"Most people from the outside, they say something like, 'Hey, what's wrong?' Normally I don't say anything, I just shrug it off. Sometimes I'll tell 'em something funny, maybe, 'Well, maybe I'm washed up!'
"But so much of it is luck. We've been just as fast as last year, but just not as lucky."
In 2000, pieces didn't break, tires didn't go flat, cars didn't spin out right in front of him, and the yellow didn't come out right after he made a pass for a position. That's the stuff you don't think about when it isn't happening, but it's the stuff that's a normal part of racing luck. Sometimes you have it, sometimes you don't.
"In 1999 more than half of the races I ran wound up DNF," he says. "Then we came back in 2000 and had a great year and didn't really do anything different. You've got to have it together to contend, then you've got to hope for some good luck."
He is 32 now, perhaps not yet at his peak. He and Kunz and Willoughby maintain their close friendship, and when Willoughby decided to park his car early in the 2000 season, Kunz fielded an entry with Willoughby's help.
"The key is, we all really like each other," says Drake. "Keith and I, as mechanic and driver, really know how to read each other. We know what one another is thinking almost all the time.
"Even away from the racetrack, we all like to hang out together. At the racetrack, we all want to be there. And I think that's a big part of a good team, that we all get along, for real."
Drake also races Bill Biddle's sprint car on pavement, and runs Gary Beaver's Coors Light Silver Bullet entry.
Drake plans on staying in the Midwest for the 2002 season, no matter the outcome of the USAC points races.
That 2000 season changed him, he will admit, because it forever brushed away those nagging self-doubts that dog every racer, whether they admit it or not.
"When you're in the middle of a season like that, and the numbers (wins) start to pile up, there is a certain something you start to feel," he says. "Cockiness, maybe, or you might call it confidence. I don't know exactly what to call it, but it's a feeling that you can do no wrong.
"And some of that, you always hope rolls over to your next year. That's what we were hoping, and I guess you can say some of it did. We won the Chili Bowl right off the bat, so we were feeling pretty good.
"But even when you don't win as many races after a season like that, it still helps you. At least you have a baseline to work from, a good basic starting spot that you know is at least going to be pretty competitive.
"This year, we would go to an event we won the year before and say, 'Well, we won it last year, we should be able to win it this year.' And when you don't, sure, there is a letdown, but you just have to get past that.
"Before that 2000 season, I was strongly considering packing my stuff up and going home (to California)," he says. "Because it just wasn't working. But I stuck around, and look how well it turned out.
"I guess that's the lesson, really. Don't give up."
IntensitySometimes, people assert that Jay Drake seems too laid-back to be a race driver. His easy-going style, his soft, low voice, his sense of humor, his ready smile, all might give the impression that he is, well, soft.
Laid-back, yes; soft, no way. Behind that quiet demeanor lies a tiger, and every now and then he'll allow us to see the intensity that is always boiling deep inside him.
We talk about rivals from the past, and Tony Stewart's name comes up. He laughs, and puts up his hands in defense, and is quick to correct the mistaken idea that he and Stewart have a history of trouble.
"Hey, that's only that one time at 16th Street," he laughs. "And we talked it out right after that. There's no trouble with me and Tony, none at all."