The 15th edition of the 12 Questions series has concluded, ending a year that saw us surpass the 500-interview mark in our weekly segment. Each week, The Athletic asks the same 12 questions to a different race car driver with the intention of highlighting how the differences in their answers show their unique personalities.
Some of the highlights from this year included back-to-back appearances from racing legends Mario Andretti and Jeff Gordon, as well as 15 of the 16 NASCAR playoff drivers. It also marked the final interview for the retiring Martin Truex Jr., who is the only driver to have participated in all 15 years of the series.
But before we wrap up 2024 for good, let’s take a look back at the best answers for each question from this season. The only rule in picking our “Best Of” selections: No driver could have more than one response appear on the list. Each driver’s name links to the original 12 Questions article.
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1. What is currently the No. 1 thing on your bucket list?
William Byron: Scuba diving with sharks.
Not just scuba diving, but …
No, with sharks. That would be awesome. I just have to get the nerve to do it. My offseasons have been a little bit boring. I need to find some more adrenaline rushes. So I know (my) boss (Rick Hendrick) is probably going to hear that and say, “This is great.”
So would this be an inside-the-cage kind of thing, or like you’re just out in the open water with them?
You gotta go in the open water. A couple of girls I went to high school with scuba dive professionally and scuba dive with sharks. So maybe I can quiz them on what to do or how to start small, maybe.
2. How much media coverage of NASCAR do you consume?
Chase Elliott: Literally as little as I can. Outside of pre-race prep — you’re going to see different things as it pertains to watching races back or certain parts of a race I feel were important to see.
Outside of that, I really just don’t find it to be helpful. I don’t see where reading into a lot of those things is productive, even in the slightest. So I’ve really tried to just shift my priorities and the things I view that matter to me. Scrolling through the internet on things that just simply don’t make a difference, I have just chosen to eliminate, and I feel like I’m a better competitor for it.
I just love the moments where you get asked about something and you’re like, “Oh, really?” You got asked awhile back about the Ricky Stenhouse Jr. fine amount, and you didn’t know the details of it.
Obviously, you’re going to hear about things whether you want to hear about them or not. But certainly, as it pertains to the choices you have control of and how you spend your time, I just don’t find that a productive thing to spend time doing.
What does it matter? It had nothing to do with me. My opinion of that changes absolutely nothing. So what’s the point?
How much NASCAR media does Chase Elliott consume? “Literally as little as I can,” says the 2020 Cup Series champion. (Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)
3. Beyond winning, what is the best way to measure success in racing?
Ryan Blaney: I’ve gotten a better grasp on this as I’ve gotten older. I see kids who are 10 years younger than me coming up and I try to put myself in a car owner standpoint, like how do you look at a driver? Is it how talented they are behind the wheel? How much speed do they have? How is their racecraft? I see tons of people who have tons of speed, but their racecraft isn’t good. You make too many mistakes, and that’s to be expected from a younger person. Owners look at that.
And then it’s, what are you like as a person? People judge you a lot on that. Are you good to your followers and fans who support you? What are you like as a role model to young kids who look up to you? Those are the things I try to look at and mold myself after.
Do you have to have each of those categories to be successful?
I mean, you can just win and you’re gonna be successful. People are gonna judge you on that, obviously. But I’ve tried to look at it also as: What do you want to leave behind when you’re not doing it anymore? You’re not doing this forever. What do you want people to think of you when you’re done?
4. What is an opinion you have about NASCAR that you don’t think is shared by the fans?
Joey Logano: Some fans who have watched our sport for a very long time don’t like our playoff system. And I disagree with that. Our playoff system is spectacular. If you look at any playoff system, across any sport, the same thing can happen: They can have an amazing regular season and get knocked out in the first game or the first round. But they had that regular season that was great and can help seed them in a favorable position.
Our playoffs does that. Can you get hot the last five races and go from a guy who barely made the playoffs to winning the championship? Absolutely. Can happen in the NFL, too. Can happen in the NBA, it can happen in the NHL. What’s wrong with us having that?
You don’t want to watch the last three races of the season where the guy is just saying, “Don’t screw up. I’m gonna win if I just don’t screw up.” What the …? No, go attack. What the hell is that? I don’t want to see somebody just try not to screw up and lay up the last three races to win the championship. Screw that.
(Note: Logano said this prior to the season, several days before the Daytona 500.)
