Convo: Gary Gardner

Whenever you're at a NASCAR track and you see important people, you're likely to see Gary Gardner close behind.

Such was the case at the Pepsi 400 when presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani attended a drivers' meeting or when NASCAR chairman Brian France arrived to announce the NASCAR Cup Series' name change.

He's the director of security for NASCAR, and as if ensuring a secure environment for all 36 races wasn't enough responsibility, Gardner also oversees executive and driver protection for the sport.

An Indiana native, Gardner served 32 years as a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is a decorated U.S. Army Ranger and Vietnam veteran, and a graduate of American University in Washington, D.C.

Gardner's list of credentials is why NASCAR has him protecting the sport's front lines.

In between policing perpetrators who try to defraud the NASCAR system and planning for a safe and smooth trip to the upcoming Busch Series race in Canada, Gardner paused to tell NASCAR.COM more about his role securing the country's most popular form of motorsports.

Q: You've gone from dodging bullets in the FBI's bank robbery division to doling out crisis management plans to racetracks; from police pursuits to pit road. You were in three shootouts in the FBI and carried a gun; now you carry a race radio. What a change! Are both equally as challenging?

Gardner: Nothing rattles me in this job. I've been through a whole lot worse in the FBI. This [NASCAR] is fun, but I can draw on all those years of experience and situations. It gives me credibility with the tracks and my counterparts. So it's fun but the challenge is still there, the challenge to bring all of the tracks to a high level of security and safety, to make sure we protect the brand and everyone comes out to the races safely and leaves with a great experience.

Q: When you're at the track you look important, you've got the ear piece going, the shades, the hat ... what do you do exactly?

Gardner: A lot of people see me at the track and think that's what I do. I'm just at the track, but our department is responsible for all of our facilities around the world, the multiple companies NASCAR owns, the NASCAR Hall of Fame, our aircraft hangers and boats along with executive and driver protection. The job encompasses far more than going out to the track and making sure everyone has their passes. I make sure the facilities and tracks are complying with our safety standards.

In the sanctioning agreement, we control the garage; we issue credentials, so we ensure the tracks are compliant with our standards.

Q: You take care of the NASCAR drivers as if they were your own. How do you keep the stalkeresque fans in check and deal with potential threats?

Gardner: We utilize the resources we have at the tracks and assign different people to the high-profile drivers: Dale Jr., Jeff Gordon, Tony [Stewart] ... any given week you've got ups and downs. Remember last year with Brian Vickers [wrecked Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. during at Talladega]? We had to pay close attention to him and make sure to watch for over-excitable fans. He received threatening letters so we heightened awareness and when he took his ride around the track we had an officer riding in the cab just in case, watching.

You watch over them, and sometimes that means walking with them, sometimes it means standing back and observing and watching from a distance. You have to be very aware of what is around you, other people's behavior, because you may have to react to something

You know it when you see it. You see when people are excited. The way they stare, the way they approach, the way they lay back in between a hauler somewhere. I'm looking for certain things that pique my awareness.

Guys will come up to me if they've received letters, if someone is stalking them, if they've been getting calls or if a fan mentions they are coming to the track. Something they are not sure about.

Q: Any recent occasions stick out in your head, an incident you had to diffuse?

Gardner: I can think of one with Kasey [Kahne]. Fans literally almost knocked him down; not trying to harm him. The ones out here are pushing in, reaching out to get things signed, or trying to shake hands. I always tell the driver to keep moving, don't stop. If the driver keeps moving the crowd is forced to keep moving. It's a crowd control issue.

When Hamlin won in Mexico we had to go to the media center after the race for his interview and we had to go outside the track on a golf cart and take him outside. Well, during the race Kyle [Busch] ran into one of the Mexican drivers and took him out of the race. I'm not sure the fans differentiated between Denny and Kyle, so going around on the golf cart, fans threw things, cans, etc., at him. That was a challenge. It wasn't Denny's fault. Those are the types of things you run into. Live and learn. We aren't going to bring drivers outside the track again. Generally they are pretty nice down there, most of them are friendly, but they just get excited.

