Jeff Gluck

USA TODAY Sports

Our series of NASCAR driver interviews continues this week with Josh Wise, who drives for Phil Parsons Racing in the Sprint Cup Series and for The Motorsports Group in the Nationwide Series.

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

A: There's all kinds of scenarios, and if you could beam into any driver's head at any particular moment to see what they were thinking, it would probably be an interesting little feed of information.

But for me, coming from a dirt track background, I have a tendency to always be searching on the track (for lines) – probably even too much at times. I might even lose some time on the track at points when I'm over-searching and trying to make the car do something it's not ready to do. So I'm always thinking about that – lines and watching where guys are running.

Then there's times you can be really frustrated with how somebody is racing you, like you get to a guy real fast and he doesn't want to let you by. People can really hold you up with the air in these cars.

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 call racing a "Flavor of the Week" sport, so most of the time when people come up to you, it's about something recent that happened. But if it is a fan who has been around for a long time and knows my career, they'll usually bring up a race like the Hoosier Hundred (in 2006). That was a big one for me. Me and my teammate (Levi Jones) raced and it was like this awesome battle and I ended up passing him on the last lap and winning.

I also won a few Belleville Nationals in the USAC Midgets, and some of those were really good races. Those are some of the more common ones people have seen or heard about from my sprint car days.

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: It seems like we've got enough 1.5-mile tracks, so it wouldn't be something like that. I think just trying to be creative, I'd do something kind of silly – like a stadium with a road course in it or something like that. Or throw a chicane in the middle of the backstretch or something. Just change it up from kind of the standard we have and make it a place where nobody knows what to expect.

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

A: It would have to be something triathlon-related. I really enjoy that and have a passion for it. I have basically three off days during the year right now – Easter weekend, the (open) weekend in July and then the end of the year. But every one of those is penciled in with a long-distance triathlon of some kind, so I guess that would answer that question.

Is the adrenaline you feel during one of those races at all similar to NASCAR, or is it completely different?

It's really similar. I probably get even more nervous for the triathlon than in the race car, because in the triathlon it's all you. There's nothing like, "You messed my car up, crew chief!" or "Bad pit stop, guys!" If you have a bad transition – where you transition from sport to sport, which would be the equivalent of a pit stop in NASCAR – then you messed up. It's all on your shoulders and you have a lot of time invested in training, so I get really nervous.

The mental aspect when it comes to the length of it is huge – no different than when you're in the race car. If you're halfway through a NASCAR race and your car isn't handling how you want it to and you're fighting for that lucky dog, the mental correlation between that and a long ride or Ironman (is similar). You're just grinding it out and your body is telling you, "I'm not lifting this leg up again" and you're like, "Yes you are." It's just this repetitive struggle, so it's pretty neat.

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: I'm not that big time, so I don't get to do a whole lot of extravagant things. (Laughs) I'm honestly probably more normal than anyone here. I just like going to my daughter's soccer practices and working out with friends, so I don't really go to any big things.

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?

A: I probably keep it inside, even more than I should. I take it out on my notebook and write a lot in there. I definitely don't talk about it with any of my family. My wife (Ashley) knows me well enough where she doesn't even bring it up. If we have a bad day on the track, she just talks about their weekend and what the kids did. She knows if we even get into what happened in the race, I don't have much to say.

What goes into your notebook?

I'll try to keep track of the way our changes played out, how the track conditions played into it. Anything like that, I'll just write it down and it can help me for when I come back.

Q: If you could point to another driver as a good example for your children in the garage, who would it be?

A: I think probably Jimmie (Johnson). I think he's a great role model. He has a lot of people who are watching him and he knows that, and I think he does a great job and is a good ambassador for the sport.

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'm kind of a bad storyteller. I'm one of those people who, when I finish a story, I feel like everybody is still waiting for the punchline. (Laughs) So I don't even tell stories very much. I just know it's not one of my strengths.

But a lot of guys I train with – Trevor (Bayne), Blake Koch, Jimmie – we don't really talk about racing that much. Our lives are so saturated with it in every other aspect, you'd be surprised how much we stay away from racing topics. It's all we do, so we don't want to bring it everywhere with us. It's nice to have that little bit of escape.

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

A: Me and my wife are kind of Netflix junkies, so we've burned through tons of those series – Breaking Bad, Friday Night Lights. The latest one is Scandal, but we're just starting it.

My wife likes to watch The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, so I watch that. Basically, I try to watch what she wants to watch at night, just to spend that time with her. I try to get into it so we can talk about it during that time together.

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

A: I got to my hotel room (at Dover) and turned on the TV, and Pursuit of Happyness was on. That's one of my favorite movies, so I watched that. Will Smith is in it, and I think it's a true story. He plays a guy who is broke and struggling and trying to make it to the top of a Wall Street brokerage firm.

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: When I was younger, especially coming through sprint cars, I was always focused on the destination and not the journey – but those were some of the best times of my life, and I didn't even realize I was in them at the time. It's probably a common thing for a lot of people just in life in general. I was so focused on the next thing. I'd tell myself to stop and enjoy what was happening.

Even now, my circumstances aren't necessarily ideal, but I still just enjoy it for what it is and just try to make the best of it.

Q: I've been asking each person to give me a question for the next interview. Last week was Danica Patrick, and she wanted to know: How many hours a week do you work out? And if you didn't work out, what would you do with all that extra time?

A: Well, it depends on what race I'm getting ready for. I have a half-Ironman coming up in a couple months, so I try to build my cycles. Right now I'm probably at 13-to-15 hours per week and I'll probably get close to 20 in the next couple months.

I do get asked a lot, "How do you find time to work out?" But I just don't ever do nothing. I watched a movie in my hotel room, but that was because I had a one-day training block. Typically I would have gotten to the track, looked up a pool, went to a YMCA, ran four or five miles, swam, ate something real quick and gone to bed. It's blown me away how much time you spend not doing a whole lot. I've just filled that time with activity now.

I do have times in my training cycle where I go easy and only work out an hour a day, you know? And in that time, I just spend more time with my family. But I get really bored outside of that. I want to go do something. I just love being outside and being active.

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

A: I'd like to know: What gets you out of bed in the morning? What drives you? What gets you going every day?

Follow Gluck on Twitter @jeff_gluck