Jeff Gluck

USA TODAY Sports

Our series of NASCAR driver interviews continues this week with Brian Vickers, who is currently 19th in the Sprint Cup Series points standings for Michael Waltrip Racing.

Q: When you're on a long green-flag run and not racing around anyone, what do you think about?

A: I mostly stay in the moment – at least I attempt to. Your mind certainly wanders at times, and it can be literally about anything and everything. When you're in the race car, your mind probably wanders less than other times, because you don't hit pause. You're going 200 mph.

Maybe it's more under a caution or a red flag. You could be thinking about the book you're reading or solving the water shortage. (Laughs) But under green, you're always thinking about the next thing in front of you, the next turn.

Q: Fans often come up to you and want to discuss a moment or race from your career. Which one comes up the most?

A: I'd say wins or championships. The New Hampshire win (in 2013) or maybe the Nationwide championship (in 2003) or my first Cup win at Talladega (in 2006).

The best one is when they say, "I am your biggest, biggest fan. Will you please sign this for me?" And they have someone else's gear on. You're kind of looking at them like, "Really? You're my biggest fan? I'm your favorite driver?"

"Yes! You're my favorite driver."

"Interesting, because you have not a single piece of anything that has anything to do with the 55 car."

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 don't know that it's so much the kind of track I would build that matters, it's where I would build it. I don't think track design is our problem. Our problem is market saturation. We're congregated in one country, predominately on the East Coast, predominately in the southeast.

My focus would be less on track design and more on location. Whether it be expanding into Asia, South America, the Middle East. I'd be fine using the tracks that are there. I think we'd put on phenomenal races around the world on road courses that already exist – better races than series that already race there.

So I'd spend my money growing new markets, which brings new fans, which brings new talent, teams and sponsors. It would completely grow the sport on all levels versus building the coolest track in the world in North Carolina.

I love North Carolina. I'm super happy we have a race there and I think we should always have one race in Charlotte. But I don't know that we need three races in Charlotte and then seven more within a two-hour drive.

Let me press you on the location then. If you could only pick one location to have a new race, where would you put it?

It's so hard to go into any new market with just one event, right? I think the most upside is Asia. It has the most amount of people, the fastest-growing middle class and the biggest economies – particularly China.

So I'd probably pick China because they would pay to build it for you, and they'd build it within like six months.

The cost to go overseas is not as expensive as maybe people think, but it's still not inexpensive. So you'd want to do more than one – you wouldn't want to go all the way to China for one race. You could do two or three weeks in a row. When you talk about budgets for going overseas, there are sports car series that go around the world. They race on five different continents with the fraction of the budget we have. So it can be done. We spend a lot more money a lot closer to home.

I think our road racing is phenomenal, but there's no reason to go build a new road course. There are plenty of those already. If you're going to build something, it would be an oval. Maybe it's a Bristol or Richmond.

For a fan who has never seen a race before, Richmond is really cool. But when you see a car go off in the corner at Charlotte at 198 mph average speed, that's pretty frickin' cool, too. Don't discredit that. I would definitely put some progressive banking in the track so you have multiple grooves, and I would really spend a lot of money and energy focused on the pavement.

If they could figure out how to put new pavement down that wears tires like old pavement, maybe you have to repave the track every 15 years. But I'd rather own a track with the grandstands full and the ratings through the roof and pave the track every 15 years than pave it with a synthetic that lasts 40 years and everyone hates the race. That's what I would do, but I don't own a track, so no one cares what I think.

Q: If you had a day off to do anything in the world you wanted — but you were not allowed to race — what would you do?

A: I would want to fly to the International Space Station. Like, just go to space. Or maybe spend a day with 20 of the brightest scientists in the world and just talk about everything.

Q: You get to have a lot of cool experiences away from racing through your job as a NASCAR driver. What's one that sticks out?

A: Well, it's probably racing. Like racing in the Daytona 500, just coming by the start/finish line your first time when the green drops. Going 200 mph, just two- or three-wide, is just awesome. Sailing it off into Turn 1 at Indy at some ridiculous speed and just having fun, I think that's certainly the coolest part of our jobs. There are little moments like that you always appreciate.