5. What is the biggest thing fans don’t realize about what you do for a living?
Ryan Truex: As a part-time guy, I’m at the simulator a lot. That’s my full-time job. I’m there two or three times a week, eight hours a day. I do that for JGR weekly on the Cup side. That’s probably something people don’t know. I’ve talked about it, but I’ve never really gotten into detail about it.
That’s a lot. Doesn’t your brain get fried after all that time in the simulator?
Yeah, it’s a lot. Last year I ended up with like 110 days that I was in there. I ran like 25,000 laps throughout the year. It definitely took some getting used to doing it that much. It feels like your brain is scrambled at the end of the day because you’re just making laps, looking at data, talk about it, make some more laps, look at more data. It’s just driving and looking at squiggly lines.
Joey Logano celebrates winning the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series title … months after telling us how much he likes the playoff format. (Chris Graythen / Getty Images)
6. This question was related to a current topic concerning the driver and changed each week. We asked Denny Hamlin: You’re very clear-eyed about your abilities and evaluating yourself when it comes to comparisons to other drivers. You recently said Tyler Reddick, if he was in the same car as you, could get more raw speed out of it. But acknowledging you’re not the best at something is rare in this world, so what do you think allows you to reach that point where you can impartially evaluate yourself?
Denny Hamlin: I don’t think you can be the best at everything. I just don’t think it’s possible. I think of it like a basketball player: When Michael Jordan was at his peak, he was never the best shooter. There was always someone who was a better shooter. But he was a really good shooter and a really good defender. There was a better passer in the league than him. So there are different facets of being a good race car driver that go well beyond just the results. It’s who’s got racecraft — that is managing races, managing risk — who’s got speed, who’s good on short tracks, who’s good on superspeedways, road courses. And there’s racing IQ — that is beyond (race) management.
So let’s just pretend there are six or seven categories. No one is going to be at the top of all of them. But if you can rank yourself second, third, second, third, first, second, third — next thing you know, you have the best race car driver. So what I try to figure out year after year is “Where am I low on the list? Where can I move myself up that ranking?” And make sure I still keep myself at P1, P2 in whatever category it might be that I feel like are my strengths.
The greatest of all time in their sport has never been the best at every facet of their game. Scottie Scheffler is not the best putter. Iron player? He’s up there. Driver? No. But you add all those rankings together, and it comes out to P1.
7. This was a wild-card question which changed each week. We asked Mario Andretti: I was reading an article from the Chicago Tribune in 2000, and you said at the time you counted your blessings every day that you survived a very unsafe era. There was an anecdote about how people used to send you Christmas cards in July, because they didn’t know if you were going to make it to December, and at the time you still had nightmares about crashing or being upside down. So all this time later, do you still think about those things? How do you look back at making it through such an unbelievably unsafe era — and you’re still here?
Mario Andretti: I still count my blessings every day, but I don’t dwell on those negatives. I never did. If I did, it would not have worked for me. So I always looked at the positive side.
As you said, I’ve gone through a period where I lost too many of my closest friends as drivers. And then I saw the suffering from the remaining families. But I had such a wonderful wife who understood my plight. She understood I would not have been happy with my life unless I pursued what I really wanted to, and that helped me tremendously to feel clear and serene going in.
But going back to the negatives, I just … I don’t dwell on that. And the beautiful thing about this is all the sanctioning bodies on this planet in the majors, they all have been addressing the safety factor vigorously. I don’t think the sport would have survived unless that would have been taken seriously. As the sport became more commercial, when sponsors were investing millions of dollars to be part of a team, they don’t want to go to funerals, they want to celebrate. We are at the point now that the drivers have the best chance ever to retire on their own terms. And that’s a beautiful thing.
8. For this question, we asked drivers what they like about the place where they grew up. Here’s Rajah Caruth, from Washington, D.C.
Rajah Caruth: D.C. was great, man. We moved there in 2009 when I was 7, and I lived there until I graduated high school. My parents still live in the city. Growing up in Northeast D.C., I’d watch D.C. United games, Commanders games, Nationals games — being a sports fan in D.C. was great. The sports teams have had their good and bad years for sure.
I grew up taking public transportation and playing sports, so I had a lot of fun summers playing basketball in rec leagues and school leagues, running at track meets, cross-country meets, soccer games. My high school — School Without Walls — was only five blocks from the White House, so I was always surrounded by a big political presence. I learned a lot about varying perspectives and got decently knowledgeable about other peoples’ opinions, how the government works, foreign relations and policies. That has really armed me with a good toolbox to go to different places in the world and function at a high level.
