12 Questions with Cole Whitt Front Row Motorsports driver's travel wish list includes Bora Bora - but not the one on Instagram

Jeff Gluck | USA TODAY Sports

Our series of weekly NASCAR driver interviews continues with Front Row Motorsports driver Cole Whitt, who is currently 29th in the Sprint Cup Series standings.

Q: If NASCAR allowed you to listen to music while you were racing, would you want to?

A: I probably would. I'll sing songs sometimes in my head when I get out there. You know, like when you have a catchy tune or something stuck in your head. But if anything, I'd probably listen to Lecrae or Andy Mineo or something. Those are some people I listen to.

What songs get stuck in your head during a race?

Just whatever. If it's something I tended to play on my iPod a lot coming up here or throughout the weekend. I listen to a lot of music, just sitting in the trailer hanging out. Sometimes I use it as pump-up music, sometimes I just chill and listen.

Whether it's lyrics or the tune, sometimes you're just out there driving and you start singing to yourself and don't even realize it.

Q: Where did your first paycheck come from?

A: Probably from working for my dad, helping him with some of his plumbing business.

What kind of stuff did you do?

I kind of got the job that was whatever he needed his son to do. (Laughs) I was 13 years old and we did everything from helping him plumb houses to clean out old storage buildings that were full of files.

One time I remember they cleaned out files he had and he had files from before I was born. There were like 15, 20 years of files. He's like, 'Time to get rid of these. Guess what you're going to do today? We've got a shredding company coming in, so you get to move all these files from here down to this spot.'

I remember doing that and it took me probably four days of going up the stairs, grabbing files and dragging them back down. It was box after box.

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

A: I never really asked for autographs. I didn't think it was a big deal. I remember getting Joe Nemechek's at California one time, although I don't think I even asked for it. I just went up to talk to him and he signed something. (Laughs)

But he took a lot of time to actually talk to me. I don't even know if he remembers that, but it was at the time he was driving the No. 01 U.S. Army car, and he was kind of a big deal around that time. I just happened to talk to him when I was in the pits at California, and he talked to me for awhile. I still remember that.

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

A: I want to go to Bora Bora one day.

Wow! Why Bora Bora?

I don't know. It looks cool on Instagram. (Laughs) The water is clear. I doubt I would ever go that far because I hate sitting on a plane for more than a few hours, but it looks like paradise.

Of course, you never know with those Instagram filters.

Yeah, and there's probably something ridiculous off the edge of the shot that you can't even see and makes it not worth it, right? (Laughs)

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

A: Probably my dad does. But I don't really do a whole lot on it. I usually just try to leave it somewhere and forget about it, which is the best thing to do. Like if I go fishing, I'll just throw it on the counter sometimes and take off without it.

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: No. No way. I gotta fish. (Laughs) I mean, I want to be better than what we have been, but I like working with the small team. It's different, you know? People don't understand what we're accomplishing: We outrun some big dudes without having a lot (of resources).

At first it was hard for me to understand, but my career has kind of been built on running with the underdogs. I take pride in that.

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

A: Ignore him, I guess. I tend to stay out of it as much as possible. Let 'em vent. Get it over with. I'm not going to sit there and fight back. I race people how they race me and I don't get worked up about it.

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

A: I always get mistaken for random people. I get Brian Vickers the most. That's happened quite a bit because of the (reddish) hair.

But then if you're wearing a hat and covering it up, fans just call out random names. People have yelled for Kasey Kahne, Jamie McMurray. I've even gotten Carl Edwards – which I don't know how you could get that, because he's like two feet taller than me.

So it's like someone will know you're a driver, but they won't know which one?

Yeah, so they'll just yell every name they can think of and hope they get one right so you'll look up. Except my name usually doesn't come up. (Laughs)

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

A: I'd go back to probably the '80s or the '90s. I just feel like the cars were cool then. You watch all the videos, and it just looked so cool.

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

A: Probably fly. Invisible would be weird, almost kind of creepy. You never know what somebody would be doing if they were invisible.

But if you flew, you could just take off and go wherever you want. You could go to Bora Bora, right?

Q: I've been asking each person to give me a question for the next interview. The last interview was with Dale Earnhardt Jr., and he wanted to know: Explain the hows and whys of playing tug o' war with your pickup truck. Apparently that's one of your hobbies?

A: It's not anymore. I guess I grew out of that, you could say. At least that's what my dad says.

But yeah, I used to have this big Duramax diesel truck with big heavy bumpers on it and had the suspension all done. It was my daily driver and that's probably why I got rid of it – I hated driving it around because it was built for just pulling.

We used to go out to the dragstrip in Mooresville (N.C.) on Thursday nights. These rednecks would show up and we'd just have fun. We'd all hook our trucks up with a strap and play tug o' war with each other in four-wheel drive. Just trying to drag each other around parking lots and stuff.

It was pretty fun and I enjoyed it. It was kind of a redneck good time, I guess you could say.

So was it a whole bunch of vehicles hooked together, or just two?

It was a grudge-match type deal a lot of the time – one truck vs. another. You'd just try to pull each other around.

But sometimes we'd hook my truck to two trucks because it was built to pull and we did pretty good. There were guys who would call me out with two trucks, and it was two-on-one. Depending on how much you liked the guy or how much crap he was talking before you did it, you could drag him on down the road.

Q: And do you have a question I can ask the next driver? It's Ryan Newman.

A: Ask him why I catch so many more fish than him on Lake Norman. That's definitely true, and you can tell him I said it's true. (Laughs)

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

A: I'll give you a seven, I guess. I'll give you a little room for improvement, but you weren't bad.

Follow Gluck on Twitter @jeff_gluck







