Smith and Champ heading on down the road

In addition to being passionate about driving race cars, Regan Smith also has an affinity for the plight of the American farmer and a deep love of animals.

Smith took the time Tuesday to chat about his Sprint Cup season as driver of the No. 78 Chevrolet for Furniture Row Racing, which recently announced it will again pay tribute to the American farmer and rancher with a special paint scheme for this Saturday's Irwin Tools Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway. Team owner Barney Visser has said he is doing so to draw attention to "unfair competitive practices by international governments" that have proven particularly "devastating" in recent years to both the American furniture and farming industries.

Smith

Smith talked about all of the above while driving down the road with his loyal dog, Champ.

Q: Are you really driving along with your dog as we speak?

Smith: I'm driving with my dog in the truck. I'd just as soon be driving in the truck with him as doing anything else.

Q: Could you talk a little bit about how your race team has a connection now with the farmers and ranchers of America?

Smith: I think the most important aspect of this whole program is pointing out the importance of the food chain. Even me, until we got going with this program and I started educating myself on it and trying to understand how important farming is to America, I didn't have a true realization of it. I think it's probably fair to say that a lot of Americans are that way. We see the food on the table, we see the food at the grocery store -- but there is not always a connect as to how it gets there. ... We need to make sure that it's getting there safe and that the proper practices and so forth are being taken with it.

I think this whole thing came about because Barney and everybody at Furniture Row Racing said, 'Man, this is something that needs to have attention drawn to it.' And Barney is very familiar with the situation because of what has taken place in the furniture industry over the past however many years. ... He thinks we need to draw attention to it before it's too late to draw attention to it.

Q: Didn't your parents grow up on farms?

Smith: My parents grew up on two separate farms. My mom's family was more cultivating and actual crop farming and stuff like that. My dad's family was more a little bit of everything. They had dairy cows and stuff like that. It was an anything-goes type of farm on his side. But both of them grew up on farms. The part of central New York that I'm from, probably not a lot of people have been there. But there is not much other than a lot of farms up there.

Q: How did you end up becoming a race car driver then?

Smith: Both of my parents got away from the farming. My dad actually got more into the construction industry ... he did a lot of construction before moving into land development. From the time I was born, we lived on a horse farm at one point -- but that was the extent of how long I lived on a farm. But I guess the biggest thing was that I figured out at a very young age that it was a whole lot more fun to change tires and drive race cars than it was to shovel horse [manure].

Q: How have you been educated in what's going on in the farming and ranching industries recently?

Smith: The biggest thing is just talking to people about it and reading as much as I can about it. ... I talked to a family at Watkins Glen and they were like, 'Man, we love the Farm American car. That is so cool. It's great to see it out there.' Then you kind of explain to them the whole concept about why it's out there, and it's neat to see them and family members who are still farmers say, 'It's so awesome to know that other people are aware -- and are being made aware -- of some of the stuff we're fighting and trying to contend with every day in the industry.'"

Q: Let's switch gears a little to talk about your season. You're 30th in points heading into this Saturday's race, but doing it as a single-car team with far fewer resources than many of the other multi-car teams, right?

Smith: If you look at the points number at the end of the day, someone from the outside would probably look at it and say, 'Oh, man, they haven't had a very good year.' I kind of look at it not that way at all -- just because we know our situation in each race. I mean, you're running up front at Talladega and you blow a motor; you've got a car that's capable of a top-five finish at Daytona and you get caught up in a Lap 10 crash. Different stuff like that really adds up.

In the grand scheme of things, big picture-wise, we've been running somewhere between 15th and 20th place in the majority of the races. There have been some where that hasn't been the case, but from where we were a year ago to now and what our big-picture plan is for two years down the road, I think we're on target to hit our goals in the future. Obviously you want your top-10 finishes and you want to be able to win some races, but I think we're knocking on the door to make that happen.

Q: That's about it for the interview. Is your dog hanging in there?

Smith: Champ is doing fine. He's so close to the phone right now, I think he thinks he's being interviewed, too. I'm surprised you can't hear him panting.