Q: Has a driver ever been threatened?

Gardner: I'm not going to say a driver hasn't, but to my knowledge no one has ever followed through. To my knowledge no one has been injured from a threat. Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean you don't plan for it. We have some very impassioned fans about certain drivers in the sport. While that is a good side of the sport, sometimes we have fans who struggle to separate fantasy from reality.

Q: And executive protection, you look out for NASCAR's brass and your approach is different; Mike Helton and Brian France aren't constantly flanked by security guards ... ?

Gardner: It's a soft type of protection in other words. It's good that people look around and see nothing. You're there, but you're not obvious to everyone else and you have the ability to step in and take action. And deal with it. Unlike the president, who has an obvious force to dissuade people ... in our business you don't want that obvious force; goons running around sends the wrong message to the fan base. What makes NASCAR great is the accessibility the fans have. We don't want to give off the impression that anyone or this person is standoffish or unapproachable.

Q: In other major league sports, NFL, MLB, NBA, most of their security directors come from the FBI and you worked with a lot of them, but how is NASCAR security different?

Gardner: What baseball game have you ever been to where there were 200,000 people? What football game you ever gone to that had 35,000 campers adjacent to the facility? At Lowe's Motor Speedway, on some weekends, they've reached 60,000 campers. That's not including the fans in the stands. That's a small city. Also, 17 of the top 29 spectator events in the United Sates are NASCAR events.

Q: Do you think NASCAR industry types and fans take track security for granted? Do they walk around more or less thinking nothing disastrous will happen?

Gardner: Yes, I mean I think we do. Every one has to buy a little piece of the responsibility. If you see something that seems strange, I want you to come say, 'this doesn't look right'.

Q: Evidently, faking NASCAR annual credentials or what industry types call hard cards, is a problem; a problem hauler driver Doug Mercier of Michael Waltrip Racing was fined and suspended for indefinitely. What happens?

Gardner: So far this year I've picked up three or four hard cards that were total frauds. People made them, a total fabrication. First off, that's fraud and they've defrauded us the money we are entitled to.

Second, it's a violation of our perimeters. They have illegally accessed where a person shouldn't be. We constantly make a diligent effort to maintain our rules and regulations and standards.

Q: And the Michael Waltrip Racing fraud case, reportedly he faked the hard card for his mistress ... ?

Gardner: It wasn't very good. Well, basically, at end of the day, [the hauler driver] lost his job, because he lost his license to NASCAR. If he loses that, it means he can't work in NASCAR and if he can't work here, then he can't work at Michael Waltrip Racing so he lost his job. And he was fined $5,000, but more than likely, the obligation fell on Michael Waltrip Racing, the driver probably didn't have the money.

People do dumb things and that's probably what we have to deal with most: dumb things.

Q: NASCAR travels to Montreal for the first time for a Busch Series race on Aug. 4. What preparations are involved?

Gardner: We have to comply with customs laws when entering a foreign country, set up schedules and arrange for somewhere between 1,200 and 1,300 people -- and about 90 to 100 tractor trailers -- to travel for NASCAR; media, teams, employees, photographers and so on. When you get to the track, it's like any other track and officials are complying with our security standards.

Montreal is on an island, it's kind of cool. For the time we are there, the promoter pretty much controls the entire island. That makes it easy. You check credentials, if you don't have one, you don't get on the island.

You also have to create a manifest of what is on your truck, box of bolts, everything. We facilitate setting that up, we send Canadian customs the manifest ahead of time so they know what's going on.

Q: Seemingly the job comes with intense pressure, what's an aspect on the lighter side of things that you appreciate?

Gardner: NASCAR has some of the most genuine people. When people around here say, 'hey how are you doing today,' they actually mean, how are you doing? It's not just a statement to be nice. I think a lot of that is driven from the close bonding and camaraderie in the sport, because you know we are sort of living together every weekend. I see the same friends week in and week out.