1. What sort of profile does Formula 1 have among NASCAR fans. There was some talk of Kyle Busch racing a Toyota F1 car earlier this year - does that stuff even make the news?

Of course something like Kyle Busch expressing desire to test an F1 car makes some NASCAR headlines. A) Busch is the current points leader in the Sprint Cup Series, so anything he does is automatically under the microscope, and B) NASCAR is said to have the most brand loyal fans in the sport, and I believe that carries over to the drivers as well. As much as the fans claim to hate Kyle Busch, they don't want to see him or any of the other "name" drivers to leave the sport for a different type of racing.

2. NASCAR is tremendously popular in America and F1 is not. Why do you think that is? And what, if anything, can F1 do to make more waves stateside, especially given the dire state of US open wheel racing at the moment?

I chose to take the F1 portion of the last question and apply my answer to that one here as well. The trouble with F1's popularity in the US has nothing to do with the F1 Series itself, but more to do with the fact that it's open wheel racing. I believe the typical American racing fan looks at open wheel racing as a European sort of deal, and as a country, we've always had a tendency to outcast Euro trends. Heck, look at what we've done to soccer. More importantly, though, is that NASCAR has found a way to put some hype and drama behind their product. The open wheel markets need to find a way to make one or two of their drivers marquee names in the average US household - much in the way they've done with Danica Patrick and the MLS has done with David Beckham - and, then slowly but surely, they'll start to catch on.

3. One thing that bemuses F1 fans when they turn on NASCAR is oval racing. F1 always races on road tracks rather than ovals whereas NASCAR has only two road tracks. Is there an aversion to road tracks? What makes oval racing much more popular?

I don't think it's really the tracks as much as it is the cars. With the stock cars, it has been NASCAR's goal for quite some time now to put forth their best effort to "make all cars equal." While that obviously isn't always the case, there still seems to be much more parity between the average NASCAR field compared to the F1 or IndyCar Series, plus they're much safer, which has been a big issue since the untimely death of Dale Earnhardt back in 2001. So, I think the attraction is really more to the car than it is to the track, and these particular cars just seem to race better on the ovals.

4. There is also a sense that the race is contrived by random caution flags, particularly in the closing the stages of the race. Do you think that is true and, if so, should there be fewer cautions during the race?

Two or three years ago I would have given you a much different answer to this question, but this is actually an issue that's been addressed by the drivers themselves, particularly when Tony Stewart called NASCAR out on it during his Sirius Radio show. It's true that there used to be quite a bit of b.s. cautions in the closing laps of the race, but lately it's just been coincidence that they've implemented their green-white-checkered finish rules and now there just happens to be quite a few races where guys wreck in the last five laps to bring out the caution. I don't think wrecks are something that the teams are willing to put their guys through in an effort to manufacture cautions for NASCAR's sake because that risks a lot of dollars and a driver's health. It's just a by-product of good, hard racing at the end of the run.

5. Some former F1 and openwheel drivers have switched to NASCAR without much success - I'm thinking Juan-Pablo Montoya, Jacques Villeneuve and Dario Franchitti. Why do these great open-wheel racers struggle? And do you think if the top NASCAR drivers came over to F1 and Indy they'd beat the opposition or struggle as well?

I think Montoya, Villeneuve, Franchitti, and even Sam Hornish Jr. and Patrick Carpentier are all great drivers in their own right. I've never driven a race car, so I can't say with 100% certainty, but I believe that the transition from an F1 or an IndyCar over to a stock car is a very tall order to accomplish, even for the best drivers. Montoya has had some very impressive runs, and has even won a race at the Sprint Cup level, but the others have struggled ... that's true. But, I've also seen guys like Tony Stewart and Robby Gordon attempt to run the Indy 500 without much success. I just think it's a very complicated task that takes a lot of discipline. In the end, some of the open wheel guys will find their success in NASCAR. If some of the NASCAR guys were to try their hand full-time at the open wheel market, I have no doubt that they'd likely have the same troubles.

6. This is the first year I've really been following NASCAR on TV and I must say I have enjoyed it a lot. One of the things I don't understand is Kyle Busch's unpopularity. Why is it that many fans don't like him, or is that just a myth?

It's definitely not a myth by any means. A lot of it started earlier in the year at Richmond when Busch spun Dale Earnhardt Jr. out in the closing laps of the race. Earnhardt was going through an extended winless streak, and as you probably know, he's far and away the most popular driver in our sport. Beyond that, though, most NASCAR fans have their one or two drivers that they follow religiously, but as a conglomerate, they also target one or two guys as the unanimous bad guy, and it's usually the guy that's winning the most races. It used to be Jeff Gordon, but this year it looks like Kyle's managed to take most of the heat off his shoulders.

7. In the chase for the Sprint Cup why do points get re-based with a handful of races to go. Is there a feeling among NASCAR fans that this is a little unfair (e.g. all of Kyle Busch's good work in the early part of the season counts for nothing)? Should it be changed?

This is actually something that NASCAR put in place back in 2004, and it was really a marketing strategy, and an ingenious one at that. Their take was that NASCAR should have a playoff system just like any other sport, and the goal is to keep fans interested in the latter parts of the season, even if the majority of the year has been dominated by one or two guys. Sure, there's always going to be a handful of fans screaming about how unfair it is, but those are typically the people whose driver was already in first place when the Chase started. In reality, though, it's no more unfair than the Patriots not automatically being handed the Super Bowl victory just because they went 16-0 in the regular season.

8. I've been watching Joey Logano do well this season and he reminds me a bit of F1's latest phenomenon, Lewis Hamilton. How good is Joey right now and what do you think the future holds for him?

Logano's a phenomenal talent, no doubt about it. There have been times in the past, though, where we've seen the same type of phenoms do so well in NASCAR's lower series only to bomb when they made it up to the Sprint Cup level. The advantage that Joey has, though, is that he's coming up through one of what most people consider to be the top two organizations in NASCAR, Joe Gibbs Racing. With his abilities and one of the best teams in town, three or four years from now we could forget all about how well Kyle Busch did in 2008.

9. If there were two rule changes you would like to see in NASCAR what would they be?

First, they need to do something to limit the domination of Sprint Cup Series drivers in the Nationwide Series. I think that the Nationwide Series should be used as a developmental program to get to the Cup, but at the same time there are also a lot of marketing advantages to having the bigger name drivers run those races. I think they should convert to a Chase format in the Nationwide, and make three or four of those races at tracks that the Sprint Cup Series is not running at during the same weekend, which would give these guys a better shot at winning the Championship. The other rule isn't really a rule, but I'd like to see them implement a road course race into the actual Chase (the aforementioned playoff portion of the schedule) for the simple reason that if they run races there during the regular season, then they should also be used to determine the overall champion.

A big thanks to Tim for answering these questions. We'll hear more from Tim later as he's graciously agreed to write an article or two for the site when time allows!