Jeff Gluck

USA TODAY Sports

Our series of NASCAR driver interviews continues with Alex Bowman, a rookie for BK Racing. Bowman, 20, has two top-25 finishes this season.

Q: What do you think about during a long green-flag run when you're not racing around anyone?

A: It definitely can get boring sometimes. (Laughs) A lot of times on a long green-flag run, with my luck I'm fighting a race car that's not wanting to cooperate. You've just really got to stay focused, because it's really easy to make a mistake and end up in the fence. So I try to think about what we could do to make the race car better.

Q: When fans come up to you and want to talk about moments from your career or a time they've seen you race, what do they bring up the most?

A: When we're out West (Bowman is from Arizona), a lot of people want to talk about the time I wrecked a midget (car) really bad in Vegas one year (2010). When we were in Vegas (last month), everybody wanted to bring it up. I spent seven days in the ICU and even now it was all anyone wanted to talk about. So that was kind of funny.

Last year, a lot of people wanted to talk about Daytona (when he finished third in the Nationwide Series race) and the big finish we had there. So it's kind of different everywhere you go.

How old were you when the midget wreck happened?

I was 16. It was pretty big. I broke both my collarbones and all my ribs on the right side, both my hands. Spent a lot of time in the ICU. So it was kind of a big deal.

Q: If someone paid you $5 million to design a new racetrack and gave you an unlimited budget, what kind of track would you build?

A: I'd copy Salem (Ind.) or Winchester (Ind.) – a high-banked half-mile but really rough and with a lot of character. Those are my two favorite racetracks by far. Bristol is really cool, but it's so smooth that there's just not a lot of character there. You go to Salem or Winchester and you've really, really got to manhandle your race car.

Q: If you had a day off to do anything you wanted in the entire world – but you couldn't race – what would you do?

A: Can it be car-related?

Sure, as long as you don't race it.

I'd drive a drift car. That's not racing, right? I'm a big drift fan. We were at Toyota Motorsports Day (in Southern California) recently and I got to meet some of Toyota's drift drivers. That was so cool. Those guys are like my heroes. They get to do the fun stuff and be sideways and party all weekend.

How much drifting have you done?

None legally. (Laughs) I've never driven like a full-on drift car, although we drift at 200 mph every weekend with how loose these things can get. But I've never gotten to legally drift on a track meant for it.

Q: You guys get to do a lot of cool things because you're NASCAR drivers. What's one experience that sticks out in your mind?

A: You know what? I feel like a lot of it is just being able to travel all the time and go all the places we get to go. We had some downtime in Vegas, for example, and we went and saw the Grand Canyon. Stuff like that – you're in a completely different atmosphere every single weekend. All the food is amazing and everywhere has its special places where you want to go eat. I'm sure it gets old after awhile, but getting to see all the things we see is really cool.

Q: When you have a bad day on the racetrack and you go home, who do you talk to about it? Do you vent to anyone or just keep it to yourself?

A: I vent to my roommate a lot – Marc Davis, he used to drive for (Joe) Gibbs (Racing). He ran some (K&N) East Series and Nationwide stuff, so he knows where I'm coming from. Well, him and my dog. My dog is a good listener. My dog just looks at me like I'm an idiot.

But I try not to talk about racing too much, because I get all amped up and vent really furiously about it sometimes. If I had to vent to somebody, though, it'd be Marc.

What's Marc doing these days?

He works for a wheel distributor in North Carolina. He's not doing anything racing-related right now – he's completely out of it. He's really good at destroying perfectly good (street) cars and making them too low and stupid. We're both into that and we have a lot of fun with it.

Q: Someday when you have kids and they're running around the garage, which driver would you point to as someone who conducts themselves the right way?

A: I think really Mark Martin was good at that. He's such an easy person to talk to, he's so good with everyone around him. He does a really good job with that.

Another one is Justin Allgaier. He's really good with the fans and is really easy to talk to. He races you like crazy, but he's just a good person. Josh Wise, too.

A lot of people in this garage are really good people. But you don't always see that, because you get on the racetrack and tempers get up and stuff happens.

Q: When you're standing around with other drivers telling racing stories, what is one of your favorites to tell – either about yourself or someone else?

A: We go to the rookie meeting every week – it's all the rookies this year – and Austin Dillon has told some of the craziest stories. I don't know if I can tell them back, but they've been interesting.

Another guy who was really cool to talk to last year when I was in Nationwide was Mike Bliss. He'd talk about running USAC stuff and had old stories, which was really cool because that's somebody I looked up to.

Q: What's a TV show you're really into right now?

A: I really like The Walking Dead. I've seen every episode. I found it on Netflix and spent three days watching it and doing nothing else. Every Sunday night when I get home after a race, I have the latest episode recorded and I watch it before I go to bed. I guess you could say I'm addicted to that.

Q: What's the last movie you saw – either in the theater or at home -- and was it any good?

A: I just watched a movie called Out of the Furnace. It was really, really good. It wasn't the kind of movie I typically watch, but I definitely recommend seeing it.

It's basically about this guy who lives in a small town and he gets a DUI and goes to jail. When he comes back from jail, his brother owes a bunch of people money and is boxing to pay it off. He gets caught up in the boxing match and was supposed to take a fall and didn't do it. He ends up getting killed, and his brother has to go back and try to find the dude who did it. It's like a payback story.

Q: If you could give a piece of advice to your younger self – something you know now that you didn't know then – what would it be?

A: Get in the gym more. (Laughs) I didn't really work out a whole lot until the beginning of this year, but it's definitely helped me.

I'd also tell myself to have more fun with it. I've always taken it so seriously and I look back and really miss the times I had racing sprint cars and midgets. Those times were so much less stress and less pressure, and more fun overall. So I'd say to have fun with it before it becomes a full-time job.

Q: I've been asking each person to give me a question for the next interview. Last week was Martin Truex Jr., and he wanted to know: Is racing in the Sprint Cup Series even more difficult than you thought it would be?

A: You know, I thought it was going to be really, really tough – and I don't think I underestimated it. It's every bit as tough as I thought it was going to be. You look at Bristol and the whole field was separated by 0.4 second (on speed). So yeah, it's really tough.

And do you have a question I can ask the next person?

I'd like to know: What's your favorite part about being a driver?