favorite all-time flick that you can watch over and over again? Schrader: I don't know when the last time I went to a movie was. Oh, Sheldon and I watch the heck out of Liar, Liar. So I like that, and a long time ago, The Sting was a great movie. That thing had a lot of twists in it. 10. What have you learned about yourself in the last year? Schrader: I've learned that with limited skills I've been pretty lucky to milk it and to still be around [laughing]. I didn't just learn that. I had suspicion of it a long time ago, and it's just now really getting there. No, seriously, I don't know. I guess it's that I do really love this sport and I don't want to quit it. | 
