What is Tony Stewart's bucket list race?

Jeff Gluck | USA TODAY Sports

Show Caption Hide Caption Five story lines to watch at the Daytona 500 USA TODAY Sports' Jeff Gluck breaks down what you need to know for the big race.

Our series of weekly NASCAR driver interviews takes the green flag today with three-time Sprint Cup Series champion Tony Stewart, who spoke with USA TODAY Sports in his motorhome at Daytona International Speedway.

This is a brand-new edition of the 12 Questions, so you're the guinea pig for these. If they don't go well, I'm still stuck with them for the entire season.

Well, you know I'll tell you about it if I don't like the questions.

Q: Right. The first one is: If NASCAR allowed you to listen to music while you were racing, would you want to?

A: Honestly, no. And the reason I say that is we went to a tire test once and I had my iPod and I told the crew I was going to unplug the radio – I just made sure I went out by myself. I plugged the iPod in, and I was two-tenths (of a second) slower.

You get so in tune timing-wise, hearing low RPMs and high RPMs, you're literally in tune with the motor there.

I thought when I came down here (to NASCAR) that there's no way I'm going to be able to run three-and-a-half or four-hour races without listening to the radio. Because I can't drive across town without listening to the radio. But when you're focused in the car, it was a distraction to me.

Q: Where did your first paycheck come from?

A: My first official paycheck came from the Bartholomew County School Corporation. I worked at the school auditorium and it was like $12.70 for working a show.

What did you do at the auditorium?

Lighting and sound. I'd have been probably a junior in high school.

So your show business career never took off after that?

It was just a job while I was in school. Actually, I'd had jobs before that, but that was the first job where I got an official paycheck.

Q: Who is an autograph you got as a kid that seemed to be a big deal to you at the time?

A: Mel Kenyon, the midget driver. We were at Fort Wayne (Indiana) and he actually had cards he had signed. There were a bunch of kids, and I just remember everybody wanted to get an autograph from him.

Q: Where's a place you've never been that you'd like to go visit?

A: I really want to go to Monaco for the F1 race. It's a package deal – there's really nowhere I'd want to go that doesn't have a race involved in it. (Laughs)

That would be sweet. Would you do the yacht thing in Monaco?

If somebody else is paying for it, I'd love to do the yacht thing. I don't want to pay for it, because I'm pretty sure on my budget I'd be parked somewhere I don't want to be parked.

Q: Do people ever accuse you of being addicted to your phone?

A: Yeah, occasionally. Because everything I do – all of the entities we have – that's your one line of communication with everybody. Especially when we're here on the weekends.

And do you agree with them?

The first thing I did when I came in here was grab the phone and look to see who called. So I would say to a certain degree, yeah.

Q: If a genie promised you a championship in exchange for never being able to do your favorite hobby again, would you accept that offer?

A: I would say since we have three championships, I wouldn't be willing to do that. If I had not won a championship, then that decision would probably be different.

Q: What's your preferred method of dealing with an angry driver after a race?

A: (Laughs) My preferred method is to get out and argue for a minute, and if they don't get the point, then you do like you do in the old short track days and swing it out. Normally by the time that would be finished, it was settled and done.

That was always the most effective method to getting it resolved and moving on. Nowadays, it's phone calls and NASCAR having to get you in there the next week to make sure everybody's all right. So that part has changed quite a bit.

I take it you didn't have to worry about calling people during the week in your short-track days.

No, you'd get in a fight at the end of the night and then you'd go load up and eat together at Denny's or Waffle House or IHOP on the way to the next track. It'd normally be sorted out by then.

Q: Do you ever get mistaken for another driver or celebrity?

A: No. Especially not another driver, since I'm not shaped like most of the other drivers. (Laughs)

Q: If you had a time machine and you could travel to any year and race, where would you go?

A: I would want to go back in the days of racing with A.J. (Foyt) and Sheldon Kinser and Pancho Carter. I would have wanted to race open wheel cars in the '70s.

To see how you stack up against them?

Yeah. I mean, just to race with those guys because those were men. Those were racers.

Q: Would you rather have the ability to fly or be invisible?

A: I think flying would be pretty cool. If you fly, you wouldn't have to worry about being invisible.

Well, you couldn't sneak up on anyone if you weren't invisible.

Oh, you'd be surprised.

Q: I've been asking each person to give me a question for the next interview. The last interview was with Landon Cassill at the end of 2014, and he wanted to know: With a lack of preseason Daytona testing, did the offseason seem longer or shorter?

A: It actually seemed longer, which was nice. Because it actually felt like we had a little bit of an offseason. It still didn't seem like a long offseason, but not taking four or five or eight days to go test somewhere, that was nice to have those days with.

Q: And do you have a question I can ask the next driver?

A: What do they think the drivers are going to think about the new rules package?

Finally, how did this interview go on a scale of 1-10?

Oh, I think it was a 10. The lead-up to it, I think you were a bit overly concerned about it. It was much better than you thought it was going to be.​

Follow Gluck on Twitter @jeff_gluck

PHOTOS: Behind the wheel with Tony Stewart