Q: When you go home after a bad day at the track, do you vent to someone about it or just keep it to yourself?

Brian: (Looks at wife Sarah, who is nearby) Would you like to answer this question?

Sarah: He's usually just really quiet. He doesn't vent much.

Brian: It depends on what happened. If it's a mistake I made, then I really just internalize it. I go into my mind and replay it and figure out what I could have done better and how I messed up and what I need to do to not let it happen again. I kind of just kick myself in the butt for awhile. I mostly want to just be left alone.

If it's something out of my control, then I'm probably more open about it – like openly pissed. But I don't know that I really kick and scream and cry.

You can't control your emotions, but you can control how you react to them. It's just part of the human experience. Even the Dalai Lama, he'll tell you he has emotions – it's just what he does with them. You put a gun in someone's face, they're going to have an emotional reaction. How they handle that reaction is going to vary.

But I do think I move on a lot quicker than I used to. Through just growing older and having experience and going through various life experiences like health issues, it puts things in perspective. Instead of bothering me all for a week, it maybe bothers me for a day or two and then I can move on. Hopefully one day it bothers me for just an hour. That's what I'm working toward.

I had a wise man tell me recently: "Get on with it." There's nothing you can do. Just get on with it.

Another one I heard was: "Give up all hope of a better past." But that doesn't mean I've got it all figured out. I still get pissed.

Q: If you had children someday and they were running around the garage, what driver would you point to as a good example for how to conduct themselves?

A: I would probably say Jimmie (Johnson). If there were someone in the garage I wanted my child to look up, it would be him. Just how he handles himself on and off the racetrack and his professionalism.

Q: When you stand around with other drivers and tell old racing stories, what's one of your favorites to tell either about something that happened to yourself or someone else?

A: I don't know if I have a particular favorite racing story. I have fond memories. One of the more fond memories of my career was either winning the championship with Ricky (Hendrick) or the win last year (at New Hampshire), just going through so much and making it back to victory lane.

It was a cool race and it was fun, though there wasn't anything spectacular about it. We had a late-race restart and we raced Tony Stewart for the win, which was cool because I have a lot of respect for him. But really, it was everything over the last three years, just dealing with the health issues and everything to get back in that situation.

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

A: We were really into House of Cards and I liked Cosmos, but they're not on right now. Also, the show Banshee. Right now, I'm really diving back into some books. (Holds up a book) This one I like in particular, it's called Abundance.

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

Brian: It's been awhile since we've seen a movie. (Looks at Sarah) What was the last movie we saw?

Sarah: Neighbors.

Brian: Right. It was pretty funny. It's not going to be a classic. But I didn't walk out of the theater thinking, "Damn, I'll never get those two hours of my life back."

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: My answer to this always used to be to have more patience. But I don't know when you're that young, you're ever going to have patience. Maybe you shouldn't. Maybe it's jump first, ask questions later. It's just part of growing up.

But there's one thing if I could go back in time, I'd say to try and live more in the moment. When you're young, you're always wanting to get somewhere – "I want to be that" or "I can't wait until I turn 18 or 21" – especially in your teens and 20s.

Q: I've been asking each person to give me a question for the next interview. Last week was Paul Menard, and he wanted to know: What is your favorite restaurant to visit during any stop on the NASCAR circuit?

A: Well, when you like actually live in a real city (Vickers lives in Miami), there's not much track food that's going to compare. I guess we have a race in Miami, so I'd say Milos. It's a Greek fish place. It's close to where we live and we go there a lot – it's one of our favorite places. It just happens to be our home, but there's also a race there so I kind of count that one.

There's also a Japanese sushi restaurant, Naoe, but you've got to be really into sushi. You eat what the chef tells you to eat, and there are only eight seats. It's a really cool experience and the food is phenomenal. I think it's the No. 1-rated restaurant in the country. But there's some hardcore stuff in there sometimes.

Q: And do you have a question for the next person?

A: Did you hear Brad Keselowski's quote about how there are no good American engineers? I'd like to know what they thought about his comment. Do you agree with Brad's assessment of American engineers?

Follow Gluck on Twitter @jeff_gluck