1on1: Clay Campbell (cont'd)

Q: Isn't your 13-year-old son Will now involved in driving a racecar?

Campbell: Three years ago, I got him involved in quarter-midget racing down at Salisbury at Bobby Labonte's track. We really enjoyed that. We didn't get to do it as much as either he or I wanted to do it. But we did it for a couple years. Now all of a sudden he's 13 years old and he went on a growth spurt. He outgrew the car and can't fit in the car no more.

So those are mixed blessings there. It's good and it's bad. He can't run quarter-midgets anymore, so now he's like, 'Well, what can I run?' The next step up is probably something more powerful, and I don't know where I'm going with that.

Q: Will you adopt your grandfather's hard-line stance on that?

Campbell: I won't be that strict about it. If he wants to do it, then I'll help him all I can. I just prefer that he don't.

Q: Has your 7-year-old daughter Alayna shown any interest in driving?

Campbell: Not yet. But she loves racing as much or maybe even more than he does. She's never said anything about wanting to drive, but she keeps up with it pretty good. She may be our next driver, I don't know.

Q: How would her mother feel about that?

Campbell: Mom wouldn't particularly like it. In fact, it was funny. Mom has been pretty good about my racing. She's never really said anything about it. The only thing she doesn't like about it is when it's a spare weekend and I go racin'. That's the only friction she's caused with that.

But when Will outgrew the quarter-midget, I took him up to Franklin County. Some friends of mine had a mini-stock, which is a small racecar -- but nonetheless still a racecar. I told Kim, 'Don't worry. He's not gonna like the noise; he's not gonna like the vibration; he's not gonna like the fact that you can't turn your head. It's really confined, and it's totally different from the quarter-midgets.' He went out and ran five laps and came in and said, 'Dad, I love it!' And I was like, 'Well, that's not quite what I wanted to hear.' So now I guess he's going to try some mini-stock cars and we'll see where that goes.

Q: What is your first memory of Martinsville Speedway?

Campbell: My grandfather founded it, my mother worked here, my aunt worked here, later on in life my sister worked here, so it was total family. It's hard to pick out one outstanding memory, because all my spare time was spent here. It's like I've said before: this was really my home, and my actual house was really my home away from home. I've had so many great memories; some bad ones, too.

I can remember as I grew up, being fortunate enough to be in the position that I was, I got to meet all the drivers. I'll never forget meeting Richard Petty for the first time. Back in the late 1960s and early '70s, he was winning all the races here. He was a special person then and he was the way he is now. He treats everybody with such respect. You've got to really admire somebody like that. He didn't have to give me the time of day, but he always took the time to go that extra step.

Kids don't forget that -- and that's what I hope to see out of the competitors that we have today. The impression they make on kids, when a kid comes up to them and wants their autograph or just wants to touch them or shake their hand, if they say something smart to them or ignore them, the kids don't forget something like that, either. And those are our fans of tomorrow. To shun a kid, I just can't stand to see that. But that's what I remembered the most from that early time period -- how good Richard was and how good he was with the fans.

Q: Who do you like to win this Sunday's race?

Campbell: Gosh, it's such a tough one. Everyone always says that Talladega and Martinsville are the two wild cards [in the Chase]. Everyone compares ourselves to Talladega -- because there you've got 43 cars running in a tight pack and anything can happen at any given moment and, well, it's the same thing here in a way. You've got 43 cars running together because they can't get away from one another. You can get caught up in someone else's mess through no fault of your own.

But Jimmie Johnson obviously has figured this place out; Jeff Gordon always runs well here; Stewart runs well here; Earnhardt Jr. always runs pretty well here -- he hasn't been in position to win at the end, but he's usually in the top five. That's the beauty about the racing here, you always have a bunch of cars who could run well. And then qualifying at this place is phenomenal. From first all the way back to 43rd is only a miniscule difference. Those are some of the reasons why fans love this place.