Q & A with David Ragan

SCR: What's your opinion of the Car of Tomorrow?
RAGAN: I think the Car of Tomorrow . . . they're harder to get driving like you want. It's harder to find the handle on them, where on the other cars we were going off of years and years of notes and we could unload and be pretty close. But now we don't quite have the notes to go off of and that makes it a little bit harder to get going as quickly as before. The downside is that it's really costing the teams a lot of money in buying new parts and new pieces, but on the good side it's a change and sometimes change is good and I kind of like them.

SCR: Can you compare it to anything you've driven in the past?
RAGAN: It's kind of like a truck but with a lot more horsepower. Goodyear's constantly coming out with harder and harder tires, and that's going to make it even tougher for everyone to find the handle on their cars. I think the combination of the harder tires and the Car of Tomorrow, which has less side force and less downforce, is just going to make it harder for the teams to make it comfortable for the drivers. I think once we have a year or so under our belts, I think the racing is going to be good.

SCR: Are there any changes or improvements you would like to see made to the COT?
RAGAN: I wish we could improve on the tech process a little bit. All the teams are basically losing an extra day at the shop because of having to go to the racetrack earlier to go through the tech line. Basically, we have two days a week to get everything ready, so again, it costs more money to hire more people at the shop to work. I wish NASCAR could do more work to make it smoother as far as the tech process. But the cars seem beefier and they seem to hold up better in hard racing circumstances, so as far as the racing, I think it's been fine. I wish we could improve on the tech process a little bit, but other than that I feel like everything's in order.

SCR: You've raced in several different series throughout your career. Which one do you think helped prepare you the most to race in the Nextel Cup Series?
RAGAN: I think the Legends Car Series and the ARCA RE/MAX Series helped me more than anything. With the Legends Cars, you're racing a lot of different tracks two or three nights a week during the summer. You've got a hard tire, lots of horsepower, and great racing that's very competitive. All those things are signs for making a great race car driver. Reed Sorenson, Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch-they'll tell you that racing Legends Cars helped them more than anything. Racing the ARCA RE/MAX Series is like racing a Cup car at the big tracks. In an ARCA car, you can go to Chicago, Daytona, Kentucky, Nashville, and Pocono just like you race in a Nextel Cup Series, and you get the experience at a third of what it costs to race a Nextel Cup car. I think a combination of running the ARCA car and the Legends Cars over the past five or six years has really helped me out a lot.

SCR: Your father, Ken, competed in 50 Nextel Cup events from 1983 to 1990 and is still involved with the Legends Series as general manager of 600 Racing. How big of an influence was he in getting your career started?
RAGAN: Dad is the number-one reason why I am where I am today. He's helped pave a road for me where I could work hard and continue to get better. He and my uncle Marvin, his brother, through their racing adventures in the late '80s and early '90s, met a lot of great people who have helped me out through the years. Robert Yates, a person who helped my dad out when he was racing, helped supply engines for my ARCA team for the past few years and really helped me out when times were tough. So the people who knew Dad have helped me out a lot, and I certainly need to go out and get the job done, but he's definitely introduced me to the right people who have helped me along the way.

SCR: Having reached the Nextel Cup Series, what advice would you give to a young driver who wants to pursue a full-time racing career?
RAGAN: Never give up. It's hard enough to make it in this sport, and if you feel like you've got the talent, there's an opportunity to go and drive somewhere. But you've got to dedicate one hundred percent of your time. You can't just do it half the time. You've got to eat, breathe, and sleep racing. You've got to cut out school activities, family activities, and things around the house. You've got to be at the race shop or doing something working toward racing 100 percent of the time. It's tough, and a lot of nights you sit back and think, Man, why am I doing this?Or, This is hard, or I feel like giving up, but you just can't ever give up because you don't know when you'll get that opportunity.

SCR: NASCAR has mandated that, by the start of the 2010 season, the maximum amount of teams an owner can field is four. Does that factor into your thinking, and does it put any added pressure on you to secure your future with the Roush Fenway organization?
RAGAN: I'm not thinking about that at all. As long as we do our job, everything will take care of itself. Jack Roush and John Henry with the Fenway Sports Group and Geoff Smith (president of Roush Fenway Racing) have a plan for everything. I've put my confidence in them 100 percent, and whatever they say is what I'll do. I feel like if I'm doing my job, that's all I can do, and they'll take care of everything else.

SCR: What's it like racing against Juan Pablo Montoya for Rookie of the Year?
RAGAN: He's definitely a great race car driver with a great rsum. He might be one of the best drivers we've ever seen coming into the NASCAR level. It's a pleasure to race him, it gives me something to shoot for every week, and I want to beat him just as bad as I would want to beat someone else. So I'm loving it, having someone to race like that. I've got a lot of respect for him. I think he's a great competitor, and I look forward to that challenge all year.

SCR: Montoya receives a lot of attention from the media. Has the media spotlight on him taken some of the pressure off of you?
RAGAN: A little bit. I tell everybody that they can keep talking to him about whatever they want to talk about and we'll just kind of sneak up on them; that's perfectly fine with us. He's getting a lot of attention, which he deserves. At the same time, we'll let everyone keep talking about it, but we'll just keep doing what we're supposed to do and let everything else take care of itself.

SCR: What's a realistic goal for you this season?
RAGAN: If we can have some strong runs, I would like to run good at some of the mile-and-a-half tracks. We've proven we can run good at a superspeedway, and we've had some good short-track outings. And if we can put some consistent runs in between that-I don't know what to expect at the road courses-and be in the Top 20 at the end of the year and end the year on a good note, then in 2008 we'll be going back to these tracks for a second time, and I feel like we'll need to contend for some wins and possibly be a Chase contender. But a Top 20 in the points and Rookie of the Year, that would be a successful year for me.