Q&A: Smithson

What is your favorite word?
Sunny.

What is your least favorite word?
Rainy.

What turns you on?
A 310-yard drive.

What turns you off?
People who are rude to wait staff. Don't do it.

What sound do you love?
An air gun whirring before a pit stop.

What sound do you hate?
A baseball hitting an aluminum bat.

What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?
Tire changer.

What profession would you not like to participate in?
Kindergarten teacher.

What was the first car you owned?
A 1990 Ford Probe. Someone in Centerville, Tenn., is still driving it. My friend David Baker fabricated a way for it to have a CD player and a tape player. In 1991, that was almost unheard of.

Which city is your favorite on the circuit?
Sonoma. It's a short race, it never rains, and the road course ringers are a joy to talk to.

Most memorable race you've attended?
It was an entire weekend in 2002 at Bristol. It was 40 degrees all three days, and we rented a house near the track. Nothing like seeing a smiling family portrait while you're in their bathroom, let me tell you.

At the track, I'll never forget Kevin Harvick jumping over me to choke Greg Biffle after the Busch race, and the entire Busch garage was laden with expletives and destroyed cars.

The next day, Kurt Busch bumped Jimmy Spencer to win his first Cup race, then he joked about how Spencer hadn't won in years. It was just a fun-filled, quote-filled weekend.

Most enduring memory of your career?
In Feb. 2000 during the inaugural Truck race at Daytona, I was on pit road when Geoff Bodine hit the fence and flipped a billion times. The engine landed on the infield grass with the pistons still moving up and down. It was the loudest thing I've ever heard.

My cell phone -- back then, they weighed three pounds -- had not worked all weekend, but I dialed CNN anyway. For some reason, the call went through, and I said, "Wait until you see this video."