“My high school … was only five blocks from the White House,” Rajah Caruth says of his upbringing. “… I learned a lot about varying perspectives.” (James Gilbert / Getty Images)
9. What personality trait are you the most proud of?
Connor Zilisch: I like how outgoing I am. I wouldn’t say I was born with it, but I have some natural ability to go up to anybody and not be afraid. A lot of that came from the time I spent in Europe. That was some of the most uncomfortable times of my life, ever. You go to this place, you don’t speak the same language at 11 or 12 years old, without my parents (Zilisch’s parents had to stay back and work, so he lived with his karting mechanic/driver coach in Europe, who also supervised him). Even relating it to racing, I like to put myself in uncomfortable positions — and that was definitely an uncomfortable position. That helped me grow a lot as a person.
You’re 11 years old and you’re across the world from your parents. I’m sure that was just an unbelievable time in your life.
He was basically my second dad, and on some days, he wouldn’t even want to go to dinner with me. So he’d put me on a bicycle and send me into this town (in Italy) on my own. I had a credit card and I would just kind of find my way. In the moment, it was maybe not so cool, but looking back on it, it was damn cool. Those are times I’ll remember forever.
10. Which driver would you least like to be stuck with on an elevator?
Chase Briscoe: I’m going to say (Martin) Truex, because I’ve never talked to Truex. I’ve literally said maybe five words to him my whole life. So that would be my only reason for that answer. I’m sure Martin is a great dude and we probably have a lot in common — I like fishing and all that — but I just don’t know him. So it’s hard for me to be like, “Yeah, I’d love to.”
Well, I wouldn’t love to be stuck in an elevator with anybody. But he’d be the only guy in the field I feel like I talked to the least.
Note: Briscoe was announced as the Truex’s replacement four months after this interview.
11. What is a run-in you’ve had with a driver that TV or the media missed?
Kyle Larson: In 2017 at Daytona, the run had gotten pretty long at some point mid-race. Somehow me and (Joey) Logano ended up two-wide for the lead. I remember Ryan Newman was blending onto the racetrack or we were catching him pretty quickly. I was on the outside of Joey and — looking back now, yeah, I would have been upset in his position. But I was trying to pinch him down to where he would have to lift off the throttle because we were catching Newman so fast. It was just a tight situation. We made it through there; he squeezed through the gap. The race went on, and I didn’t even know he was mad at me at the time.
That was the race I was leading coming to the white flag and I ran out of fuel and Kurt (Busch) won. I was happy after the race that we had a shot to win the Daytona 500. I rode back to the bus and got off the golf cart with Katelyn and (son) Owen — we just had Owen at the time. So I get off and Joey ran over to me and he’s way taller than me. He’s like towering over me, in my face, cussing me out. I was like, “What are you talking about …?” (The on-track incident) had happened hours before when I did this to him, but he was like fuming and cussing me out. Lots of profanity.
Obviously, he’s bigger than me, and I didn’t know if he’s gonna punch me or what. And when I get nervous, I just laugh. So I started smiling like I am right now and then he’s like, “Don’t f— smile at me. Don’t f— laugh.” And he got more mad. Finally, he left after cussing me out for a couple minutes. And yeah, then I was like, “OK, now I know why he was mad at me.” I called him the next day, and we talked and it was all fine. But I was like, “Man, I’m sorry for smiling at you.” …
12. Each week, I ask a driver to give me a question for the next person. Alex Bowman asked Austin Cindric for an update on the 1993 Volvo 240 Wagon he’s been restoring and whether it will be finished this offseason.
Austin Cindric: Definitely will not be finished this offseason. … But I get that question very often and it’s depressing. And the second question is, “When are you going to be done?” I’ve stopped committing to that. But if there’s anything that I’m committing to — and not that it’s really an option for me right now — but I will finish that car before I have children. Because if I don’t, that car will never happen.
And the one thing I’ve decided is I’m going to be buried in that car.
Buried in it?
I’m going to put my casket in the wagon, and we’re going to dig a wagon-sized hole in the ground and I’m going to be buried in it.
That’s going to be a big hole.
It’s going to be sick! Like, think about it. That’s how Egyptian pharaohs went out, man. They got buried with all their valuables. I can’t think of something more valuable than my precious time and effort spent over the course of five or six years to date. That’s the goal.
GO DEEPER
Grading our NASCAR preseason questions: See who won the 2024 edition
(Top photo of William Byron, Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney and Tyler Reddick, this year’s Championship 4: James Gilbert / Getty Images)
