I'm a sensitive person.

Lying in bed, I determined that since I'm a Christian, I believe we all have our days - our days are numbered. I figured it was Dale's day to die, and I was the best person to win the race and be able to honor him in the victory.

It's my opinion tracks got too wide. You put 43 cars on the track, and if the turns are too wide like they are at some tracks, you sort of lose perspective of what's going on.

Whether you're Michael Waltrip or Jeff Gordon or Richard Petty, you can't be the Daytona 500 champion without it having an impact on people around you. When I say that, I mean the race fans. They want to congratulate you for winning the biggest race of the year. It has changed people's perception of me.

Nobody had ever lost 462 races and then just won. But Dale Earnhardt Sr. had told me I had the ability, and that day, I knew I would.

I've never had anything given to me. I've never had anything easy. My whole career has been that way.

The computer systems that we have on our cars when we go test just blow my mind.

There are several races that anything can happen and Talladega is one of those places for sure.

It's real important to me to do what I say I'm going to do.

I love being outdoors.

When you've been ridiculed and talked about as much as I have over the course of my career, pressure doesn't exist.

Some people might say I'm two different people, but I think it's more like seven or eight.

I know y'all have probably heard I lost a few races in a row before I won one, but I never gave up. Never believed I wasn't good enough.

I'm pretty comfortable in a car to know what I'm doing, and I'm exactly the opposite onstage.

When I showed up to drive for Dale in '01 it was a brand new team.

Obviously you can make a pretty good living these days as a crew member or a crew chief or as a driver. But the technology is expensive.

They say some people are born with the ability to play golf. I wasn't.

It takes a good car for anybody to be good, but it takes a good car and a special driver to achieve greatness.

Talladega is one of the macho tracks on the circuit and when I was a kid, I remember everyone wanting to go watch this race because the cars go so fast on the circuit; there were so many great battles.

I like to tell my own story using my personality and my insight, the way I see things.

I was always one who thought that if something is painful, you just ignore it and it will go away. That's not true.

I don't know anyone who's started more consecutive Daytona 500s than me.

People are obviously capable of handling the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. But I don't know how many people have had to experience them within seconds of each other.

You can't take your win for granted. Your next win might be your last win or you might never get to your next win, so I can't imagine not being overcome with joy by winning and never taking winning for granted.